It was a couple of hours later, Amelia was laying on his chest eyes closed listening to the rhythm of Owen's beating heart. She knew he was asleep from the weight of his arm around her back, he knew he was strong and for some reason was always scared of being too forceful with her or that she was too fragile, so he would hold her almost afraid she would break if he squeezed too much. His arm was a bit tighter than usual. If anything she was expecting him to be more distant given Cristina's presence, but instead he seemed to be holding onto her like a lifeline. She had seen it pass on Cristina's face, that look, and for a split second she wanted to sit up and run away. Recently Amelia had made a point not to listen to all the little voices in her head, telling her she was a replacement, telling her she was known to jump from bed to bed and this was not going to be any different. In the last few months she had cut back a little on meetings too, not entirely, she could not afford that, but Owen had a great, positive influence on her and his presence had an enormous impact on her self-confidence, something she had been struggling with since she got out of rehab. She did not know much about Owen and Cristina's relationship over the years and the things she knew she had heard from other people, from Derek and the gossip mill around the hospital. What she did know was that they were together for a very, very long time and every time they broke up, even after the divorce, they always found a way back to each other. Amelia felt her muscles tense. All afternoon she had talked to Cristina and not once she worried about the fact that Owen might leave her to get back with his ex and now that she was letting her mind wonder the thought made the hair on the back of her neck stand.

She needed a friend to talk this out with and the first person she thought of was Meredith, who in this situation was the worst possible person to give her the right advice. It hit her that between the tumour and Owen she had not made one friend here in Seattle and if Owen for any reason broke up with her she was alone. The realisation made her stomach tie in knots and she felt in her chest the nagging feeling she was unfortunately so familiar with, the sense of failure, the beginning of a downward spiral, the panic.

"Amelia?" She turned to him, dragged forcefully from her daydreaming by a finger pulling her chin up to face him, while his other hand held her close. "What's wrong?"

She shook her head a bit too hasty to look natural. "Nothing is wrong, don't worry, go back to sleep."

He settled back and she sighed hoping to have dodged the conversation altogether, she did not want to tell him about what she and Cristina discussed and the thousand other doubts her brain had kindly made up. The sensation was, however, short lived as Owen immediately reached for the light above the bed, switched it on, and sat up pulling her up against him, careful to keep the covers around them. "Don't do this."

"I don't know what you're talking about." She laid her head on his shoulder, her forehead resting against the side of his neck.

Owen knew, he knew and he got it. He leaned his head against hers and started caressing her cheek with his thumb so gently. "Amelia. I'm here. You can talk to me, you can tell me things, I won't run away or leave you." He had woken up and felt her awake laying on top of him and in a matter of minutes he her body had gone stiff as a boars against his. "Is this about Cristina?"

"No." the half truth in her answer was enough for his thumb to stop stroking the skin on her cheekbone, telling her he didn't for one second believe that. "Maybe a little. I just feel like I don't know you, which is true, we have been… whatever we have been doing for just a couple of months. The thing is I do not trust easily and do not give into people easily and I have told you things that I have not told anyone else and I do not even know you. I don't know why I feel this way with you."

He hugged her tighter to him. "If it's any consolation I don't know you either, but I'm pretty sure I feel the same way you do."

She gave a tight smile. Her fingers were lazily tracing a pattern of freckles on Owen's arm, it always bothered her when people did it to her, but she found it fascinating on him. "But that's not true. You know about the addiction and about my baby, I don't know anything. I can see it, in your eyes, sometimes you have that look and it speaks more than a thousand words and I know what it feels like, being broken."

"Would you like me to tell you some things?" he offered a little at loss of what to do.

"No, that's not my point, you don't have to." She shook her head, a bit touched by his offer. "Forget it, I – I just realized that for the first time in my life I'm surrounded by people I know, but I'm completely alone."

Owen frowned. He sat up, forcing her to do the same and looked straight into her eyes. "You are not alone, do you hear me?"

