"Why did you come back?"
"You know why, I had a case." Burke kissed just behind her ear, wrapping his arms more firmly around her.
"That's not the only reason."
He paused, his breath hitting her skin where it was wet from his kiss. The unexpected cool made her give the slightest shiver.
"I wanted to see you. I needed to know if you were okay. The shootings…" He pulled away and looked at her. "I couldn't be sure you were still…I needed to see you."
Cristina ran her fingers gently through his hair, longer than when he had left. "Okay," she said and leaned towards him again.
Cristina pulled her knees up to her chest, pushing her back closer to the cold stone wall of the tunnel. The guilt was nowhere close to subsiding. The more time passed, the more she remembered. The more she remembered, the sicker she felt. She felt as if she didn't know herself any more. She didn't know the woman she had been last night. The sound of Meredith's chart papers rustling beside her pulled her back to where she was, temporarily stopping the horrible memory of last night. Cristina was grateful that Meredith was staying with her. She knew that her friend could probably be scooping a surgery somewhere in the hospital, but she had stayed with Cristina. Not that she had said so – Meredith insisted that she had charting she needed to do. Meredith had not passed judgment when Cristina told her what she had done. She had not really said anything at all. She had simply stated that she had charting to do and dragged Cristina to somewhere that would be free of people. Cristina was glad that Meredith had chosen not to speak her mind in this situation. The beeping from her pager started up again, so whoever it was still wanted her.
"Are you going to answer that?" Meredith asked without looking up. Cristina didn't answer. She didn't trust herself to speak any more. Meredith pulled Cristina's pager off her waistband and looked at the name. "It's Burke." She looked up at Cristina, who gave no response. "No, you are definitely not going to answer it." She turned the pager off. "I'm not going to listen to it beeping for hours."
Cristina licked her lips, feeling the tiny scab forming where she had bitten into the bottom one. She wondered if Owen was still standing over the vents. He was the Head of Trauma; someone must have paged him, so he was probably in the ER. Cristina wanted to see him. She still had to talk to him and she was desperate just to see his face, but she knew she would have to wait until they were out of the hospital.
Meredith's pager began to beep. She dropped her pen and bent her head, twisting the pager so she could see who it was.
"This is ridiculous. He can't get you so he's paging me. Is he still supposed to be here now that his case has finished?"
"Are you going?" Cristina asked, speaking for the first time since they had left the residents lounge.
"I..." She looked at Cristina for a second. "I think I have to."
Cristina nodded and looked away. She felt around on the gurney until her hand found her own pager and turned it on again without looking at it. Then she reached further and grasped Meredith's hand.
"You can go, I'll be fine."
Meredith squeezed her hand just a tiny bit, then released it and left the tunnel. Cristina sighed and closed her eyes. She hated this feeling of powerlessness. It was as though she had lost control of her own mind the night before, and now she couldn't control any part of her life. It was all unravelling and she couldn't stitch it back together. She dropped a stitch and now the thread was knotted all over the floor. She had gone over it in her head so many times in the last hour and she still could not fathom what made her say what she had said to Burke. Yes, she had been on a surgery high. Yes, he had been kissing her. But that did not automatically trigger the response she gave. And what had followed was something Cristina could not even attempt to explain. There was no logical reason for it. It was not as though she still had feelings for Burke.
Her train of thought stopped. Cristina did not want to go there. She did not want to analyse her every move to see if she had some form of residual love for Burke. She knew that, whatever had happened, that was not true. For a long while after he had left she would not have been able to say that truthfully, but the moment Owen had entered Seattle Grace and stapled his own leg without numbing it and then given her one of the most invigorating kisses of her life all thoughts of Burke had been banished at last. Right from the start he gave her a sense of security she hadn't felt in years. She felt the safest she had since her father died. Burke never gave her that. If anything, he made it worse because she never knew exactly where she stood; everything had been so fragile and she was never sure what to say or think. And it wasn't as if she had been expecting to become the jilted bride. Everything about their relationship was unstable and unpredictable, but not in the exciting way. It had scared her and he was still scaring her now.
She was utterly confused. She had no idea why she'd done it, but it was done and it couldn't be taken back. She wrapped her fingers around her pager but did not pick it up. She let her hand lie there for a moment, trying to prepare herself. She couldn't stay here forever – if she lost her job as well, Cristina wasn't sure she could cope. She gripped the small plastic block very hard so that her nails dug into her hand around it. She focused on that sensation and nothing else, then she pulled her pager towards her, slid off the gurney and attached it to the waistband of her scrubs. As if on cue, it began to beep. She looked at the name and was relieved when it didn't say Burke. The other cardio-thoracic surgeon wanted her this time. She pulled open the door to the stairwell and walked up to the main floor. She entered the lobby, intending to catch an elevator, but was distracted by the large crowd of people standing in the middle of it. She spotted Meredith near the front and pushed her way towards her.
