Hold On - Part II
---
The sound of his trumpet fills her ears straight off the elevator and she follows it, stopping just short of their door. She closes her eyes a moment and listens, smiles when she realizes it’s the song he’d always play for her. Cristina lingers at the door, her hand resting against the door knob as she takes it in.
It’s obvious that he misses her as much as she misses him, especially now.
Cristina slowly unlocks the door to silence the click of the lock and she steps inside and closes the door behind her just as carefully. She stops there, watching him play, eyes closed and long fingers curled around the slightly battered golden frame.
She always teased him about how crappy his trumpet looked and he’d claim he liked the scratches and dents because it gave it character.
The music stops abruptly and it draws her away from the memory. When she looks up, he’s looking at her with surprise painted in his features. She presses her lips together and shrugs her coat off, making clear her intentions to stay at least for a while. It drops on the floor next to the bureau and she crosses the floor slowly.
“Don’t let me interrupt you. You can keep playing. I traded call shifts with Alex,” she says casually, toeing off her shoes, “I like that song anyway.”
“You always have,” he says quietly, putting the trumpet aside, “what are you doing here?”
“Coming home,” she breathes, sitting down on the couch and curling her legs under her.
“I told you that I’d-“
Cristina cuts him off before he suggests leaving the apartment for a second time, “It’s not home if you’re not here. Then it’s just an apartment. I can get an apartment if I want.” When he falters at her response she continues, seeing the opportunity to end this once and for all, “My favorite color is red.”
This causes his eyebrow to raise high in confusion, “What?”
“My favorite color is red,” she repeats, “From the time I was three until I started undergrad, I was in ballet. I rode horses in junior high and high school competitively and won awards for it. I flunked a test on purpose in seventh grade because I wanted to see what my mother would say if I was less than perfect and I wasn’t allowed to date until I was seventeen.”
“Cristina, what are you doing?” he sighs, bringing his fingers to the bridge of his nose to massage it gently, as if it will somehow ward off the impending headache.
“What are you doing?” she throws back at him.
Burke drops his hand and stands up, “I need to go check on some patients.”
She immediately gets up, blocks his path to the door, “You know, you never told me the little crap either. You never went on about your mother’s restaurant or growing up in Alabama.”
“You never asked.”
“So what?” she snaps, “It’s a one way street? It only applies to me and not you?”
“Cristina,” he says again but she silences him once more.
“Does it change anything? Does it make a difference that my favorite color is red? Should it be pink or purple or clear? Does it clarify anything for you? Because for me it’s just trivia. You know who I am and you know the woman you fell in love with. You know me Burke and you always have,” she keeps her eyes fixed on his, trying to gauge his reaction.
Cristina is starting to think that he’s even more stubborn than she is.
“Just stop,” Cristina’s voice has dropped, “so what if we didn’t get married this time. There are other times and there’s no rush. If you want to do the trivia thing, we can do the trivia thing. If you want to nitpick other aspects of our relationship, then we have time to do that.”
“It’s not about the little things, Cristina. It’s the whole thing. The whole thing was wrong.”
“Really?” she asks, stepping forward to put a hand around his neck and one against his chest. Rising to her tiptoes she brushes her lips against his, brief and tender and pulls away just a little, “then why does that feel right?”
Her intonation affects him in more than one way and his eyes darken slightly. Against his own will, his hand has come up to rest on her hip, thumb rubbing light circles just above the waistband of her jeans. “We can’t do this, Cristina.”
“We can do whatever we want,” she murmurs, “I’m telling you that I want this.”
“We want different things.”
“We want different versions of the same thing. So we compromise,” she suggests, “isn’t that supposed to be some key element in the whole marriage thing? I wouldn’t know seeing as I’m not married at the moment.”
Her jab at him causes Burke to find the willpower to break away and he walks towards the door, “We’re not discussing this anymore.”
“And you call me closed off,” she mutters under her breath, following him and picking her jacket up off the floor.
