It was just a day at work.
There was nothing special about it; no amped up surgeries, no unexpected complications. There were no cases bearing injuries that were remarkably reminiscent of his. It was the same old routine; see consults, one emergent CABG and signing charts that were due weeks ago.
Cristina didn't understand why it had been such a hard day.
Things were supposed to be easier now, they were supposed to be better. It had all been worked out in her head. She took her time to deal with his loss, she took her time and absorbed, she grieved, she went to his graveside- now she was back at work and her life was supposed to be normal again.
She had done everything she was supposed to do in order to get her life back, yet her emotions weren't keeping their end of the bargain.
When she pushed her door open, she found Burke shuffling through the refrigerator pulling out peppers and onions amongst other things. She offered him a sad smile as he stood up and looked at her in question, but said nothing to him.
What was there to say?
In her mind, she was going to come back this new woman. Everything would be better and she'd be able to tell him that she was okay and he could go. Only, she wasn't. She was coming home and it hurt more now than it had before.
Burke could see the tears pricking the corner of her eyes, the defeated slump of her posture and he immediately stopped what he was doing. He closed the small distance between her, wrapped his arms around her and frowned when she shook against him.
"Polytrauma patient?" He asked into her hair.
Cristina shook her head against his chest. She wished it had been. At least then she wouldn't seem so pathetic, so incredibly weak.
"Cardiac tamponade?"
She shook her head again and the tears fell a little harder.
Burke was nearly overwhelmed by the breakdown she was having. He couldn't imagine for a moment how he was supposed to attempt to make it better if he didn't even know what was wrong. He kissed the top of her head, his hand stroking lightly between her shoulder blades. "Slow day?" He finally uttered softly.
He was relieved when she shook her head yes.
The pair stood frozen, Cristina's breathing slowing with each passing minute and the ache in her chest easing it's grip on her. His hand continued to rub her back, to ease the pain out of her body, and her body finally relaxed against his. She stayed in his arms, maybe longer than she should have, just content to be held.
When she let go of him, he took a step back and looked down at her. Very gently, he reached out, wiped a lingering tear from her eye and bent to kiss her cheek. "I'm going to cook dinner." He murmured before pulling away.
It was his way of giving her a few moments to herself.
Cristina walked into the bedroom, wrapped her arms around herself and let out a soft sigh. She had done everything the way that she was supposed to, or at least she thought that she had. Maybe she was wrong.
There had to be something else that she was missing, some part of the bargain she wasn't holding up to.
She had to figure out what it was. More than anything, Cristina wanted her life back. Or at least what part of it she could have back. She was so tired of dealing with this.
She wanted desperately to be done.
Lying back on the bed, she closed her eyes and tried to figure out what she had missed. The warm smell of vegetables grilling with chicken wafted into her bedroom and tickled her nose. It seemed to wrap around her, lift her up from the drowning pool of thought and she took in another deep breath.
Cristina knew that smell.
Quietly, she crept out of the bedroom and towards the kitchen, listening as Burke went about cooking dinner. Her eyes trailed over the meal simmering on the stove, watched as his hands vigorously whipped melted chocolate into a cream cheese mixture and she couldn't help but smile.
He was making her favorite meal; not a recent favorite meal, but the one that they used to share when they lived together. It was the meal that if she had a bad day, she could rely on paella and chocolate cheesecake waiting on the table when she got home.
Burke looked up, saw her smiling and he couldn't keep a smile from his face either. "Feeling better?"
She walked to his side, reached out and swept her pinky into his bowl. With a grin she licked the batter from her finger and nodded. "I am now."
He laughed softly, recalling the days that they spent together. She was impossible to cook dinner with, always picking at the peppers he'd sliced or sticking her fingers in dessert that wasn't baked yet. After all these years, he held onto a very fond memory of baking a chocolate cake and some of the whipped cream that he'd planned to top it with ending up in some very interesting places on her body.
That night, he had truly enjoyed dessert.
Cristina lingered for a moment, savored another sample of the unfinished cheesecake and extended her finger to share a taste with him.
Her eyes lingered on his when he closed his lips around her finger. However innocent the gesture may have been, it stirred desire from within both of them. She moved her body forward, looking up at him with desire clouding her eyes and her hips pressed lightly into his.
Burke's lips definitely found hers first, but she would have done it herself if he hadn't. He pushed her into the counter, his hands sliding down her side. Their minds had taken them to a completely different time. They weren't in the apartment that she had shared with another man, she hadn't lost that man and they had never been apart.
It was just another bad day at work for her and he was making it better.
She could feel his desire pressing into her belly and she pressed her body even harder into his. Their tongues tangled in a duel of thrust and parry, one fighting to get control over the other. Her arms wrapped tightly around his neck unable to satisfy her hunger for him.
His hand continued downward to her thigh, the other snaked around her hip to grasp her ass tightly. He groaned softly when she nipped at the center of his lower lip and then did the same to her. Everything about her was intoxicating from the scent of her shampoo to the taste of his cheesecake still lingering on her lips.
Just as Burke was pulling at her thighs to lift her into his arms a small egg timer went off, instantaneously dragging them back into reality. "That's-" He said, his voice breaking from the strain of the lust overwhelming his body.
"The flatbread." She finished, pulling away. She straightened her shirt, her cheeks flushed and turned her back to him. "Sorry. I shouldn't-"
"It wasn't you." He assured her. "That was my fault."
Cristina sighed softly, "Why don't we remain blameless and just not do it anymore?"
Burke nodded in agreement, reaching for an oven mitt. "That sounds like a plan."
She was convinced that with anybody else the following few moments could have been awkward, but for some reason they weren't. Maybe it's because he understood what she was going through. Maybe it's simply because he was Burke and she was Cristina and that's how they operated.
