There Are Places I Remember 10/?
Author: Nursebadass
Title: There Are Places I Remember 10/?
Rating: PG for the time being
Summary: There are places I remember all my life, though some have changed; some forever, not for better. Preston Burke and Addison Montgomery left their lives in Seattle for different reasons but never lost touch with each other. Now after two years away from the place they once called home, they find themselves wondering why they ever left.
Disclaimer: These characters are property of Shonda Rhimes/ABC and Grey's Anatomy. They do not belong to me. Reimbursement is not received for fictitious works. The borrowed lyrics are from the song In My Life (There Are Places I Remember) by the Beatles.
AN: For Niceole.
|one| |two| |three| |four| |five| |six| |seven| |eight| |nine|
Addison watched with amusement as Burke stepped out of a call room that she happened to know was occupied. She approached her friend with crossed arms and a knowing smirk on her lips, "Don’t tell me you were doing what I know you were doing in that room."
"What you think I was doing," Burke corrected her without missing a beat.
A small laugh escaped Addison's lips and she shook her head, "Think. Right. I happen to know that you weren't the only one in that call room."
"Perhaps, but I can promise there was only one person in the bed."
"You and I both know that there's no bed required," She countered, mischief flashing in her blue eyes.
A grin broke out on Burke's face and he shrugged.
"Whatever happened to taking it slow?" Addison asked, nudging his arm gently. "That, most definitely, is not slow."
"We could have been talking," He answered pointedly, pulling his patient list from his pocket. Though he'd rather be sleeping, he had too many patients waiting to see him to get any decent amount of rest right now.
"Cristina doesn't talk," Addison smirked, checking over her own list. "I have patients to see. Lunch later?"
Burke nodded, "I think so. I'll text."
Addison walked away, just as amused as she had been when he came out of the call room.
She couldn't remember having the last time that she was this content, the last time that she had smiled this much in the span of a week let alone just a few minutes.
Life was good again.
x-x-x-x-x
Lexie sat in the NICU, chewing on her lip and looking over a flowsheet with vital signs on it. While she could remember every aspect of medical school that she'd been through and all of the important things about caring for critically ill infants today, she was having a difficult time applying it.
Perhaps it's because she knew that she'd have to spend all day with the impossibly perfect woman that Mark had fallen in love with.
Again.
It wasn't really so much that Lexie had a problem with Addison. It wasn't that she was hurt or on the verge of tears or anything like that. Lexie just didn't want to have to work next to her. Or acknowledge her existence.
She needed to though.
There were things that she needed to say to the impossibly perfect woman that she didn’t want to acknowledge, things that she needed to make sure that Addison knew. She had signed herself up for the service, had gone through what she wanted to say in her head multiple times.
Lexie was still terrified that she wouldn’t be able to get it all out.
A shallow breath left her chest as she looked over her small patient, no longer battling for life on a ventilator but just barely stable at the same time. The slightest frown traced her lips watching the baby and she thought to herself how life shouldn’t ever start out that way, how many hard things would belie the baby before her and how unfair it was that the hard stuff came now.
A moment later, her frown turned into the faintest of smiles when she knew that these circumstances would make her a fighter and that if she could beat this that she’d be able to beat anything.
Addison walked slowly across the room, thankful to be wearing her sneakers for surgery so as not to announce her presence before she was ready to. She had been surprised to see L. Grey on her assignment sheet and had even questioned if it was a mistake. When she found out that the youngest Grey had assigned herself to Addison’s service, she gained a newfound respect for Lexie.
She had expected her to do everything possible to avoid getting onto her service, not sign up for it.
“Dr. Grey,” Addison mumbled in a greeting. “How’s Samantha doing today?”
Lexie didn’t bother to glance up from the warmer, “Vitals are holding and have been for the past thirty-six hours. The ventilator is still moderately supporting her but not as much as it was initially. She’s gotten stronger as her white count has decreased. If she continues to trend this way, she could be ready for surgery soon.”
Relief was visible on Addison’s face, “Good. That’s good to hear. Samantha has kept us particularly busy for the past couple of weeks.”
“I know,” Lexie answered shortly. “I-I read over her chart. Dr. Sloan was going to do a repair of her cleft palate before she declined.”