Burke chooses to ignore the comment, “Why don’t you stay here tonight? I have business at the hospital anyway. Grey’s house is-“
“Fine with me,” Cristina says, pulling on her shoes. She bends to pick her coat up and then brushes past him. She’s angry, frustrated and hurt all at the same time. She’s starting to feel like it’s some sort of punishment for making him play guessing games for so long.
“It will get easier,” he promises her when she turns to look at him.
“Yeah,” she mumbles, “sure.”
“It will.”
She starts to walk away from him and then stops to catch him still watching her. “My thing?” she says matter-of-factly, “The reason I wasn’t coming down the aisle? The freakout?”
“What about it Cristina?” he sighs, tired of her fighting him. She’s making this too hard for him.
“It was my vows,” she holds up her hands as if they’re somehow permanently engraved in her hand, “I scrubbed in on a surgery before the wedding. They were on my hand and I scrubbed them off. I didn’t have any vows. That was my thing.”
Cristina doesn’t wait for his reaction or answer, she simply turns around and walks away. She’s made her move, one of the only moves she’s willing to make.
When he wants to fix it, he’ll know where to find her.
---
Meredith springs off of the couch when Cristina walks in the door.
“It’s late and you were supposed to be on call. Where the hell have you been?” she questions, almost causing Cristina to have flashbacks of high school.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I had a curfew,” Cristina states plainly, dropping her coat on the couch. “Why are you still awake? Don’t you have early call?”
“You weren’t answering your phone. You weren’t at the hospital. I was-“ Meredith pauses and then finally blurts out, “Are you screwing Burke and not telling me? Is this like some sort of breakup sex thing because if it is, I’m your person and you need to tell me these things.”
Cristina snorts, “I need to tell you who I’m sleeping with and when I’m going to do it?”
“Yes,” Meredith answers. Maybe it’s irrational but she’s irritated that Cristina seems to be hiding things from her and she’s even more irritated that Alex seems to have known that Cristina was up to something.
He is working her call shift tonight.
“We weren’t having sex .We were talking. That’s it,” Cristina explains, “just talk. No sex. If I were having sex, I wouldn’t have come back at all. I’d still be having sex.”
“I didn’t need that much detail.”
“You don’t need any details. It’s my thing, this is my thing. I don’t want to discuss it.”
“Cristina, I tell you everything about Derek. Everything. That’s what friends do,” her voice is in a near whine and it’s not just because Meredith wants in on the gossip. She feels like she’s not doing anything to help her friend out, that she’s just sitting back and watching the chaos unfold.
“What? Are you going to breakup with me now?” Cristina asks, “I’m fine with sleeping at the hospital. I don’t need to stay here if the only thing you’re interested in is me talking about missing Burke or how he’s being stupid or whatever else. I don’t discuss everything to death like you.”
“Maybe if you got it out it wouldn’t be a thing.”
“It will be a thing until he pulls his head out of his ass. Me saying it to you isn’t going to change anything. Talking about it isn’t going to change anything. What will change things is if you quit acting different around me. I’m not fragile, I’m not broken like you think I am and I’m a big girl who can handle myself. Just…just stop,” it’s clear that Cristina’s frustration with the situation is coming to a head. Her voice is firm and her tone angry and she’s standing on the other side of the room.
Dealing with Burke is enough without listening to her friends ramble on about how Burke broke her. She’s not broken; she’s pissed off and in the process of trying to fix shit and her so-called friends definitely aren’t making it any easier.
“Okay, fine. You’re not broken,” Meredith says, taking offense at the mini-tirade. “I’ll quit caring.”
Accepting this, Cristina sits next to Meredith, her hands folded in her lap. “Thank you.”
“Whatever.”
A soft sigh escapes Cristina’s lips and she lays her head against Meredith’s shoulder. Her eyes close and she admits just quietly, “I hate your house.”
