A/N-Some people have asked about perspective. So far the chapters have been entirely from either Cristina or Owen's perspective. They'll most likely alternate going forward, even though this chapter is the second Cristina chapter in a row. There could be also chapters that switch perspectives midstream. Thanks so much for reading!

Cristina stood next to the conference room door and listened. She had confirmed with his assistant that Owen was inside and based on how quiet it was in there, he had to be alone. This would be the first time they would be alone together in a room since the night of the storm. Cristina took a deep breath, then rapped gently on the conference room door.

She heard Owen call out, "Come in." She walked into the room and closed the door behind her, then stood at the end of the table. Owen didn't even glance up. He was bent over a stack of papers reading and making notes. Cristina shook her head. He had become increasingly obsessed with paperwork ever since the lawsuit regarding the plane crash and the incident with Bailey and the rubber gloves. He painstakingly reviewed every single thing he signed, kept a log of them, and kept hard copies. He had also taken it upon himself to personally review every single medical supply change Pegasus had made. Cristina had told him it was all overkill, but he wouldn't, or wasn't ready to, listen.

Cristina stretched her neck out a bit could see that he was currently reading a report on tongue depressors.

"Yes?" Owen finally asked, still not having glanced up.

"You wanted to see me?"

At the sound of Cristina's voice, Owen started, jumping about an inch off his chair. His ears turn red with embarrassment as he said, "Sorry, I wasn't expecting to see you so soon."

"3 hours and 18 minutes, no complications" she said.

"Porcine?"

"Yes."

Owen nodded and looked down at his paper. She could see that he was trying not to smile. He cleared his throat. "That's very impressive." He glanced up at Cristina. She looked down at the table, also, trying to suppress a grin. "Have a seat," he said, awkwardly gesturing toward a chair.

As Cristina obliged, Owen started stacking up the papers he had been looking at and straitening some of the other stacks around him. He seemed almost flustered. She folded her hands neatly on the table in front of her and waited patiently for him to start talking. She wondered if he wanted an update on the clinical trial she had been working on. Maybe he wanted her input on one of the medical supplies.

When he finished arranging things on the table and finally looked at her, he got a strange expression on his face.

"Oh, um," Owen cleared his throat. "This isn't, um, a professional conversation. I ran into Dr. Murphy earlier and she asked me who I was looking for, and, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have had her beckon you for personal conversation."

"Oh," Cristina said. She relaxed her posture and took her hands off the table and put them in her lap. She suddenly felt like she had a swarm of butterflies in her stomach. She had been giving him space and she figured they would talk at some point, but she expected to have a little more warning. "Well, I'm beckoned," she said. "What did you want to talk about?"

"Well, there are a few things I want to clear up."

"Okay," Cristina said.

Owen took a deep breath. "I hadn't told you what I'd been thinking about Ethan, yet, because I didn't think it would be appropriate."

"Why?" Cristina said, shifting uncomfortably in her chair.

"Because his father was still alive and was your patient." Cristina dropped her eyes. It made sense to an extent, but-

"I know," he said, leaning forward toward her, "I know that you would never compromise the care of a patient. Ever. But still, it would have been awkward for you to know that I was thinking about-" Cristina looked up at Owen and saw that he had dropped his own eyes. She could tell he was feeling guilty- guilty for thinking about helping a kid in need. It was just like him. She was about to speak, when he finally looked back up at her. "It didn't seem appropriate and what happened was the best outcome for all involved."

Cristina sighed. "Don't feel bad for thinking about ways to help him before- before it was absolutely necessary, and I get what you're saying about his father being my patient, but-" she sighed again.

"I would have told you eventually," Owen said.

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Even with the father living and them going away forever. You still would have told me?"

"Yes." Owen said emphatically. He sat up straighter. "I just had to figure out how to approach it," Owen said. "I- it was going to be asking a lot of you." Cristina crossed her arms and bit her tongue. This was one thing she had been wondering about ever since that night. She felt like he had made the decision to adopt Ethan by himself and she didn't know where she fit into that plan.

