Owen pulled up to the curb in front of Cristina's apartment at 11:00am to find her sitting out front on the bench, her shoulder bag beside her. She was on the phone and gave him the "wait" signal as she ended the call. It was good to see her; he had barely caught a glimpse of her during the last couple of days, and he had really missed the contact. They had gone from spending an increasing amount of time together to virtually none, and he was feeling the pain of withdrawal. She was a hard habit to break.

He stepped out of the truck and went around to open the passenger door, and she shook her head.

"You know, I can open my own car door."

"I know. Humor me. I can't help myself," he said as he gave her a hand up into the cab.

He got back in and turned to her as she buckled her seat belt. "Thanks for being willing to see me today. I know you don't have to do this. I really appreciate it."

She didn't seem too pleased at this statement. "You're making this awkward, Owen."

"I am?"

"Yes. Let's just go."

He was puzzled at her comment but she was right. It WAS awkward. He could feel the loss of that easy, comfortable connection that had developed on the flip side of the intense electricity between them. He still felt the spark, but right now it was coming across more like a short circuit.

"Cristina, if you're not comfortable with this..."

"I'm fine. I'm comfortable. Let's go."

He let out a long breath. He knew this feeling. She had shut him down like this before, and he had just stood there, scrub cap in hand, wondering what the hell he did wrong. This was not how he had envisioned this meeting. Maybe those monosyllables yesterday had been about more than just having Meredith in the room.

"Cristina, please... just tell me what's bugging you. Right now, all I can think of is that you don't want to go, or that I'm imposing on you."

"Owen, stop it! I'm here, ok? I want to be here. But I don't want to THINK about it or TALK about it, I just want to DO it. So can we just go, please?"

Something was definitely up with her, but he knew better than to push. One thing he had learned well in the past few months was that Cristina Yang did not like to be pushed. She'd tell him if and when she was ready, and not a second before. He started the engine.

"You ok with seafood? I know this place by the water."

"Yes. Great. That's fine."

Owen pulled away from the curb, wondering if he would have been better off spending the day by himself.

------

Bad idea. This was a bad idea.

They rode in frosty silence, except for a few lame pleasantries that were forgotten as soon as they were uttered. Owen couldn't recall a more uncomfortable car ride, and that included a frenzied sprint or two across the desert under enemy fire. At least then, everyone in the Humvee had been on the same team. His heart sank further with every mile they covered. Cristina seemed very preoccupied and all he could imagine was that she had truly had enough of him and his problems. When they arrived at the restaurant, she scrambled out of the cab so fast he didn't have time to come around and open her door. He couldn't help but wonder if she was trying to make a point.

They were early enough to get a nice table right next to the big picture window that overlooked the water. The sky was its usual steely gray, but little glints of sunshine poked through the clouds on occasion, causing the water to sparkle with a million little diamonds. Sea birds wheeled overhead and occasionally made a spectacular dive after a fish, an antic he never tired of watching. He loved this place and had been thinking of bringing her here for weeks, before everything had changed. Now, the sick feeling in his gut had him wondering if it hadn't been a mistake. If this went as badly as it seemed to be going, he doubted he would ever want to come here again.

After placing their orders and receiving their drinks, Owen decided to take his cue from the birds outside and dive right in. At this point, he had nothing to lose. He sat in silence until she looked up and he was sure he had her full attention.

"I saw my mother yesterday."

He could tell the instant the surprise registered. Gotcha, he thought with some satisfaction. Cristina's mouth dropped partway open and her whole face transformed. He noticed the interplay of emotion in her expressive eyes, and watched her mouth soften from hard annoyance to something much more accessible. He leaned forward on his crossed arms and waited. Now that the bombshell had been dropped, he decided to let the silence hang there until she said something.

"Oh, god. I'm sorry. I'm such a bitch."

"What?"

"I had no idea why you wanted to see me, and I'm so caught up in my own little drama..."

Just then the bread basket arrived, and Owen nodded his thanks to the waitress, loathe to interrupt Cristina now that she was finally saying something he wanted to hear.