Meredith looks down at her friend before laying her head against her friend’s, “I know you do.”
---
“Dr. Karev.”
Addison prolongs the word doctor, somehow indicating that he’s in trouble. Alex is just about to round the corner and he wonders if he can get away with pretending that he didn’t hear her. When he feels a finger in his back he knows that he took too damn long to figure it out and he spins to look at her.
“Yeah,” he says, wincing at the sharp pain in his back. The call room bunks aren’t exactly comfortable and her long pointy finger jamming into his spine wasn’t exactly complimentary to his already stiff muscles.
“It’s been brought to my attention that you weren’t supposed to be working last week, something about coming in on mandatory time off,” she says, her eyes dancing over some handwritten note. She looks up at him after skimming the note and falters slightly.
Even if he’s an ass, he’s still cute.
“You and I both know that’s lame. It’s a stupid rule. I was honing my skills. Trying to pick up tricks from Bailey before the new class came in,” so it’s a blatant lie, he doesn’t care. He puts his hands on his hips, taking a defensive stance. He’ll be damned if he’s going to get sent home for a week.
“Yes, well, lame as the rules here may be, they’re established for a reason, Dr. Karev.”
“I already came back last week. Last week is over so what does it matter?”
Addison smirks, “There are fifty-two weeks in a year, Dr. Karev.”
“Are you serious?” he asks angrily, “You’re seriously going to make me go home?”
“Keep up that attitude and I just might,” she says, “Actually, I was going to let you off the hook if you do something for me.”
Alex fleetingly thinks that he could do a lot of things for her and then he remembers how that turned out last time. She wants things like commitment and barbeques and other shit he’s just not capable of. Too bad, because she’s hot. “What do you want?” he asks warily.
Addison lowers her voice and steps closer to him, like there’s another person in the empty hallway that might here her. “Has Dr. Sloan had some sort of betting pool going on?”
“Betting pool?” Alex asks, “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Maybe one about Dr. Yang?”
When Addison says something about it pertaining to Yang, he feels the slightest flash of anger and his fist clenches at his side, “I haven’t heard anything about it. You want me to find out?”
“Please do,” she says, stepping back. “Even better, put a stop to it.”
“And I won’t get a week off?” Alex asks.
“Shut it down and I’ll give you a day on whatever service you want, no interns.”
“Done,” Alex says. He would have stopped it in the first place but he figures he may as well get something out of the deal besides just helping Yang.
“Good,” Addison smiles, “thank you, Dr. Karev.” She can’t help staring a little as he walks away from her, remembering exactly what he’s hiding beneath those scrubs. She thinks to herself that she wouldn’t mind seeing it but just as quickly reminds herself that she’s the chief of surgery.
Playtime is over for her.
---
Cristina slumps over the desk and buries her head in her arms, trying her best to stay awake. She hasn’t slept well in at least a month and she figures that at some point she’ll just collapse in exhaustion. Today may actually be the day it happens
Or at least she’s hoping so. Sleep would be nice.
“I told you that I’d watch your interns,” Meredith nudges her, “go steal one of the call rooms in derm where nobody will find you and sleep.”
“I can’t,” she groans, “I have an ablation at ten and a valve replacement at three.”
“You’re going to fall asleep in the middle of Burke’s open chest. I guess that’s one way of getting revenge.”
“I don’t want revenge. I want sleep.”
Meredith glances at the clock, “I think you need to take your day off tomorrow instead of coming in. You’re going to kill someone. Or yourself, which trust me, isn’t nearly as appealing as it sounds. I know, I tried.”
“Not funny,” Cristina comments dryly.
“I thought it was.”
“Thinking clearly isn’t one of your stronger areas. You should stick to sleeping with inappropriate men and tequila.
No matter how hard she tries to act indignant over the comment, Meredith can’t hide a small giggle at it. Her eyes trail across the hall and she sees Alex standing in front of the surgical board going off on one of his interns.
He’d definitely be inappropriate.
