A/N: The next chapter got REALLY long, so I decided to split it in half, which means the chapter that follows this one is practically done and will be posted very soon! Thanks again for reading! :)
Owen was nervous. He couldn't help it. Cristina was coming over for pizza night and he wanted, or more accurately, needed it to go well. He left the hospital extra early to go to the grocery store and get extra toppings for the pizzas they would be making. Heidi had hired someone to come in and clean the house once a week, but the night before he had found himself re-cleaning everything. The house was completely spotless. He wore a blue t-shirt, because he knew that she liked it when he wore blue. He even put a fresh shirt on Tony, because he had gotten a spot of something nefarious-looking on it.
The boys finished their homework in record time. They seemed to have picked up on Owen's excitement. As the time of her arrival got closer, Tony, whose family nickname was Tigger, got bouncier and bouncier, while Nick, who had a definite tendency to be shy, got tenser and tenser. Fifteen minutes before she was set to arrive, Owen walked into the living room and found Nick sitting on the floor in the corner behind the couch with his arms wrapped around his knees and Tony dancing around and singing to a song he was making up as he went along. As soon as Owen realized one of the lyrics was "Miss Tina," he realized he had to act fast to get them to act normal. They were rapidly devolving into unflattering caricatures of themselves.
"Hey, guys!" he said, clapping his hands together once, loudly. Tony stopped in his tracks and Nick looked up at him. "Cristina's not going to be here for a while, yet, so if you want, you can go play Minecraft on the tablet until she gets here."
Nick sprang to his feet. "OK!" He said as he ran from the room.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Tony yelled as he followed his brother.
"Take turns!" Owen yelled after them. Owen smiled to himself as he sat on the couch. Minecraft was their favorite game and would be a perfect distraction. Their playing time had to be strictly enforced, because if allowed, they would play for hours on end. Owen was sure they would sit right down on the floor in the study where the tablet was kept because they couldn't be bothered to take the time to leave the room before starting to play.
Owen took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He went through his to-do list in his mind and made sure he hadn't forgotten anything. The only thing left to do now was wait for her to arrive.
Overall, Owen felt good about where he and Cristina were. He felt like they had made some progress over the weekend. They had talked on a deeper level than they had in a while, and she had agreed to come to pizza night. Owen thought about the conversation they had in the music room at his house. He had told her about the encounter with Ethan and about the epiphany he had regarding the Ethan situation.
It had happened Saturday night when he was thinking back on the day. When Owen thought about the encounter with Ethan and it occurred to him that while they may not have clicked as quickly, he got along with the Palladinos just as well as he did with Ethan. He had been so sure that there was something special about Ethan that had triggered something in him, but now he thought that he might have wanted to help any other kid in the same situation.
It wasn't exactly a comforting realization. He had gotten caught up in the moment and completely uprooted his life, for one thing. Now, he was sure that if Ethan's dad had died, the two of them would have gotten along just fine, but would it have been the right decision to make? That question kept nagging at him, because while he was sure he could have handled the situation better, especially where Cristina was concerned, wasn't entirely sure whether or not adopting Ethan would have been the right choice.
Saturday had been a really good day, but the other thing he found as he went over it in his mind was that he couldn't help wondering how Cristina would have fit into it. He was pretty sure she wouldn't have wanted to go to the flag football practice, which was fine. He had kind of gotten her interested in baseball, but overall, sports were not her thing, so that was no big deal. After flag football, they had watched a movie, Star Wars, which apparently, she would have loved. He had never known she was a fan until the day before. Later, he had taken the boys to a birthday party for Tony's friend, Ian. Owen had a fine time chatting with the parents of the other kids at the party, but he could only imagine how Cristina would have rolled her eyes and been utterly bored by their idle chatter. It would have been best to leave her home for that one.
Saturday evening, Nick had to practice for his guitar lesson on Monday, so Owen had gotten his guitar out and they played through Nick's assignments together. Afterward, Owen showed Nick how to play a couple of simple songs that were at his skill level. All the while, Tony was occupied by trying to build a life-sized robot out of Legos. When Nick and Owen were done with their guitars, they helped him. In the end, the robot came up to Tony's chin. Cristina would have liked hearing them play their guitars, and he was pretty sure she would have gotten into the challenge of building the robot. After the kids were in bed, she and him would have some much needed alone time. If they were a couple, he had no doubt where that would lead… It had been a good day, but it would have been better with her there.
