Chapter Eight

The show Grey's Anatomy and the characters are the sole property of Shonda Rhimes and do not belong to me.

Sleep did not come easily, and when it did she slept sporadically until morning. Luckily for her, she had the day off, a whole day to contemplate what took place the previous evening. It has been twelve hours since she last saw him. Twelve hours since she woke up naked in the on call room arms and legs entwined with his. The high she experienced during their coupling, now replaced by the physical ache of a body that for so long had no sexual contact with another human being. He aroused her in ways she never felt possible and made her feel things and want to do things. The childish game she played to get him in that bed backfired and now all she knew was that she wanted more, and that scared her. She thought that it would be so easy to have sex with him without forming any emotional attachment. Now she realized that the emotional attachment started long before they had sex and goes back to the night they first met.

She showered and stood naked looking at herself in the bathroom mirror. Evidence of what they had done the evening before written all over her body, he was thorough. No place was left untouched. She ran her fingers across her lips. They were still a bit swollen and like other parts of her anatomy, was still tender to the touch. Despite the lingering discomfort, he had been incredibly gentle with her. Treating her as if she was something precious and fragile that he didn't want to break. The little aches and pains were a small price to pay for what turned out to be the best sex she has ever had. There were no words to describe how incredibly good he was. He didn't just take but gave her so much in return. He led and she followed. Made her scream and rendered those screams redundant by covering her mouth with his, swallowing every sound. She gave as much as she got until everything became a blur, and there was no distinction between the leader and the follower.

She got dressed, wearing her hair down so as to cover the little red spots scattered randomly at the base of her neck and trailing downwards. It would take days for those little marks to disappear. She applied lip gloss and a little perfume. This morning she had an overwhelming feeling of being a woman and wanting to feel like one. As she pulled into the hospital's parking lot, her nerves took over. The confidence she had earlier had disappeared and now she couldn't face him. What if having sex with him changes the way he sees her? What if he believes that she sleeps around? What if all he wanted was to have sex with her and nothing more? When did she start to care? Why couldn't she get him out of her head? All the questions came flooding through her mind and all she wanted to do was forget. She felt naked, not in the physical sense but the feeling that anyone looking at her could read her thoughts. In the midst of passion it was so easy to bare her body in his presence. Now in the absence of that passion she wondered if she may have also bared her soul.

She glanced in her rare view mirror to make sure she looked presentable, run her fingers through her hair, picked up her purse and left the car. She would not let it consume her. She was Cristina Yang and Cristina yang did not allow anyone or anything to cause her to lose focus. Head held high she entered the hospital, determined to put the events of the previous evening behind her. Work she thought would be the one thing to eradicate Burke from her thoughts. It was the perfect antidote, Or so she thought.

It's morning at Burke's house and he is restless. He had done the one thing that he thought he would never do. After years of working in the hospital he had become accustomed to rumors of affairs between interns and their superiors. It was something that he didn't approve of, something that he couldn't imagine himself doing. Now, he was caught up in the same web of deceit. He knew that he should feel terrible about it. That he should regret his one moment of weakness, he couldn't. She had accomplished in one night what many have failed to do in years. She made him feel whole again. Made him forget about responsibilities and surgeries and broken hearts, forced him to be Preston instead of Doctor Burke. He wanted to hold on to that feeling for as long as he could. Deep in his heart he knew that he had reached the point of no return. He had fallen in love with her. Realizing that should have made him happy, it was a moment to be savored. Instead he felt sad, defeated, because deep down he knew that there was one thing that could come between them, one thing that could compete with her for his affections and possibly win, his driving ambition to become chief of surgery.

His position at the hospital and the possibility that he may someday be named chief had always been his first priority. There was no room in his life for relationships and love was definitely the last thing on his mind. He wasn't looking. Now, here he was having sex in an on call room with an intern, who like him, is highly ambitious, and far from ready for a serious relationship. He wondered if she was regretting it. Or, if like him, she was sitting at home on her bed thinking. Now he understands how others find themselves caught up in such situations. How difficult it was to be objective when your emotions are involved. Clearly a sacrifice had to be made, but which one. He could choose to continue having a clandestine sexual relationship with her or he could give up any hopes of becoming chief. .. He could never give up on his dream of becoming chief. It was what he was born to be. So the decision was made. She would be his sacrifice.