“Has Alex been nice to you lately?” Meredith asks Cristina, not really looking away from him.
“Evil spawn?” Cristina asks, “No, he’s still himself. Why would he be nice?
Cristina knows that she’s not exactly being truthful but his pity doesn’t come across as pity so she doesn’t really care if he does it. His pity is more a special brand of asshole that he reserves for people when he knows that they can’t tolerate his typical personality.
Or at least that’s how Cristina likes to think of it.
“I don’t know. I guess because of everything,” she mumbles, “he seems different.”
“He’s not. He’s Alex. He’ll always be Alex,” Cristina groans, forcing herself out of her chair. “I have to go. I have patients to prep and interns to deal with. Don’t wait up for me tonight. This valve is going to take forever. She’s a disaster waiting to happen.”
“I still think you’re sleeping with him.”
“Meredith,” Cristina sighs, “just drop it. There’s nothing going on. Nothing is going to go on. It’s over.
The words suck coming out but Cristina is actually starting to believe them. She leaves after saying it, hiding any expression of hurt or disappointment at the open admission. Exhaustion has the best of her right now and she definitely isn’t going to let emotion take advantage of that.
Meredith hears the pain in Cristina’s voice when she says the words but it doesn’t stop her from leaving. She watches her with softened eyes as she leaves and as she’s turning back to look at her chart, she sees Burke with that same pain in his eyes.
“Ass,” she mutters in his direction before snatching the chart up and walking away.
Burke clearly makes out the word and isn’t the least bit offended by it. He feels like a complete ass and he’s not really sure how to make it any better.
Nobody can change the past.
---
“How much money you got in this thing?” Alex asks, peering over Mark’s shoulder as he thumbs through a stack of twenty dollar bills.
“It’s twenty to buy in,” Mark grins, pausing in his count, “right now I’m sitting at about five hundred. The nurses are all over the action. Why? You want in?”
Alex reaches into the pocket of his pants and pulls out his wallet, “You said five?”
“Are you deaf, Karev?”
Throwing down five one-hundred dollar bills, Alex delivers a challenging glance, “No, I’m just surprised that it’s that pathetic. I’ve got five that they’ll be commandeering a call room by the end of the week and that your little meltdown never happens.”
Mark snorts and pushes the money back towards him, “Don’t be stupid, Karev.”
Pushing the money back towards him, Alex lowers his voice. “You’re the one who’s stupid. My bet stands. You take the money and keep it quiet or I swear to God, you’ll regret it.”
“Really? And what are you going to do?”
“Gambling on hospital property and sexual harassment aren’t really things that the Board of Healing Arts expects out of doctors. Right now they don’t know about it,” Alex says, “I’m sure you’d like to keep it that way.”
Anger flashes through Mark’s expression, “What the hell are you playing at, Karev?”
Alex smirks and shoves his hands in the pocket of his lab coat, “Nothing. I’m just looking to make some extra cash. Keep it quiet,” he reminds him and then stops short of leaving his office, “by the way, my bet is the last.”
It’s not exactly shutting it down but it’s making Sloan eat his words and it’s earning him some extra cash.
It’s what Alex would call a win-win situation.
---
Cristina shifts uncomfortably next to Burke while he speaks to the family of their valve replacement. The only thing she wants to do is crash in the nearest call room and she can’t because there are post op notes and incident reports and all kinds of other various paper work to fill out because the patient had to go and die on the table.
Once the family is consoled and filled in on the details, Cristina reluctantly follows him back to his office. She fills out her report in silence and he fills out his. She can feel him staring at her every once in a while and she glances up to catch him a couple of times. It’s like he wants to say something but he’s not saying it which is something that he never does.
Not often, anyway.
Right now, she’s too tired to deal with any of it so she tries to focus on her paperwork through heavy eyelids and hopes that her writing is at least halfway legible because legal is going to chew her ass if it isn’t. Her eyes are burning and she’s signing her name and she stops for just a second to rest her eyes and uses the back of her arm to cover a yawn.
