Chapter 21 Into the fire

A/N：Thank you Mike Burn for the review and follow. Please R&R, cheers.

Owen kicked open the door to the staircase, causing a loud *bang*. He stepped in full of rage and stumped his fists into the white walls, regardless of the damage caused by the counterforce of the wall. Blood started to slowly drip down his fingertips.

"Dr. Hunt." A timid voice came from his back. Owen knitted his brows at the familiar voice. He knew it was the annoying intern again. Why is she everywhere? Why the hell does she have to show up around him and remind him repeatedly what he had lost?

"I'm not aware that you are a secret stalker." Owen didn't turn his head, he simply reprimanded her in a disgust tone. He hated his increasing weakness that couldn't hold back anymore. What he hated even more was that he had to expose his weakness to his colleagues, especially to his interns and residents.

"I...I'm just worried about you...you didn't look good back there in the OR..."

"I don't need your care." Owen turned around infuriately, "What makes you think you're entitled to care about me? I don't know you. Who gave you the right to care about me? Is it just my sorrow triggered your maternal instinct? Or is it simply a method to get closer with me and suck up on your superior?"

Cristina stared at his blood-shot eyes filled with storms. Suddenly she felt sorry for him. The sun shed through the blinds and created layers of shadows. In the middle of the darkness, Owen's spine was stiffened and straightened. But Cristina felt like a little bit more weight could crush him, even the weight of a fallen leave from the tree outside the window. She felt like a slight stimulus, he could burst into tears.

Cristina couldn't suppress the overwhelming grief flooding through her body anymore. She stepped forward and surrounded her arms around his waist.

"I know you're grieving. You're sad that Mrs. Baker gave up on her husband so easily. You hate that she had the slightest chance to save the love of her life but she wouldn't try." She buried her head into his chest like she used to, drawing strength and warmth from him and at the same time transferring her vitality to him. Cristina murmured, "But you shouldn't hurt yourself. They are different, they are not the same as...Dr. Yang and you."

"Who told you I'm grieving for Cristina Yang?" Owen didn't push away the girl in his embrace. He just retorted upon her blankly, "I would not shed a tear for the woman that left me behind two years ago without looking back or even giving me a call. She's nobody to me, nobody! Even if she died...she cease to exist...she left me forever..." Owen's voice began to trail off, like a wave splashed by the rock, scattered into the air. He finally realized she's dead, she no longer existed in this world. The selfish, career-driven woman, the woman who always put her career before her family, her love, the woman who would go all out even abort her baby to avoid being a mother is dead.

He should hate her. He should hate her for her selfishness, for her stubbornness, for her unwillingness to compromise. But the only thing he felt towards her leaving profile was craving, endless desire for her, and uncontrollable hope. Yes, it's true that she's gone for two years now. But he's still secretly hoping that maybe they still have a second chance. Cristina is just hesitating. She's just scared to commit so she needs time to figure it out. For countless times he consoled himself with that thought though he knew he was just lying to himself.

He knew she's not coming back because if she really wanted him, if she really wanted to savage their marriage, she wouldn't leave him without looking back, let alone avoiding contact with him in every possible way she could during the course of two years. Nobody knew her better than he did. Deep down in his heart, he knew this was it. This was how they ended up. He knew he was being pathetic but he couldn't control himself. Every time after Meredith went to visit her, every time after she facetimed with her, he would beat around the bush just to see if she mentioned him or how is she doing lately. Meredith's compassionate eyes would always beat him down.

That's enough. Owen told himself. Owen Hunt is never such a pathetic man begging for a woman's attention. He shouldn't stop right there where he was since Cristina had already moved on. Their past is just a part of his memory. He should make them one of his beautiful scars, he could think about them once in a while, maybe he could tell his children or even grandchildren about his epic love story with another woman. He just needed something to be good in his life. He deserved happiness so he finally claimed to himself that this was the end. But just when he decided to move on she just...died...she just died in the worst possible way, in the most suffering way. His world turned into its axes the minute he heard about the news.

"Cristina, your selfish brat, selfish brat!" Owen repeated with a furious but desperate tone. Only accepting she was at the other end of the earth already drained all his energy. And just when he was about to start over, she broke his walls again in such a stunning method.

He couldn't show up in her funeral. He couldn't confirm her death under his watch. He would rather keep himself in denial. He would rather he was kept in the dark. He would rather they made a mistake, the one lying in the cold coffin is not his Cristina. His Cristina is just momentarily forgotten by the world, but she's still safe and sound in a certain corner of the world.

But he still couldn't convince himself to stay in a place full of her presence. Every patient room of GSM, every tile in GSM, every ounce of air reminded him of her smile, the curve of her lips and her perfume. Those scenes flashed repeatedly in his mind, over and over, driving him crazy. So the only choice he's left with was to run away. He could only run away from his worst nightmare again, just like he ran away from the army. The only difference was back then he was forced to leave the army, but now every cell inside him was shouting for him to leave. How ironic is that? On the day he came to hand in his resignation letter, he came across this couple and they tear his wound open again. The wound that he cautiously wrapped around, not wanting to expose the ulcerated and festering injury to everyone including himself.