Just then, the doorbell rang. It startled Owen and when he stood up and walked toward the door, his heart was pounding. He paused for a moment to collect himself before he opened the door.
"Hey!"
"Hey, yourself!" Cristina replied. She had on her leather jacket and a black top with jeans. She was wearing her hair down and flowing. She looked gorgeous. "Um, can I come in?"
"Of course!" Owen said with an embarrassed chuckle. He had been standing there admiring her and forgot to let her in. He stepped back so she could pass by him, then helped her take off her jacket.
"Nice place you've got, here."
Owen smiled as he hung the jacket in the coat closet. "I wish my own place was this put together."
Cristina smiled back and surveyed the room. "It is incredibly clean in here."
"Yeah, well," Owen thought about Cristina's messy tendencies, "I just wanted to be sure you did NOT feel right at home here."
Cristina laughed. "Oh come on, you've got to admit that I've gotten neater over the years…"
"- but…."
"-but this is like a Stepford house."
Owen chuckled. "Would you like to meet the Stepford children?"
Cristina put on a blank expression and cocked her head to one side. "Why, of course, darling," she said in a high-pitched voice.
Owen grabbed her shoulders, put his face inches from hers, and said very seriously. "I know you're joking, but please don't ever do that again." Cristina tried to keep a straight face, but before she could even try to give a response, she burst out laughing and Owen soon followed. He released his hold on her shoulders as they laughed, because he had an overwhelming urge to pull her close and claim her lips. They laughed for a few more moments before Owen turned serious again. "Okay, but seriously, I mean it!"
"Okay, okay, so where are the little crumb-crunchers?"
"Follow me!" Owen led Cristina down the hallway to the office. Just as he predicted, the kids were sitting on the floor in front of the desk with their eyes glued to the tablet. "Hey, guys!" Owen said. "Look who's here!" Tony glanced up, but Nick's eyes never left the screen.
"Miss Tina?" Tony said absentmindedly, still enthralled by his brother's game.
"Uh, yeah. CRIStina," Owen said. He walked over to the boy and patted him gently on the head. "Come on over and say, 'hi.'"
Tony tore his eyes from the screen and walked over and stood in front of Cristina. "I'm Tony," he said, extending his hand to her. Cristina took his hand and shook it.
"I'm Cristina," she replied.
"Nice to meet you! Uncle Owen, how much longer do we get to play?"
"Time's up, time for dinner. Come on, Nick. Shut it off."
Nick sighed, then shut the tablet down and put it back in its place on the desk. He stood up and Owen followed him over to the door where Cristina and Tony were standing. After a moment of awkward silence, Tony spoke up. "That's my brother, Nick."
"Nice to meet you, Nick," Cristina said.
"You, too," Nick said to his shoes. Owen hadn't expected Nick to be quite that shy, but he was sure he would warm up.
"Okay," Owen said. "Let's get our pizzas going." They went to the kitchen and Owen pulled all the toppings he had prepared out of the refrigerator and lined them on the counter. He opened up the package of 4 small pizza crusts and put them on plates. He spread sauce on one and handed it to Cristina. "Ladies, first," he said with a smile.
"Mmm, how about youngest first?" Cristina replied. Tony was standing next to her bouncing with anticipation.
"Okay, then Tony, you're up!" Owen said as he handed him his plate. They all walked down the line and got the toppings they wanted. The kids didn't recognize some of the more unusual things he had bought, like feta cheese and banana peppers.
"Bananas and pepper just sounds like a really gross combination," Nick said.
"Well, they got the banana part of their name because they are yellow like bananas so they look kind of like them. And they are a type of pepper, but not as in salt and pepper," Cristina explained.
"Why do they call it pepper? Does pepper have peppers in it?"
"Yep," Cristina said. "Pepper is made from a special type of pepper that is dried out then ground up. These don't taste like that kind of pepper, though."
"Cool!" Nick said. He took one slice of banana pepper and put it on his pizza. Owen couldn't help grinning. Cristina was using a teacher-like tone of voice. He could tell she felt a little bit awkward, but he loved her for making the effort.
