They had been led into the grand dining room at the heart of the hotel and their waiter had seated them at their table in a quiet corner of the dining room, by the window overlooking the entire city. The twinkling lights felt like they were shining just for them, adding to the romance of their intimate date.
The waiter had bought a bottle of champagne to the table, at Owen's request when he had booked the table on the phone earlier. Cristina had ordered the steak, while Owen had chosen the swordfish. The fishing trip with Derek had put her off eating fish for life after she and Owen had suffered eating 21 pounds of trout in various different dishes for what felt like an eternity.
As they waited for their meals they talked about Daniel and the new things he was doing, they mused on what specialties they thought the other residents would chose. They agreed Karev was obviously going to opt for paeds, reflecting that he had a surprising rapport with kids, Meredith for neuro. The others neither were totally sure. They discussed some past cases they had shared and made some plans for the holidays and even thought about taking a vacation.
Their conversation was briefly interrupted by the waiter setting down their artistically presented meals and was punctuated with pauses as they ate the first 2 courses and sipped the wickedly expensive champagne.
"That was delicious!" Cristina placed her knife and fork down on the empty plate.
"Can I tempt you to desert?" Owen asked the question genuinely, no flirty double meaning intended.
Cristina giggled and slipped her right foot out of its shoe. "Always" she purred as she ran her foot up his shin, along his thigh and up into his lap. She gently started to wiggle her toes against his already hardening groin.
The contact of her foot on his penis made him jump. He had not been expecting that! The table wobbled at the impact of Owen's reaction. The bubbles in the champagne glasses fizzed, the pressure building threatening to explode.
Cristina smiled inwardly at how easy it was get her husband hot and bothered! As quickly as she had initiated the foreplay she cut it off, removing her foot from his lap and slipping it slowly back into its patent decoration.
"You are such a tease." Owen shifted in his seat trying to shale off the physical imprint of his desire for the smug looking woman sitting opposite him
"That's why you love me!" Cristina winked at her grinning, yet clearly turned on husband as she rose from the table. Being ever the gentleman Owen mirrored her gesture. "I am just going to the bathroom. I'll be right back." The backs of their hands brushed lightly against each other as Cristina walked by the side of the table in the general direction of the restroom. The friction between their skin sending a small electric shock into their bodies.
Owen nodded and lowered himself back into he seat. He picked up his glass and took a large gulp of the champagne to prepare himself for the real reason he had bought her here. He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a black ring box. Easing back the sprung lid the square cut sapphire caught the light and twinkled a myriad of colours in his field of vision. He was nervous, he honestly did not know if Cristina would like it or what the answer to his question would be. He rubbed his chest, feeling panic starting to constrict his lungs and forced himself to take some deep breaths. He snapped the box shut and placed his hands over it as he heard the clipping steps of high heels approaching the table.
Cristina noticed Owen looked panicked when she took her place in the seat opposite him. "Are you ok? What happened?"
"I'm fine." Owen blew out a long slow breathe and began to talk before she could interrupt. "Cristina, I love you."
"I love you too!" He was acting so strange, Cristina wanted to reassure him of a fact she hoped he was in no doubt about.
"I know. Just listen. You have given me the 2 things I treasure most in the world- your love and our son. So that is part of the reason I bought you here tonight- to thank you. I owe you my life and I will spend everyday of mine trying to repay you."
Cristina gazed at the man making these declarations of a lifetime of love with feelings of pure happiness and she believed every word he said, just as she had when he had promised her 40 years in Joe's bar when they weren't even really dating. That felt like a lifetime ago. He was beautiful in her eyes, inside and out, and she was thankful that he had never felt her unworthy of his love, even when she had reacted rashly in situations where she had struggled to see herself the way he saw her. She had felt he didn't truly understand her but she had been wrong. He understood her complicated layers and more than that he accepted them, didn't try to shape her into the person he wanted her to be. He loved her for exactly who she had been in her before, who she was now in the after and who she may yet become in the future.