Her thought was interrupted when Owen continued. "If I adopted him-"

"Wait- if you adopted him?"

"Yes. Me, myself," Owen said. Cristina didn't know whether to feel relieved or scared. "I wasn't going to suggest that WE adopt him," Owen continued. "I wasn't going to ask you to be his mother, I know you don't want that."

Cristina felt a little dizzy. She had assumed he would probably want them to adopt Ethan and raise him together. He was right that she didn't want to be a mother, but… her mind was flooded with questions and she didn't know what to think. She uncrossed her arms and grabbed the edges of her chair. After a moment one of her questions finally made it to the surface, "You just said you would be asking a lot of me?"

Owen nodded. "Eight years."

"Eight years?"

"Yes, well, Ethan is 10 and if I adopted him he would be living me for eight years, at least, until he went to college and that would mean- I didn't know if- I didn't know how we would arrange that."

Cristina closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. "You were going to adopt him. Yourself."

"Yeah."

"So, I would be- I would be-"

"My- my girlfriend," Owen said awkwardly. Cristina looked up at the man who had been her husband. He was staring at the table. He stammered on, "I don't know. I don't- know how it would have worked out. I had hoped we could figure that out together..." As Cristina dropped her eyes, she could feel Owen's eyes on her, examining her and trying to read what she was thinking. After a moment he spoke again, "I don't want to put you on the spot, but I wonder what would you have said."

Cristina couldn't meet his eyes. "I-I don't know," she lied. She was trying to imagine herself going along with that arrangement, but she couldn't do it. Not in that moment.

"That's totally fine," Owen said eagerly, "I don't want you to answer right now. I want you to take time to think about it."

Cristina finally looked him in the eye. "I'll think about it, Owen, but this- me breaking up with you wasn't really about Ethan."

Owen nodded. "I know. I know that I hurt you when I couldn't say that you would be enough for me." Cristina felt a lump start to form in her throat. "It's not because I don't love you and don't want to be with you."

"Owen-"

"The truth is I don't know if I need to have kids in my life to be happy, but I can accept that I need to explore it and I'm going to do everything I can to figure it out."

Cristina took a deep breath. "Owen, wouldn't it be easier just to move on and find someone else-"

"I'm never going to find another you," Owen said resolutely.

Cristina looked back down at the table again. This was exactly what she was afraid of. That his love for her blinded him to what it was possible for him to have. That he would settle for some version of his dream that wasn't exactly what he wanted. She was afraid he would be disappointed, not only with his life, but with her, if she was honest with herself.

Suddenly, he spoke again. "Wha-? Is that-? Do you want to move on? Is that what this really is?"

"No, Owen. No. I just want you to be happy."

"You make me happy!"

"Not completely!"

"Cristina-"

"I make you happy for a while and then something always happens and-"

"Well, it's not going to be that way this time. We need to take some time to consider what we want and see if we can work this out."

"I don't know..."

"What always happens is that we separate and then we miss each other so much that we get back together before we consider and think through what the problem was in the first place and then we get caught up in the- the lust of it all and we keep not talking about it." That's us in a nutshell, Cristina thought. Owen continued, "We have to break the cycle. It has to be different this time because I don't think us being apart is the answer. So, I think we should take a break for a month or two to think and explore what we want on our own, then we should try being friends for a while before even considering getting back together."

"Friends?"

"Yes."

Cristina's head was spinning. She didn't want to lead him on or give him hope when she was sure of what the outcome was going to be. "I love you, Owen, I really do, but I don't know how much difference a month or two is going to make."

"I think it will make a lot of difference! I'm going to make the most of it, myself."

Cristina felt her cheeks turn red. She hoped that didn't mean what she thought it meant- that he would play the field. He was a grown man and he could do what he wanted, but she needed to know. "What do you mean by that?" she finally said, looking him directly in the eye.

Owen looked back into her eyes for a long moment. "I don't think this should be a dating-other-people kind of break, if that's what you're getting at. What I meant was, I'm going to take that time to figure out whether or not I want kids."

Cristina was relieved on one front and confused on the other. "What- how can you even do that, Owen?"

