Chapter 15
Few days ago, Burke's Apartment, Seattle
"Yang you are really so damn stupid. How come you would let him trick you into this crappy drama?" Alex hissed as he dragged a huge box into Burke's apartment. He still couldn't understand why Cristina would be willing to cooperate with Burke and lie to Mama Burke. He also couldn't understand why he would be assisting Cristina to "move" into Burke's apartment when he could be cuddling in bed with Jo the whole day.
"For the record, I am just doing a charity case. Mama Burke has heart disease. She cannot be irritated. I am just helping out." Cristina replied annoyed after she kicked an empty box away.
"Hey watch out! I am growing a baby here!" Meredith dodged away from the paper box in a rather impressive speed for a pregnant lady. She sat down on one of the boxes and said, "Seriously, if I were you, I won't even listen a single word from him."
"Exactly what I said, have some respect for yourself. Don't make us feel shame for being your friends."
"If you two are only here to mock me, then go away. I don't need you!" Cristina snapped the box from Alex and started to unpack. It was a total mistake asking her two friends helping her to move into Burke's apartment. Well, temporarily.
Everyone in SGMW knows how insightful Jane Burke is, so Cristina and Burke discussed a prefect plan: She is going to move in with him when Mama is in town, in case Jane suddenly wanted to spend a night with them. Therefore, Alex and Meredith found themselves helping Cristina to move on a busy Tuesday morning.
"This is the last time I am going to say this: I am only pretending to be a couple with Burke because we don't want to irritate his mother." Cristina sighed and sat down next to Meredith. "I know I am stupid, but I just couldn't say no when I heard him ask me…"
"Cristina…" Meredith grabbed her person's hands and leaned her head on Cristina's shoulder as Alex patted Cristina's shoulder gently.
Who can understand Cristina's feelings better than them? All of them have had that one person in their life before, the one person that you can never say no to. Derek, Izzie, Burke… they understand how love can make someone stupid.
After a moment of silence, Meredith finally say, "Cristina… Let's finish up here and go out for lunch?"
Just when Cristina is about to nodded, Alex got an idea from nowhere. "Hey wait. We shouldn't be wasting this chance. Let's go see if that woman is really Burke's girlfriend."
"And how exactly can we do that? Sherlock?" Cristina snorted at his ridiculous suggestion.
"If that woman really is his girlfriend, she must have something left in his house. Toothbrush, towel, underwear… anything. Just go look through his things!"
"I will go see the bathroom." Meredith hopped off the box she was sitting on and jogged into the bathroom with Alex following her. Cristina sighed and went into Burke's bedroom. Looking through other people's stuff is not something a decent human being would do, but she really wanted to know what kind of woman Edra is.
She took a deep breath and pulled out one of the drawers, and she immediately noticed something special. It wasn't something that belongs to Edra, she is very sure, because it belongs to her. It is her Stanford hoodie.
Cristina gently picked up the hoodie and flipped it upside down, looking for that familiar patch of coffee stain: there it is. This is definitely her hoodie. But why is it here? She thought she already lost it when she moved to Alex's house.
"Cristina? You found anything?" Meredith's voice appeared behind her suddenly, Cristina turned around startled by her friend. As Alex and Meredith walks into the room, they immediately spotted the bright red hoodie being held in Cristina's arms.
"Isn't that your lost hoodie?" Meredith asked uncertainly.
"That you bitched about for the whole month?" Alex immediately added and got spank on the arm by Meredith.
"Yeah… It is… Turns out it was in Burke's drawer."
"So he took your hoodie? Dude it's kind of sick."
"Alex! I think it's sweet! Look, the only thing we can find in this house that belongs to a woman is your hoodie. I think he still loves you!" Meredith replied with a teenage girly smile. "Damn hormones, I am Kepner now."
"So what are you gonna do? Take your shirt back?"
"No of course. He will realize we looked through his things if I take my hoodie back. I am gonna leave it…"
Before Cristina can finish her sentence, she heard the noise of the lock being opened. Quickly she stuff the hoodie back into the drawer and pretend to be guilt-free. Therefore when Burke walks into his bedroom, the only thing he can see is Alex, Meredith and Cristina sitting on the floor grinning awkwardly at him.
"Uh… what are you guys doing?"
"Nothing!" "Nothing." "Nothing…" All three of them replied almost instantly. Burke frowned suspiciously at their unusual unity.
"Really? Cause you three act like you have some secret schemes going on…"
"It's nothing! Really."
"Anyway, Derek and I planned to go out for dinner. Do you guys want to come with us?"
"It's free right? Then yes, of course we are going. Let's go Yang." Alex grinned happily and dragged Cristina out of the room. Burke looked at the room one last time, feeling something strange happened but he couldn't tell what exactly it is.
Few days later, Burke's Apartment
"Mama, daddy, you can stay in the guest room tonight." Burke leads his parents into one of the rooms and helped to settle their luggage.
"Mm, this is a nice apartment Preston. I like the decorations here. Well, it is very late already, you two should go and have some rest." Jane kissed Burke and Cristina on their cheeks before closing her door and wink at them suggestively. Burke and Cristina shared a glance, and Cristina whispered awkwardly,
"Uh, I will spend the night in the other guest room…"
"No." Burke interrupted her and whispered back, "Mama will know if you stay in the guest room. Um, I have a couch in my room, you can have the bed."
