Explain.

Season 6, Episode 22: Shiny Happy People

April of 2010.

"Owen, what's going on between you and Teddy?"

He groaned. "Ah, nothing. Nothing is – God." He went to the wall, placing his hand flat on it for a split second before he turned on her. His tone was not apologetic, but irritated. He was accusing her now, attacking her. "You want me to get better. I want me to get better. And I have been working. I have been working with Dr. Wyatt to eliminate my triggers-"

"So-So Teddy's a trigger?"

"Teddy… I don't know what Teddy is." He went on, his voice becoming quicker, more urgent. "Teddy, she triggers me, she confuses me. I-I-I don't know."

"Okay, well, you know what? 'I don't know' isn't working for me right now!"

"I don't know is all I've got!" he snapped. "I shouldn't have to explain myself-"

"Oh?"

He sighed. "Cristina… I don't know what I feel for Teddy. I don't know because she's all wrapped up in everything else. With men being blown apart in front of me, with Beth – so it's complicated and it is screwing with my head. That's the truth. I don't know what I feel for her but I do know what I feel for you. So yes, I told Shepherd to hire the other guy, and I shouldn't have to explain myself-"

She felt like she had been stabbed. "How – Oh…"

"I shouldn't have to explain myself so I can get myself better. I shouldn't have to explain myself to you and I damn well do not have to explain myself to Meredith Grey!"

She tried to scrape up something hurtful, something to lash out with, but she heard beeping in the stairwell below them. She leaned over the railing, wiping tears from her cheeks.

It was Teddy. She was standing there, looking baffled.

"It's uh… It's Henry Stamm," she said.

XxX

"I don't want this to end."

"I know… I know." Meredith murmured to her like a mother. Her warmth was the only thing keeping Cristina from tumbling over the edge of dramatic-crying-girlfriend again.

"He's just so… He makes me… I need to…"

"I know."

Cristina sighed, letting her eyes roll shut. "I think we're headed in the wrong direction, Mer. Today he just… he's just mad, and I don't think he knows what he's mad at. Everything. He's pissed off at the world. I don't know how to fix that."

"It's okay."

"And the way he looks at Teddy – the way he looks when he's talking about her – it doesn't make me mad it just… it hurts. I thought I was… I thought we would…"

"I know."

"You're really heavy on the two-liners tonight."

"I have an opinion on all of this, just so you know." Meredith set the floor plans for her house down, flattening them carefully over her knees. "I don't think that's what you need, though. Trust me I have plenty of names for Owen Hunt right now. But you love him."

Cristina groaned.

"You do, and that makes it hard to say anything."

"Lay it on me. I need someone else to talk. I'm tired of my voice right now."

"It is possible to have feelings for two people at the same time." Meredith folded the plans up and deposited them on her night table. She put one hand over Cristina's arm. "But it's also possible to choose. I chose. Derek chose."

"He chose his wife."

"Yeah, that sucked."

Cristina snorted, but there was sadness in her. It welled up and threatened to spill over, drowning her. "What if Owen… chooses her?"

"Then you'll still have me."

"Nothing… happened, and I already miss him. I used to think being single was so glamorous." She forced herself to sit up, scraping tears away with the front of her sweatshirt. "I'm gonna head home. I think Derek is hovering outside the door anyway."

"You can stay. Pick a room, any room."

"No… I'm going to my bed. What happens after that is still in the air."

Meredith followed her into the hall, where the husband in question was indeed hovering to get back into his bedroom. He passed them with a soft smile and rolled into bed. Cristina stopped at the front door, bracing her hand on the frame. The idea of losing him came up again and she felt like someone had kicked her in the stomach.

"You can stay," Meredith repeated quietly.

"Night, Mer."

She walked home at a brisk pace. She ignored most of her surroundings, almost walking out in front of a car on her street, but she made it back to her apartment building. It was well-lit inside, and she stood on the steps for a moment to search for Owen. He wasn't there.

As soon as she opened the door she knew she should have stayed at Meredith's house.

"Aloha!" Callie crowed from the couch, dipping back a bottle of cheap beer and almost rolling off of the cushions. She was clearly smashed, and she had tears glistening on her face. "Welcome to the sad lonely ex-lovers club. We have booze."

Mark was sitting on one of the barstools, stooped over the island with an aged, haunted look on his face. He sat up when Callie spoke, taking another swig of his drink, but then he slumped back down and groaned, turning his face away from her. She stepped inside, marveling at the mess the two of them had made. Empty beer bottles and a few crushed wine glasses littered the kitchen, a few throw blankets were lying across the living room floor, and the curtains were heavily slanted.

Callie stood up, wobbling over to her. "I'll clean it up later."

"I don't care," Cristina responded, dodging around her to get to her own room.

Callie stepped in the way, frowning like a drunk puppy-dog. "Are you finally gonna join our club? Because Arizona kissed me today and I need somebody else to party with. Mark is brooding."

"I'm going to bed. If you try to follow me, I'll use the flyswatter on you."

"Geez, who pissed you off? Owen? That guy is a piece of work."

"Don't… talk about him."

Cristina shut her door, leaning against it and listening to her friend stumble around the apartment. She was harassing Mark now. Cristina was glad her drunken attention span was so short. She didn't need her to remember this in the morning.

She laid diagonally across her bed, rolling herself up in the covers like a sad surgery burrito. Her phone buzzed constantly, and after the first few times she stopped checking to see who was calling. It was his face, smiling and happy, that popped up. After an hour had passed the calling stopped, and the texting began. She threw her phone into the laundry hamper, smashed a pillow down over her face, and tried to force herself to sleep.

In the dead of night, when her alarm clock read some ungodly number and the two drunk surgeons outside had long-since passed out, someone knocked on her door.

She sat straight up in bed.

"What?"

She heard him sigh. She could tell it was him by the sound of his breathing. "Cristina… are you okay? I've been calling you. I wanted to make sure-"

"I'm fine." She almost pulled the covers away. She almost went to the door, to him, and invited him into her bed. Reality came back as she woke up fully, and she remembered that she didn't want to see him. She laid back down, pulling the covers protectively to her neck.

She heard him moving around outside. "Can I come in?"

"No."

He tried the doorknob. It was locked. "Cristina…"

"Owen, go home. Go wherever it is that you go when you're not here."

"I just-"

"I don't want you here! Go away!"

"That's not fair."

"Go away."

"Please just… text me."

She was silent. She listened to him leave her room, and then she heard the apartment door opening and closing. She breathed deeply, trying to ease the tears that formed in her eyes. She wanted to go after him. Whenever she felt like this, he was the one she got lost in – but he was the reason she felt this way. He could not be her lifeline and her anchor at the same time.

So she lay in the dark, and the quiet, and thought about losing him until the sun came up again. She couldn't tell if she had slept at all.

She retrieved her phone and sat with it on the edge of her bed, looking at the picture lingering behind the lock screen. It was his face. He had sent her one last text after leaving the night before. It hovered right under his face, and she could almost hear him saying it.

I love you. Goodnight.