"Only I am. Look it's not about you, but this," she gestured between the two of them. "this is a risk, I mean this place is basically cursed with all the shooting and the plane crashes and storms and earthquakes and-"

"Amelia what's the point?" he urged effectively ending her rambling.

She sighed somewhat sadly and turned her gaze down to stare at her hands in her lap. "You make afraid of ending up alone." When she looked up to see the hurt, bewildered look on his face, she reiterated. "I have a bad track record with relationships, not even a long one, just a bad one, in the sense that I either screw everything up or people die on me. James was there for me and loved me when I didn't even love myself, but I could never share with him, most of the time he didn't understand the crazy, he tried to, but he couldn't. You do, you get it without needing me to say anything and it scares me because you make me feel in a way that – I don't even know what it is and I don't ever want to not be able to feel this way."

"Come here." He pulled her to him, just holding her as close as he could, he had no idea what was going on in her head, but he saw that she was scared, so scared to lose him and she had no reason to be. Until a few hours before she had been fine and now, she was a mess. "Love hurts. A lot."

Amelia sniffled and nodded into his chest. "Yeah." When she looked up their faces were millimetres apart, their noses almost touching and they were literally breathing the same air. She thought about kissing him, thought about going back under the covers and spending the rest of the night making up for lost time. He made her feel safe just by looking at her, there was a certain something that with a look told her all she needed to know. "I like your eyes. They are blue, but a dense blue." She narrowed her eyes and contemplated his for a little while. "Your eyes are like the ocean."

Owen kissed her softly. "Thanks. You-" he chuckled. "You have Derek's eyes."

Amelia gasped and pushed him on his back and straddled his waist blocking his shoulders down. "Take it back. Right now." She pulled the most serious look she could muster, pressing on his shoulders, growing more irritated at his laughter. "How dare you?"

"But you do." He grinned at her reaction more than anything. "You have the most beautiful eyes, I could stare into them all day."

Amelia looked down trying to hide the blush on her cheeks. She leaned down to lay on his chest so that their bodies were perfectly aligned – as much as the height difference allowed at least. She propped her chin up right below his collarbone. "You should tell Derek. After all if we have the same eyes you could just date him, right?"

Owen scrunched up his face in the most adorable way, but then smiled. "You know what, I just might, he already asked me out."

"What?" she pushed on his chest and sat up slightly and he realised she had not been expecting his answer.

"He did. I said no of course." She settled back down on him and Owen's hand went up to her face caressing the hollow underneath her cheekbone, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Their eyes locked and her lips parted. "He's married."

Never breaking eye contact, she slipped her hands on either side of his head, tangling her fingers in his hair. "Oh, and is that the only reason you said no?" she said huskily.

"Amelia," he started in a very serious tone. "Despite what you want to believe you and Derek have a lot in common, trust me, I met one of your sisters and you're nothing alike. But-" he ran his hands along her sides, barely touching her skin leaving goose bumps on their way, stopping on the small of her back. "There are some things I'm sure you don't have in common, I'll go out on a limb and say that he just doesn't have them."

"So you're with me because of my boobs?"

Owen's eyes popped out of his head and he burst out laughing, hugging Amelia to him, he rolled them so she laid under him. "No. I mean yes, also. You have very nice boobs, but that's not it."

"Thanks I guess, so then is it-"

Owen put a finger on her mouth to shut her up. "It's not a physical attribute, not that I'm complaining. It's the fight, you-you fight every day, not just because of the addiction, but you fight. Most people go about their days going through the motions on autopilot, never stopping to think about what they are actually doing or why, they have it easy. Ever since you came here to work, Derek has been stepping all over you and you had to fight, some of the other attendings were doubting you at first and you fought, you fought for Herman's tumour. I'm pretty sure Seattle is not cursed, I think this had always been the way of your life and that is a million times more attractive than whatever's in you bra. To me."

