A/N: This is the first of the final 3 chapters of this story. which are all going live at the same time. If you have been waiting for the finale, start here. And thank you so much for your patience!

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A good seduction required planning, and Owen Hunt was nothing if not a consummate planner. Years of military training had taught him the value of advance preparation; that, and a healthy dose of luck, had probably saved his life on more than one occasion. Sure, he could improvise with the best of them - a ballpoint pen would do if a trache was not available - but he much preferred to have the necessary tools on hand and use his creativity for finesse, not fundamentals.

He began by addressing the privacy issue. It just wouldn't do to have Dr. Torres walk in at the wrong moment. They had already experienced that particular thrill, and though in hindsight he believed that things had probably turned out for the best, he preferred to avoid any interruptions this time around. With this in mind, he sought Callie out and found her to be amazingly accommodating, to the extent of offering to switch shifts with someone else and be on call for the night. Given her penchant for gossip, Owen had no doubt she was expecting to be paid back with all the sizzling details. He made a mental note to speak with Cristina later and head that one off.

Next came the question of food. They were both on all day, and they would need to eat. It had become glaringly obvious to him even in their short time seeing each other that Cristina would likely starve without takeout and the hospital cafeteria, so depending on the contents of her fridge was a non-starter. He could take her someplace nice, but that would delay things considerably, and now that he had his mind made up, the impatience was building. Preparing a meal for her made the most sense, and was likely to score him brownie points in the bargain. He was, after all, not without kitchen skills. He could fix something basic with some chicken and marinade, pasta, a simple salad, candlelight, wine, something chocolate… He would have to get Callie's key for an hour so he could run to the store over his lunch hour and stash the food. Taking care of these details on the front end would pay off when all they had to do was walk across the street and throw something in the oven.

Just thinking about his plans for the evening - especially the after dinner part - created a tightness in his groin, and he silently blessed whoever had decided that doctors ought to to wear big lab coats.

She had already made it abundantly clear that he could get her into bed without any of this effort, and he didn't stop to think too deeply about why he was doing it anyway. Maybe it was because he had a strong gut feeling that no one had made a noteworthy effort for Cristina Yang in quite a while. Or maybe it was the M&M analogy that had popped into his head and made him smile sometime during the long night of his on-call shift. She's like those M&M's they send us in the desert: brittle on the outside, all melted and sweet on the inside. He had seen that soft and sweet interior for the first time when he'd shown her the vent, and now he wanted more. Whatever it took to get that back, he would do it.

Cristina Yang deserved someone who appreciated the shell and craved what was inside. Owen had a strong hunch he was that someone.