A/N: So here's where we go slightly off-canon and into the land where there's no stupid loophole with the insurance company. Thank you all so much for reading.

Love You Through a Brick Wall

Chapter 2

I

Life moves on quickly, hastened by the lawsuit. They sign divorce papers with tears in their eyes, clinging onto one another's hands for dear life. When the insurance company confirms their payouts, fifteen million dollars apiece, they celebrate together in his trailer with expensive scotch, reminiscing about the early days of their marriage and toasting its ending with bittersweet smiles. They are different people now, they realize. Older, wiser, less selfish; more grateful for the things they have, and for one another. Their relationship now is almost unrecognisable from the mess they've left behind.

And the main reason for this is that they actually talk. In fact, they talk all the time: all night every night until they fall asleep on each other, fully clothed, with smiling, kiss-stained lips. Sometimes they revisit the past; sometimes they share details of their day or ideas for the future. She tells him about her time in Minnesota - all the gory details which still make her cringe - and she knows it makes him sad even though he does his very best to hide it.

She is honest because she has to be – they have to be, in everything, forever more – but it makes her sad too. Sad to hurt him again after all this time; sad that she didn't realize sooner what the failure of her pathetic liaison truly meant – that she belonged to Owen Hunt, and no one else.

He had her at "So?" and he's had her ever since. In heart, mind and body.

Especially in body. Especially when they're done talking for the night and he just won't stop kissing her, which would be fine except he won't do anything else either. Their relationship now is slow and steady and that's right - but it's also incredibly frustrating. Weeks of careful rebuilding has left them exhausted but rejuvenated, and their desire for one another is immeasurable; their restraint almost all gone.

It's the way he looks at her sometimes, like when she's speaking and she knows he's watching her mouth and not listening to a word she's saying. Or, on the occasions she manages to leave the trailer and go home before she falls asleep there, he kisses her goodnight and his gaze dances down her body of its own accord; he lingers too long and pulls her hair too roughly and tries not to make noises deep in the back of his throat.

One night he follows her out of his trailer where they've had dinner and spent almost four hours talking, and he begs her not to go. "Stay tonight. We can cuddle and I'll make you breakfast in the morning."

"Owen I can't," she sighs, turning to him with a smile beside her car. "Early start. And you slept on my arm last night. I just about regained full function by the time I started scrubbing in on my first surgery."

He steps forwards to embrace her and she lets his weight hold her gently against the car door. "Well, if you'd agree to stay over properly and get ready for bed, instead of just falling asleep wherever you feel like it, then that wouldn't be an issue."

There is so much hope in his eyes, so much boyish charm, that she almost gives in. "You know I want to." She runs her fingers down his cheek. "But we decided on six weeks minimum and it's only been three. We're not going to ruin this again."

"I know. But you're just so beautiful." He kisses her softly. "And so hot. And so amazingly sexy. And I love you."

With every word a little bit more of her melts and then the air begins to fill with murmurs and moans and white swirls of breath which escape into the night from the tiny gaps between their lips. It's all too easy for them to fall into this, into one another; into what they know and love most of all. But it was their downfall once and they can't let that happen again.

His hands find their way beneath her coat and onto her bare skin, and she gasps his name.

"Stay," he whispers, spreading his fingers over the small of her back and holding her tightly against him. "Please stay, Cristina. I need you here with me."

"I can't," she says again, willing herself to stay strong. Somehow she just knows that if she stays tonight, they will end up having sex. Lots and lots of hot, sweaty, mind-blowing sex. And while that's exactly what both of them want more than anything right now, the last rational part of her brain knows it's not what they want in the long-term.

They want forever, but forever takes a lot of patience.

She meets his gaze and he seems to have worked all this out for himself as well. "One day," he murmurs with a resigned smile, "You'll stay. You'll say yes. And I'll keep asking until you do."

"You better," she warns, reaching up for another kiss. Her mind is still on the saying yes part, the scorching hot sex she knows is waiting just around the corner, and it's difficult not to get carried away.

"Now you have to go," Owen says at length when her eyes finally refocus on his, "Because if you stay a minute longer I won't be responsible for my actions."

He steps back so she can open the car door and climb in. With a smile and a sigh, she tells him easily: "I love you."

"I know. I love you too."

In the car, her heart rate begins to slow and she is glad she stood her ground. They're not ready for more just yet. Despite having talked more than ever before, and despite Owen's reassurances that their separation made the choice between her and children an easy one, she just doesn't feel that the time is quite right. She's waiting for that moment when everything falls into place; when she no longer feels uncertain about any single aspect of their lives.

She can feel it coming. But there's one thing which still weighs on her mind; one issue she has which she so desperately wants to share with him but knows she can't. Certainly not right now, when she's not even sure of it herself. The effect it might have on him could either be minimal or change his entire life once again, and she can't take that chance.

Despite her early start she sleeps badly that night, deliberating her options until it's almost time for her alarm to go off and she's finally made up her mind.

She's not going to tell him.

And she desperately hopes that's the right thing to do.

I