Words never worked well for them anyway.
They worked together in mostly silence, Cristina setting the table and Burke finishing up dinner. He took delight in the way her eyes lit up at the sight of her plate, overflowing with flatbread triangles and paella. He would have to thank Meredith later, but only after a trip to the store to buy her other favorite things.
He had never forgotten them.
Cristina looked up at him, contentment painted across her face as they ate dinner and she offered a small smile. "Thank you for dinner. It's very good."
"I thought that you might appreciate it after your first day of work. I anticipated that it would be hard for you." Burke answered softly.
Setting her fork down, she looked down into her lap. "It wasn't hard for the right reasons, though. Hard should have been seeing some sort of trauma. Dealing with a patient with his injuries. It was a normal day. There was nothing extraordinary about it."
"There's no such thing as having a right reason when dealing with this sort of thing, Cristina. You know that."
She knew that he was right.
"When it was slow, he used to bring me stuff." Her voice started out soft, making Burke and herself wonder if she was going to feel that sudden rush of sadness that she always felt when talking about Owen, but no tears ever came. "At first it was coffee, but then he decided that we drank far too much coffee for our own good. So then it turned into bottled water and fruit. He brought flowers once or twice. Weird stuff from the hospital gift shop, tacky stuff that would make me laugh and keep me entertained. I think that's why it was hard. I was there for 14 hours and it was just a day. Nobody brought me a banana. Nobody offered to take me to the v-" She stopped herself, smiling sadly.
The vent was their secret, and one she wouldn't share with anybody else. Even Burke.
"What kind of tacky stuff did he buy?" Burke asked, curiosity getting the best of him.
Cristina was surprised when she laughed slightly to herself. "One time he told me to have a heart, dumped this..plastic thing on my desk and it was a heart. A poorly done, chalky, tiny red heart. I just kind of shoved it in my pocket and went about my day. When I got home he asked me if I had my heart and I pulled it out of my bag and gave it to him, glad to give it back to him. He dropped it in some water and it grew. It got like, eight times bigger. We started making jokes about cardiomegaly and just…random stuff. And then…" Her voice faded a little and she smiled, a slight pang hitting her. "He told me that was what I did to his heart."
Burke could hear the wistfulness in her voice, felt jealousy at the things he did for her- but at the same time he was happy that she'd had him. It increased the self loathing that he seemed to have developed for himself. A great part of him truly felt that if he had stayed home, that if he had left her life up to her and not been so selfish that things could have been different for them.
That Owen would still be here.
"Anyway," She murmured, "He made the slow days a little better. I think that's why it was hard."
"I'm glad you had him. That he understood you."
Cristina gazed up at him, "Really? Because sometimes I wish that I wouldn't have. It would have been easier."
"Where would you be without him, though?" He asked softly, "What would the past ten years of your life been? If he hadn't come into your life and made your slow days better? If he hadn't come into your life and you didn't do those things to his heart?"
"You know you don't have to say those things."
"I don't have to say them, but I am. Because it's the truth, it's the things you need to hear. He may be gone, but you have to realize that if he had never been here, your life may not be what it is."
"It's better to have loved and lost then to never have loved at all?" Cristina quipped, "I always knew you were a romantic, I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the sentiment."
"If anything, I'm predictable." He lamented, spooning some rice onto a piece of flatbread.
"You're not." She countered, "In a million years, I would have never pegged you for the guy to leave a woman in a church."
There was an eerie detachment in her voice from her words, one that made him wonder how much it still affected her to this day.
"I wish I could take that back. I do." The regret in his voice was still there, still overwhelming.
"No you don't," She said, trying to take his mind away from it. "You just said that you were glad that I had Owen. If you hadn't of done that, I would have never met him."
He couldn't help but chuckle softly, "Very true."
Cristina hesitated for a moment, using the opportunity to bite into a piece of flat bread. She couldn't satiate her curiosity though. "Do you ever wonder what it would have been like? If we had gone through with it?"
"There isn't a day that goes by that I haven't thought of that."
"And?"
"I don't know," Burke disclosed with a small glance in her direction. "I want to say that I would have tried to make you happy. I knew.....I knew that if I had gone through with it, that I would have backed off. I would have just let it be. We…I would have tried to convince you to wake up and run with me, and you would have slept in. I would have tried to convince you that red meat would kill you and end up making steak fajitas for dinner on your birthday. I'd try to talk you into moving out of the apartment and into the house with the idea of having children, but I wouldn't have told you at the time. I would have eased you into it. And despite all of my trying to not push- I probably would have done it anyway and you would have lost sight of who you were. Things happen for a reason. We weren't supposed to happen. You deserved better than that."
"You're a good guy," Cristina spoke with genuine sincerity. "We just wanted different things. It doesn't mean that I deserved any more or any less. You are a good and decent man." She paused with a smirk, "Besides, it's me. How could you not want to make plans?"
She was sure it probably wasn't the best time for a joke, but the conversation was too heavy for Cristina. The day had been heavy enough, she didn't need their exchange to drag her down even further.
"It was you." He affirmed, his smile mirroring her own. "Perhaps then I cannot be held accountable for my actions. It was a set up from the beginning."
"It's okay. Nobody can control themselves around me. It's completely understandable." She shrugged, "My life is hard like that."
Burke laughed heartily and Cristina laughed with him, the two continuing in the much needed light hearted banter.
The joyful sound echoed off the walls, slipped under the doorway and radiated out into the hall. For far too long, her apartment had been silent and dark, reminiscent of a coffin. Now there was light where there had been dark, happiness where there had been sadness. Things weren't perfect, but for just tonight, Cristina felt something besides empty.
For the first time in a long time, Cristina felt like she would be okay.