Authors Note: Hello, hello, hello! Let me start with an apology. I meant to write and upload this chapter nearly a week ago, but I have been so busy. New job and busy weekends. But better late than never right? Secondly, the reviews! The reviews just took my breath away. They have given me more confidence and incentive to write. So thank you ever so much. This chapter is in Owen's POV as the previous one was in Cristina's. I think I will try to write both POV's in one chapter from now on though. I hope you enjoy this chapter and I would love to hear everyone's thoughts again. :)

"Hunt!'

Owen turned around and watched Derek Shepherd make his way towards him. Shepherd had a big smile planted on his face but that wasn't unusual. He was almost always in a cheery mood.

"Shepherd."

"How are you?" Derek asked, walking beside Owen. "Getting used to being back in the hospital?"

Owen hated it whenever someone asked him a question like that. It made him think of how drastically different his life had been just a couple months ago. He got enough reminders of his "before" life without people constantly asking him a question like that. But Shepherd seemed like a good guy and Owen had come to respect him after their initial but brief dispute. Owen could tell he meant well.

"Yes, its certainly a change of pace." He replied.

"But you are doing OK so far?" Shepherd pressed on.

"Yes." Owen replied shortly. He was on edge today. Well, he had been on edge yesterday and losing Timothy had been hard. But what happened afterword had him on edge even today.

Shepherd gave him a look of sympathy and nodded a goodbye. Good thing about him was that his personality put people at ease. But Derek was good at reading people and he learned soon enough that Major Owen Hunt was almost always polite so he must be dealing with something.

Probably a woman, Derek thought to himself as he walked away. It was always a woman who brought out that kind of trouble to a man's mind.

Owen shook his head as he made his way back to the ER. He didn't mean to be rude. But he had a sneaky feeling Shepherd understood him.

He had a hard time understanding himself these days.

He had kissed her. Kissed her.

It had been heaven and hell, all rolled up in one kiss. He had spent many of his waking hours thinking about her, planning how he would go about this thing with Cristina. He knew he would need to plan it out. But the truth was that Owen had never really been good at planning things out. He worked on instinct. On his gut. That is what made him the trauma surgeon he was today. Even in Iraq, his instinctive skills were well known and had come in quite handy.

But he was not the kind of man who just grabbed women out of the blue to kiss them. He had only done that with... well, Cristina.

He had been raised to be a gentleman and then had gone on to be an army man. He was a man of rules and manners. But something about Cristina had made him throw all of that out the window and just go for it.

In a way, he dealt with Cristina the way he dealt with surgery.

But he wanted to give her more. Cristina deserved so much more. Owen could tell she wasn't the kind of women who needed candles and roses. But she deserved much more than frantic kisses in the alley. He needed a plan. An outline of how he would go about it.

First things first, he needed to apologize. He needed to break the ice.

The opportunity to apologize presented itself about twelve minutes later as Owen stood in the ambulance bay waiting for a trauma. It was raining again, except tonight it was really coming down. He waited quietly till he caught someone walk past from the corner of his eye. From the way this person was huddled underneath the umbrella and the brisk pace, Owen could tell who it was.

"Dr. Yang?"

"Dr. Hunt."

His insides felt like jelly. He had a whole speech prepared which went along the lines of "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to grab you like that in the alley. Forgive me." But as soon as he saw her face, he forgot what he had to say in an instant.

The most awkward conversation they had ever had passed and then she left, looking disappointed or angry. He couldn't tell. He wanted to turn around, grab her and tell her what he had initially planned. And he would have too, if the ambulance hadn't shown up.

He had to get a hold of her later.

But he had absolutely no chance of speaking with her all day. The ER was busy, Torres broke her nose so he had to put in extra to compensate for the lack of their best Ortho resident. And later that day he heard something about some interns operating on themselves.

That has to be just a rumor, Owen thought to himself. Surely, individuals smart enough to call themselves doctors and be part of one the best surgical programs wouldn't do something that stupid.

But by the end of the day, Owen knew that it was not a rumor. And Cristina's intern had been the perpetrator of this debacle. He couldn't understand how something like this would even come about. Why in the world would a bunch of interns operate on themselves? And why would one of them agree to being operated on? He knew that Cristina would be giving her interns an earful about this. He was extremely curious to see how she was taking things. From what he had heard from Bailey, there would been serious consequences for anyone who was even slightly involved with this situation.

A couple hours later, just shy of six in the morning, he found himself sitting on her doorstep. The morning air was cold but he was determined to wait for her. Shortly after he saw her walking briskly in his direction. She was huddled in her coat, hands in her pockets and she had not seen him yet. She must have been several feet away from him when she looked up and locked eyes with him. She didn't shocked or angry. She was unreadable as usual.

"I don't know why I came here." He broke the silence. He suddenly wished he had prepared a speech or something. It wouldn't have matter. He felt tongue tied around her, especially when she stood there looking like a pillar of silent strength. Unwavering in the bitter cold.

"Do you want to come in?"