"It's fine, really. You don't need to… Anyway, we can figure it out later." Cristina steps into Burke's bedroom and couldn't help but found her glance locked at the drawer holding her hoodie.
"Cristina? What are you staring at?"
"Nothing! Em… I am going to have a shower now." She quickly grabbed her things and rushed into the bathroom. She can feel her heart racing as she realized that she is going to spend a night with Burke on the SAME bed.
'Stop it Cristina Yang! You are not a teenage girl anymore!' She splashed some water onto her face and sighed. It feels so stupid and ridiculous for her to have hope that something's gonna happen.
When Burke came out from shower, Cristina has already curled up on one side of the bed- the side of the bed that used to be belonged to her. With a faint smile on his lips, he gently climbed up the bed and slowly lay down with his back facing her's, fear that any bigger action would wake her.
"Burke…" She whispered. Actually she didn't have something that she wanted to say in particular. She just wanted to see if he has fallen asleep already.
"Mm?"
"Uh…" Out of her expectation, he is still widely awake. Cristina thought for a brief second, and she decided to ask the question that had been spinning in her head the entire week.
"Why do you have my hoodie in your drawers? The red, Stanford one. Don't tell me it isn't mine, cause I saw that coffee stain on it." She paused and added, "Sorry. For snooping around."
Burke was surprised by her random question. He turned his head around but saw her still lying on her side with her back facing him, so he lied back down and try to make up a reasonable answer.
'I took it the day I left our apartment, because I couldn't sleep without you so I need to take something with your scent with me.' Of course he is not going to tell the truth. It sounds too much like a pervert. Therefore he decided to go with the most told lie in human history, "I accidentally sweep it into my bag."
'Liar!' Cristina yells in her mind. That hoodie was inside her wardrobe, there's no way he can "accidentally" put into his bag.
"You asked me one question, so I am gonna ask you one too."
"…Fine. What do you want to know." Cristina rolled her eyes silently. She knows exactly what he is going to ask. Of course he would want to know what makes her sleep with her intern. Like he would want to know something else. But whatever, there's nothing she couldn't tell.
"Tell me about Hunt." She can feel her heart stopped beating for a second. It has been… a long time since she thought about Owen and Teddy.
"Oh I am so not going to talk to you about Owen."
"You asked me a question, and I answered. You owe me one question." 'It didn't sounds like he is going to drop this', she sighed.
After a long silence, just before Burke decided to give up, Cristina started the story.
"Owen… He is the first guy I fell in love with after you. After you left SGMW, Webber hired Teddy Altman as the new cardio chief. She was great, she gave me a lot of autonomy and a lot of opportunities to learn. And Owen was her friend from the army. He pulled out an icicle from my chest when we first met, then I thought I would never see him again. But I was wrong, he was hired by Webber a few weeks later and became the chief or trauma.
"He suffered from PTSD from his last tour in Iraq. No one knows about his condition except me because I witnessed him punching the window once. I accompanied him to the shrink and I tried literally everything to help him get a better night sleep. I even removed the ceiling fan in my room, because that reminds him of helicopters.
"Gradually we developed feelings for each other, but I often have a feeling that his heart is with someone else. I wasn't sure about it, and he keeps assuring me there's no one else. Then one day, his fiancée shows up. Apparently she had no idea he was back in the States. He blows it off with her pretty quickly, but I still got that feeling. I still thinks that he was actually in love with somebody else.
"It was Meredith who saw them kissing in an exam room, Owen and Teddy. Turns out he was in Seattle because of her, and she is the one who convinced him to stay. So I gave him an ultimatum, sort of, it's either me or Teddy. He didn't make a choice. He quitted his job and signed up for a tour to Jordan. Teddy left SGMW a few days later and went to Jordon too. Last year Kepner went to visit them and told us that they are now married."
Burke listened quietly. He is both furious and grateful: furious for that Hunt guy breaking Cristina's heart, but grateful that Hunt didn't took her to a god-knows-where battle zone. He pretended to be as calm as he can be and asked, "Why didn't you follow him to Jordan?"
"… I owe you one question only and I answered that already. I am going to sleep now. So stop talking and be quiet." She answered abruptly. She is so not going to tell him she stayed in Seattle because she still has feelings for him.
"Burke?" After a while, she can hear his breathing become slower and more regular. She murmured his name to check if he is still awake. But nothing answered her except his rhythmic breathing sound. She turned her body around, facing his muscular back.
At this instant, she really wanted to wrap her hands around his waist like she used to do, but she knows that will ruin them.
He may not have a new girlfriend, and he may still have feelings for her, but it doesn't mean they have a chance at starting over. They had been tortured each other throughout their five years of marriage, how stupid a person needs to be to repeat the same mistake? Cristina Yang and Preston Burke are two of the most rational people on Earth, and none of them would allow themselves being WRONG again.
She rest her head on the pillow and stared at his back. Listening to his soothing breathe sound, she slowly dozed off into sleep.
All I ask is if this is my last night with you
Hold me like I'm more than just a friend
Give me a memory I can use
Take me by the hand while we do what lovers do
It matters how this ends
'Cause what if I never love again?
A/N: For those who don't know, the lyrics at the end of this chapter are from Adele's "All I Ask". Lately I just couldn't get this song out of my head! :P
