When you came to me with your bad dreams and your fears, it was easy to see you'd been crying. Seems like everywhere you turn, catastrophe reigns. Who really profits from the dying?
For countless days, he had watched her just lay around. She'd lie in bed until he forced her out of it, and then she'd just lie on the couch. Her eyes never seemed to focus on one thing, didn't have the sparkle to them that they once had. She merely existed, just barely there.
Cristina was dead, just like Owen.
The only difference was that she was still breathing.
Burke had tried in earnest to do anything to bring her out of it. He'd tried making her angry, tried talking about him, tried talking about the past. None of it really resulted in a desirable response- the most he ever got was her rolling onto her side, turning her back to him.
He'd taken to sleeping on her couch, wanting to keep a close eye on her. Time and time again, she'd told him to go away, but he remembered the first day he'd checked on her at Meredith's urging. He remembered her saying that it was his turn to see it.
He wasn't walking away now, no matter how many times he'd considered it.
Now being one of those times.
Burke tore through the apartment, walking from room to room and calling her name. She hadn't gotten out of bed for days and on the day that she finally decides to do it, she waited until he was sleeping. He'd called the hospital, called Meredith, anybody who might know where she'd be and all of them were clueless with the exception of Meredith who was caught in a surgery.
Her idea was one that made his stomach churn, one that he didn't want to address- but he knew that he didn't have a choice in the matter.
The drive to the cemetery was a surprisingly short one and he could understand why her car was still parked in front of the house. A person would have to be crazy to walk in this kind of weather, but Cristina wasn't exactly in a good place.
Overcast skies and lightning provided an eerie backdrop to an already ominous setting as he examined his surroundings, driving slowly down the narrow blacktop road. He wasn't sure where she was, where Owen was buried, the best he could do was look.
He finally spotted her beneath a tree next to a mound of eroding mud.
Burke parked his car, got out of it and slowly trekked up the hill with an umbrella to shield from the bitterly cold rain. His eyes remained focused on her as she sat there, her knees drawn against her chest.
Black hair hung in saturated clumps around her face, down her back and shoulders, water dripping from them and onto the ground. Her clothes were soaked and her skin even more pale than normal. Cristina's breath misted from her lips as she sat there, staring at the mound, but she did not shiver.
She didn't even feel the cold.
"Cristina," Burke breathed softly, but stopped there. What could he say to her? He couldn't just drag her away, telling her that she shouldn't be here.
It was the first time that she'd even been at his gravesite.
Her eyes focused on the dying flowers atop the mound and she let out a shaky breath. "It should have been like this. For his funeral. I would have come. I could have come. But it was sunny and it was warm and it was those days that he lived for. He lived for those days. I…I just couldn't. I couldn't accept that he was dead on the kind of day that he lived for."
Burke stood over her, holding the umbrella over her head as if it would do any good. "Nobody holds it against you, Cristina."
Nobody had to hold it against her.
Cristina held it against herself.
"It doesn't feel real. It's this nightmare and I keep thinking that I'm going to wake up." Her voice broke then and she stopped to take another deep breath. She couldn't break again. "I keep wondering when I'm going to wake up. Then I think that if I sleep enough, that if I just lay there and wait, the nightmare will be over and you will be gone and he'll be here. Things will be the way that they're supposed to be."
He knew that her words weren't meant to hurt him, but they tore at him just slightly, nicking at his being. He was sure that there'd be more of it as she found her way back from whatever place she was in. "It doesn't work that way," He uttered softly. "I wish it could."
She looked up at him then, her eyes fierce with a maelstrom of emotion, "Do you? You're here. You're in my apartment. You're following me around. You're here and he's not. It's what you wanted, isn't it? You've got me now. You win. You won."
"Cristina, I wasn't competing." Burke's voice remained low and even. She was hurting. He just had to remind himself that she was hurting. It was his turn to see her pain.
"Whatever." She muttered. She knew differently. If he weren't competing, he wouldn't have been there. Burke knew what he was doing, what he did. Her fingers curled into tight fists and she shivered then, just a little bit, acutely aware for the first time of the temperature.
It did not go unnoticed by Burke. He shrugged his coat off and put it around her shoulders, trying carefully to hold the umbrella in place at the same time so she wouldn't get anymore wet. Silently, he stood over her. It was cold out and he knew that they would get sick but this was her funeral. This was her day to say goodbye to him.
He would not interrupt that.
Cristina wanted to push his coat off out of spite, but the warmth was too welcome against her icy skin. She pulled it more tightly around her, her eyes focused once more on the mound next to her. A particular bouquet of flowers caught her eye, a small pin on one of the ribbons holding the decaying gestures together. She reached out, took them in her hand and freed the pin from the ribbon with a slight tug.
She recognized it, but could not recall the name of it- a combat pin or something. He'd worn it on his fatigues the first time she'd seen him, pinned it to his dress uniform, still hanging in the back of their closet. Her fingers turned the ribbon in her hands, looked for a card to see who had sent it, but there was no name.
Her hand curled around the small piece of metal and she held to it before laying her head against her knees.
Cristina wanted it to feel real. She wanted to quit feeling like she was, wanted to quit lying in bed. At the same time she knew that letting go of that feeling meant letting go of him and she wasn't ready to do that. She didn't want to let go of him.
She didn't want to forget him.
They'd had so many years together. She'd put so much of herself into their relationship, fallen so hard for him that she didn't know how she'd ever find herself. There was a very large piece of her that was lying beneath the ground with him, a piece that she doubted that she'd ever find.
Tears formed in the corner of her eyes and she closed them. She imagined him saying her name, saying he loved her. When she felt arms encircle her, she tried to pretend it was his arms holding her. She heard him promise again that it would be okay, and she tried to turn his words into Owen's, tried to hear Owen making those promises.
Burke held her close in a combination of trying to comfort her and keep her warm. He had always known that Cristina had the capacity to love, that she was fiercely loyal- he had just never pictured her like this. She was truly a widow, a woman who'd lived a life dedicated to another person who lived no more. In a million years he would have never been able to imagine her in this position.
Ten years ago, he couldn't have been able to picture her like that.
His eyes rested upon the ground beside them and wondered what it was about him that made her love so fiercely. Maybe one day he'd find out from her.
If he were honest with himself, he wasn't even sure if he wanted to know.
Cristina finally pulled out of his arms and she straightened up a little bit. She hated herself for letting him console her. She shouldn't be anywhere near him, shouldn't even be talking to him. Her heart broke when she realized exactly how upset that Owen would be if he were there.
He was dead and she was sitting next to his grave with another man consoling her.
She stood abruptly, emotion threatening to overwhelm her once more. "I want to go home." She uttered before walking away from him and towards the car.
Burke sensed the urgent change in her demeanor and pondered for a moment what it might mean. He followed behind her, giving her the space that she so suddenly needed. In time, he was sure that he'd find out the swift change in her mood- if it could even be called that.
Whatever the future held for her, for him- he knew it would not be easy or pleasant. He would leave her, just as she asked on that first night as soon as he knew that she'd be okay. Whether it would be a few days or a few months, he would wait until he knew she could make it on her own.