disclaimer:

I do not own the rights to the characters used or to the song lyrics used. This fanfic is a non-profit, amateur effort not intended to infringe on the rights of anyone, either the people who own the songs or lyrics used or the owners of the characters depicted in this story.

Attention Readers: Sorry this took so long to post, I actually am not as happy with this chapter, but hopefully I can get Owen and Cristina back in character for the next chapter. Thank you everyone who has taken the time to review, I really appreciate all of your input and comments.

When Cristina stood up to follow Owen out, she had swayed slightly, the alcohol's effects causing a moment of dizziness. Owen slid his hand under her jacket and pressed it against the small of her back, guiding her, providing stability and something to lean against when the world spun too fast.

She wondered, as she leaned slightly into the warmth of his hand, if it would always be like this. If she would always be so charmed by these gentle physical gestures. The day he snuck up behind her to tie her yellow cover up, his fingers brushing against the back of her neck as they waited for an ambulance to arrive. He seemed to specialize in little tender moments almost without thinking about it, and it charmed her. If she had been less distracted by the way heat from his hand electrified every nerve in her body, she might have stopped to question when she started to wonder about "always" feeling this, or any way, around him.

They'd been quietly seeing each other for weeks now, ever since the day the solo-surgery was taken away from her. When she'd been forced to choose among her colleagues and she'd given it to Karev—Karev! He'd helped her through that nightmare, helped her clear her head, kissed her senseless. And they'd quietly started seeing each other. Usually there was food. It made the uneasiness bearable, to have food as a purpose when neither of them could admit, at least verbally, that the only thing that mattered was the closeness.

They found that that take out was easiest, taken to his place-- or hers if Callie was out. Less chance of being caught. She was cultivating a collection of memories that, while they didn't make up for him being absent from her bed at night, at least gave her a sweet distraction before sleep.

Over the weeks they'd sat together on his couch, each of them holding a bowl of cereal in their laps as they watched television. It was always a crapshoot, finding a show to watch. Neither of them were home enough to regularly watch anything, so usually they ended up on cable news, neither of them watching and talking about other things.

When they had time to spend together she peppered him with questions of his surgical residency, his trauma fellowship. She found that she could listen to him talk about anything. And he could talk about anything, be funny and engaging about even the most mundane subjects… The way the field of general surgery was changing. The way across the country, most staff surgeons were unhappy with the changes that followed on the heels of the 80-hour workweek restrictions for residents. Good old boys who'd worked over 100 hours a week during their residencies and weren't satisfied with having to work their own clinics while todays residents lived "the good life" and weren't "paying their dues". She could tell without asking he had no patience for these arguments, but recognized it took a certain number of hours to train a surgeon. Through their conversations, she'd been able to gather how political medicine in the military could be.

Tonight they stopped for take-out on the way to his apartment, choosing not to go to her place for fear of disrupting Callie. And, as they ate Chinese out of take-out boxes (he did surprisingly well with chopsticks), she wondered aloud if he'd saw himself ever competing for Chief of Surgery at Seattle Grace. She surprised herself, because it was a question, not a suggestion. She didn't need him to want Chief of Surgery. She didn't need him to be Chief of Surgery. He was enough.

Owen shook his head, finished chewing a mouthful of noodles and said, "I wasn't considering moving into an administrative position. The Chief doesn't have a lot of OR time, and to be honest I like where I am now. I like to work my shift and go home. In the future? Maybe. A lot of civilian hospitals are run by retired military officers. I've thought about eventually running a hospital, yes, and I suppose overseeing a Department of Surgery would be one way to get there. To be honest I didn't expect to be working in Seattle once I got out."

Cristina's ears perked up, and she mentally chastised herself. What did she want him to say? That he'd come to Seattle Grace for her? She didn't want that. "Why not Seattle?"

"Bad market for doctors. Everyone wants to live here, competitive environment drives salaries down. I guess I got out and was reconsidering the offer, I realized a person only needs so much money, so I didn't look into going anywhere else. Plus it was a good offer, because the hospital wanted to regain its classification as a level 1 trauma center," Owen stopped short and turned to her, eyeing her warily. "But this isn't what we're here to talk about."

Cristina set her food container on the coffee table and sat back into the couch, pulling her legs up against her chest, her jeans stretched tight across her knees. Owen was wearing a grey wool sweater and slightly darker grey pants. He looked enticing, if a little bit haggard. She'd tried a couple times to figure out how many hours he was spending at the hospital, without ever directly asking him because he shut her down each time she broached the subject. Her numbers were always too high to be accurate.

"No, it's not," she agreed, leaning her head on her knees and looking over at him.

Owen leaned forward on the couch, looking uncomfortable in his own skin. He rested his elbows on his knees and glanced at her before looking down at his feet again. His socks were black, probably a cashmere blend. She had noticed he liked nice things. Sturdy, quality materials, functional but also stylish/

"Do you have questions? Should I just start talking?" he asked. He looked lost. She wanted to reach out to him, wrap her arms around him.

Cristina let one of her legs drop off the couch, then scooted closer to him, putting a hand on his arm. "Owen--" she started, only her voice caught.

He made a noise. She couldn't describe the noise, a low groan, a sound of aching loneliness. She put a hand to his face and he turned his head toward hers. He turned his body and all of a sudden he was kissing her. She kissed him back, repositioning herself as he moved. He ended up kneeling on the floor, in front of the couch and facing her. He kept his hands from traveling over her body, but she could feel from the passion of his kiss that he wanted more. He was holding back.

But even holding back, he kissed her with such intensity she thought he might devour her if given the okay. He pulled away to look at her face, to see how she was reacting to it. She felt like a whale on dry land and he was the sea, waves lapping at her, giving her just a taste of comfort when what she needed was a tsunami to carry her home. He must have seen it, because he reached for her hair clip and pulled it out, buried his hand in her dark curls and kissed her with a tender fierceness that nearly had her crying uncle. In that moment she might have told them she could care less about the woman in the hospital, that she didn't need to hear about her or anything else if he would just take her to bed already.

She let her other knee drop, so that both her calves were hanging off the couch. Without breaking the kiss Owen wrapped an arm around her waist and inched her forward, closer to the edge the couch. Their hips were almost touching. He was between her thighs and her arms were wrapped around his shoulders. She wanted this, needed this. Now.

"Owen," she said again, a little desperate this time.

Owen pulled away and nodded, breathlessly said, "I know," and rested his forehead against hers.

"Don't stop," she said.

He shook his head. Taking a deep breath he said, "I can't, Cristina. I can't ignore what happened today. I feel like I almost lost you. I feel like I still could lose you."

She wanted to pout. She wanted to throw her body against the couch and roll her eyes. She wanted to grab his hips and pull him into her—see if he could stop then, but she didn't. Instead she pulled him to her. She hugged him and said all she could say. "I don't want to be afraid of this."

It was as close as she could get to admitting she was afraid.

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