Burke stood in front of the board, with his hands jammed in his pocket, observing his busy schedule for the day. Two CABGs, a valve replacement, and an aortic aneurysm repair to round out the day.

It'd be at least 18 hours until he'd be able to go home to Cristina.

At least.

Bailey appeared next to him, observing her schedule, "Nobody has stomach issues today...that means my day will be short, beautiful, and I might be able to go home and get my little terror potty trained." she complained at him, "How about your little terror, what are you trainin' her to do?"

He chuckled a bit, "She is at home, currently practicing her mattress on a dummy arm hijacked from this very department. And she's training me, for the record."

"Training you to do what? To steal suture packets and hospital equipment?" Bailey questioned, her lips puckered.

"Amongst other things." Burke raised an eyebrow at her, "You gonna tell?"

"Of course not. Cristina Yang may have been a pain in the ass when she was my intern, but she was still the best we had, and she was very promising...I'm rooting for her. And if you tell her that, you'll have to relearn your sutures too." Bailey threatened him, a sly twinkle in her eye.

"Can I borrow a second year today to help me clear this board?"

"You don't have any second year procedures...and they're on their GI rotation." she noted. "And is this going where I think it's going?"

"You don't have any procedures, and I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Who do you want?"

"Meredith Grey."

"This is going where I thought it was." Bailey dropped her arms to her side, grabbing her phone, "You better be nice."

"I'll be on my utmost professional behavior. Have her meet me in OR1 for my CABG." he nodded, and walked away from her.

Bailey shook her head as she paged Meredith, "That man is nothing but trouble." she muttered to herself.

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Meredith Grey slowly made her way to OR1, her heart pounding out of her chest, her mind racing rapidly, why would Burke want her to scrub in on his surgeries?

He could do it to try to punish her, but that wasn't his style. He wouldn't ever do that at work, besides his MO was to give the silent treatment as far as she knew.

She pushed into the door of the scrub room and found him standing there, scrubbing for the procedure. "Dr. Burke?"

"Ah, Dr. Grey...so glad to see you. Scrub in, I need somebody to retract the chest wall while I operate."

"Can't an intern..." her voice trailed off, "It's just that I've been following a patient.."

"There are no

"Is there a reason that you aren't interested in cardiothoracics? Cristina always enjoyed it." he muttered, tossing his used scrub brush into the trash can beside him, "I'll see you in the OR, Dr. Grey."

She scrubbed at her hands viciously, as she thought about the words that they would exchange in the OR, as if she hadn't been punished enough for what had happened to Cristina, now she had to deal with Burke being back in the hospital, with her there at his fingertips to torture at his every whim.

She tossed the brush into the trashcan and considered leaving for a fleeting moment, and the idea left as she figured he could get her kicked out of the program if she was insubordinate.

And she wasn't going to go down without a fight, even if she may have been in the wrong in the first place.

Meredith had already let the guilt eat at her, and she continued to battle it everyday, and nobody seemed to notice or care that she'd apologized and tried to make retribution for her actions.

As much as one can.

"Dr. Grey, nice of you to join us in the OR. They quit doing 15 minute scrubs in the early 1990's, y'know." Burke held is hands in front of him awaiting his 10 blade.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Burke, I guess my mind was wandering."

He looked at her with cold eyes, "This is my OR, Dr. Grey. You have to focus, be responsible...or someone could get hurt."

Every word that came from her mouth, he wanted to cut her as if he were using a 10 blade. He wanted to make her know exactly how much it was that he resented her, and how much she didn't deserve to be in this hospital working while Cristina sat at home, practicing sutures on a mannequin arm.

"Dr. Burke, I would prefer if we could focus at the task on hand." Meredith finally replied, shocked at the continuous blows that he was dealing her. "I'm here to assist you in the OR, not to be your punching bag."

Burke shot her a look before cutting into the chest of his patient, "Yes, Dr. Grey. I'm wrong to take out my aggressions on you. It was Cristina who was hurt the most, not me."

Another blow.

Meredith remained silent, pressing her lips together under her surgical mask, she wasn't going to take his bait any longer, and she was only going to reply when his statements pertained to the surgery.

She couldn't hold his actions against him, because his actions were that of an angry boyfriend, not a surgeon, and she knew that he would never be the same man until Cristina would come back to work.

The rest of the surgery, the duo remained silent as he quietly and tediously worked to repair the damaged heart that lay before him using a running whipstitch to attach the vessel to the graft.

His mind drifted to Cristina as he performed the suture, thinking back to the first time she'd done it- she was doing it for him. She was doing it out of love to protect him despite the fact that both of their careers could be at risk, and his heart sank in his chest.

He looked up to Meredith, his eyes softening only a little bit, "Can anybody else do this?"

Meredith watched him suture and shook her head, "Nobody's gotten close to doing it like Cristina can...there are fourth years that envy her."

"Could. Like she could." he mumbled.

"I get it, okay. I know that I ruined her, and destroyed her and took everything away from her, and I get that. Lay off." she finally broke, glaring at him.

Burke shook his head at her, "I hadn't even started, Dr. Grey. If you think that these are my true feelings- the words I'd really like to say to you, then you are foolish, because you should know that I would never act like that in a professional setting, and most times at all. But for you, at this point in time, I would make an allowance if we weren't at work."

She looked away from him and let out a sigh of relief to see that he was done suturing the pericardial sac, and was preparing to close the chest. "May I be excused, Dr. Burke? I have a patient that I need to check on."

He gave her a curt nod, "I expect to see you in OR 3 at 11 for my second CABG, Grey." he ordered simultaneously closing the ribs.

"Yes sir." she sighed, turning her back from him, her eyes tearing up.

This was going to be the day from hell.