The Importance Of Trust

Chapter 10

"She's got herself a universe

She's got herself a universe

And I feel"

"Cristina." Owen repeated himself louder. She had only looked at him for a second before going back to her work.

"And I feel

And I feel like I just got home"

"Stop singing," Owen said firmly.

"And I feel,"

Not knowing what else to do, Owen approached Cristina's backside and put her arms around her. "I love you," he whispered into her hair.

His attempt apparently was not good enough. She made no acknowledgement of his words or his touch and continued singing:

"Quicker than a ray of light she's flying

Quicker than a ray of light I'm flying"

"Stop singing," Owen took her hands from the dead body and put the on top of his own, which were still around her. "Now, we can have avoidance sex, preferably not in a cold morgue, or you can talk to me." Owen softly turned her around so they were face to face. "But what you cannot do is sing."

Cristina finally looked up at him. "Owen…" she begged.

He brushed her hair out of her face and kissed her forehead. "Not that you don't have an amazing voice, and I can't believe I haven't heard you sing before, but singing away your sorrows is not an option right now."

Cristina gave him a slight smile and put her hands on his shoulders.

"Oh good," Owen returned her small smile. "I got her to smile."

Not able to look at him any longer, Cristina closed her eyes and put her forehead to his shoulder.

Owen's fingers softly raised Cristina's chin. "Look at me," Owen demanded. When their eyes met, Owen held her even tighter. "Sex or Talking?" He asked her again.

Cristina tried to remove herself from his embrace. "Sleeping," Cristina responded.

Owen nodded at her childish response, kissed her hair once more, and then picked her up into his arms.

"What are you doing? Put me down! You can't carry me! Where's your sling?"

"In my pocket."

"You're going to hurt your arm."

"It's my shoulder that's the problem."

"What are you doing?"

"You won't decide, so I will decide for you."

"Put me down!" Cristina demanded as Owen struggled to reopen the door to the morgue. "Owen!" She said after they finished the first flight of stairs.

"You know, you were a lot sexier as a submissive damsel in distress," Owen managed to say between managing her weight and climbing what seemed like endless amounts of stairs.

"I am not really feeling very sexy at the moment."

Owen smiled, "I guess you just decided what we are going to do once I finish this flight of stairs."

Cristina pointed her finger at him, "Hey! No! I don't feel like talking either."

Owen opened the stairway door and his eyes immediately found an On-Call room. "Too bad."

"Owen!" Cristina complained when she followed Owen's eyes and figured out where they were going.

Owen kept walking, Cristina in his arms, across the hall. If he looked at anything other than Cristina, he would have noticed the many stares in their direction.

"Now," Owen said after the door to the On-Call room shut. He gently placed Cristina on the bed, where she proceeded to roll up in a ball, and sat beside her. "Here is how this is going to work." Owen brushed her hair out of her face. "I am going to speak and then you are going to answer my questions, okay?"

Cristina remained still, with her eyes closed, ignoring him.

Owen grabbed her shoulders and forced her to sit up. "Hey!"

"I speak, you answer. Okay?"

"Fine," Cristina said, still trying to protest.

"First of all," Owen started. "You are an amazing singer." Cristina finally looked at him.

When it was clear that he wasn't going to continue, she said, "Thank. You."

"Second," Owen brushed his thumb back and forth across her face. "I am not going to leave you. Ever. You are beautiful. A little bit of badass in your own sexy way. You are a fighter. You know what you want and you go after it with all your heart. You give off this ice exterior, but inside you are one of the warmest people I have ever met. I can't imagine my life without you. I am not leaving you no matter what, okay?"

"Okay," Cristina whispered.

"And," Owen added. "I'm sorry I broke up with you after you went rogue on that surgery. Clearly, that had all sorts of consequences that I am just now trying to understand."

"Well, you had a point. You clearly had a huge issue with it." Cristina offered.

"I did and honestly, I still do. But," He brought his hands to her shoulders. "I think that made you think that I disapprove of that part of you." He paused and hoped she would say something. He forced the issue, adding, "Am I right?"

"Yes."

"Don't ever think that, okay? It just took me by surprise. I'm sorry it took me so long to catch on."

Cristina just stared at him, wondering where he was going with this.

"Cristina," Owen said longingly and wrapped a curl behind her ear. "Tell me what's going on with you. We need to be able to talk about to each other - openly. Whatever happened it's okay." Cristina closed her eyes. "And apparently whatever happened wasn't even your fault anyway."

"You won't see it that way."

"Whatever happened, happened a long time ago. Everyone has issues with their pasts. Look at me – I am hardly the one to judge." Cristina stood up from the bed and turned towards the door. Owen stood up. "Hey, don't make me follow you -"

"I'm not." Cristina spoke over him. "Jackson's note was in my back pocket." Owen eyes fell upon the white paper in her hands. "Alex taped it back together for me." Cristina smiled briefly at Owen before sitting down again beside him.