"And what little drama is that?" he asked.

She took a deep breath. "Let's see... There's the I-just-got-off-the-phone-with-Meredith-for-the-tenth-time-and-she-seems-to-really-hate-you-now drama, and the Izzie-is-probably-dying-and-I-realize-I-actually-do-care drama, and... then of course there's the I-miss-you-like-crazy-and-I-still-can't-believe-this-is-so-fucked-up drama..."

He breathed a sigh of relief at that last one. "That's a lot of drama," he nodded. And he realized he had done it again - jumped to a negative conclusion without any solid evidence. Granted, Cristina in a funk was capable of making anyone supremely uncomfortable, but that was only half the equation. He was the one who went down the dark alley all by himself. He was going to have to cut that out.

"It is, but it feels like nothing compared with you going to see your mom. I'm such an idiot. I should have known you'd have a really good reason for asking me to meet you."

He reached across the table and placed his hand on hers. "It's far from nothing. And you're not an idiot. Today shouldn't just be about me."

She returned his gaze and suddenly the connection was back, that thing they had that she didn't have words for. She had been feeling so disoriented this morning - for the past few days in fact - like a TV set that's between channels and displays a snowstorm of static instead of a picture. Now they were both tuned in. The signal was clear again, and she could tell he felt it too.

"Can we start this whole thing over?" she asked.

Owen sat back in his chair. "I'd have to be a fool to say no to that one."

"Ok, then. Tell me all about your visit with your mother."

-----------

Cristina let Owen talk, barely interrupting him at all as he told her about his day with his mom. He got a little choked up as he described some of their interactions, and Cristina found herself wanting to go around to his side of the table and give him a hug, but she refrained. Sitting and talking with him like this fed a part of her that had been slowly starving since she'd broken up with him. It made her wonder about the status of their relationship and exactly how much separation was the right amount. She did not want to lose him for good.

When he was done, Cristina shook her head as if something still didn't compute for her. "I can't believe she knew all this time, and she didn't come after you. My mother would've been all over me like slime." Owen cocked an eyebrow at her strange choice of words. They had never discussed her mother before, and maybe this was why. His curiosity was piqued, but he opted not to follow up on it.

"I know. Me either."

"You must be so relieved."

"You have no idea." He shook his head. "I didn't realize how big of a burden it was until it went away."

"I still don't understand why you decided to go over there all of a sudden. You were so dead set against it before."

Owen chuckled. "It was fear." She looked puzzled, and he continued. "I'm seeing the shrink tomorrow and I didn't want to have to confess that I hadn't told my mom I was back yet. I had enough trouble dealing with your reaction when you found out."

A slow smile lit Cristina's lips. "You're a jerk, you know that?"

He gave her a sheepish grin. "I do now."

"So what happens next?"

"Well, there's more than just the thing with my mom. I did a sleep study on Thursday night. I think we got to the bottom of what happened when..." He had trouble getting the words out, "When I ..."

She was sitting forward now, her elbow on the table, her chin resting on her hand. "You don't have to say it. Just go on."

"It was a very interesting experience, to say the least. I don't want to go into detail right now, but the bottom line is there's a medication that's likely to help and I've started taking it."

"Good. That's good, right?"

"It could be. We have to wait and see if it works, but from what Davies said, it helps most people. The part I can't get my mind around is that I just don't know how I can ever be totally sure that what happened will never happen again... even if it seems to stop the episodes... I mean, I would need to be absolutely positive before we..." He shook his head and cut himself off in mid-sentence. "Oh, god, I'm sorry. I'm assuming things I have no right to assume. Forget I said that."

Cristina looked amused, not offended. "What if I don't want to forget it?"

Owen stopped and just looked at her, searching her eyes for whatever meaning she had intended with that statement. She returned the gaze with a provocative quirk of her brow.

"I'm surprised you're not paying more attention to what Meredith is telling you. I hear she's your person."

