Owen is sitting at his desk in his office. He is staring at the screen of his computer, but not seeing. He has been like this for 10 minutes.
He pulls a small paper bag out of the drawer. He opens it and takes out slips of paper, one by one, each with a resident's name on it. He is randomly assigning them to his service in the ER on different days of this week. It makes him feel stupid and unprofessional to do it like this, but he can think of no other way. If he didn't, he would put Cristina on his service every day, just to see her. Or he would never put her name down, to keep her safe away from him. He's not sure which.
Cristina lies in bed, awake. She cannot sleep. She breathes a deep sigh that ends with a shudder, but not quite a sob. She doesn't remember it hurting this much ever, not even when Burke left. She tries to imagine what the great gaping wound inside of her looks like. Is her heart literally broken? She thinks of hearts she has held in her hands. None of them were ever cracked in half like she imagines hers is. She knows how to fix hearts, other people's hearts. She does not know how to fix her own.
I am afraid to fall asleep with him, she thinks. I am afraid to wake up without him.
Owen is in an on-call room. Not their on-call room. He can't bear to go to their room.
He is lying on the bed, but not tired. He slept six hours straight through the night before. He does not remember the last time this happened. He woke wanting to tell Cristina. Then he remembered that he couldn't. He has been in therapy for three weeks.
He reaches down to his lab coat and pulls a strip of black cloth from his pocket. It is Cristina's headband, the one she was wearing that night. He found it on the floor by the bed after she left him. He holds it in his hands and thinks of her hair, spread out on the pillow. After a few minutes, he tucks it away safely, gently, back into the pocket. He is careful to make sure it is with him at all times.
When Cristina works with Owen in the pit, she is focused and serious. She is sure to stand an appropriate distance from him, and does not meet his gaze unless they are discussing something medical.
She can't bear to look into his eyes. With those eyes, the color of a deep blue ocean, she knows that he will see right through her, see her unravel, like an old sweater that keeps getting caught on a sharp object, snagged and torn.
Sometimes she feels him watching her. She wants to look at him, but she can't. Once, not long after, she did look at him, and her eyes filled with tears. And then his eyes did the same. So they try not to look at each other, because to look is to see, and neither can bear the sight.
Cristina has taken to sitting with Izzie in her hospital bed. Not long after the incident, she tells Izzie everything. Everything. Not even Meredith knows what Izzie knows. But Cristina feels she can trust Izzie with her secret, just as Izzie trusted her in the same way. And it is exactly right. Izzie does understand, for Izzie knows what it is to love and lose a broken man. There were no LVad wires cut this time, but Izzie understands decisions that are made out of love and fear, and the drastic consequences of those choices.
When people pass the windows of Izzie's room and see them talking quietly, sometimes holding hands, they think they see a doctor comforting a patient. But they are really seeing two friends comforting each other, with more in common than they ever realized.
Meredith is wary around Owen. She doesn't trust him, and he knows it. She is always professional and cordial; she speaks to him as one should speak to her superior, but there is something in her eyes that betrays her manner. Owen hurt her Person. She does not forget. She is not ready to forgive.
Derek notices a change in Owen. It is weeks since Owen first came to him for help. He sees Owen now more gregarious, more outgoing, more of what Derek has come to believe Owen used to be before whatever terrible thing happened to him. He knows it was a terrible thing, but he doesn't know what. Owen does not talk to him about specifics, but he does talk more now. Derek listens and picks up clues here and there. They eat lunch together regularly, and sometimes have a beer at Joe's after work. Mark is still upset with Derek, and Derek needs someone, too.
He has tried to explain this change in Owen to Meredith, but she does not respond. Her circle of people has always been small and exclusive. It is hard enough to even include her half-sister, much less feel something for the man who broke her best friend's heart.
Derek is acutely aware of the sadness in Owen's eyes when Cristina enters a room. Derek sees Owen watch her, his gaze always drawn to her in the ER, the cafeteria, the hall, wherever they happen to be in close proximity. He knows Owen wants to talk to her. He knows Owen doesn't have permission to do so.
Callie asks questions sometimes. Nothing very specific at first, because she sees Cristina is different now. Cristina has always been reserved and private. Now she is virtually impenetrable. But Callie asks questions, trying to understand how Cristina could so readily embrace the man who only minutes earlier had almost killed her. Sometimes, Cristina answers. Sometimes, Cristina makes excuses and leaves the room. Always, Cristina gives the illusion of internal strength. But as the weeks pass Callie sees her not growing stronger and recovering, but slowly, quietly, gently breaking into pieces. Callie worries for her.
Bailey knows something devastating has happened. She prides herself on knowing everything going on in her hospital, but this is not something she foresaw, and she tries to think back, looking for the clues she must have missed. She should have been able to save her doctors from whatever this is. She should have been able to talk them into it, or out of it, or about it, whatever it was.
Her doctors are all business with their patients. They are professional. They are efficient. They are skilled. And they are a wreck. That Cristina and Owen can barely be in a room together should tell her something, but she can't figure out what. This devastation is far more than what she fathomed at first. And for once, possibly for the first time ever, Bailey has no words of advice, no way to correct the situation. Maybe also for the first time, Bailey has an inkling of self-doubt. If she can't understand what is going on here, if she has no words to fix it, maybe there are other things she can't fix, as well.
Cristina doesn't sleep as well as she used to. She finds herself waking in the middle of the night, listening to the quiet. The first few nights after, she woke up breathing heavily, muting her own sobs, catching her breath, remembering the horror of it all. Now she just lies awake, thinking, thinking too much.
When she is feeling especially sorry for herself, she pulls out some of her college texts, the French novels and short stories she read and analyzed. She reads the tragic love stories with a new perspective. Then she places them carefully back on the bookshelf where they will look like they have sat unread, undisturbed.
Owen sleeps better than he used to. Therapy seems to be working more than he thought it would. He has fewer nightmares. He still falls asleep thinking of Cristina, and wakes thinking of her. He hopes therapy doesn't change this habit.
When he is feeling especially sorry for himself, he thinks of all the times that he could have, that he should have kissed her and didn't. He thinks of all the memories they might have created. But he had planned on 40 years. He didn't know he would have to safely tuck away every moment they shared into the recesses of his mind, so that he could call upon them later just to help him survive.
Cristina and Owen only share one thing now, though they don't realize it. It's the one thing that gets them through their long and lonely days. Neither knows that the other constantly relives the on-call room, imagining every second, carrying around those images and sensations like a security blanket, like a shield against an existence that seems to be working against them.
They each carry these thoughts to keep them going, knowing that for a few brief moments in time, they experienced real, true, and unequaled love. And to some, it would seem to be not much left to share together, but each of them knows that ultimately, it is everything.