A Love That Will Never Grow Old

Chapter Nine, by greyeyedgirl chapter nine already! Well, this one is dedicated to prestinaluvr, because I just read her Cristina/Burke's Valentine's Day story and it rocked my socks. I have economics homework AGAIN, but that's just too bad, isn't it:P

There was an odd fog, a white mist, jumping and swirling and lifting Cristina into the air. Her mind clouded over, and memories resurfaced, wonderful ones and terrible ones, ones that made her soul light up, and ones that caused her to die a little inside.

Burke was holding her close, therefore making pleasant memories predominant. The reminiscence came back almost bittersweet, and she felt herself surrender to it. Times of love between them, the look in his eyes when he caught her glance, the feeling that'd erupted in a result of their first kiss.

There had been a chemistry between them, Cristina had felt it impending and it had startled her. She'd felt attraction before this, but nothing...nothing like...

The first time it had really crashed into her was when they'd been working with Liz. Cristina had gotten a Feeling, an odd feeling, indescribable and unfamiliar, when he'd walk into a room behind her. Her body had yearned for something, her muscles aching to collapse. For some reason she'd wanted to fall right into him, but she had the feeling she'd crashed instead.

And then...when she'd walked into that on-call room...

He had been exhausted, his enervation evident in his weary face and the sluggish movements, still eloquent in Burke's simple and uncanny advent as the piece of poetry in motion.

He'd looked up at her when she came in, not expecting to see her there, but not angry about it. He'd known she'd come eventually.

She hadn't expected to see him like that. She had wanted to say something to him, she'd wanted there to be the cause-and-effect action that she understood and incorporated with everyday life. They had been looking at each other, feeling what they were feeling, and now she knew something was going to result from it.

She hadn't expected this. The way he was standing there, his posture full of grace, captivating her. The actual sight of his face had thrown her, she had the slightly infuriating habit of forgetting what he did to her until she was actually realistically staring into his large dark eyes. And there he was...staring right at her...his shirt pulled off to reveal the chest that had plagued her fantasies for the last several weeks. She couldn't be doing this.

Ohhhhhh, she couldn't not.

She felt her hand on the doorknob, heard the tiniest of noises as the lock clicked in place.

A million phrases existed in her mind, but she couldn't seem to read any of the thoughts etched so carelessly into its depths. A random uttering came out, something she hadn't planned beforehand, but once she said it, it seemed like as good a thing to say as any.

"Thanks for the coffee."

He had looked at her when she said that. There was an understanding in his eyes, he knew exactly what she was saying, his mind easily deciphering the question hidden in her words. His hands seemed to grip even more firmly on the upper-bunk. He turned his head back towards her, his eyes surveying her slowly, wanting to double-check.

She slowly made herself turn her head, suddenly uncomfortable, fully aware of what she was doing. She moved her hands behind her back, her fingers feeling the sudden and powerful urge to twitch uncontrollably, the flailing legs of a spider who's life was about to end.

He was moving towards her so fast she didn't have time to process it, his hand almost roughly tipping her head upward towards him. No, it wasn't rough...There was a gentleness, too...

His other hand found her face, and her body screamed at the feeling of their first contact. Preston Burke had never touched her before, and the feeling was intoxicating.

Then his lips were on hers, pushing, everything happening so fast it would have made Cristina's head spin if she'd still been able to think. The second his lips touched hers something had exploded inside her, his mouth felt on fire, which didn't make sense because it was cooling, too. The collision of his lips against hers came soft at first, and she surrendered to it, her own lips pushing lightly towards the contact. Still moving with the speed of an agile fox, Burke's lips pushed slightly harder, and half a second after their lips first met Cristina's arms wrapped quickly around his waist, pulling him as close to her as he could possibly go, the sudden feeling the ripple of his abs under his scrubs right against her stomach snatching away what little breath away she had left. Burke's kiss became more decisive, the tiny question in it evaporating as her tongue felt the light cleanliness of his teeth. Her mind raced as her body screamed, feeling the rushing and rapture, the exhilaration, of her and Burke's first kiss, full of so much more than just the immediate passion and lust.

"Cristina..." Burke's whisper came out of the dark, his hand resting lightly on hers. He was mistaking her shaking for horror. "It's okay," he whispered, his voice a familiar anchor in all that had happened in the last few weeks.

"I'm fine. I wasn't thinking about that," she whispered, as he placed his chin on the top of her hair, holding her close.

The second she said it, she knew she had jinxed herself. Another memory came back, rivaling its predecessor in strength, and Cristina's shaking took on a different form.

"Cristina!" Burke's voice filled with panic, his tone was low, he had moved his head off her to try to look her in the eye.

Her shakes came out in tiny convulsions, and her head bent down to stare at the bedspread, it was her favorite one of Burke's, maroon-ish, and soft.

"Cris-..." Burke's whisper tapered off, watching the first tear escape quickly and slink boldly like a cat down her face. "Shhhh," he started to murmur, feeling a kind of desperation foreign to him as his thoughts rendered loudly on the desire to comfort his girlfriend.

"No," he murmured throatily. "Don't shhh. Tell me everything. I'll make it better, I promise," he whispered, his head bent close to Cristina's. "I'm going to protect you," he whispered.

Cristina shook violently, her body fidgeting again like it had in the on-call room after Ashley's collapse. "Happy," she murmured to herself. "Just try to be happy. Forget..."

Burke shook her gently, watching her in horror, forcing himself to push through to her. "Cristina," he whispered. "It's okay. I'm going to make it better."

Cristina's tears were louder now. "Noooo," she wailed softly, trying to stifle her sobs with her hand. Burke gently took her hand away, bringing her head into his chest and brushing his fingers lightly across her back shoulders.