“Go to sleep, Cristina,” Burke finally says, “You can finish this Friday morning. I’ll pull you off of trauma to my service so you can.”
“I’m fine,” she mumbles groggily and goes back to writing.
“Are you?” This time he’s not referring to the paperwork but to the state of things overall. Burke braces himself for her answer, feels guilty that he wants it to be no. He’s not fine and he doesn’t think that he will be anytime soon. He’s not ready for her to be fine either, even though he deserves it.
She deserves it too, just in a different way.
“I’m tired,” she answers honestly, signing her name and putting the paper on top of his desk, “Meredith snores and the couch isn’t comfortable.” It’s partially the truth. She leaves out the part about having a hard time sleeping in an empty bed after growing so used to him being next to her, having his arm draped over her waist.
There was a time before when they weren’t in the best of places and she remembers being equally exhausted. There was a resolution then and while she still wants one, she doesn’t know that it will ever come.
“I can see where that would present a problem. I’ve told you that you can sleep at the apartment,” Burke reminds her, “it’s not an issue, Cristina. Actually, I’d prefer it.”
He’d prefer to be there with her.
“I told you that it’s not-“ she stops short of finishing her sentence, too tired to really complete the thought. “I’m not going anywhere tonight. I’m staying here.”
“Aren’t you off tomorrow?”
“What? Are you following my schedule now?”
“Perhaps,” he admits shamelessly, “Just because things happened the way that they did doesn’t mean that I don’t care about you.” That he doesn’t still love her and worry about her, that he doesn’t look forward to the days that he can see her even if he isn’t with her.
Cristina looks up at him, exhaustion starting to break through the last bit of resolve she has, “Funny. You don’t act like it.”
“Despite your perception of my actions, I do.”
“Yeah, well,” she mutters as she stands, “I’m too tired to deal with it right now.”
Burke lets go of the subject, he’s not going to try to convince her of anything right now. “Go on,” he urges softly, “go get some rest. I can finish this up.”
It doesn’t take more than that for Cristina to leave his office and seek out a call room. Burke takes his time getting back to the paperwork, letting his mind wander for far too long. The clock drags on slowly as he finishes up the last of the incident reports and places them neatly in the bottom drawer of his desk. He reaches for his car keys and decides against going home for the night when he sees how late it is.
He has an early case in the morning anyway.
It’s not his intention to find the call room that Cristina’s in though he’s curious to see if she’s actually getting some rest. The first two doors are locked and there’s a slight pang of jealousy at the notion because it used to be them locking doors and doing anything except sleeping in those rooms. When he comes to the third one, it’s dim except for the bit of light filtering through the blinds from the parking lot.
Cristina is lying across the bottom bunk with her arm over her eyes and she sighs heavily, “Taken. Find another one.”
“Sorry,” Burke’s voice is quiet as he lingers by the door, “You should be sleeping.”
“I was until you walked in,” she lies, rolling onto her side and away from him.
“You don’t sound like you were sleeping.”
“I was,” Cristina mutters, annoyed.
“You weren’t,” he answers, turning the lock on the door against his better judgment. Burke removes his shoes and sits on the edge of the bunk, “when you’re sleeping, it’s almost impossible to wake you up.”
“Sleeping patterns change.”
Burke looks at her back, reaches out and runs his fingers through her hair. Rather than pulling away when her muscles seem to tense, he continues, gently tracing his fingers through the curls. When she relaxes, he murmurs a soft apology.
Cristina’s eyes burn and this time it has nothing to do with exhaustion but she considers it a side effect anyway, “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” he says, “we’re not fine. Neither one of us. And that’s my fault.”
Of course he’d have to pick now to finally want to talk when she wants nothing other than to be comatose for at least a couple of hours. She rolls onto her side to look at him through tired eyes, “Yeah,” she says warily.