“Yes,” Addison answered simply, watching the woman closely. It was surprising to her that Lexie had brought him up first. “Dr. Grey, Lexie-“
“No. I want to speak first,” Lexie interrupted her, finally looking up. Her eyes were already lined with tears but she refused to let them spill. “I loved him, I did. Mark wanted a lot of things that I wasn’t ready for yet and maybe I gave him some of it like moving in with him and everything but I don’t really think that I was doing it for the right reasons. I would have stayed with him for a long time, I think- but I still have my career to think about and this plan that I had and I keep thinking that as much as I loved him and everything that it wasn’t ever really right. I still do- love him, I mean. I don’t want to see him hurt. So you can’t screw this up this time because he’s not going to. I know he won’t.”
Addison couldn’t help but be slightly impressed with her rambling but she respected it at the same time. How could she not when she clearly cared about Mark’s well being? “You’re a bigger woman than your sister, Dr. Grey and I respect that. I will do my best to make sure that everything is perfect as long as you promise me one thing.”
“Wh-what?” Lexie stammered slightly, afraid of what Addison’s request might be. She had heard once that they called her Satan. She didn’t really want to take demands from somebody nicknamed Satan.
“Never settle for a man that doesn’t feel right,” Addison answered with an imperceptible smile turning up the corners of her mouth.
Lexie nodded a little, a lump in her throat because she knew in her heart that Mark wasn’t right and a smile on her face because she knew that she’d have her chance to find the one that did feel right. “Yes, ma’am.”
Addison nodded with approval, pulling Samantha’s chart from the rack, “Good. Shall we get on with our rounds then?”
“Absolutely,” Lexie breathed, content that her little talk with Addison had gone so smoothly.
x-x-x-x-x
Cristina stood in line at the coffee cart, exhausted despite the fact that it was 11 in the morning. Even though Burke had let her get a late start to the day, she knew that she was going to need massive amounts of caffeine to make it through the rest of the day.
It had been way too long since she’d spent an entire night cutting into people’s chests and putting their heart back together.
She thought with a small smile on her lips that she probably wouldn’t be as tired if she hadn’t of spent two hours talking to Burke when she could have been sleeping. It had started in surgery, hushed speaking over their patient while they worked. He asked about her trip to Hawaii which earned some bitter and short answers. Cristina countered with asking how many women he’d dated since he’d been gone.
His answer made her tense slightly and she felt the slightest twinge of jealousy.
Somehow it all carried over through surgery and to the scrub room. Despite their exhaustion, they found themselves not wanting to separate quite yet. He followed her into a call room and they never bothered with locking the door because she reminded him for at least the fifth time that night that they were going slow.
He sat on the floor next to her bunk while she lay on her side, looking at him through the dark. It was there that he apologized again, his velvety voice wavering at points. The pain in his voice was enough for Cristina and while he’d hurt her greatly, she didn’t want to hear how much it hurt him.
She wasn’t as strong as he was with all of that. In the darkness she proclaimed that it was in the past and that she never wanted to hear about it again. They could jog and they’d already past that point and they weren’t doing laps and they weren’t running backwards because she couldn’t do backwards.
Her ‘be kind, rewind’ policy hadn’t gotten her very far the first time around. There was no point in trying that again.
Cristina hated herself for remembering the way that her heart sped up only slightly when he reached out to brush her curls from her face. While she had said that they were jogging and taking it slow, she knew that they’d never last long before their relationship turned physical.
Talk was cheap anyway.
If she were honest with herself, had she not started to drift off just as the sun rose, she probably would have slept with him then. However his voice was soothing and his fingertips were soft against the top of her hand and lulling her to sleep. The feeling of his lips feather light against her forehead still lingered and she didn’t want it to fade anytime soon.
Nobody would ever feel as certain as he did.
She knew that even with the now unmentionable past, especially with that past, if things felt like this now that they could only get better and that there wouldn’t be any end. They would go on forever.
For some reason, she was okay with that where she hadn’t been before.
Though she’d never admit it out loud, maybe the break was good for them. It could have come about in a better way but maybe they had needed it in order to realize that what they had was a good thing.
Or maybe she just needed more sleep and coffee, because her thoughts were starting to make her somewhat nauseous.
