Next Day – Burke & Yang's Apartment

Burke's putting the last of the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher "You're going to be late. You're moving awfully slow today. It's rough going out on a school night. You know you're not as young as you used to be."

"Don't worry, dad, I'll make it."

Burke smiles and shakes his head. He leans over to give Cristina a kiss "Bailey's going to have you cleaning up vomit if you're late again."

"Very romantic. Get out of here" She pretends to be busy looking for something and he takes one more glance at her as he walks out the door.

As soon as he leaves Cristina goes back into the bedroom. She pulls open Burke's drawer and reaches in to grab the ring box. Slowly she opens it and is amazed by what's inside. It's beautiful, a little bigger than she'd imagined. When had she imagined about the ring? She was excited if not terrified that he loved her enough to ask her to marry him. After all it was every girl's dream even hers if she allowed herself to admit it. She did love him but wasn't sure she was ready. The truth was she hadn't ever admitted being ready for any part of their relationship. Now she was ready to at least try on the ring and see how it looked. What harm was there in that? It didn't mean that she would say yes. Hmmm not bad but the stone is a bit big. Maybe not for a doctor's wife. Burke's wife.

Lost in her own thoughts she barely hears the key in the door. Panic washes over her and she slams the drawer shut. Immediately, she feels intense pain in her hand. She slips into the bathroom and hears Burke's voice telling her that he forgot something and for the hundredth time not to be late. Standing in the bathroom, she looks down at her fingers which are already changing colors and throbbing. "This is so bad."

Morning Rounds At SGH

The interns are rounding with Dr. Burke and Dr. Bailey and are in the last patient's room when Cristina walks in. Her coat is strategically leaning to one side to cover up her injured fingers. George is presenting the case.

Burke glances over at Cristina as she walks into the patient's room. Bailey was giving Cristina a death glare. She was almost ready when he left this morning, he couldn't imagine what could've happened that she was so late and why she looked so out of sorts. "Excellent presentation O'Malley you'll be assisting me today. You're late Dr. Yang."

"I apologize" Cristina says sheepishly.

The group is barely out of the patient's room when a livid Bailey yells at Cristina "YANG come with me". The other interns and Burke looked at her walk down the hall with Bailey knowing she was in trouble. It was one thing to be late once in awhile but two days in a row was unheard of. Burke tried to casually walk away acting as if he wasn't worried that she was late again and was about to get reamed out by the Nazi.

"Dr. Bailey I'm sorry I…"

Bailey stops her mid-sentence "Don't be sorry, stop being late." Bailey pauses "Cristina whatever is going on. Take care of it. Get done with it. I do not expect anymore problems out of you this week, this month. Today you will be the lab fairy – delivering good news, bad news, specimens whatever."

"Yes Dr. Bailey"

''And if you are late again you will be cleaning up vomit and giving enemas for a month and I think you know that none of that happens inside of an OR. Am I clear?"

"Yes, sor…Thank You Dr. Bailey."

"Go away and straighten up your coat! Coming into work late…looking all sloppy. I don't know what's wrong with interns…not ready to be doctors…I don't know what they're teaching at Stanford" Bailey walks away mumbling.

Cristina finds Meredith and Izzy still in the hallway and directs them to a nearby on-call room.

"Uh, I have a problem"

"No kidding"

"No not Bailey. I tried on the ring and now I can't get it off" Cristina she pulls her hand out from under her sleeve revealing her two swollen fingers including her ring finger.

Meredith reacts first "Oh that's bad"

"Really bad! Nice rock!" Izzy is smiling.

"FOCUS! What am I going to do? Burke's going to be upset, Bailey's already upset and I still don't know what I'm going to say."

Izzy and Meredith's pagers start going off.

Cristina starts to panic "No you can't leave me."

" We'll be back. Just try to relax. And get some ice!" Cristina watches her two friends leave the on-call room.