“I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Burke?”
“Yes, Cristina?” His voice is timid at best, a tone that such an assured man hardly uses. It’s amazing the things that she has done to him, the things that he’ll do for her. It’s amazing even more to him that she’s even talking to him, all things considered.
“Can we just go to sleep and talk about it tomorrow?” She asks. It’s her way of telling him to stay without really asking him because there’s no way he’s off the hook for all of it but she’s too damn tired to deal with it now.
Burke understands immediately and stretches out next to her. Gingerly, he pulls her into his arms and resumes playing with her hair as she rests against him. “We can talk about it tomorrow.”
“When I wake up, I’m so kicking your ass,” she adds tiredly.
There’s a rumble in her ear when he chuckles and when he agrees to her terms, she’s already half asleep.
---
Alex throws back a beer and stretches his legs out onto the coffee table. He tosses the cap into a bowl of year-old potpourri and smirks when Meredith gets all indignant about it. “It’s not like it actually smells like anything anymore.”
“That’s not true. Izzie sprayed it with something a few months ago,” she says the word months in a half mumble and opens her own beer.
“You’re so full of shit,” he says with a smirk and puts his beer aside. Alex isn’t sure if it’s the beer talking (they’ve nearly finished two six-packs between the two of them) but he’s actually enjoying his time with Meredith.
He usually does though.
“You’re being nice to Cristina,” Meredith says, “you’ll deny it but you are. And I like that you’re nice to her because she won’t let me.”
Alex would argue that he’s not being nice to her but he hates that he’s so damn predictable to Meredith, especially when he’s drunk. Rather than responding to the accusation he changes the subject, “Shepherd is dating a scrub nurse.”
“And Ava is gone,” Meredith grumbles, irritated by the sudden subject changes.
“Relationships suck.”
“I’ll drink to that,” she raises her beer and clinks the neck to his. Their eyes meet for a minute and let them linger too long before they awkwardly pull away.
Once again, Meredith finds herself thinking that Alex is most definitely considered to fall into the inappropriate category and the idea excites her and scares her all at the same time. So much would change if she went there, it wouldn’t be like it was with George where he walked around with a wounded puppy and then finally admitted wrongdoing.
Alex would just hate her forever and she doesn’t really want that.
“Where the hell is Cristina?” she finally asks, changing the subject once more.
“I told you,” he answers, his voice weak after taking a long drink, “she’s sleeping with him.”
---
Cristina has been awake for a while now but she hasn’t moved an inch. A remote part of her brain keeps telling her that she’s still sleeping and that they’re not actually lying together, that they didn’t sleep together. The part of her brain that isn’t obviously delusional simply doesn’t want to move because it feels too good to be here.
“We should get up,” his voice is a deep rumble and she exhales softly.
She’s always liked the sound of his voice when he wakes up, the timbre there. Cristina buries her face against his arm and shakes her head a little, “In a minute,” she mumbles, “I’m still too tired to kick your ass.”
Burke smiles slightly and brushes his lips against her forehead, “Maybe you should eat first. You’re going to need all the energy you can get,” there’s something slightly suggestive in his voice, definitely playful and it makes Cristina wish that they could skip the part where they have to talk about it and just move on.
Cristina also knows that he’d never let that happen.
Lifting her head, she looks at him, runs a fingertip down the side of his cheek and feels the slight stubble there. “What? And give you a chance to run?”
“I’m not running,” he promises her and the statement has duel meaning, even if part of it is just their little joke.
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve always been sure. I just wanted you to be.”
And now they have to talk about it. She presses her palm into the bed and sits up, looking down at him. “I told you I was, you just weren’t listening.”
His hand covers hers and there’s genuine sorrow in his eyes. It’s not like it’s hard to tell that he’s sorry, she only wishes there was a way to tell that he’s never going to do it again, that there was some sort of guarantee that she’d never have to worry about problems and that they could just be content and cut open chests for the rest of their lives with no other issues.