"Don't..." Cristina wrapped her hands around his shaking fist. She stared at the blood smearing his hand. She understood that physical pain couldn't cover the wound in the heart. At that moment, she understood Owen's absence at her funeral. He cared about her. He was grieving for her. He just didn't have the courage to face her death. The military officer that went through war, blood and death couldn't face the loss of the love of his life.

Gently, Cristina kissed the fist that she protected in her hand. She sealed all her love in the kiss. Even if I can't kiss your lips, at least allow me to console you in this way.

The kiss warmed and burned Owen's nerve at the same time. He abruptly realized what he was doing with the intern he just knew. He pushed her away with all the force left in his body like a raging lion, regardless of the strong force that bounce the girl's petite body against the rigid wall.

"What are you doing? What the hell you think you're doing?" Owen barked at her infuriately. He hated himself more rather than the hatred he felt towards the girl in front of him. He couldn't believe he was accepting the console that came from a treacherous intern. "Oh, I know, the old tradition of interns, hooking up with the attending for more surgeries. What makes you think you could seduce me?" Owen held her up to ridicule with the harshest words he could think of, stomping on her heart and dignity without mercy, as if ripping her heart apart could give him destructive relief.

"Oh, right. Your face. It is beautiful indeed, very attractive. What's more important is that you think you have the same Asian face with Dr. Yang. So this is where your confidence came from, right? You think you could used your resemblance to Dr. Yang to penetrate me and obtain what you want." Owen used the worst words he could possibly say. Staring at the pale face of the girl, he didn't understand why he felt such a strange sense of familiarity. Gosh, I'm out of my mind, I must be crazy. He told himself.

"Get out, get the hell out." He couldn't stand looking at the girl anymore. He couldn't stand his pathetic behaviour of looking for the slightest resemblance of Cristina from an unknown face. "Please, do it for me. Leave me alone, now!"

Cristina tried her best to straighten herself and left the staircase. Owen's words hurt her to the core, they hurt her feelings and her dignity. She might worship academic authority, but she never thought of trading her body for opportunities. No matter with Colin, Burke or Owen, the only reason she was with them was she used to love them. Maybe she wasn't capable of consoling Owen now because the woman Owen yearned and cherished is dead. Though just physically dead, but dead is dead. Technically, she was not the Cristina Yang she used to be anymore. Judging from his altitude, even if she told him the truth, he would only think it was some sort of her trick to approach him and take advantage of him.

Cristina was wandering around the hallways of the hospital like a ghost. It was late now. Mark, Penny and Lenard couldn't find her so they went home. Cristina smelt the fragrance of the night diffusing through the blinds. At that instinct, she felt the kind of lost she never felt before.
"Sob sob..." Cristina heard a weeping came from the corner. Sorrow was filled in the hoarse voice. Cristina stopped in her tract and listened to the sob. The familiar voice made her sigh internally.

"Mrs. Baker, you should stay in your room." Following the source of the sound and stepped forward, she saw a chubby figure leaning against the corner, bending her head, her body twitching uncontrollably.
"Dr. Lin." The woman was stunned by the question. She raised her head to see who the voice came from. "I just...I couldn't sleep." Her pale face was smeared with tears. The tears that she could shed in front of everyone in the day finally erupted at this moment like a volcano.

Cristina glanced at the flooding desperation swarmed her eyes and lamented again. Cristina sat on the ground leaning against her body.

"This was brought by our children when they came to check on me. They told me that it was delivered to our door after we left." Mrs. Baker was caressing a black velvety casket. The jewelry box is shaped into a gorgeous square shape wrapped with a pink pearlescent ribbon.

"There's a ring in it. Originally I thought he bought it for that woman, the saleswoman at the jewelry counter because it is the brand she worked for. I was thinking should I follow his wish and gave it to that woman or selfishly saved it for myself...he couldn't argue against me anymore after all...But I was wrong. I was completely wrong." Mrs. Baker's eyes were filled with tears again.

They fell down onto her neck like pearls. She put the box closer to her lips with trembling hands and sealed a deep kiss on it, "There was a note stuffed into it. It says: To my dearest Abby, happy 15th anniversary! Please forgive me for wondering around the jewelry counter all the time lately, but you know how hard it could be to pick the gift you would adore."

Cristina stared at the woman next to her, she was completely shocked. She watched her biting her fingers to suppress her uncontrollable quiver of her body but failed drastically.

"This is so hilarious! Hilarious! I thought he fell in love with someone else. I thought he didn't want me anymore. I thought he wanted to abandon our family. I even cursed him...I told him to go to hell! But it turns out that he was just picking the 15th anniversary gift for me. He was just trying to surprise me. The one he cherished, the one he loved was me...it was me..."
"Oh god, this is hilarious!" The woman put her head onto Cristina's shoulder, her tears struck her baby blue scrub. "The last word I ever said to him, the last word I told him was...I wish you could go to hell!"