The decision made, he got up from his bed and went to the bathroom to shower. Like her, his body had signs of their encounter the previous evening. There were tiny cuts where her fingernails entered his skin. He would cut those nails himself if he had to. She was a surgeon after all. Surgeons should not have sharp nails. The memory of her nails digging into his skin in the heat of passion and the realization that it could never happen again made him sad. He was sure that he had left marks on her skin as well. In some ways he wished that he didn't have to shower. In his mind he was washing away all evidence of their evening together. He wanted to remember all of it, the sight, the sound, the scent, the taste, the feel of her. Being with her was wrong but he would not trade that experience for anything. They were good together and even though he was by far the more experienced. By the time it was over, he felt as though he had been schooled. She elicited feelings and actions from him that even he couldn't control. He was left spent and drained, unable to utter a coherent word, unable to find the strength to separate himself from her, unwilling to concede that in her he had finally met his match. And so he slept until late in the night when he awoke in the on call room and she was gone.

At the hospital he starts to search for her but to no avail. Cristina was busy trying to avoid him while he was trying to find her. She surprised Bailey by being especially nice that Morning, bringing her a Mocha Latte and asking to be assigned to Derek Shepherd. She even said please. Prompting Bailey to ask if she was okay. After much debate, Bailey conceded and Cristina was assigned to Shepherd.

Burke became concerned. He was in the middle of surgery but constantly kept checking the gallery for her. It was not like her to miss out on any surgery. She would always be there watching him like a hawk. The surgery ended and still she didn't make an appearance. Burke scrubbed out and started the search again, but finally had to give up. She was always one step ahead of him. So his day ended without him seeing her.

On the second day after their encounter, he found her. By then all thoughts of breaking things off with her disappeared. His only concern was for her and her well being. He had spent the night worrying. Every time his phone rang he hoped that it would be her. Sleepless most of the night, he was thankful for the break of day. He would find her no matter what it took. He didn't have to search very hard. He was walking from the locker room toward the surgical floor when he saw her coming straight toward him. Upon seeing him she quickly slipped into a vacant operating room. When he entered the room, she was standing directly behind the door, ready to slip out as he came in. He blocked her escape. She walked over to an old stool and sat on it. He walked over to her and stood directly in front of her. For a moment neither of them said anything, then he spoke.

"Look at me." He said quietly.

She didn't look at him but began to speak "I heard that they used to do a lot of surgeries in this Or. I wonder why they hardly use it anymore, . . . Meredith's mom used this room a lot. I would have loved to see her in action . . . If it needed to be cut open, dissected, Whatever, It happened here . . . We had sex Burke . . . don't try to dissect it and make something out of it that it isn't."

Her words stung but he knew that she was scared. Fearful of something she didn't quite understand.

"No, no dissecting here . . . I've been looking all over for you today."

"Yeah, why?"

"I wanted to talk to you"

"I don't want to talk about it." She cut him off immediately.

"You don't? .. We can't pretend it never happened?"

She kept her head down, not wanting him to see her eyes for fear that he would be able to guess her true feelings. "It works for me."

"Well it doesn't work for me . . . We need to talk, away from the hospital."

"Why is it necessary to talk about it? It's just sex Burke. People do it every day. I guarantee you that right at this very moment, someone somewhere is doing it. It is no big deal."

The fact that she could so easily dismiss what they had as just sex bothered him, he wanted her to feel the same things he felt, to value the experience the way he valued it.

"The way you sound right now, leaves me no choice but to wonder how many times you've done this before, and with whom."

"And that would be none of your business."

She sounded angry and that surprised him. She wasn't the same Cristina of a couple of nights ago. "Cristina please, talk to me."

"It was a mistake" she interjected. "It was temporary nymphomania, consider it repayment."

"Repayment for what?"

"For rescuing me that night . . . for me vomiting all over you . . . for all of it." She heard herself saying the words, knew that it was wrong but couldn't stop herself. The regret was immediate but too late. The room was silent. He didn't say a word. She wanted to look at him, to see his eyes. He had very expressive eyes and she wanted to see if her words had the effect that she thought it did. She knew that the part of her that wanted to destroy the relationship before it began had finally won. It made her sad. This was not the way she thought it would be. She wasn't prepared for how it made her feel. She tried to make amends "Burke I . . . "

"Don't" his voice was harsh but controlled. "Don't tell me you're sorry for what you just said because you're not . . . I don't know who you are or how the hell I allowed myself to become involved with you. To even suggest that you chose to repay a kindness with sexual favors' makes you nothing but a . . . " He stopped, annoyed with himself for allowing her to bate him. I never asked to be repaid, never wanted to be repaid. , But if last evening was repayment then you still owe me Dr. Yang, It wasn't up to par. She held her head down. Ashamed of what she had done. When she looked up the only indication that he was there was the door swinging back and forth.