The oven could only fit two pizzas at a time, so they baked the kid's pizzas and let them start eating first. By the time Cristina and Owen's pizzas were ready, the kids were almost done with theirs.
Owen noticed that Tony kept giving his pizza suspicious glances from across the table. Finally, he had to ask. He pushed his plate closer to Tony, so he could see it better. "Do you have a question about my pizza, Tony?"
Tony paused for a moment, almost looking fearful, then pointed to something on Owen's pizza. "What is that?" he asked.
"That is a kalamata olive."
"Are you sure?" Tony said, clearly not convinced.
"I'm sure," Owen said with a smile. "You're used to seeing olives sliced so they look like circles. I cut these long-ways." That particular olive was larger than the others, so it stood out more, but Owen didn't think there was particularly strange about it.
"Okay," Tony said, clearly unconvinced. He watched Owen like a hawk as the meal progressed. Finally, Owen got around to eating the piece the olive in question on it. When he took a bite of it, Tony shrieked. "EWW HE ATE IT!"
Owen clapped his hand over his mouth, because he almost burst our laughing and he had to finish chewing the bite. Owen looked across the table at Cristina. She was covering her face and her shoulders were shaking with suppressed laughter. Cristina recovered first. "What did you think that was, Tony?"
Tony leaned toward her and said in his most deadly serious voice, "It was a bug."
Owen chuckled. "It was an olive, buddy. I promise. Why would I eat a bug? Haven't I been telling you lately that we don't eat bugs?"
Tony dropped his shoulders in disappointment. "Yeah, I guess so."
"Well, we may not eat bugs, but some people do," Cristina piped up after a moment.
"What?" the boys, including Owen said in unison.
"It's true. About 80% of the world's cultures eat bugs."
"Seriously?!" Tony said, getting up on his knees to lean toward her even more.
"Hey! Bottom on the chair, please," Owen said. Tony sat back down.
"Yes," Cristina continued. "They are a great source of protein." Owen's eyes got wide. What on earth was she doing? He started subtly shaking his head back and forth and hoping she would look at him.
"In fact, without knowing it, you eat-"
"Um, what Cristina means is that- is that-" he didn't know how to continue, but he had an idea that she was going to say that 'without knowing it, we eat bugs every day,' which was probably true, but he didn't want that thought running through the boys' heads, just now.
Cristina winked at Owen. "Of course what I mean is that it's important that you only eat bugs that are edible AND you have to make sure you prepare them properly." Owen sighed. It wasn't quite the dismissal of the topic he hoped for, but what could he do. She continued. "There are quite a lot of bugs that are edible, actually."
"Likewhatlikewhatlikewhat?!" Tony said.
Cristina looked at Owen. He was sure he looked freaked out. He just didn't want any more bug eating incidents, but he knew she had to give an honest answer.
She pondered the question for a moment. "Liiiike roly-polys," She said.
"Oh," Tony said, slumping back in his chair. "I ate one of those once. It was so gross."
"I bet. See, you have to prepare them properly so they taste better."
"Yeah," Tony said. He crossed his arms and sulked.
"How do you know so much about eating bugs?" Nick asked.
Cristina looked taken aback. "Oh, well, I just did some research."
"Why?"
"I was just curious, so, Owen, does pizza night come with dessert?" Suddenly she was the one looking like she needed to be rescued. Owen was happy to oblige, though he wanted to know the real answer to Nick's question, himself.
"Yes, indeed! I bought ice cream. We have 3 kinds to pick from, tonight."
The promise ice cream sufficiently distracted the kids from the topic of eating bugs. They spent the rest of the meal debating the merits of the ice creams Owen had bought: chocolate chip cookie dough, rocky road, and strawberry cheesecake. After they enjoyed their eventual selections, they cleared all the food related items from the table and set up Monopoly. There were a variety of activities Owen and the boys would do after dinner on pizza night, but Owen had coached the boys that playing games would be a good activity for this particular night. Cristina was very competitive and loved games, so he was sure she would enjoy it.