Cristina took her coffee and scanned her badge for the barista before proceeding down the hallway. She spotted Owen and paused for a minute, waiting to see what he would do.
Never one to back down from a confrontation, Owen walked up to her just as she had expected him to. His blue eyes were saddened and angry all at the same time. The look of sleeplessness had ingrained itself into his face and when he spoke her name, there was a tone of desperation that she’d become all too used to.
“Owen,” she answered his greeting just as he had delivered his.
“You need to reconsider this,” Owen spoke in a low voice, “We were good for each other, Cristina. We were happy. I don’t know what’s wrong with you that you can’t see that.”
“We were happy?” Cristina asked in an incredulous voice.
“You weren’t?”
“You couldn’t tell?” She asked, shaking her head in disbelief, “How could you not see that? How could you not tell that I was miserable? Not just because of you or the circumstances but just with everything? How did you not see that?”
Owen was caught off guard by her answer, “I don’t know. You never said anything.”
“Have I ever said anything?” Cristina countered.
“Then maybe you should have spoke up. Maybe you should have said something.” Owen argued, “I could have fixed it if I knew that something was wrong.”
“You should have seen it. I shouldn’t have to say anything, Owen. You-“ She paused for a minute, shaking her head, “You have your own issues and your own things.”
“I don’t have them anymore. Not as much.”
“But you still have them,” She spoke emphatically, “Owen, you need to focus on you.”
“I have been.”
Cristina couldn’t help but smirk, “Yeah. I know. That’s why this didn’t work. I don’t require a lot of attention and I certainly don’t want to be the center of yours or anyone’s universe but for everything that I did for you I at least deserved to be a part of it.”
“I loved you. I still do. You always knew that,” he spoke, lowering his voice.
“You didn’t love me Owen,” Cristina murmured, “You needed me.”
“He doesn’t deserve you.”
“Maybe not,” She said, “But you didn’t fight for me until you knew there was a reason to fight. You didn’t pay any attention to me until you knew that there was a threat. It was all about you. I can’t settle for that.”
Owen was offended by her choice of words and he scoffed, “He’s going to hurt you again. You’re not what he wants.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. Seeing as he left everything that he had to come back and fight for me fully knowing that I was in a relationship I’m pretty sure that I’m what he wants.”
“You’ll regret it,” He muttered, straightening out his posture and glancing around. “I won’t be here to pick up the pieces.”
Cristina was unaffected by his words, “I don’t need you here. We’re past regrets. We’re going forward.”
Owen watched as he walked away from her with his jaw clenched. While he had considered giving chase for a moment, trying to make her open her eyes and realize what a mistake she was making. He was confident in the fact that if he waited for a few days she would see what she was giving up and change her mind.
Or at least he hoped she would. He wasn’t sure what he would do without her.
x-x-x-x-x
“This day is neverending,” Burke commented dryly, pulling his glasses from his face to massage the bridge of his nose. “Actually, this day started yesterday.”
“That’s your own fault when you were doing things that you weren’t supposed to be doing when you could have been sleeping,” Addison answered in a singsong voice as she pulled apart a sticky-bun that she pretended was fat free.
“We were talking,” He reminded her, rolling his head and stretching his neck out slightly. Despite the fact that he’d already mentally reviewed his schedule six times in his head, he once again tried to rework it to get out at a decent time.
It wasn’t going to work.
Addison smirked, “It’s not like I’m going to do that anytime soon. One of us may as well enjoy it.”
“Who said I was going to anytime soon? Cristina wants to go slow so we’re going slow,” He answered, finally sliding his glasses back on.
“Why does that have to be involved in going slow?”
“I have no idea,” He laughed, slightly amused by his friend’s disposition. Burke wasn’t quite sure that he’d ever really seen Addison in this condition. If it weren’t highly in appropriate he would have asked her exactly how long it had been since she had seemingly become fixated on it.
“I don’t think it should be,” She concluded, “It should be a greeting. It should come before the dating. That way you know if it’s bad sex that it’s not worth it. And if it’s good sex-“ She started and then felt her face warm slightly. She quickly shoved a piece of pineapple into her mouth to silence herself and counteract the fat-free sticky bun all at the same time.