"Ugh, all she is at the moment is a flaming pain in my ass... But she has me over a barrel because I can't be mad at her now since she's planning her wedding and she needs me... It's like I'm a hostage to this wedding thing - cakes, dresses, flowers, Maid of Honor shit... all mixed up with her trying to convince me to stay away from you. What kind of friend would I be if we got into a fight now, right?" She shook her head with exasperation, "Anyway, look... when you picked me up, I was on the phone with her again, and she was all over me about you again. I'm sorry if I took that out on you... What the hell did you say to her, Owen?"

"Not much. I just asked her to mind her own business."

"That's it? Because she made it sound like you were half way to the nut house."

"Well, I did try to explain some things, but she doesn't listen too well. She just kept saying I should stay away from you, period. I got tired of hearing it after the 3rd or 4th time."

Cristina sighed. "I know how you feel. She's kind of relentless that way. What I don't get, though, is why she's so fucking adamant about it. She liked you pretty well before this happened."

Owen had been wondering the same thing, and on reflection he understood it better than he wanted to. "She's protecting you, which I get. I hurt you - could've killed you even - and she doesn't trust me not to do it again. She hardly knows me, so why should she trust me? I can understand that, even if I don't like it, even if I know she's dead wrong about me putting you at risk again... I mean, if someone else had done this to you, I might be pretty bull-headed about it too... But I also think she doesn't like people telling her to butt out, or calling her on her bullshit."

"Did you?"

"Did I what?"

"Call her on her bullshit."

"I guess you could say that. I called her a hypocrite for being so cruel to you during that girl fight you two had, then turning around and acting all high-and-mighty about this. It's that whole "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" thing that really irritates me. I mean, if she'd at least conceded that she wasn't Snow White, maybe we could have had a reasonable conversation..."

Cristina nodded. "Well, this clarifies things a little. Last time I really called her on something, we got into that fight you just talked about. In the end, I had to be the one to go to her. It only ended when she needed me so badly she couldn't deny it, with that awful serial killer thing...and even then Derek had to intervene and bring her over. It's hard for her to admit being wrong about anything."

Owen looked a little embarrassed, "Oh yeah, that..."

"Oh yeah, what? What did you say to her?"

"Well, I kind of called her on that one, too."

A mischievous grin lit Cristina's face. She remembered how mad she had been at Mer for bonding with that creep. "You didn't."

"Yeah, I kind of did."

"Ok, so now it really really makes sense. This is going to be tougher than I thought."

"Are you saying it's going to be up to me to end this stand off?"

"Eventually, it probably will. But don't worry about it right now. Give her some time to see you make progress. She might come around on her own, especially if Derek talks to her... She's a good friend, Owen. I know she might seem like more trouble than she's worth, but she's worth it to me, even when I kind of hate her like I do now."

"Well, I don't mind putting off another conversation. I don't have the bandwidth to deal with her now, anyway..." He changed the subject abruptly, asking a question that had been nagging at him since their last conversation. "How are you sleeping, Cristina?"

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he had a disconcerting flash of deja vu. It took him a second to realize he was remembering those same words coming at him unexpectedly from Derek's mom. She had caught him off guard with her question, forcing him to look at things he had not been prepared to face at the time. That had led to the drinking binge that had culminated in their disastrous first date. When he looked at the timeline of their relationship from this perspective, it seemed like an endless string of examples of him fucking up and her forgiving him, with the damage to Cristina increasing with each episode. Why was she still here, sitting across the table from him, being less than the girlfriend he knew he couldn't have right now, but more than the kick in the ass he deserved? He knew this train of thought led down a very dark rabbit hole, but it was hard not to peek inside.

Cristina snapped her fingers in front of his face. "Hello? Do you usually ask questions and then not bother to stick around for the answer?"

"I'm sorry. I was... never mind. Would you mind repeating what you said?"

"I said I'm sleeping ok, thank you. I haven't had another nightmare, if that's what you're wondering."

"It is. Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. I'm fine, Owen."