She knows that’s not really how marriage works, how any relationship works. They’ll have issues, she just doesn’t want him to run from him. Besides, she’s supposed to be the one that avoids shit. Not him.
“I’m sorry,” Burke murmurs, “I know it isn’t enough.”
Cristina smiles faintly, turns her palm up beneath his hand. “It’s fine,” it’s not but it’s her standard line and her way of half accepting his apology, “you’ll only be making it up to me for the rest of our lives.”
---
Mark stares in disbelief as a disheveled looking Yang steps out of the call room, Burke in tow. “You knew something,” he mutters at Alex, cash clenched in the fist that’s jammed into his lab coat.
“What the hell was I supposed to know? It’s not like I’m friends with either one of them,” Alex answers, putting his hand out. “Pay up.”
There’s hesitation in his steely blue eyes and for a second he considers only giving back the money that Karev put in. He’s still sure that Karev was cheating somehow and when he figures it out, he’s going to kick his ass. “Double or nothing that they fight by the end of the week.”
“No deal. Pay up old man.”
“Hey,” Mark replies, offense painted all over his face, “who are you calling old?”
“Dude.”
“Fine,” the older man mutters, shoving the roll of bills into his hand, “but this isn’t over, Karev.”
Alex thumbs through the bills, counts a little bit over a thousand dollars. “I thought I told you to shut it down?”
“Do you really want me to take the money back, Karev?”
“Hell no,” he’s already got the money in his wallet.
“Then shut the hell up and get out of my sight.” Mark is being a sore loser now but Alex doesn’t care because he’s a thousand dollars richer and he has plans tonight.
---
“So that’s it?” Meredith asks, “You’re not going to make him suffer? Make him beg?”
“Oh, I did. I am. I will,” Cristina smirks but she doesn’t elaborate on exactly what happened to cause them to be so late for their surgery. Her smirk turns into a full blown grin when she remembers the look on his face when she turned him down for sex.
“I’m not asking.”
“That’s good,” she says, pulling her pager as it alarms from her pocket, “because I’m not telling. I’ve gotta go. 911 for my AVR.”
Meredith doesn’t let her go so easily, “So you’re not coming home tonight?” She doesn’t add that she’s liked having Cristina there and that having her gone means that she’s going to have to deal with the whole Derek thing for real.
“No,” Cristina answers, slamming shut her chart and tucking it under her arm. “I’m going home.”
It’s bittersweet when she watches her walk away and Meredith turns back to her own work. She doesn’t really want to do anything now except sulk and feel sorry for herself. She knows that she should be happy for Cristina but right now she just doesn’t have it in her.
Fortunately, Alex seems to have a plan for that. “Hey,” he says in a low voice, pushing her chart closed in front of her, “we’re going out tonight. Somewhere besides Joe’s.”
“What?” The suggestion throws Meredith off but intrigues her at the same time, “Where the hell are we going?”
Alex tosses the cash down in front of her with a smug grin, “Wherever the hell we want to.”
---
Addison watches from her office window as Preston and Yang walk through the hospital parking lot, his arm wrapped around her shoulders and hers around his waist. They’re smiling and talking and it makes her smile to herself.
It’s about time that the man came to his senses.
She wraps her arms around herself, turns away from the window after they’re in their car and leaving. It was her hope that this job would somehow fulfill her and give her that one thing that she seemed to be missing but so far it’s not helping at all.
Derek clears his throat from the doorway, drawing her from the thoughts that she seems to be always lost in.
“Oh, hey,” she says, “what’s going on?”
He shakes his head, steps inside her office and glances around, “Nothing. I just thought I’d look in on you.”
This earns a weak smile from Addison and she settles into her chair, “Not much to look in on. Just working.”
“Yeah,” Derek says, a slight sparkle in his eye, “how would you like to do something other than work? Maybe a drink at Joe’s? Dinner out somewhere?”