"Mer, what…?" But she didn't need to ask what. In an empty circle of floor, surrounded by people, were two men. Her mouth fell open as she watched Owen roll them over so he was straddling Burke. He drew back his arm, then gave an almighty punch. She watched his arm muscles ripple on impact and she knew that Burke had no idea what he'd got himself into. There was no way he would be victorious over Owen. He was trying to push the other man off him, but Owen was too strong and his hits were too vicious. His eyes had gone wild. Burke looked up at him and his face hardened. He gave a great shove and managed to push Owen off him so he fell back on to the floor. Both men jumped up and were about to begin again when they were grabbed from behind. Mark twisted Burke's arms behind his back and pulled him away from Owen. Burke pulled on him, trying to break free, but he was in too awkward a position. Derek was trying to hold Owen's arms back, but they were too strong for him. He let one slip and Owen swung it backwards, hitting Derek hard in the stomach. The Chief of Surgery fell to the hospital floor and Cristina heard Meredith gasp beside her. Cristina had a vague thought that Derek could not take a hit like that so soon after being shot, but she didn't focus on it. She was staring closely at Owen, looking at the blank violence in his eyes.
"He's relapsing," she whispered to herself as Owen lurched towards Mark and Burke. "He's relapsing!" she yelled. She ran into the circle and grasped Owen's hand. She should have known not to touch him. He span towards her and slapped her so hard across the face that she fell sideways, landing hard the ground. She was seeing stars, but she pushed herself up on her hands and looked at him again. He had turned back to Burke, but she knew it wasn't Burke he was seeing. "He doesn't know what he's doing! He's hallucinating! Mark, please, grab him!" Mark released Burke, who was no longer struggling but staring at Owen with a mixture of fear and what Cristina sincerely hoped was not pity. Mark moved very quickly, grabbing both of Owen's arms and pulling them behind his back. He shook Owen extremely hard, trying to bring him out of his mental battle. Meredith came from behind Cristina, presumably from where Derek was lying, and walked towards them.
"Hold him still," she said, her voice quiet. Mark struggled to hold Owen, who was still trying to escape. Meredith gave him a hard slap, as though she was slapping a hysterical person. Cristina got onto her knees and pushed herself off the ground. Meredith slapped Owen again, trying to make him come back to reality. Cristina heard Owen growl as Meredith's small hand connected with his cheek and she knew it wouldn't work. Only as she started to walk, ignoring the way the room span just a little bit, did she realise how public this was. Half the hospital was witness to something that Owen never even wanted Cristina to see.
"Get rid of them," she whispered as she reached Meredith. Her friend raised her hand to slap Owen again, but Cristina grabbed her hand. "Don't! It won't work. Please, just let me do it." Meredith looked at her and Cristina knew she didn't trust her to be anywhere near Owen. She didn't have the energy to explain that it wasn't the real Owen that had hit her, so she pushed Meredith towards the crowd of people and stepped in front of Owen. She didn't want to look at Mark. She hated how they were like some sort of sickening spectacle. She placed a hand on Owen's cheek. "Owen." He still struggled against Mark. "Owen, it's me. She stepped even closer to him so that their faces were right in front of each other. "Owen, listen to me, it's Cristina." He wasn't pulling as hard as before, but she was looking at his eyes and he wasn't present yet. She stroked his cheek once with her thumb, then took another step and wrapped her arms around him, threading her arms under his and reaching her hands up around his back to grip his shoulders with her hands. She placed her face in the crook of his neck, trying not to think about how she wouldn't be able to do this when he stopped hallucinating. She squeezed her arms around him and with relief she felt him go limp, not struggling as he buried his face in her shoulder. "Mark, let him go," she whispered. As soon as his arms were released, Owen wrapped them around Cristina. She held onto him, digging her fingers into his shoulders. "I'm sorry," she whispered against his skin, knowing only he could hear her. "I'm so, so sorry."
They stood there for a minute longer, their arms around each other, until Owen suddenly let go, stepping away so she was forced to stop holding him. He wouldn't look at her, but turned and ran towards the doors of the hospital.
Author's Note: I really haven't done many of these in this story. Okay, well I know you all probably hate me quite a bit. But I had this plotline planned from the beginning, so just trust me, yeah? And I know lots of people wanted Owen and Burke to have a fight, so here we are! I don't think I've ever written a proper fight before, so I don't know if it went well or not. Please tell me what you thought! Also, I do think that abusive relationships are wrong, but that's not what happens here. It's not really Owen who hits Cristina and I think she would look past it and try to help him. Just don't think that I would find it acceptable for him to hit her in different circumstances. So, please tell me what you thought!