Owen watched her play with the piece of paper in her hands, now both of them were staring at it. "Cristina."

Without looking up, Cristina whispered. "Remember last night when you said Burke got shot in his shoulder?"

Owen motioned told the piece of paper. "Cristina, I want to talk about this."

"I am talking about this. Do you remember or were you too zoned out from you pain meds?"

Owen sat up straighter and nodded. "I asked you if his GSW was the something you were lying for him about."

Cristina continued to fiddle with the note. "Right – Well, it was."

Owen expected this answer, but it did nothing to settle his confusion. "Okay…"

"Um," Cristina tried to buy time to let her stomach calm down. She raised the note up as if to offer it to him. "Just don't…"

Owen took the note out of her hands without reading it. "It's okay, Cristina."

He opened the note:

Is Cristina Yang the true winner of the 2007 Harper-Avery Award?

A thousand thoughts rushed through his head at once. He reread the words over and over.

"I don't understand." He stated strongly.

"I know."

"How can- Are you-?"

"Sort of." She said over him.

"Sort of?"

"Burke was awarded the 2007 Harper-Avery Award."

Owen's eyebrows were buried deep in thought. "Okay…"

Cristina took a deep breath and spoke slowly. "Harper-Avery Awards are considered from February to November each year. Burke was shot outside the hospital in March 2007. The GSW gave him massive nerve damage that Derek overlooked in first examination where he was just trying to keep Burke conscious. The nerve damage resulted in a pretty bad tremor."

Owen eyes widen as he kept them focused on her telling the story. As Cristina became more comfortable, she progressed in a more normal tone. "Before Derek could do a deeper examination, Burke was put into a situation where he had no choice but to operate." Cristina paused, closed her eyes, and took another deep breath. "And that's when it started…"

"When what started?"

"He obviously couldn't do the surgery himself, so Burke talked me through every stitch of the surgery and sure enough I was able to complete the surgery flawlessly." Cristina looked down at a worn-out blanket on the bed and started to play with its fray-strands. "This continued for four months."

Owen's eyes almost popped out of the sockets. "Four months?"

Cristina finally looked at him and smiled sadly. "Well, we were a pretty good team for a while. We didn't lose a single patient, I was learning enormous amount every day. The more confident I became, the harder surgeries we did together. Overtime though, the pressure continued to build for me and he was itching more and more to cut. And on top of that, I was taking care of his hand as well-"

Disbelief and anger past through his face, "You were taking care of his hand! Why wasn't he seeing a PT for that?"

"Because he couldn't tell anyone," Cristina said quickly. "But as we were doing harder and harder surgeries, his hand was getting stronger and stronger, and one day…" Cristina paused to regain composure, trying not to cry. "One day in surgery, he took over and kicked me out of the OR. I didn't think he was ready," she paused again. "And that's when I finally told Chief Webber and, well…"

They sat on the bed, completely silent for a long time. Owen, trying to digest and comprehend Cristina's words, and Cristina, brushing away teardrops that fell from the corners of her eyes that couldn't seem to stop from mention of past events.

Cristina brushed away a final tear. "So am I the winner of the Harper Avery?" A sad laugh escaped her lips. "I guess it depends on how you look at it. There are still the surgeries he did after June…"

Owen finally looked up at her, their eyes met, and he put his hands on her checks. Not able to form the words to say anything else, he started "Cristina." He said in her favorite voice. "That's quite a story."

A soft smile of relief appeared on her face and finally stayed. "Yeah, yeah, it is…"

Owen softly put his forehead to hers. "I didn't think it was possible for me to hate that guy more than I already had."

Cristina laughed and put her arms around Owen's neck. "Thank you."

"No, thank you." Owen put his arms around her back and brought her closer to him. He leaned down to kiss her and before his lips touched hers, he whispered, "Thank you" once again.

After a half-hour of laying in the dark, Derek finally gave in to the fact that he would be unable to fall back asleep. He pulled himself into a sitting position and turned on whatever lights he could without moving from the bed.

Derek saw his cell-phone sitting on the bedside table. With his last conversation with Owen still replaying in his head, Derek picked up the phone and began scrolling down his contacts. He found the name he was thinking of and, hoping Cristina wouldn't kill him after just saving his life, he pressed send.

"Hi, this is Derek Shepherd calling." The voice on the phone sounded excited. "Yes, I'm glad I caught you too…Listen, I think now is a good time to come and talk to her." The man on the phone thought for a moment before continuing. After he was done, and a general plan was in place, Derek said, "Yes, I am looking forwarding to seeing you too, Dr. Marlow," as a parting good-bye.