"Thank you. And thank you for making me believe that I could do this, be a wife, be a mother and be an excellent surgeon. I know without a shadow of doubt that I could never have lived this huge life with anyone but you. I have always been waiting for you. You survived the war in the desert to come home and be my comrade in the war for this life we have made. I know I haven't always made things easy..." Her voice broke as she thought of how she had offered him to Teddy so she could nurture her gift and how she had tried to run from being a mother.
Owen reached one hand across the table, keeping the ring box concealed with the other. Her turmoil and regret were palpable as she sat there with her eyes cast down remembering some of the battles they had fought over the past years. At the time he had been hurt, upset, angry but now none of it mattered. "Hey, mistakes are how we learn right?" His lightly joking tone made her smile, she couldn't help herself. She looked up and nodded slowly.
Composing herself, she did not want to spoil the rest of their date, she asked "You said part of the reason why you bought me here, what's the other part?"
Owen briefly closed his eyes and swallowed. All of a sudden his throat was dry. Feeling his wife squeeze his hand gave him the strength he needed to ask her this question.
"I have a gift for you." He pushed the ring box across the table and left it sitting in the middle of her place setting. "Open it!" He urged.
She opened the box and immediately felt tears prickle her eyelashes. She could not stop them creeping down her cheeks, she was overwhelmed and rendered speechless at the beauty of both the ring and the gesture from her husband.
"It's an eternity ring, because that is how long I will love you for." Owen had found his voice now. "I chose a sapphire because the colour reminds me of attending scrubs and I know that you are going to be an exceptional surgeon. I have always believed in your skills and your drive and I will do everything in my power to help you achieve your dreams. I know who you are, I know what you want. I love you."
"It is stunning! Thank you Owen. I love you so much." Cristina's voice was heavy laden with emotion and each word vibrated with tears of joy.
"There is also a question that comes with the ring: Cristina Yang, will you marry me?"
"We are married in case you forgot! I wore red, you cried, Meredith got drunk, remember?" Cristina laughed. Her husband had gone mad obviously!
"I mean I want you to marry me again. In front of our mothers, with our son, I want to promise to love you, to support you in your bright professional future, to always be with you. I want to stand up with you and tie my life to you and Daniel all over again." Owen was totally sincere as he declared his wish with his wife.
When Owen had first proposed to her she had never uttered the actual word yes. She had been in the grip of PTSD after watching the loves of both her life and her best friends life shot in front of them, having a gun to her head and carrying out a procedure she had not been sure she could make a success. She had thought that marrying Owen would fix her, give her something to cling to. Her love for him was real but the wedding had been a distraction from the fear she was feeling. But now, she was healthy and whole again both because of the security of her marriage and in spite of it.
This was how she had always imagined marriage proposals to be. They had always been the couple to do things back to front she thought to herself. They had declared their love for each other before they had even shared a date, they had made love for the first time when they had broken up. They had a connection that had ignited on their first meeting, both of them bloodied and scarred, and deepened over time into something so integral to them singularly that they shaped their lives entirely around each other.
"Yes! Yes!" Cristina urgently let the words tumble out. This time to this proposal she wanted to give him the answer she had always wanted to give him but could not at the time. But now she could. Almost shouting she repeated herself, "Owen Hunt I will marry you!"
Owen leapt up from his seat and scooped Cristina up in his arms. Lifting her feet off the floor as she wrapped her arms around his neck their lips came together in passionate kiss that caused the elegant dining room, swept up in the romance of it all, to erupt into hearty applause. Owen and Cristina, neither of them particularly comfortable being the centre of social attention, broke away and smiled shyly at one another.
Owen placed Cristina's heeled feet back on the ground of the sumptuous carpet and growled into her ear, "Now about that desert!" He took her hand, picked up her pashmina, nodded to the waiter who knew what the next part of the surprise was and led his wife-to-be again out of the dining room towards his next surprise.