Things almost seemed to settle to normal over the following weeks, despite the fact that being apart from her was far from normal.
His apartment seemed emptier, though he'd ceased all effort to be a neat freak, his own way of making it seem as though she was still there with him. He had a box of things in his bedroom that belonged to her, but he refused to tell her that he had them, thinking that maybe somehow she might come to realize that they were missing and come home.
Even if just for a few moments.
She was busy on her GI rotation, and he barely saw her for more than a few moments at a time, but when they did, Burke would fake happiness for her as they exchanged professional tidings in the hallway towards each other, and listened quietly as she would question him about surgical complications.
His mind drifted to the only day, early on that he'd talked her into having lunch with her, thought the topic of conversation was just a particularly difficult patient that she'd had earlier that morning.
But it was all professional and despite the fact that he longed for more, he restrained himself.
He watched as she slowly started to become the best again, and he listened with pride as the rumors of her once again being the first choice for chief resident began to rumble throughout the hospital.
She was going to have everything she wanted in her life.
It broke his heart, however, to know he wasn't one of those things.
He laid his head in his hands, resolving himself to the fact that she didn't want him, making it his mantra that she didn't want him and that he needed to move on with his life, needed to forget that they had happened.
That Cristina had happened.
She interrupted his thoughts as she sauntered up to the nurse's station, two cups of coffee in hand, "For you. It's a cappuccino, since you can't drink real coffee." She joked lightly.
He took the drink from her tiny hand smiling, "And what's this for?"
"You can't tell me you haven't heard the latest news. You hear everything. You're too observant not to." She feigned surprise, knowing in her heart, he'd probably heard it a million times over.
"Of course I've heard, congratulations, Dr. Yang." He nodded, taking a sip of his drink, and rising from his seat.
She looked to him, her eyes widening a bit as he called her 'Dr. Yang'. It had such a bitter sound to it, so different from the way he said 'Cristina'.
She wanted to hear him say it again, "So...Burke. Do you have any cool surgeries today? I'm not very busy this afternoon with the holiday, and I'm aching to scrub in on a CABG."
"No, my schedule is clear, I'm sorry."
"Maybe tomorrow." She smiled, looking down to the shiny tiled floors, "I really miss cardiothoracics. I'll be on the rotation in a couple of months..."
"I'm off tomorrow, but as you said, Dr. Yang, you'll be on my rotation in a couple of months, and you'll be able to see all of the CABGs that you want."
"Yeah, I guess you're right." She mumbled, unsure of what else to say.
He looked to her with question in his eyes, and thought maybe for a moment that she was trying to pull something with him. But then he pushed the thought away. "Dr. Yang." He nodded walking away.
"Cristina." She replied.
He walked back to her, "I thought we were professionals?"
"You call Dr. Montgomery Addison. You call Dr. Stevens Izzie. Hell, you even call Dr. Grey Meredith. Why can't you call me Cristina?" She protested.
"Because I have never slept with them, I've never made love to them, I've never made them dinner, I didn't sit by their hospital bed for nearly two months and watch them literally come back from death's door, I've never thought of them as more than just colleagues. Cristina, on the other hand. I slept with her, I made love to her, I cooked her dinner. I was there to help her find her way back in the darkest of times, though she resents it now. She was more than a colleague, she was the woman I loved. I cannot call you Cristina, Dr. Yang, because you..." He made a motion to her, "Are not Cristina."
He walked away from her, leaving her to ponder his words. Part of him ached for her to come after him, to tell him that she was Cristina, but a growing part of him had come to accept that no matter what she would always be Dr. Yang.