"Don't worry about that, that's my problem, and really, it's not just about the kid thing, anyway. I'm going to be taking stock of everything in my life and figuring out what I want, and I think you should do the same," Owen said. "If at any time you want to end it for good, like if you meet someone else and want to see how it goes with them, you just let me know."

"I thought we weren't dating other people."

"We aren't as long as we are sticking to the plan."

"The plan."

"Yes. We keep our relationship and interactions strictly professional for 1 to 2 months. Let's just say 2 months. I think a little distance might be good for our perspective on things. Then, we try being friends for a while. Just platonic friends so we can talk and get reacquainted without, um, physical distractions and after a while, however long it takes, we'll decide if we want to get back together."

Cristina buried her face in her hands. It all seemed so arbitrary, but he really wanted to try this. She tried to imagine how not talking for an extended period of time would be good for them, but then one of the things she worried about was that being with her clouded his judgment, so maybe it would make it easier for him to figure things out. Would she take him back if she was sure that she wasn't going to hold him back? Yes, she thought. What could he say or do to put her mind at ease about that? I have no idea, she thought.

"Cristina," she jumped at the sound of his voice. "The other night, you asked me a complex, life-altering question and expected me to answer right then on the spot without thinking. I'm asking you for more time."

Suddenly, Cristina, who was still covering her face, had an epiphany. "I pig-or-cowed him," she mumbled into her hands.

"What?" Owen said.

She uncovered her face. "I pig-or-cowed y-" She stopped because Owen looked completely confused. Then she remembered: She never told Owen the pig or cow story because she had nearly broken up with him because of it. The day of her first solo surgery, she had found out Teddy was planning to leave. Teddy was the best mentor she'd had since Burke and when Teddy said she would stay if she could have Owen, Cristina had blurted out that she could take him. Cristina knew she hadn't meant it and she felt bad about it, but all the next day she started to wonder if that was what she really wanted because she had blurted it out. It got to the point that she was planning to break up with him, until he showed up drunk on her doorstep and said he wasn't going to let her toss him aside. We matter, she remembered him saying.

"Okay," she said. She registered some surprise in Owen's eyes. "I agree to your plan."

Owen nodded and cleared his throat. "Okay." Owen pushed back his chair and stood up, so she did the same. She saw one of his hands twitch and wondered it he was thinking about asking her to shake hands on the deal. She followed him over to the door where he put his and on the doorknob, and then stopped. "Oh, um, you probably heard about the trailer."

"Yes, I did. I'm so sorry. I hope your stuff is okay." Meredith had said Derek was heartbroken about his precious trailer rolling over. They were still trying to decide if they wanted to have it repaired or call it a loss.

"Yeah, thanks. Pretty much everything was salvageable."

"That's good."

"Um, I was thinking about, if you don't mind, staying at the firehouse until I get a place of my own."

"Oh!" Cristina was surprised. She and Owen had both tried living in the firehouse alone and both of them had been unsuccessful. She didn't know what to think of him wanting to try living there again. "Of course, yes!" she said. "You really didn't even have to ask."

"Well, technically it's your house," Owen said. Cristina nodded and looked down. It stung to hear him say that. She always thought of the firehouse as theirs. When she got back from Minnesota, he had told her she could do whatever she wanted to with it since it was in her name, but she couldn't bring herself to put it on the market. She wondered what kind of place for himself he was looking for.

Owen still had his hand on the doorknob. "Okay, so, we keep it professional." Cristina nodded. "We're just two colleagues who never…" his voice trailed off. He dropped his eyes to the floor, but she could see that his face was twisted with emotion.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and steadied herself to speak. "This is good, Owen. This will be good for us." She wanted to believe it. She wanted to believe that after he searched his soul he would still want to be with her. "It's not all on you, I'll be taking stock, too." Owen nodded, but still didn't look up. "I just don't want to stand in the way of you getting what you want," she said.

Owen finally looked up. His eyes were red and it made his irises seem an even brighter blue than usual. "You won't," he said gently. With that he opened the door for her. As she walked past him, she brushed her fingers against the back of his hand.