It didn't take long Owen to see that he was right. Nick was just as competitive as Cristina and the two of them started wheeling and dealing very early on. Owen had teamed up with Tony and the two of them were frequently petitioned for property trades. The two of them would discuss the merits of the deal, then Owen would let Tony make the final decision. It didn't take long before they were low on funds, and right around Tony's bedtime, one of Cristina's monopolies finally bankrupted them.
After they handed over the last of their money, Cristina leaned over and tousled Tony's hair. "Sorry, little guy."
Tony shrugged. "I always lose this game." Owen felt bad. He felt like he should have tried to direct their game play more.
"Well, it's a tough game. I bet you get better every time you play." Cristina smiled at him, then at Owen.
"He does," Nick added. Tony grinned. He idolized his big brother, so those two words perked him right up.
"Well, this was actually good timing, because it's your bedtime, Tony," Owen said.
Tony turned to Owen and clasped his hands together. "Pleaseohpleaseohpleaae can I stay up and see who wins? Pleaseohplease?"
Everyone stared at Owen as he thought for a moment. "Tell you what," he said, leaning toward Tony. "You can stay up a little longer if go put your pjs on and brush your teeth, real quick."
"Yeah!" Tony sprang from his chair and ran to the back of the house. When he came back five minutes later, he sat on Owen's lap. Five minutes after that, he was fast asleep.
Nick and Cristina battled it out for about 30 more minutes. They were pretty evenly matched, but Nick had a slight edge because Tony had been a little freer in dealing with him, so he had more property. Finally, it came to the point that whoever landed on the other's final monopoly first, would be out. After two tense rounds of the board, Cristina finally landed on Marvin Gardens. She turned in the last of her houses and mortgaged her remaining property. Cristina pouted out her bottom lip as she counted out all her money to give him. She was left with $4. Nick was smiling from ear–to-ear.
"Well-played, sir," she said.
"You, too!" Nick replied.
"Okay, you know the rules, Nick," Owen said. "Winner picks up. When you're done it'll be time for you to head to bed."
"Okay!" Nick said. Owen stood up with Tony to go carry him to bed. As he was leaving the room, he heard Nick say, "You don't have to help."
"I don't mind," Cristina replied.
Owen smiled as he carried Tony to his room. Tony stirred when Owen laid him down. He cracked his eyes open and said, "Who won?"
"Nick," Owen said.
"Yay," Tony muttered as he rolled over and went back to sleep. Owen looked around the room. In his rush to get changed for bed, Tony had flung his clothes all over the room. Owen picked them up and put them in the hamper. He stopped by the boys' bathroom on his way down the hall and saw that Tony had left a bit of a mess there, too. He had left his toothbrush and toothpaste, with the cap off, on the counter and there was water everywhere. Somehow, he had even managed to get toothpaste on the mirror. Owen put everything away and wiped down the counter and mirror. When he got to the living room, Nick and Cristina were by the coat closet. Cristina was on her tiptoes trying to put the game back on the shelf inside it.
He walked up behind her. "Here, let me get that," he said. He easily pushed it into place. "Time to say goodnight, Nick."
"Goodnight!" Nick said. "Thanks for playing a game with us."
"No problem," Cristina said.
"I'll come back in a minute to say goodnight," Owen said to him.
"Okay!" Nick turned and walked toward the back of the house. Owen smiled as he walked away. Nick was downright chipper after his big win. Owen turned toward Cristina and was surprised to see her reaching into the closet to get her coat.
"Are you leaving, now?" he said. He had hoped she would stay and talk for a little while.
"Yeah," Cristina said. She was avoiding making eye contact with him.
"Is everything okay? Did something happen?" Clearly something had rattled her.
"No," she said as she started to pull her coat on. "I'm just tired." Owen didn't believe her. He knew there had to be something else going on, but she as so intent on leaving, he didn't want to push. He stepped over and helped on with her coat. As he did, one of his fingers brushed her arm. He was acutely aware of the skin-on-skin contact. He felt like it left a mark.
"Well, thank you for coming," he said. "I think the boys really enjoyed having you here. I know I did."
"Yeah, it was a lot of fun," Cristina said warmly. Owen knew she was being sincere, but something still seemed off about her.
They walked over to the door and Owen opened it for her. "Are you sure you're okay?" he asked.
