Cristina sighed, leaning against the wall of the elevator. She'd spent three days avoiding him and working too much and tonight would make her fourth on call shift in a row. She couldn't bring herself to leave the hospital, and she couldn't bring herself to face Burke.

The elevator came to a halt the floor before hers, and she glanced up to see him step on the elevator. She averted her eyes for only a moment before they were drew back to him. "Is that my bag?"

"It is." He confirmed quietly as he hit the button for the lobby.

"Are those my keys attached to my bag?"

"They are."

"So how the hell am I supposed to get in my office?" She snapped, not amused by his little bout of thievery.

"You're not."

She reached forward to grab her bag as the elevator doors slid open once more, but he caught her arm with a firm grim, "Burke, I'm on call tonight. I can't go home."

"It's covered."

She pulled her arm away as the door slid shut again and she narrowed her eyes, "I can't go home. I have a pile of paperwork to do. Reports, patient follow-ups, I have to check my intern's notes. I can't go home."

"You can't do any of those things if you can't get into your office, Cristina." He replied in an even tone. Her escapism had gone on long enough, and she needed to come home.

He needed her to come home.

Cristina stood in silence for a few moments, shocked by the boldness of his moves. The elevator opened once again to the lobby and his hand found it's way to the small of her back, guiding her. "So you're forcing me out of the hospital?"

"You give me no choice."

She felt her heart tug at her a little as she neared the front doors. The last time she'd entered the hospital, she came in pregnant.

Or so she thought.

Walking out those doors meant facing reality. Walking out those doors meant talking to Burke and listening to him talk. Walking out those doors meant going home and sleeping next to him knowing that she wouldn't ever be able to give him what he wanted.

Burke felt her steps falter and moved his arm around her waist, pushing her forward. "Cristina." He breathed, "We can move past this, we will move past this….but you have to let us."

The moisture laden Seattle breeze assaulted her senses as he guided her outside and she closed her eyes for a moment, trying to steady herself against it. She pressed forward with him, battling the urge to run back into the safety of the hospital.

Walking out to the car felt as if she was walking towards her execution. She wasn't sure what to expect. She didn't know if he expected her to cry, or if he expected her to be upset at all. She was numb. She didn't feel anything, and she didn't want to explain that to him.

She didn't want the man she loved so fiercely to think she was heartless.

As she pulled her seatbelt across her lap, she continued to fight her feelings of entrapment. She felt nausea settle over her stomach as she tried to focus on the positives of going home. It only nauseated her more that she couldn't think of any in that moment.

Their ride home was laden with a heavy silence. Neither one of them wanted to be the first to speak. There wasn't small talk to be made, no conversations about surgery to be carried out. Neither one of them could gauge how much the other hurt. Neither could figure out how much denial the other one had built up in the past few days.

Deciding that enough was enough, Burke reached over across to her lap and grasped her hand in his. He twined his fingers with hers as he cleared his throat, "Thank you. For coming home."

She glanced up at him as he squeezed her hand in his and she let out a long exhale, trying to gather herself. "Whatever. It's not a big deal. I'll just have to work late tomorrow to get my paperwork caught up."

Resigning to the fact that it would take her a couple hours to cool off, he pulled his hand away and placed it back over the gear shift. Focusing on the road ahead he tried to gather his thoughts. He had to formulate a plan of action for when she was ready to talk.

Cristina broke through his thoughts as she reached over to pull his hand back into her lap. She glanced over at him with an apathetic glance and then turned to look back out the window.

If he didn't know better, he would've thought that she was going to be easy to get through to. But he knew his Cristina and he knew that she was going to make this anything but easy.