A/N Thanks for the reviews guys! The fluff continues…

By the time they made it to the cabin, Cristina fell asleep, exhausted. She woke up the next morning in her usual position, intertwined with Burke. "Good morning," he said, his voice deeper as it always was in the mornings.

"Mmm," she responded by way of reply, and buried herself under the covers. Burke chuckled. "Well, you don't have to get up until whenever you want today." He himself still rose, and Cristina only dozed. Her body was automatically timed to wake up with the sun. When she was finally stretching in an attempt to rouse her body, Burke came in with a mug in one hand, and a plate of toast in the other. She wordlessly took the coffee from him, and shoved a slice of toast in her mouth, before she was awake enough to mumble, "morning."

After they went to hire their skis, they changed into their ski suits, and walked over to a map to study the trails. Behind her glasses, Cristina could perve on Burke in his all-black ski suit until her heart was content.

"It's been a while since I've done this. Do you want to do a beginner, and intermediate or an advanced trail?"

Cristina smirked. She knew he was only trying to be nice, in case she couldn't keep up with him. "You won't be able to show off fully unless we're on an advanced trail, and who am I to stand in your way?"

He grinned, and pulled his sunglasses over his eyes. "Fine, your call. Let's go."

As they were on the chairlift, he glanced down at their surroundings. "It's beautiful," he began, taking in the rolling mountains blanketed in snow, tasting the chill on the air. "How would you describe it?"

She raised her eyebrows, "excuse me?"

"You're the one that majored in literature at college. Say something poetic to describe the scene."

She rolled her eyes. Non-hospital Burke was mildly disturbing her. "I majored in French Literature. Fine. Everything's very…white."

"That wasn't very poetic."

"You say something poetic."

He thought for a moment, then leant across to softly brush his lips against hers. He lingered for a moment, before pulled back. "I went for cliché rather than poetic."

Cristina pressed her lips together, trying not to smile. "That'll do."

At lunch, Burke asked Cristina, "how many times have you been skiing before?"

She shrugged as she sipped on her diet coke. "I don't know, half a dozen maybe?"

"You're good." He paused, watching her face closely. Deciding he'd need to press a little more, he asked, "can you remember the last time you went skiing?"

She furrowed her brow for a moment. "It was the usual trip to Aspen Saul took us on. It was when I was at college, probably Christmas of my sophomore year. He decided he wanted to unite the family for Christmas, so even though my stepsister Claudia and I were at college, he paid for us all to go." She smirked, lost in memory. "I don't remember much else except the guy Claudia decided to bring with her. She'd always had a new one basically every weekend when we were in high school, but Daddy's little girl, only 22 at the time, brought a guy – Trey, I think his name was – and announced they were getting married."

"And this was a problem?"

"Are you kidding? You may have only met them once, but you saw how controlling Saul is of his daughter, even now. Saul wanted to get rid of him as soon as possible, and my mother suggested that locking him outside the cabin in the freezing temperatures all night may be an effective deterrent."

"Humane."

"Yeah, well, that was my mother. They didn't break up those holidays, but eventually Trey impregnated another girl, so that was the end of that."

Burke shared a smile with her, and continued watching her after she resumed eating. Strange how someone could still be so intriguing, after so many months. She still captivated him, and he hardly dared to breathe on the rare moments she did open up to him, determined to savour every moment.

So after a couple of days away, Cristina actually began to relax, and enjoy the holiday. They had a perfectly calm Christmas, and were beginning to manage sleeping past six in the morning. She was actually enjoying skiing with him, and the man Burke was outside the hospital. This was the longest they'd been away from the hospital, and actually being outside of Seattle made a difference. He had a truly terrible (who was she kidding, it was downright geeky) sense of humour that emerged when he was relaxed, and she was having fun baiting him about it.

Of course, the most fun were the night time activities – the hot tub, and the ways they found to keep each other warm at night.

The day after Christmas, she gave Meredith a call at lunchtime whilst Burke was in the bathroom. "How was your Christmas? Were you the grinch again this year?"

"No, actually, it was fun. I went to see my mother, and then Derek came over, and we hung with George and Izzie most of the day. Even Alex came around for a bit, it didn't suck. Derek got me a day at a health spa for Christmas. He says next time I feel the need to get a hangover, to go to the health spa instead."

"Ten points for McDreamy."

"Yeah, my boyfriend rocks. What'd Burke get you?"

"This is so not a competition. But I win anyway. This holiday is my present. But I also got some diamond earrings-"

"Not too shabby."

"- and a game of 'travel scrabble' so we can play the game that's exclusively ours anywhere."

"Oh, bad images in my head. Make them stop!"

Cristina smirked. "We were right, you know. He's a brilliant skier. And he wiped me off the table at pool in the games room. Luckily last night, I finally found a game that I'm better at than him."

"What?"

"Strip poker."

"OK, overshare, and I never though I'd say that about you."

"Burke's coming back, I gotta go."

"Please do. Have fun the rest of your trip, you filthy whore."

"You too."

"Who was that?" Burke asked, dropping down to sit opposite her.

"Meredith."

"Oh, that reminds me, my mother called last night. She said to say hello."

Cristina eyed Burke. "Was that a hello as in 'I hope you break up with that bitch before new year,'?"

"No, I think it was a 'it's Christmas, I want to be civil and be friendly towards the woman my son loves,' sort of hello."

"Sure," Cristina replied disbelievingly.

He reached across the table to take her hand. "It was. But you have to admit, that was quite a first impression." A grin spread across his face. "It'll be a good story for the kids."

She stiffened slightly. He said things like that, on occasion. He still wasn't sure whether they just slipped, or he was trying to gage her reaction. But they didn't terrify her like they used to.

"It will. Are you ready to go?" Pointedly ignoring the knowing smile he gave her, she crossed to the door, knowing he'd be following her.