"No. I don't think that would be appropriate." I do not want to think about what would happen if we are alone in your house.

"Do you want to go someplace else?"

"No."

And then she surprised him by sitting down next to him. A whiff of her scent was enough to make him question his motives. She had a heady scent of equal parts citrus and flower. Not enough to overwhelm his senses, but enough to drive him crazy.

But he needed to make things right with her.

He turned his head towards her slowly and took her in. Her profile was beautiful. The morning light hit her well. Her hair framed her face perfectly. Her deft little hands rubbed together. She looked soft and touchable. A stark contrast to what she looked like minutes ago. She had no shield up. He found himself wondering if this was the Cristina that met her lovers first thing in the morning. Would he ever get the chance to see her like that?

"I think you're beautiful."

No speeches, no pretense. No preparation was needed for telling her that he thought she was beautiful.

She turned to him, her eyes just slightly rounder giving away the shock they held. Other than that, nothing changed on her face. She folded her hands and tucked them under her chin. It was so feminine, so demure, that Owen wanted to tell her again.

She looked looked away from him, and faced forward. She sighed, deep and long and for the first time since he had been sitting here, he realized that things were not okay with her. Her head had hung a little when she had walked towards him. She had sat down beside him looking smaller than before. Her face held a look of defeat.

Cristina did not accept defeat. This much he knew.

He decided to take a leap of faith and asked her "Do you want to talk about it?"

She scoffed and for a minute he thought that they were back where they had started. She shook her head slowly, as if patronizing someone.

"My interns were operating on themselves."

She was patronizing herself.

"They operated on Sadie."

"They are interns. They do stupid things. Really stupid things, in this case." Owen said, not believing a word he said but wanting to offer some comfort.

"You don't get it." She said, with another shake of her head.

"What?"

She turned to look at him. "My interns were operating. My interns started this. It was Lexie Grey's idea to do this. Lexie Grey is my intern."

No, Owen thought. She couldn't possibly be blaming herself for this.

"They were not just your interns." He said. "And you most certainly are not to blame for their reckless behaviour."

"Really?" Cristina said, eyes blazing. "Because I feel like I am to blame. A little at least. I was supposed to teach them but I did not. I didn't teach them so they taught themselves and butchered a girl."

She looked at him, fire in her eyes, daring him to contradict her. When he said nothing, she looked away. They sat in silence for a little while until she yawned. He should probably leave her alone. Let her get some rest. But he didn't want to. He couldn't leave her alone. Not today.

"Do you want to get a cup of coffee?" He asked, looking sideways at her.

"I thought that was inappropriate" She replied.

He couldn't believe he even said that. Nothing about them was appropriate. They both needed to accept that this was not conventional or traditional.

"No, coming inside your house would be inappropriate. Coffee on the other hand..." He said, still looking at her, hoping she would meet his gaze. She didn't disappoint. "Coffee is not inappropriate."

"That's nice of you. To offer I mean." Cristina said. "But you don't have to. The other attendings don't really care all that much."

"I'm not here as an attending. I am here as... I'm here to.. umm." Owen said, desperately trying to find words. What am I here as? Friend? No, I don't want to be friends.

"Oh." Cristina said, her mouth forming an 'o' shape which temporarily distracted Owen. But she understood.

"That's not a good idea." She said, looking away. "Just like that kiss wasn't a good idea."

"Which one?" He asked. They had kissed more than once after all.

"The one outside Joe's."

"Right. That was not a good judgement call, I know." He said. "I am sorry if it wasn't-"

"No." She interrupted him. "It was a good kiss. It took me by surprise though. But this" She gestured between them. "This is not a good idea."

"Why?"

"Because you are an attending. You are my boss. We work together."

"Are there rules against this?" He asked, shrugging. "Because Shepherd and Grey are a couple. And he's an attending and they work together too."

"I am not Meredith. I do not make decisions like her." There was a bitterness in her voice. He had thought they were very close friends. "Besides Meredith and Shepherd should not be used as a barometer for an ideal relationship."

Owen felt lighter inside as soon as he heard the word relationship. It seemed like she had given this a thought.

A relationship.

"I didn't say anything about a relationship." He said, smirking so she knew that he was joking.

"Well, you don't strike me as a no strings attached kind of man." She said, a slight smirk of her own appearing on her face.

He nodded. He had expected her to be resistant, but now that he was face to face with it, it felt much different.

He was not the kind of man who just gave up. At the same time, he was not the kind of man who pushed. No meant no, and Cristina seemed to be saying no.

"What happens now?" She asked.

"You should go in and get some rest." He said. "Its cold out here."

"Yeah."

They sat in silence just a little while longer, not wanting to leave each other. Cristina got up first and then so did he. He walked down the steps and turned around to watch her unlock her front door.

"Cristina."

She turned around. He wanted to tell her she was beautiful again.

"This isn't over." He said, his voice almost a whisper. Owen never gave up. Just like Cristina didn't accept defeat.

"I know." And with that she was gone.

He turned around and walked back to the hospital, the cold air enveloping him.

The cold air felt like home.