“Aren’t you dating that nurse?” Addison asks warily, “I don’t think she’d like you hanging out with your ex-wife. As a matter of fact, I know she wouldn’t because we’ve already been through this with Meredith.”
“It’s a rumor,” he answers, “nothing more.”
“I don’t get it, Derek. What are you up to?”
“Obviously losing my touch,” he groans softly.
Addison laughs softly and though she’ll never give Derek another chance, especially when he’s only coming to her because he doesn’t anybody else, she’ll never pass up an opportunity to take pity on him. “It’s no wonder you’re single,” she jabs, throwing her bag over her shoulder, “you’re buying.”
“It’s a deal,” Derek smiles, stepping back as she pulls her door closed and locks it, “After you, Chief.”
The title never gets old and even though Addison hasn’t found exactly what she’s looking for yet, it is rewarding to finally get the one-up on Derek.
---
Cristina’s breath tickles his ear and she kisses just below it, swirls her hips seductively against his. This earns a stifled groan from him and she moves her lips upwards, “How stupid are you to almost give this up?” she purrs and eases her hips into his again.
There are emptied cartons of Chinese on the coffee table, an empty bottle of wine lying on the floor and clothes scattered across the kitchen table. They figure eventually that they’ll make it to the bedroom but right now they have other priorities and lost time to make up for.
Burke kisses his way down her neck and his hands grip her hips tightly. He doesn’t take the time to answer because he’s not interested in talking right now. When he kisses her passionately, he thinks that she gets the point because she pushes him back until her body is hovering over his and whimpers softly when he eases into her. Cristina knows how much he regrets the past week and how much he wants to take it all back and that’s the only thing that matters.
---
My love,
You know that you’re my best friend.
You know that I’d do anything for you.
---
“Thank you for coming with me.”
“Whatever,” Alex says, “You know I hate this crap. I only came because I know you won’t let me take that dress off later if I didn’t. And the free booze.”
“You’re damn right I wouldn’t,” Meredith answers with a cute grin and a wrinkled nose, “get me another drink?”
“Fine but you’re not getting trashed. Yang will never shut up about it if you do.”
“I told you that you care about Cristina,” she looks over in Cristina’s direction. It’s weird seeing her so smiley like that but she guesses that’s what women look like when they get married, even if it is at City Hall.
“Shut up,” Alex sneers.
Meredith kisses him, tangles her fingers into his hair and tugs gently at it. “I’ll shut you up.”
“Deal,” he mumbles into her mouth and returns the kiss.
---
And my love,
Let nothing come between us,
My love for you is strong and true.
---
There are people staring at them but Cristina doesn’t care. They can stare all they want because she doesn’t have to say anything at all, she doesn’t have to make declarations. The only thing she has to do is look hot and dance with her husband.
It was his idea, the whole reception thing. In exchange, they had their quiet ceremony at City Hall with only Meredith and his best friend from college.
Different versions of the same thing.
“So how long do we have to stay at this thing?” she asks, mostly serious because the dancing and the talking and the kissing is having an effect on both of them in a profound way. Her fingers curl around his neck and she kisses him, the best way she has to publicly convince him to give up the dancing and take her home for something much more vigorous that involves far less clothing.
“Keep doing that,” he murmurs against her lips, “and we’re not even going to make it to the hotel.”
“Is that a promise?” Cristina grins because now she wants to keep doing it just to see where they’ll end up.
Burke has to pull away from her before he loses it altogether, “Do you really want to do this for the first time in the car?”
“It’s not the first time. That was a long time ago.”
“It’s the first time I’m making love to my wife,” he utters in a low voice, his fingertips tracing patterns on her low back through the soft chiffon of her red dress.
Cristina knows what he was referring to and she’ll never tell him how she finds it at least a little bit endearing but mostly funny. She’s pretty sure that she’s the husband in their relationship but she doesn’t mock him for it.
At least not today.
She’s got the rest of their lives to do that.