Cristina paused before stepping over the threshold. "Yes. I- We'll talk tomorrow at lunch, okay?"
Owen smiled and nodded. "Okay." She stepped out the door and Owen closed it behind her. He was just about to turn the lock when his beeper started going off. He had just finished reading the message when there was a knock at the door. He reopened it.
"What are you going to do?" Cristina asked, glancing down at her pager. There had been an accident involving two busses. The ER was about to be flooded with patients. It was definitely an all hands on deck situation.
"I'll call my mom and she'll come spend the night and get the kids off to school in the morning." So far, Owen had only had to call on him mom to help out a couple times when he had to stay late at the hospital. The Palladinos had no problem with her helping out in situations like that, or like this.
"You go," Cristina said. "You've got to get there as quickly as possible. I'll stay here until she gets here."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely, it's more important that you get there first. Do you want me to call your mom?"
"No, I can do that on my way." Owen turned and strode back into the house. He found Nick in the bathroom brushing his teeth.
"Hey, Nick. I've got to go to the hospital for a while. Cristina is going to stay here for a little while until my mom gets here. I hope I'll be back before you wake up in the morning, but I'm not sure."
"Alright," Nick said, after he rinsed out his mouth.
Owen turned to leave and Nick followed. Cristina was standing in the hallway. She pointed at Nick. "Is he-? Do I need to-?"
"Nope, he's all set." Owen registered a bit of relief on Cristina's face.
"Okay, then," she said. "Goodnight, Nick."
"Goodnight, Cristina. Goodnight Uncle Owen." Owen patted the boy on the shoulder as turned and went into his room. Cristina followed Owen back out to the living room. Owen grabbed his jacket from the closet, then turned Cristina.
"Thank you so much for doing this," he said. Without even thinking, he leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek. They both froze. There was an awkward air between them and he thought Cristina's cheeks looked flushed. Then, she sprang to action.
"No problem, now, go ahead and get going!" She opened the door for him and shooed him out of it.
Owen called his mom on the bluetooth in this truck. She said she could be at the house within 20 minutes.
By the time Owen got to the hospital, the first ambulances had already arrived. He quickly threw on a trauma gown and took over for April, who had been meeting the ambulances. It seemed like there was a never-ending stream of patients. There were a lot of broken bones and also a lot of burns. One of the busses had been carrying a group of senior citizens, and the other, a high school band. The mass of confusion only got worse when the parents started to arrive.
Finally, the last ambulance they were going to get from the scene arrived. It was a young man who had been trapped. It had taken them a long time to extract him and he was in terrible shape. Owen took him to get a full body scan and found that he had massive internal injuries and several broken bones. Owen was waiting for the patient to come out of the Lodux when Cristina suddenly appeared at his side.
"Hey! Perfect timing," he said. "This guy is a mess, I can use your help"
"Okay!" Cristina said. She stepped over to the monitor to look at the scan. "Holy crap, you weren't kidding." They transferred the patient to a gurney and rushed up to the OR.
It felt like it took them forever stop the bleeding. As soon as they stopped one bleeder, another cropped up somewhere else. Owen felt like his hands were flying, until the patient finally stabilized. He and Cristina breathed a sigh relief in unison when they heard the monitors finally start to make the sounds of normal heartbeat.
It took them a few hours to finish up the repairs. The patient would need a couple more surgeries to return to almost normal functioning, but overall, they had been remarkably successful given the patient's condition when they started.
They finally went to the scrub room at about 4 am. They stood next to each other in silence as they scrubbed out. The nurses and other OR staff kept walking through and coming in to grab supplies, but Owen barely heard them. He was still coming down from the rush he'd gotten from being in the OR. He replayed some of the key moments of the surgery in his mind to see if there was anything he could have or should have done differently. He barely came up with anything and that gave him a welcome feeling of satisfaction. Suddenly, he was aware that the scrub room had gone quiet. The OR had cleared out and Cristina had finished scrubbing out and had dried her hands. She was leaning against the sink with her arms crossed looking down at her feet. Owen shut his water off and grabbed a towel.
"It's been a long time since we've been in the OR together," Cristina said.