“It would solve a lot of problems,” Burke chuckled slightly, glancing across the cafeteria to see Cristina walk in with Meredith. His brown eyes sparkled slightly as he took her in and he smiled a smile reserved only for her.
Cristina returned the gesture, earning a wide grin from him.
Maybe the slow thing was a little bit of a pain in the ass.
“Preston,” Addison answered, waving her hand in front of his face, “Earth to Preston. Get your mind out of the gutter and pay attention to me. I asked you a question.”
Burke glanced at her, “I didn’t hear you say anything.”
“That’s because you were busy having eye-sex with your jogging partner. I asked you if you’ve worked with Lexie Grey yet.”
“You didn’t ask me that,” He insisted, “But no, I haven’t yet. Why?”
“Because I’m working with her today,” She answered pointedly, stabbing another piece of pineapple.
Burke couldn’t help but laugh again, “You never change your tactics do you? I remember when you requested Meredith on your service.”
“Oh no,” Addison smirked, “She requested me.”
“Seriously?” He asked, his eyebrow arched high.
“Seriously,” Addison paused a beat, “Are we still seriously-ing or is that old?”
“Cristina said it last night. I think we’re in the clear.”
“Okay, good. Anyway, she talked to me and I don’t feel as guilty. Which is good, I guess. It means she’s okay.”
“Agreed,” Burke nodded, “She seems like the type that would be an open book, not unlike the older version.”
Addison snickered, “Grey version 2.1.”
“I’m sure that one has probably come and gone. She’s a resident now isn’t she?” Burke teased gently, “There’s probably no use in resuscitating a bad joke.”
“I thought it was funny,” She answered with the slightest pout.
“There’s probably no use in resuscitating a bad joke,” He repeated with a grin, knowing just how to get to her.
Addison dropped her fork beside her fruit and resumed pulling apart her sticky bun. “I’m a genius and it was a genius joke. You’re simply jealous because you don’t have half the sense of humor that I do.”
“Yes,” He agreed in the slightest tone of condescension, “I’m sure that’s exactly what it is.”
The two shared a laugh and continued over their lunch, for once neither one of them plotting as to what they were going to do but simply enjoying their time.
x-x-x-x-x
Cristina paused at the trashcan to drop her half eaten sandwich into the bin and watched Burke with Addison. He had assured her a couple of times that there was absolutely nothing going on but she wasn’t entirely sure that she liked how they had their own little secret club. If she was a more sympathetic person, she would have thought she now knew what Izzie felt like but she didn’t care what Izzie felt like.
She wouldn’t have minded dropping the little hints of jealousy that kept invading her psyche unwelcome, though.
“You know they came here to destroy our lives, right?” Mark answered, pushing a coffee cup into the trash can.
Cristina glanced upwards to him and couldn’t help but think how he looked like shit. He’d spent way too long shaving his beard and now that he was trying to grow it back in, it seemingly didn’t want to make its return to his chiseled jaw. “That’s totally why they came back,” Cristina muttered in a dry voice before turning back to look at the pair.
“It is,” Mark continued despite Cristina’s attitude, “They came here with the intent purpose of breaking up our relationships for their devices. They pretended to be a thing for the sheer purpose of divide and conquer.”
“I bet Burke came up with it,” She answered with the slightest hint of pride.
“No way,” He argued, “I’m sure it was all Addison.”
Cristina looked back over at her shoulder at him and then back to the two of them, “It was probably both of them.” She finally muttered, unhappy with the idea.
“You don’t think they-“ Mark started and then his voice trailed off.
“Ew,” Cristina hissed with a wrinkled nose. “No. No way.”
“Okay, good.”
“Yeah, no. Not at all.” Or at least Cristina hoped not.
“Just keep him busy so he doesn’t try to,” He spoke in an authoritative tone, “I know how hard it is to stay away from her and the last thing I need is him jacking all of this up because you can’t give the poor guy a bone every once in a while.”
“Whatever, Sloan. You’re the one that can’t keep it in your pants, not Burke.” Cristina sneered.
“I can and I have,” Mark corrected, wishing momentarily that there was a way to erase his reputation as a manwhore completely. After a moment he finally spoke again, “It doesn’t really feel like anything is ruined, does it?”
Cristina shook her head, her expression neutral. “No,” her voice was uncharacteristically soft, “It doesn’t.”
