A/N I know it's been a little while since I update, and I'm sorry! I was on holidays for a week. But I haven't forgotten you. I still love you all, and here's your next chapter!!

Chapter 8: Please Give Me Something

Burke's shirt was heavily stained with sweat, as usual, when he returned from his morning run. Cristina was guzzling coffee, her shoulders hunched over the bench. Burke placed his hands on his hips as he tried to steady his breathing, watching her.

"It's been a while since I've seen the morning dancing I've come to love," he commented with a smile, noticing her discarded i-pod on the coffee table.

"It's been a while since I've had any excess energy in the morning," she replied shortly, grabbing an apple and making to rush out the door. He held his arm out to stop her, and she wrinkled her nose. "You need a shower."

"And you need to tell me what's been on your mind lately."

She sighed, relenting slightly, and meeting his concerned gaze. "I just feel like I've been getting slack, I need to pick up the pace if I want to stay ahead. What the chief told me about getting back to basics has been riling me. He's right, you know. How will I ever get muscle memory like his? And I know you like your new hangout times with George, having him and that Callie chick over for rounds of charades or whatever, but I need that time to study."

"Ok," he replied simply.

"Ok?"

"Yes. You just need to tell me these things. Remember?"

She nodded, feeling sheepish. "Yeah. I should go."

He took her by the shoulders and lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her deeply. She whimpered as his tongue delved into the furthest corners of her mouth, and he tightened his grip on her.

"What was that for?" she asked, finally breaking away.

"A better start to the day. I'll see you at the hospital."

Relieved to see her finally smile, Burke made his way to the shower.

Feeling grateful towards him after he took an effort to calm her that morning, Cristina sought Burke out with a coffee soon after he arrived. She wasn't expecting to be one upped by George, who delivered him a cappuccino. Seriously. She knew she'd been a little self-involved lately, but what was with this newfound friendship? He knew George was 'Burke's guy' after the elevator surgery, but that was ages ago. And they were rambling on about some foot violinist, and he offered George the case over her!

She was wishing she'd never tried to be considerate with bringing him coffee. When George said he was with Shepherd that day, Burke gave the case to Cristina as an afterthought.

Rolling her eyes, she stormed off to find his chart. And the day just kept getting weirder, as she overheard something disturbing flipping through Eugene Foote's chart. Meredith, whose sanity she already knew was hanging on by a thread, especially with this newfound obsession with knitting, was considering dating a vet. Of all people. "He's not even a real doctor!" Cristina fumed. If she wanted to get over McDreamy, she couldn't move on with a vet. She downgraded from a neurosurgeon to a guy who played with animals all day.

Seriously.

People were nutty all day. Burke was suffering from multiple man obsessions – first George, then this Eugene Foote guy, who was apparently Burke's idol. Why couldn't she just get a normal boyfriend with a normal idol? Not some headcase who wanted his pacemaker removed. A lifesaving device, removed. Seriously!

Alex ended the day by potentially landing the hospital a lawsuit against Addison, Meredith concluded she would date the vet, and Izzie continued her obsession with Denny, who got an LVAD, by the way. And Bailey was on the warpath about Izzie's idiocy in falling for a patient.

And what was with George and the Ortho chick?

She tried to control the thunder clouds swirling behind her head, though, when she realized just how much her patient's music meant to Burke. He was seriously distressed about removing this guy's pacemaker. She tried to be as supportive as she could. Plus, she was excited to scrub in on this procedure.

But since Eugene Foote didn't survive the surgery, Cristina hurriedly completed her post-op notes. She knew Burke would be in the hospital, somewhere, torturing himself. This death would hit him hard, as in his mind, his hands had failed.

She found him stretched out on a bed in an on-call room, arms folded behind his head, staring absently into nothingness. He began talking about an interview of Foote's that had inspired him, as Cristina lay her head on his chest, trying to comfort him. She liked the story he told her. About how Eugene Foote hadn't been the most naturally gifted, but he made up for that in discipline, and Burke likened that to his college experience. She could picture Burke at med school, becoming the best, disciplining himself to practice with sheer willpower. It was this same willpower that meant he pushed himself to the top of his field. And he also felt the full force of his failure, now almost more than ever.

"I'm practicing too, you know," she murmured after a long silence. "This relationship thing doesn't come naturally to me. But I'm trying to get better at it."

Finally, he transferred his gaze to her, and she rested her chin on his chest, looking at him.

"Tell me something good. Anything."

She thought for a moment. "I love you?"

For maybe the first time, disbelief was in his eyes. "Even after today?"

This was not the confident man she knew so well. He defined so much of himself, perhaps too much, on excelling. He was good at teaching the interns that it was a learning experience to trip and fall, but he failed to apply that lesson to himself in this instance.

"It has been one of my greatest honours this year to train under you. God, remember that night I harassed you, the night before my internship started? That was my ultimate goal, as a surgeon, to learn from the best. Why do you think it was so embarrassing when Liz Fallon slammed me in front of you? I finally got to work on a case with you, and an ex-scrub nurse was bringing me down, of all people. But I made my biggest decision this year. It was sealed the moment I locked that door. Falling in love with you has been even better than learning from Preston Burke, top cardiothoracic surgeon."

She is trying to pull him out from his place of pain, with maybe the hardest admission she's ever made. Who would have ever thought that something could be more important to Cristina Yang than surgery?

Burke wordlessly took his left arm out from behind his head, and gently rested his hand on her back. And they stayed that way, until some of his aching began to subside.