Owen nodded. "It's been a long time since I've been in an OR period," he said as he tossed his towel in the bin. He tried to avoid surgery that would make him late for looking after the kids, and that meant he had to avoid most surgeries.
Cristina shook her head. "That is really a shame, you know. You were on fire tonight! Did you see the size of the audience we had in the gallery?"
Owen shook his head. "I never even looked up."
"Well, if you had you would have seen a lot of dropped jaws. You put on a very impressive display."
Owen smiled and shook his head. "You were right there with me."
"More like trying to keep up," Cristina said with smile.
He opened the door for her and they started walking down the hall together. He needed to stop by his office before heading back to the house. He figured Cristina would leave him at the first empty on-call room they came across. He glanced over at her. She didn't seem troubled at all anymore like she had been at the house earlier. After a few moments, he decided to ask her about it. "Can I ask you something?" he said.
"Sure," Cristina replied.
"I felt like we had a really good time tonight."
"Okay, that's not a question, but, yeah, we did," Cristina said. "Even though I hate losing!" Owen chuckled. "And to an eleven year-old!" she continued. "I'm going to need a rematch."
Owen felt like his smile might break his face. She was thinking about coming back. "Well, I think you might need to get in good with Tony, so he'll make more deals with you."
Cristina stopped walking, crossed her arms, and looked at him seriously. "How do I do that?" Owen shook his head. Cristina Yang always took winning deadly seriously.
"Well, you can keep talking to him about eating bugs, for one thing." Owen gave her a stern look.
Cristina laughed and started walking again. "You should have seen your face!"
"I can imagine," he said, trying to sound glum. It was getting harder and harder for him to keep a straight face.
"Oh, come on," she said, bumping her shoulder into his arm. "It was educational! From the look on your face you would have thought I was giving them tips on how to cook meth!"
Owen finally chuckled. Cristina lightly punched him in the arm.
They got to the end of the hall and turned. They were walking at a leisurely pace, like they would if they were in a park on a nice day. For Owen's part, he knew would be parting ways soon, and he wanted to prolong their walk as long as he could.
"Um, about that," he said.
"I won't teach you to cook meth either, Owen."
He chuckled, "No, no, no, I mean…the edible bugs. Was that- why did you do research on that?"
Cristina stared straight ahead and kept walking. "I just…thought it might be a good idea to brush up on my survival skills."
Owen was puzzled for a moment, but then it dawned on him. "Because of the plane crash?" he said. Cristina nodded. Owen's heart sank. "That's- I mean, that's understandable," he said.
Cristina nodded again. "I can build a fire and find water, now, too." She glanced over at Owen. He must have looked surprised because she added, "I had a lot of spare time while I was in Minnesota."
"Yeah," Owen said. Just then, they came across an on-call room. Cristina knocked gently on the door, then listened. When she didn't hear anything, she tried the knob, but it was locked.
"Darn," she said.
Owen shrugged. They walked a little further in silence.
"Is that what you wanted to ask me?" Cristina said. Owen gave her a confused look. "Right after we left the scrub room, you asked if you could ask me-"
"Oh, right. That's right," he said. The direction of the conversation had gotten away from him. "I'm really- I'm so glad that you had a good time tonight. It seemed like you did and the boys did, and I definitely did." Cristina smiled at him. "-And I know you said we would talk about this at lunch tomorrow, but I was wondering why you decided to leave when you did. It seemed a little abrupt."
Cristina looked up at the ceiling, then down at her arms, which were crossed.
"If you want to wait until lunch, that's fine-"
"No, it's okay," Cristina said. "I just- while you were putting Tony into bed, I asked Nick what other things he liked to do on pizza night. He said he likes it when you play music- with your guitars and stuff. Also, he said likes it when you play sports in the backyard or… or when you watch Star Trek episodes."
"Okay…" Owen said. He really couldn't see where she was going with this.
"He said you guys have been watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and- and I used to watch that with my dad when I was a kid."
"Oh," Owen said.
"So, I just- I don't know, I felt like being alone, right then. It just…I'm not sure why, but it caught me off guard. I'm sorry if you thought I- that I had a bad time."