It almost felt like everything was fixed.
Title: There Are Places I Remember 10/?
Rating: PG for the time being
Summary: There are places I remember all my life, though some have changed; some forever, not for better. Preston Burke and Addison Montgomery left their lives in Seattle for different reasons but never lost touch with each other. Now after two years away from the place they once called home, they find themselves wondering why they ever left.
Disclaimer: These characters are property of Shonda Rhimes/ABC and Grey's Anatomy. They do not belong to me. Reimbursement is not received for fictitious works. The borrowed lyrics are from the song In My Life (There Are Places I Remember) by the Beatles.
AN: For Niceole.
|one| |two| |three| |four| |five| |six| |seven| |eight| |nine|
Addison watched with amusement as Burke stepped out of a call room that she happened to know was occupied. She approached her friend with crossed arms and a knowing smirk on her lips, "Don’t tell me you were doing what I know you were doing in that room."
"What you think I was doing," Burke corrected her without missing a beat.
A small laugh escaped Addison's lips and she shook her head, "Think. Right. I happen to know that you weren't the only one in that call room."
"Perhaps, but I can promise there was only one person in the bed."
"You and I both know that there's no bed required," She countered, mischief flashing in her blue eyes.
A grin broke out on Burke's face and he shrugged.
"Whatever happened to taking it slow?" Addison asked, nudging his arm gently. "That, most definitely, is not slow."
"We could have been talking," He answered pointedly, pulling his patient list from his pocket. Though he'd rather be sleeping, he had too many patients waiting to see him to get any decent amount of rest right now.
"Cristina doesn't talk," Addison smirked, checking over her own list. "I have patients to see. Lunch later?"
Burke nodded, "I think so. I'll text."
Addison walked away, just as amused as she had been when he came out of the call room.
She couldn't remember having the last time that she was this content, the last time that she had smiled this much in the span of a week let alone just a few minutes.
Life was good again.
x-x-x-x-x
Lexie sat in the NICU, chewing on her lip and looking over a flowsheet with vital signs on it. While she could remember every aspect of medical school that she'd been through and all of the important things about caring for critically ill infants today, she was having a difficult time applying it.
Perhaps it's because she knew that she'd have to spend all day with the impossibly perfect woman that Mark had fallen in love with.
Again.
It wasn't really so much that Lexie had a problem with Addison. It wasn't that she was hurt or on the verge of tears or anything like that. Lexie just didn't want to have to work next to her. Or acknowledge her existence.
She needed to though.
There were things that she needed to say to the impossibly perfect woman that she didn’t want to acknowledge, things that she needed to make sure that Addison knew. She had signed herself up for the service, had gone through what she wanted to say in her head multiple times.
Lexie was still terrified that she wouldn’t be able to get it all out.
A shallow breath left her chest as she looked over her small patient, no longer battling for life on a ventilator but just barely stable at the same time. The slightest frown traced her lips watching the baby and she thought to herself how life shouldn’t ever start out that way, how many hard things would belie the baby before her and how unfair it was that the hard stuff came now.
A moment later, her frown turned into the faintest of smiles when she knew that these circumstances would make her a fighter and that if she could beat this that she’d be able to beat anything.
Addison walked slowly across the room, thankful to be wearing her sneakers for surgery so as not to announce her presence before she was ready to. She had been surprised to see L. Grey on her assignment sheet and had even questioned if it was a mistake. When she found out that the youngest Grey had assigned herself to Addison’s service, she gained a newfound respect for Lexie.
She had expected her to do everything possible to avoid getting onto her service, not sign up for it.
“Dr. Grey,” Addison mumbled in a greeting. “How’s Samantha doing today?”
Lexie didn’t bother to glance up from the warmer, “Vitals are holding and have been for the past thirty-six hours. The ventilator is still moderately supporting her but not as much as it was initially. She’s gotten stronger as her white count has decreased. If she continues to trend this way, she could be ready for surgery soon.”
Relief was visible on Addison’s face, “Good. That’s good to hear. Samantha has kept us particularly busy for the past couple of weeks.”
“I know,” Lexie answered shortly. “I-I read over her chart. Dr. Sloan was going to do a repair of her cleft palate before she declined.”