She couldn't avoid it any longer. It was following her, grabbing at her, she could keep running through the forest if she wanted too, but the dangerous tree limbs and bushes were never going to stop scratching at her. She had to stop, face them, cut them down. She felt her lips separate, her vocal cords vibrate tenderly, slowly beginning to tell him everything.

"My dad used to touch me."

Burke froze, his fingers suddenly clenching, the monster in him growing once again.

"It happened for a few months. Maybe four, or so...I can't remember...I was so little."

Preston had never, in his entire life, had such an urge to vomit.

"Then...one day...I was 2...he touched Ashley."

Burke felt the sickness grow, but only for a split-second. He frowned. "Cristina...when you were two...Ashley wasn't..."

"Not this Ashley. My other little sister. The one from Before."

Burke could not move his body, each limb seemed separately stuck in a clenched position.

"He touched her. Ashley. She was only...only...she was the baby..."

Burke stared down at her, Cristina's face was stark-white, the tears somehow managing to dry out her skin. She was staring, blankly, across the room at the wall, her eyes focused and blinking. He felt a chill run up his spine, and he timidly tried to pull her closer, feeling a tear start to form up in his own eye, the gurgling feeling in his throat that meant there was a possibility he'd get sick.

"He made me do it too. He took my hands...and-he was so rough...and he made me hurt her..."

Burke's breathing couldn't find its rhythm, he looked down at Cristina, her eyes were oddly glazed, squinted, her lips parted gently, her breathing harsh.

"Then he...he put himself inside her...Kind of, I mean...I was watching, I was trying to make him stop, I was so small...he was whispering...he used to whisper to me while he was...his face...there was no expression...my dad didn't show his emotions...and he kept whispering..."

Burke's heartbeat pounded loudly in his ears, a memory resurfacing of him holding her on this bed, her crying. It's not what people who love each other do.

As if reading his mind, Cristina whispered, almost to herself. "Not okay...didn't love me...love me..." Her voice was trailing off incomprehensibly, she seemed lost in her own world and the hellish-inferno of the past. She suddenly stared at him, like coming awake, suddenly aware. She fell back into herself, the whispering continuing, the odd shortness of breath.

"Blood."

Burke felt himself shake.

"It stained the sheets."

Burke had to force himself to hold back the eruption in his throat. Stop that! He had to be strong for her. He'd promised he would make it better.

"I called...there was a phone...I pushed 911...Daddy didn't notice...he just heard me crying...then...he saw the blood...like he hadn't before...and sort of woke up...not...not...then..."

"And...started yelling...crying...he had blood all over him...I remember wondering...how...how she...she was so small, but had so much blood...then...I remember realizing she wasn't crying and I...I knew she wasn't okay...couldn't-couldn't be okay...and then...she'd never be okay."

Burke stared into the eyes of the woman he loved, but she kept her gaze locked steadily on the wall.

"The police came...But...he'd hit me first...broke something...bones...2. Right. It hurt. And then...they arrested him...one got sick...there was blood, and Ashley...asked me...about my mom...and then..."

Cristina shuddered, staring. "My father was sentenced to 10 years in prison." Her voice shook at the word 'ten.' "Then he was out...started a new family...my mom divorced him right after it happened...that's why I don't have his last name...Reynolds...It was a..." She laughed awkwardly, and Burke winced slightly. "Messy divorce."

Burke stared at her.

Cristina's eyes stared at the wall again. "He named her Ashley. Like he could replace her. Like he deserved to have her back..."

Burke's eyes stayed rooted on her. He tried to find his voice. "His wife..." He said hoarsely. "His kids...the other ones...they just don't...care?" He'd never heard his voice sound like that. Maybe that was what happened when you didn't let go of what needed to come out. It was like poison.

Cristina stared the wall, her hair bounced slightly, and Burke's stomach flipped. He used to love watching her hair do that, that tiny elegant movement as she readjusted her head. It seemed odd to see it still do that now. Everything was different from how it'd been two weeks ago. Everything was different from how it'd been two hours ago...He shook inwardly, desperately pleading to reach out to his girlfriend. Nothing, he thought weakly, was ever going to be the same again.

Cristina laughed the odd laugh from before, and Burke felt the de ja vu of his spine trickling, his breathing catching loudly as she stared at his girlfriend, and for a moment he saw through the sudden wall Cristina had built up around herself, like a momentary crack.

Cristina's laugh continued quickly and quietly, but Burke heard the small shake in it. "I don't think they know."

The small laugh shook more and more, and slowly she continued to break, the tears rushing. Burke instantly reached out his arms, pulling her close into his embrace, kissing the side of her head, being able only to hold her for several long moments, as Cristina's cries, her true cries, came at last. He looked down at her tears, his heart naturally breaking, but decided this time, her sadness had her innocence back. Maybe, he thought to himself, she wasn't breaking. He was helping her to mend.

Author's note: Okay. So was it good? I think it was good. Gruesome. Yes. But hopefully I got some emotion out of ya, because I certainly got some out of myself. : ) Now, it's four in the morning, exactly, and I hate to say it, but I really don't think those economics worksheets are going to do themselves. BTW, this is Tuesday (officially, 4 AM, remember?) and I'll try to write the next chapter tonight and get it up tomorrow. Maybe no chapter 11 on Thurs, but Friday for sure. (LOL, probably just jinxed myself). Please review, hopefully I blew you away ( ) and you'll love me forever.

Woah. Think I need some coffee.

Review! Thanks! Oh, and don't worry, the gruesome, ew-what-is-this-rated stuff is basically over.