And she kissed him. Kissed him hard. Amelia tried to say all the things she would probably never say aloud in that kiss, because this was it. She did not have to say or explain anything. On a level, she knew they had that in common, the brokenness, the hardships, but instead of finding them off putting, he admired them, her strength and her perseverance. She felt naked laying there with him – well, she was naked – but in a metaphorical and emotional way she did not feel the need to cover anything up anymore, she had not for a while, with him. However the kiss heated up quickly and the wandering hands and tingly skin and moans and tangled hair could only lead to them having sex again and the last working neuron in Amelia's brain yelled at her. She broke the kiss and took a moment to appreciate the look on Owen's face. It had been a while since someone had looked at her like that and even then she was high and probably saw whatever she wanted to see. She stroked his cheek, scratching gently behind his ear.

"I have to go."

He frowned. "Why? You're not on call tonight."

"Exactly, so if I don't show up for dinner, they're going to start wondering where I am and I don't want them to find out about us because we can't keep our hands off each other." She smiled and sat reaching for her bra at the end of the bed.

Owen grunted obviously accepting her reasoning, but still not overly enthusiastic about the consequences. "We should maybe talk about doing that, I'm afraid it won't be as easy as it seems."

"Don't worry Derek won't punch you or anything, he always thought I was a whore, so that's not going to be a problem." Amelia chuckled.

"I meant with the hospital, but I don't think that's true anyway. He cares a lot about you."

Amelia went to feel her clothes to see if they had dried enough for her to wear, but the shirt and jacket were still soaked through. Picking up her jeans, she started pulling them on balancing in the narrow hallway. "Regardless, what, do we really have to disclose our relationship with human resources, that's ridiculous."

"Yeah well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, right?"

"Right." She reached for the sweatshirt she had worn for the better part of the day and threw it on without a second thought.

Owen pulled his boxer on and got out of bed following her around the trailer. "For someone who interrupted sex so that nobody suspects about us, going into the house with a sweatshirt that's clearly mine is not a very smart move."

Amelia picked her bag up from the sofa, and dropped it on the counter while she put on her shoes. "I'll just make something up, I did borrow your pickup this morning so I'll just say I got wet from the rain and had found it on the backseat and thought you wouldn't mind."

"And exactly where were you, if not here or at the hospital all day?" he walked to stand right in front of her pulling her to him by her hips. "You know, Cristina will be there."

Amelia's hands snaked around his neck, getting him to lean down slightly. "So? I like her. If anything she's the only one who knows about this and she's – well I think she's as okay as she can be about it."

"What do you mean as okay as she can be?"

Amelia kissed him and pulled back just enough to speak. "You have history. A big, long, life altering one. She can't be okay, but we talked. She's being incredibly evolved about it, unless of course she was planning my murder all afternoon." Owen nodded and kissed her. It did not make him feel any better, but he also knew he would not get anything out of Amelia if they spent the whole night talking. "Don't worry about it, okay?"

He nodded and let her out of his arms, trying not to pay too much attention at the way his sweatshirt looked on her. He might just have to give it to her to wear, every day, maybe she could wear it at the hospital too – no, not there, that would be totally counter productive. "See you tomorrow, then?"

Amelia gave him a big smile and stood on her tip toes to kiss him one last time before closing the door of the trailer behind her, leaving Owen standing only his boxers numbly where he had been holding seconds earlier. A smile made it to his lips and despite the frown still on his forehead he went back to the bed, laying down on her pillow and closing his eyes, breathing in the unique smell of her shampoo and deciding that he was going to have to talk to Cristina himself sometime soon too, but for now he could spend the rest of the night thinking about the present and leave the past – well, in the past.

Thank you all for the reviews, you guys are so lovely. Like I said this just keeps growing and growing and I have no idea where it's headed, but as long as I can't sleep, Ill keep writing it and publishing it, so there you go. Bye