“Yes,” Addison answered simply, watching the woman closely. It was surprising to her that Lexie had brought him up first. “Dr. Grey, Lexie-“
“No. I want to speak first,” Lexie interrupted her, finally looking up. Her eyes were already lined with tears but she refused to let them spill. “I loved him, I did. Mark wanted a lot of things that I wasn’t ready for yet and maybe I gave him some of it like moving in with him and everything but I don’t really think that I was doing it for the right reasons. I would have stayed with him for a long time, I think- but I still have my career to think about and this plan that I had and I keep thinking that as much as I loved him and everything that it wasn’t ever really right. I still do- love him, I mean. I don’t want to see him hurt. So you can’t screw this up this time because he’s not going to. I know he won’t.”
Addison couldn’t help but be slightly impressed with her rambling but she respected it at the same time. How could she not when she clearly cared about Mark’s well being? “You’re a bigger woman than your sister, Dr. Grey and I respect that. I will do my best to make sure that everything is perfect as long as you promise me one thing.”
“Wh-what?” Lexie stammered slightly, afraid of what Addison’s request might be. She had heard once that they called her Satan. She didn’t really want to take demands from somebody nicknamed Satan.
“Never settle for a man that doesn’t feel right,” Addison answered with an imperceptible smile turning up the corners of her mouth.
Lexie nodded a little, a lump in her throat because she knew in her heart that Mark wasn’t right and a smile on her face because she knew that she’d have her chance to find the one that did feel right. “Yes, ma’am.”
Addison nodded with approval, pulling Samantha’s chart from the rack, “Good. Shall we get on with our rounds then?”
“Absolutely,” Lexie breathed, content that her little talk with Addison had gone so smoothly.
x-x-x-x-x
Cristina stood in line at the coffee cart, exhausted despite the fact that it was 11 in the morning. Even though Burke had let her get a late start to the day, she knew that she was going to need massive amounts of caffeine to make it through the rest of the day.
It had been way too long since she’d spent an entire night cutting into people’s chests and putting their heart back together.
She thought with a small smile on her lips that she probably wouldn’t be as tired if she hadn’t of spent two hours talking to Burke when she could have been sleeping. It had started in surgery, hushed speaking over their patient while they worked. He asked about her trip to Hawaii which earned some bitter and short answers. Cristina countered with asking how many women he’d dated since he’d been gone.
His answer made her tense slightly and she felt the slightest twinge of jealousy.
Somehow it all carried over through surgery and to the scrub room. Despite their exhaustion, they found themselves not wanting to separate quite yet. He followed her into a call room and they never bothered with locking the door because she reminded him for at least the fifth time that night that they were going slow.
He sat on the floor next to her bunk while she lay on her side, looking at him through the dark. It was there that he apologized again, his velvety voice wavering at points. The pain in his voice was enough for Cristina and while he’d hurt her greatly, she didn’t want to hear how much it hurt him.
She wasn’t as strong as he was with all of that. In the darkness she proclaimed that it was in the past and that she never wanted to hear about it again. They could jog and they’d already past that point and they weren’t doing laps and they weren’t running backwards because she couldn’t do backwards.
Her ‘be kind, rewind’ policy hadn’t gotten her very far the first time around. There was no point in trying that again.
Cristina hated herself for remembering the way that her heart sped up only slightly when he reached out to brush her curls from her face. While she had said that they were jogging and taking it slow, she knew that they’d never last long before their relationship turned physical.
Talk was cheap anyway.
If she were honest with herself, had she not started to drift off just as the sun rose, she probably would have slept with him then. However his voice was soothing and his fingertips were soft against the top of her hand and lulling her to sleep. The feeling of his lips feather light against her forehead still lingered and she didn’t want it to fade anytime soon.
Nobody would ever feel as certain as he did.
She knew that even with the now unmentionable past, especially with that past, if things felt like this now that they could only get better and that there wouldn’t be any end. They would go on forever.
For some reason, she was okay with that where she hadn’t been before.
Though she’d never admit it out loud, maybe the break was good for them. It could have come about in a better way but maybe they had needed it in order to realize that what they had was a good thing.
Or maybe she just needed more sleep and coffee, because her thoughts were starting to make her somewhat nauseous.
