Cristina glances down at the cup placed in front of her and she looks up at him, anger flickering through her expressive almond eyes, "I know that you aren't trying to give me coffee."
A smug grin turns up Burke's lips and he shakes his head, "Hot chocolate. I thought I'd try a different approach."
Her chart slams shut and Cristina pushes the cup back to him, "Yeah, well, try it with somebody else. I'm not interested."
The snowflakes littering the usual white and green cup catches her eye and she sighs. If there's one thing that she hates more than him, it's the holidays.
-x-
A low hum invades her thoughts as his hand brushes hers again and she looks up. She recognizes the tune but she can't name it. It is a Christmas song and she is Jewish and even if she doesn't practice, she refuses to fall prey to the near-Hallmark holiday and learn the names of the songs.
"Stop," she mutters beneath her surgical mask, finally annoyed but she doesn't know if it's more by the way his hand keeps touching hers or the stupid song he's humming.
Burke glances up from the open chest cavity between them, "Excuse me, Dr. Yang?"
Cristina's eyes meet his and she narrows them, "Don't Dr. Yang me and don't act like you aren't completely unaware of the fact that you keep touching my hand."
His deep brown eyes glitter with mischief, "Dr. Yang," he says, this time his voice a bit lower and a little more suggestive, "I am completely aware of what I'm doing and I'm confident with the outcome of this procedure."
She glares at him as his hand brushes hers again and he resumes lightly humming whatever Christmas carol it was that made her open her mouth in the first place.
-x-
Protests of Judaism couldn't free her from the grasps of a mandatory Christmas party. The only thing it accomplished, as a matter of fact, was a Menorah being added to the damn decorations and the word Christmas being changed to holiday.
The word mandatory did not change.
Cristina stands in a corner, cocktail firmly in hand and a little black dress hugging every curve of her body. She's double and triple checked to make sure that some lame freak didn't hang mistletoe anywhere in her proximity.
Not that she thinks Burke would ever need it but she doesn't need an excuse for it to be okay.
He's painfully obvious as he walks toward her, a well tailored suit illuminating his strong shoulders and sculpted arms. The grin on his face tells her that he recognizes that she's looking. The lust in his eyes tells her that he's looking too.
"They're red," she says dryly, referring to the color of her panties, "I know that's what you're thinking."
Burke chuckles, "Red. I knew you had some holiday spirit in you somewhere."
"Try again. They were the only ones that were clean," she lies. She doesn't really have a reason for wearing the red ones but she refuses to let him believe that she was trying to have some sort of holiday anything.
"Or maybe," he says in a low voice, leaning over so closely that she can feel his breath, hot on her skin, "you wore them because you know how much I love them."
Cristina pauses to take a long drink of the cocktail in her hand. Leave it to the cheap bastards in upper management to water them down, "I guess I have some holiday spirit in me somewhere."
-x-
Burke said he was going home for Christmas, that he was going to spend it with his parents. Do the whole family whatever like he does. She doesn't get it but it's not her place to question it because she doesn't care.
Except she does.
Three emergent hearts over the next three days, the fellow out with a broken arm and nobody to cover his followups make it completely impossible for him to follow through with those plans and he's going to end up spending the holidays alone.
His annoying habit of humming that stupid carol in the OR has stopped, the grin has faded from his lips and the mischief in his eyes has flickered out.
Cristina can't help but think he's like a ten year old who opened a package of underwear for Christmas.
-x-
They work in silence for a change and she should enjoy it but she doesn't, so she brushes her hand against his. He stops moving for a second and glances up at her in question before he continues working.
The silence lingers and so does his mopey mood.
-x-
Cristina wants to beat her head against the countertop repeatedly, listening to Feliz Navidad for the thirtieth time trying to find his song.
Immensely enjoying the annoyance on her friend's face, Meredith snickers, "Listening to Christmas music does not count as conversion."
"I'm not converting," Cristina sneers, lifting her head, "especially if this is the crap that you listen to. One song. That's all I want is the title of one damn song."
"What song is it?" Meredith asks, "I know some Christmas music."
Cristina looks at her in doubt, "Just in case you've forgotten, your name is Meredith Grey. You're famous for your cynicism, hello kitty bandaids on massive pimples, being the other woman and trying to drown yourself. I know more about Christmas than you do."
"Jingle Bells."
"Everybody knows jingle bells."
Meredith sits in the song next to her, "Just tell me what it is. Or hum it or whatever. It has to be better than listening to this stuff."
"If you tell anybody I did this, I'll kill you. Do you understand me?" Cristina hisses, "I'm serious. It's not like I care, I just need to know."
"Fine," Meredith says, "just do it."
Cristina glances around and when she's sure that the coast is clear she tries her best to imitate the song that he hummed non-stop. Meredith glances at her blankly and she sighs heavily, head sinking into her forearms.
"I give up."
"You're All I Want for Christmas," a voice says from behind them, "it's not that popular. You're not going to hear it on the radio. That and it sucks anyway. And so do you, by the way."
Cristina's head jerks up and she sees Alex standing behind them, "You know the song?"
"Izzie," It's a one word explanation that doesn't require elaboration.
-x-
You're all I want for Christmas.
All I want my whole life through.
Each day is just like Christmas,
any time that I'm with you.
The words won't stop floating through her head and neither will the sound of him humming them. She plucks the red panties out of her drawer and slips them on before pulling a pair of jeans on. Cristina stops for a minute and wonders what she's going to say to him or if she'll have to say anything at all.
Maybe he'll just get it and there won't have to be any big talking thing.
They've done the whole breaking up thing and he's groveled and he gets her and she gets that. It's his second chance.
Whatever.
There's nothing to talk about except everything.
-x-
The lights are off in his apartment and he doesn't answer the door which makes Cristina's job much easier.
She stops at a drugstore and picks up a couple things before heading to the hospital. His car is right where she expects to find it and she heads inside. Rather than attempting to find him, she slinks through the shadows of the surgical unit until she finds an unoccupied call room.
Cristina hopes that she really is all that he wants for Christmas because that's all she has to give.
-x-
His eyebrow arches high on his forehead when he steps inside the call room and for only a moment he's too stunned to even close the door.
Despite his body screaming for him not to, he turns away for just a moment to close the door of the call room and locks it before turning back to look at Cristina. His eyes travel over her bare shapely legs to the scrap of red lace on her hip, over her flat stomach to the same red lace covering her breasts.
Burke smiles faintly when he sees a Santa cap lightly draped over her curls.
"I've heard you've been nice this year," Cristina says, a smirk tugging her lips.
"This year," he echoes, fighting the urge to already toe off his shoes.
"Yeah, well," she says, leaning back on her elbows and looking at him invitingly, "this year is the only one that matters."
It immediately shuts down the option for discussing the what ifs, what haves and what wills. Tonight is not the night for that.
Cristina watches with a grin as his shirt lands in a rumple on the floor next to his shoes. When he sinks onto the bed and leans over to kiss her, she lets his lips get within an inch of hers before she pushes him away, "Oh, oh, wait. I have something."
She leans past him to dig through the little plastic bag from the drugstore and she can feel exactly how much of an effect her little outfit is having on him. A few moments later she sits back up with something green in hand. She hangs it on the frame of the bunk bed above and grins, "There."
Burke glances up at the pathetic plastic fake mistletoe and chuckles softly before she cuts him off with a searing kiss.
It definitely wasn't the Christmas Burke had envisioned.
It was better.