"Ok." He had heard that line one too many times from her. Not ok, he told himself, but not a fight I want to have right now. He kept to himself the observation that, although he still found her breathtakingly beautiful, she was looking a little frayed around the edges.

And she kept to herself the fact that, even though she was not having nightmares... every night at precisely 3am her eyes would pop open and she would stare at the ceiling - sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours - until she fell back into an exhausted and restless sleep.

------

On the ride back, it struck Owen that this little rendezvous was a first. "You know, we've never done this before."

"Done what?"

"Gone out for a meal. We don't even eat together at work. You're always hanging out with your friends in the cafeteria, and I've never taken you out before."

"And...?"

"And I know we're not together now, so it's kind of strange to finally take you out somewhere under these circumstances. I didn't really think about it when I asked you. I just wanted to talk to you someplace away from work and your apartment."

"Hmmm..." she looked thoughtful, "Define not together now."

Owen was grateful to be having this conversation in the car, where they could both look out the windshield instead of at each other. It was such a touchy subject that he wasn't sure if he'd be able to handle looking in her eyes while talking about it. "I don't know if I can define it. We broke up, right? First I tried to break up with you, but you wouldn't let me, and then you broke up with me. Which was the right thing to do. I need to get my shit sorted out. I get that. So we're... not together."

"Ok, so if we're not together, then what ARE we?" She was clearly wrestling with this definition for some reason.

"I guess that depends on where you want to go from here... eventually. You have to know I'm hoping this situation is temporary, even if I don't know how long it'll last. I have a lot more hope that I will get through this than I had a few days ago... And I wish I was unselfish enough to say that I don't want to ask you to wait around, but I'm not a good liar. There's no way I can watch you with someone else and keep my sanity... I guess we should probably figure out if we're on the same wavelength here, because if we're not I don't think I can handle staying here long term."

They rode in silence for a few minutes, and then Cristina finally spoke. "I've done a lot of thinking since... that night. I was ready to stay with you after what happened. I thought I could do it. If I could have, I would have, and it would have been a bad decision. Now I realize that by telling you it was ok for as long as I did, I enabled you to continue putting off your own healing process. It was a dance we did, Owen, and I take responsibility for my part in it."

"Cristina, this isn't your fault..."

"No, it's not, but I still had a hand in it. If I had been smart enough to break up with you sooner and insist you get help, we might have avoided the rest of it. I can't be sorry for what happened because I don't waste time on stuff like that. It's done. But I can learn from my mistakes and not make the same ones again." She let her words sink in and then continued, "Do you think if we got back together right now, you'd still follow through on all the stuff you have planned... the sleep clinic, the medication, the shrink...?"

"That's an easy question. Yes. I know I would, but as much as I miss you, I don't think we should be back together just yet."

"I don't either. It's too soon. We both need to take a step back, and you have a lot of work to do. Maybe I have some too. I realize I put myself at risk with you, and I was too caught up in the feelings to heed the warning signals. That's one place where Mer is right in all this. She knows this about me and she's worried I'll do it again. What she doesn't understand is that I won't. I want you back in my life, Owen, but not until it's safe."

He nodded in agreement. "Then we're on the same page. I just wish we could convince your 'person' of this so she'd back off. I don't like you having to take shit from her, and I can barely stand to work with her myself right now."

"Let me work on that part. I think if I lay it out for her, she'll get it. She doesn't understand our relationship, and I guess that's because I didn't confide in her much while it was going on."

"I have no problem with you handling it. Just let me know when it's safe to approach again, and I'll give her another shot... but that still doesn't answer your original question... about what we are if we're not together."

Cristina thought for a moment. "I think we're... on a break. That's it. We're on a break." She seemed pleased to have pinpointed a term. "Does that work for you?"

Owen relaxed another notch. On a break had the connotations of it being a recess, a temporary condition with an as yet undetermined restart date. That worked. That worked just fine.

"Yes. That works for me. Can I see you once in a while and keep you in the loop on things?"

She turned in her seat and gave him one of those half smiles he loved so much. "I'm counting on it."

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