Day Two

Burke glanced down into his sock drawer where he had placed the ring where he'd taken the opportunity to purchase while Cristina was at work and let out a long exhale, pulling it out.

He walked towards the living room, his heart pounding.

There had to be somewhere he could hide it and she wouldn't be able to find it. He settled on the cupboard where he kept the pots and pans. In all the months that they had lived together, he'd never once see her get in there.

She emerged from the bedroom in a tank top and jeans, wet curls dropping onto her shoulders, "What are you doing?"

Her eyes trailed to the cupboard that his hands rested on, "I thought that we were going to lunch? Did you change your mind?"

He jumped at the sound of her voice and spun on his heel, "No...just, uh...putting away a pan."

"When did we use a pan?" She pressed, noticing his jumpiness, sensing he was up to no good.

Burke moved to her and pulled her close, kissing her forehead, "How was work yesterday? You never told me."

"Mr. O'Malley died."

Burke took pause, feeling as if somebody had hit in him the stomach with a baseball bat, and he felt as if he were gasping for air when he finally choked out, "What happened?"

"I got him back." She winked, "He had a deep laceration to the superior vena cava and he was bleeding out like crazy and he flatlined, and I just grabbed the stuff and I did it- the running whipstitch, like you taught me, and I thought Hahn was going to have an infarct right there..."

"You could start out the story with he's still alive, Cristina." He exhaled, bracing himself against the counter, slightly put off by her demeanor.

"Sorry. But it'd lose it's effectiveness if I did that." She grinned.

He shook his head, "You had better go finish getting ready if we're going to get lunch at a decent hour."

"They serve lunch 24 hours a day in some restaurants." She shot back, walking away from him.

"The one that I want to take you to stops serving lunch in an hour."

He watched her disappear from site and his mind turned back to the ring in the cupboard. It traced through his thoughts that he could propose at the restaurant. He knew her face would light up. He knew that she'd say yes, but her reaction would be lacking.

Lacking in comparison, that is, to what she'd do if she was going back for her first day of work, went to fill her coffee mug that always awaits her by the coffee pot, and found a ring.

No, he would wait until after they got home, deciding it would be worth the extra wait to see her reaction.

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The rest of the day moved much too quickly for either of them, and they found themselves in bed all too soon. Both dreading the arrival of the next day, both holding to each other tightly as if they might lose one and other if they let go.

"What time do we have to wake up?" Cristina mumbled low, her fingers moving lightly over his bared chest, errantly spreading kisses her and there.

"Shepherd wants me admitted by 7, knowing the admissions lab and the registrar, we should probably get there at 5."

Her heart sank in her chest as she looked over his shoulder at the clock to see that it was already midnight. "We should sleep. It's late and tomorrow is going to be a hard day for you."

He rolled away from her and moved the alarm clock so that it would face away from their eyes and pulled her back into his arms, his fingers resuming their activity of running through her untamed hair.

"You shouldn't do that." She mumbled, trying to feign exhaustion as she buried her face into his chest, "You know that we have to get up early, and you know that you need your rest before the surgery."

A heavy sadness hung over their bed as they continued to just breathe, take each other in, and deny that after tomorrow that their lives would be difficult once again, that their relationship would be in the face of adversity once again.

He pulled her closer, his lips brushing against her neck, his hands sliding down her sides to find her hips and he smiled against her neck as he felt her give into him, an involuntary moan escaping her lips unbidden.

She found herself fighting for breath as he explored her body with his mouth and arched her back in response, her fingernails lightly dragging up his arm, succumbing to his work momentarily, then she stopped, pushing him away.

"Burke, we can't do this again."

He smiled at the fact that she was nearly breathless, "And why not?"

"Because you need rest...you have to have surgery tomorrow, we don't have time to do this."

He tipped her chin so that their lips met in a fleeting kiss, "The clock says that we have four hours. I say, we have all the time in the world."