Cristina took her coffee and scanned her badge for the barista before proceeding down the hallway. She spotted Owen and paused for a minute, waiting to see what he would do.
Never one to back down from a confrontation, Owen walked up to her just as she had expected him to. His blue eyes were saddened and angry all at the same time. The look of sleeplessness had ingrained itself into his face and when he spoke her name, there was a tone of desperation that she’d become all too used to.
“Owen,” she answered his greeting just as he had delivered his.
“You need to reconsider this,” Owen spoke in a low voice, “We were good for each other, Cristina. We were happy. I don’t know what’s wrong with you that you can’t see that.”
“We were happy?” Cristina asked in an incredulous voice.
“You weren’t?”
“You couldn’t tell?” She asked, shaking her head in disbelief, “How could you not see that? How could you not tell that I was miserable? Not just because of you or the circumstances but just with everything? How did you not see that?”
Owen was caught off guard by her answer, “I don’t know. You never said anything.”
“Have I ever said anything?” Cristina countered.
“Then maybe you should have spoke up. Maybe you should have said something.” Owen argued, “I could have fixed it if I knew that something was wrong.”
“You should have seen it. I shouldn’t have to say anything, Owen. You-“ She paused for a minute, shaking her head, “You have your own issues and your own things.”
“I don’t have them anymore. Not as much.”
“But you still have them,” She spoke emphatically, “Owen, you need to focus on you.”
“I have been.”
Cristina couldn’t help but smirk, “Yeah. I know. That’s why this didn’t work. I don’t require a lot of attention and I certainly don’t want to be the center of yours or anyone’s universe but for everything that I did for you I at least deserved to be a part of it.”
“I loved you. I still do. You always knew that,” he spoke, lowering his voice.
“You didn’t love me Owen,” Cristina murmured, “You needed me.”
“He doesn’t deserve you.”
“Maybe not,” She said, “But you didn’t fight for me until you knew there was a reason to fight. You didn’t pay any attention to me until you knew that there was a threat. It was all about you. I can’t settle for that.”
Owen was offended by her choice of words and he scoffed, “He’s going to hurt you again. You’re not what he wants.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. Seeing as he left everything that he had to come back and fight for me fully knowing that I was in a relationship I’m pretty sure that I’m what he wants.”
“You’ll regret it,” He muttered, straightening out his posture and glancing around. “I won’t be here to pick up the pieces.”
Cristina was unaffected by his words, “I don’t need you here. We’re past regrets. We’re going forward.”
Owen watched as he walked away from her with his jaw clenched. While he had considered giving chase for a moment, trying to make her open her eyes and realize what a mistake she was making. He was confident in the fact that if he waited for a few days she would see what she was giving up and change her mind.
Or at least he hoped she would. He wasn’t sure what he would do without her.
x-x-x-x-x
“This day is neverending,” Burke commented dryly, pulling his glasses from his face to massage the bridge of his nose. “Actually, this day started yesterday.”
“That’s your own fault when you were doing things that you weren’t supposed to be doing when you could have been sleeping,” Addison answered in a singsong voice as she pulled apart a sticky-bun that she pretended was fat free.
“We were talking,” He reminded her, rolling his head and stretching his neck out slightly. Despite the fact that he’d already mentally reviewed his schedule six times in his head, he once again tried to rework it to get out at a decent time.
It wasn’t going to work.
Addison smirked, “It’s not like I’m going to do that anytime soon. One of us may as well enjoy it.”
“Who said I was going to anytime soon? Cristina wants to go slow so we’re going slow,” He answered, finally sliding his glasses back on.
“Why does that have to be involved in going slow?”
“I have no idea,” He laughed, slightly amused by his friend’s disposition. Burke wasn’t quite sure that he’d ever really seen Addison in this condition. If it weren’t highly in appropriate he would have asked her exactly how long it had been since she had seemingly become fixated on it.
“I don’t think it should be,” She concluded, “It should be a greeting. It should come before the dating. That way you know if it’s bad sex that it’s not worth it. And if it’s good sex-“ She started and then felt her face warm slightly. She quickly shoved a piece of pineapple into her mouth to silence herself and counteract the fat-free sticky bun all at the same time.
“It would solve a lot of problems,” Burke chuckled slightly, glancing across the cafeteria to see Cristina walk in with Meredith. His brown eyes sparkled slightly as he took her in and he smiled a smile reserved only for her.
