*Author's Note: Thank you to all those who liked "Apres"! Agneskenya thank you so much for your reviews and suggestions :-) I really appreciate them. This story is just another short post-episode piece. This one is post-Owen saying he wants to be with Cristina for the next forty years. Please read and review!
They both should have been sleeping, not sitting on a decrepit bench waiting for dawn. She hasn't mentioned that forty years line of his since they left the bar an hour ago. Instead Cristina is quiet, chin resting on folded hands, eyes avoiding his and staring out across the harbor. Owen takes the fact that she hasn't bolted yet as a good sign. Thinking it over, he isn't even sure himself why he thought it wise to tell her tonight. It just felt…right. There didn't seem to be any reason to deny that this was it. She was who he wanted to see first thing in the morning, who he wanted to drink watered-down coffee with during their all night shifts at the hospital, who he wanted to hold before falling asleep.
He had seen the surprise flicker across her face even in the darkness of the bar. "Forty years" lingered in the air as other topics came and went. By some unspoken agreement, he had walked her the two minutes to her apartment. She had pressed her palm against his and laced her fingers with his own. Another good sign. Barely pausing by her apartment, she had headed towards the harbor. She wasn't ready for him to leave yet, but the apartment was still…inappropriate.
Owen is content with simply watching the breeze ruffle her hair and the ever lightening sky slowly illuminate her face.
"Forty years is a long ass time."
He bites back his laughter because she has struck him with that look again, the one with the soft eyes that are always searching. To see if he's really there, for his sincerity. He wonders who had caused her to be so guarded.
"It's a long time," she repeats. Hope colors her flat tone, despite all her efforts to sound in control.
"I'm hoping we'll have longer." It's not fair. His blue eyes that stare at her so steadily seem to wrestle all her aloof protectiveness away. Could she do this again...the stupid wishing, the trusting?
The sun is rising now and it feels like the most natural thing in the world to pull her to him and kiss her. He presses his promise sweet against her lips before drawing away slightly to trace curve of her cheek. It couldn't get anymore cliché. The sky was beautiful; she was beautiful and his heart was full. And to hell with it, he needed this. He needed her.
"Ok, but you can't take my scalpel away." And now Owen does laugh. Long and loud so that it echoes across the water.
"Wouldn't dream of it."
The End.