Owen knew that Cristina was very sensitive when it came to the topic of her father. In fact, Owen knew very little about him, because she never talked about him. He was a little surprised by the intensity of her reaction, but he supposed it made sense.
"No don't-don't worry about it," he said. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
"I am," Cristina said, giving him a smile. They got to the elevators and Owen pushed the down button.
"It was- it's a happy memory, right?"
Cristina thought for a moment. "It is. It definitely is. It just is happy and then it's sad, but I'm okay, now."
Owen nodded. He understood loss. He had lost his own father, who had died in his sleep from a stroke when Owen was in Med school. He missed him and he thought about him all the time, but Cristina's grief for her father was different. It was almost something more akin to how he felt about his unit. It had been years since he had been the only survivor of an attack that killed them all, but he still found it difficult to talk about them.
The elevator door opened and they stepped inside. Owen felt the need to try and lighten the mood.
"So," he said, "you like Star Wars and Star Trek. I am learning so many new things about you, lately."
"No, no, no, just The Next Generation. I'm a Star Wars girl. Give me Han Solo over Captain Kirk any day."
"Mmm-hmm and where is Captain Picard in all of this?"
"No comment."
Owen laughed and after a moment, Cristina joined in. The elevator door opened and they stepped out.
"Whose idea was it to show it to them anyway?" Cristina asked.
"Well, Heidi doesn't care for the whole Star Trek thing, but Mario is a huge Trekkie and he wanted his kids to be exposed to it. I thought they'd like The Next Generation best."
"Good choice," she said. "So what about you? If you had to choose just one, which would it be Star Wars or Star Trek?"
Owen pretended to think for a moment. "Star Wars."
"Good," Cristina said. "You're not just telling me what I want to hear?"
"Nope. I wanted to be Luke Skywalker when I was a kid. When I got older, I realized Han Solo was the better choice."
"Because he got the girl?"
"Yep."
Cristina let out a laugh that morphed into a huge yawn. Seeing her yawn made Owen have to yawn, too. After he was done, he realized that he as actually completely exhausted. Normally at a time like this, he and Cristina would go crash together in an on-call room for a few hours. He really missed sleeping with her. In the past, even when they were busy all day and barely saw each other, they could usually count on at least being able to sleep together at night. He always felt like he slept better with her curled up next to him.
Just then, they came upon another on-call room. Cristina knocked and upon hearing nothing opened the door. It was empty. She pushed the door all the way open, then leaned on the knob and turned back toward him.
"Well," she said. "This is where I sign off."
Owen nodded. He looked in the room at the empty bed, then glanced at Cristina. His bed at the Palladinos' house seemed a million miles away. Everybody there would be asleep for a few more hours. They'd never know if he stayed a little longer…
Owen took a breath as if to speak, but then released it slowly. He almost asked if she thought they could just sleep together, but thought better of it. He had no doubt that they would fall asleep right away, but they had a habit of having sex in the morning when they were well-rested and he knew it would be extremely difficult to avoid that temptation-especially since it had been so long since they had been together.
He felt Cristina eyeing at him critically. "Were you about to say something?" she said.
Owen paused. That bed was just a few feet away. It was taunting him with its pillows and warm blanket. Cristina standing there gazing up at him with her soulful eyes and full lips and silky skin wasn't helping. "Yes, but I changed my mind."
"Ahh," Cristina said. They stood in awkward silence for a moment. "Are you staying here at the hospital or heading back to the house?"
Owen cleared his throat. "Um, back to the house," he said. "Thanks again for coming to pizza night. I'll look into scheduling that re-match."
"Okay," she said with a smile. "Well, goodnight." She stepped all the way into the room and turned to face him as she closed the door.
"Goodnight," he said. She closed the door the rest of the way, then locked it. Owen let out a huge sigh, then headed to his office.
As he walked, Owen thought about the plan. They needed the plan. The plan was working. It was taking time, but that was to be expected. They were figuring things out and they didn't know what they wanted, yet….and yet, Owen knew with every fiber of his being that he wanted Cristina. He felt like she wanted him, too, but he didn't know what was she going to decide when he decided whether or not he wanted kids. She was making an effort and that had to be enough for now. The plan was good. The plan was working, but if she had asked him to stay in that on call room with her, he would have agreed in a heartbeat.