Cristina returned the gesture, earning a wide grin from him.
Maybe the slow thing was a little bit of a pain in the ass.
“Preston,” Addison answered, waving her hand in front of his face, “Earth to Preston. Get your mind out of the gutter and pay attention to me. I asked you a question.”
Burke glanced at her, “I didn’t hear you say anything.”
“That’s because you were busy having eye-sex with your jogging partner. I asked you if you’ve worked with Lexie Grey yet.”
“You didn’t ask me that,” He insisted, “But no, I haven’t yet. Why?”
“Because I’m working with her today,” She answered pointedly, stabbing another piece of pineapple.
Burke couldn’t help but laugh again, “You never change your tactics do you? I remember when you requested Meredith on your service.”
“Oh no,” Addison smirked, “She requested me.”
“Seriously?” He asked, his eyebrow arched high.
“Seriously,” Addison paused a beat, “Are we still seriously-ing or is that old?”
“Cristina said it last night. I think we’re in the clear.”
“Okay, good. Anyway, she talked to me and I don’t feel as guilty. Which is good, I guess. It means she’s okay.”
“Agreed,” Burke nodded, “She seems like the type that would be an open book, not unlike the older version.”
Addison snickered, “Grey version 2.1.”
“I’m sure that one has probably come and gone. She’s a resident now isn’t she?” Burke teased gently, “There’s probably no use in resuscitating a bad joke.”
“I thought it was funny,” She answered with the slightest pout.
“There’s probably no use in resuscitating a bad joke,” He repeated with a grin, knowing just how to get to her.
Addison dropped her fork beside her fruit and resumed pulling apart her sticky bun. “I’m a genius and it was a genius joke. You’re simply jealous because you don’t have half the sense of humor that I do.”
“Yes,” He agreed in the slightest tone of condescension, “I’m sure that’s exactly what it is.”
The two shared a laugh and continued over their lunch, for once neither one of them plotting as to what they were going to do but simply enjoying their time.
x-x-x-x-x
Cristina paused at the trashcan to drop her half eaten sandwich into the bin and watched Burke with Addison. He had assured her a couple of times that there was absolutely nothing going on but she wasn’t entirely sure that she liked how they had their own little secret club. If she was a more sympathetic person, she would have thought she now knew what Izzie felt like but she didn’t care what Izzie felt like.
She wouldn’t have minded dropping the little hints of jealousy that kept invading her psyche unwelcome, though.
“You know they came here to destroy our lives, right?” Mark answered, pushing a coffee cup into the trash can.
Cristina glanced upwards to him and couldn’t help but think how he looked like shit. He’d spent way too long shaving his beard and now that he was trying to grow it back in, it seemingly didn’t want to make its return to his chiseled jaw. “That’s totally why they came back,” Cristina muttered in a dry voice before turning back to look at the pair.
“It is,” Mark continued despite Cristina’s attitude, “They came here with the intent purpose of breaking up our relationships for their devices. They pretended to be a thing for the sheer purpose of divide and conquer.”
“I bet Burke came up with it,” She answered with the slightest hint of pride.
“No way,” He argued, “I’m sure it was all Addison.”
Cristina looked back over at her shoulder at him and then back to the two of them, “It was probably both of them.” She finally muttered, unhappy with the idea.
“You don’t think they-“ Mark started and then his voice trailed off.
“Ew,” Cristina hissed with a wrinkled nose. “No. No way.”
“Okay, good.”
“Yeah, no. Not at all.” Or at least Cristina hoped not.
“Just keep him busy so he doesn’t try to,” He spoke in an authoritative tone, “I know how hard it is to stay away from her and the last thing I need is him jacking all of this up because you can’t give the poor guy a bone every once in a while.”
“Whatever, Sloan. You’re the one that can’t keep it in your pants, not Burke.” Cristina sneered.
“I can and I have,” Mark corrected, wishing momentarily that there was a way to erase his reputation as a manwhore completely. After a moment he finally spoke again, “It doesn’t really feel like anything is ruined, does it?”
Cristina shook her head, her expression neutral. “No,” her voice was uncharacteristically soft, “It doesn’t.”
It almost felt like everything was fixed.