The King and Queen of Hearts 5/?
Rating: R
Summary: Their's is a love story that's unlike any other; a story of heartache and angst. One of emptiness and loneliness and learning the hard way that they were made for each other. It's not a story of holding gazes across a crowded room and smiles playing upon their lips. It's a story of tears prickling their eyes and fighting back angry words. It's a tale of hating and healing all at the same time.
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.
one/ two/ three/ four
There’s something to be said for desperation and the things that it can make a person do.
Preston Burke was unashamed to call himself a desperate man when it came to Cristina Yang. He would use every demeaning word in the book if it meant that he’d get his second chance, that she wouldn’t continue her half-relationship with Hunt.
His eyes fixated on her vibrating cell on the bedside stand, Owen’s name flashing across the display. She was only finishing up a shower and he could easily hand the phone to her.
He could but he was desperate.
With haste, he lifted the phone and flipped it open. If he could at least plant the seeds of doubt it could easily culminate to his advantage. The chances of it backfiring were there too but they weren’t nearly as great.
Really, the odds were in his favor.
“Hello?” His voice was quiet but also bright, one that was happy and less than professional.
Owen paused for a second, glancing at his phone to make sure that he’d dialed the right number and lifted it back to his ear, “I’m sorry- is this your phone?”
Burke couldn’t resist a grin as he answered, “No. I’m sorry but she’s not available. May I take a message for her?”
The smugness of the voice on the other end of the line cued voice to whom it belonged to and his voice lowered into a near growl, “Burke.”
“Dr. Hunt, now that we’re acquainted would you like me to take a message for Cristina? Or do you want to call back when she’s not indisposed?”
“What the hell are you doing with her phone anyway?”
“She left it lying on the bedside table,” Burke answered honestly, only slightly emphasizing the phones location as he did. “It was ringing and I answered it for her. Wouldn’t you do the same?”
Owen was silent, his mind racing with circumstances in which Burke would be in Cristina’s hotel room that didn’t have to do with her cheating on him, that didn’t involve all of the things he’d suspected for far too long.
A slight smile crept over Burke’s lips at the lingering silence and just as he was about to add injury to insult, Cristina changed his plans.
“Baby?” Her voice floated from a few feet away behind him and he flinched ever so slightly. He snapped the phone closed and gently placed it on the table in front of him before turning to face her. The fact that Owen had probably heard her call him that traced his mind and it helped ease his tension slightly.
Even if she found out he’d answered her phone, it would be worth it.
The odds were in his favor.
x-x-x-x-x
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
Burke felt his shoulder tense at the tone of her voice and he flipped the page of his book nonchalantly despite the tension, “Nothing is wrong with me. Should there be?”
Cristina’s eyes narrowed on the man before her. Never before had she wanted to physically harm him as much as she did right now. “You answered my phone. When Owen was calling,” there was venom in her voice and she clutched her fists at her side, “What the hell were you thinking? Do you have any idea what it took to explain that? What I have to do to smooth this all out?”
“I’m sure whatever it is that you have to do, I have a better option.”
“Burke,” She sighed heavily, sitting on the edge of the bed with her back facing toward him. She couldn’t even look at him right now.
“Leaving him would be much easier than whatever ego stroking ritual you have to go through to soothe his ruffled feathers,” He continued, setting his book and reading glasses aside. “There’s no reason for this charade to continue. We both know what we want.”
“And I told you that we can’t have it!” Cristina snapped, spinning to look at him. “I had a balance, I had this figured out and it was working.”
“It is working,” Burke answered, his voice unwavering.
“Was,” She said quietly, “Was. Burke, we can’t do this anymore. I have to go home.”
“So what? He knows. Is he honestly going to continue this knowing that we-“
“He said he forgives me,” Cristina interjected, “He forgives me and he wants to work it out and he understands and whatever else. I’m not walking away from him Burke. I already told you that I wasn’t, that I can’t.”
“You barely love this guy, Cristina!” Burke argued, “Why the hell are you throwing your life away on him?”
It was a question she didn’t really have the answer to. Maybe it was that she was trying to prove to herself that she could do it, that she could stick no matter what and not fail miserably at a relationship. Maybe it was some stupid drive to do everything the right way and she was so close to being successful for a change that she couldn’t pass it up.
Whatever the answer was, she couldn’t put it into words so she simply responded with an apology and stood from the end of the bed.
Burke stood as she did, “Where are you going?”
“I told you that we can’t do this anymore. It’s over, Burke. This is over.”
“No,” He answered, advancing towards her. “No, it’s not. We have three days left, we-“
“Are done. I’m going home. I’m sleeping in a separate room and I’m going home.”
Reaching out, he took hold of her hand, “Don’t.”
“I am,” Cristina mumbled, “I have.”
Burke stepped closer, brushing a curl from her face and tracing his finger down her cheek to her jaw then to the edge of her chin to tip her eyes up to meet his. He could see her unwillingness to really walk away and he mentally kicked himself for the act of desperation.
The odds were in his favor.
“Not tonight,” he uttered, the hand that was closed around hers wrapping around her waist instead.
Cristina stood frozen in his arms, entranced by his gaze. There wasn’t a bone in her body that wanted to pull away from him or give him up. Really, only part of her brain had considered it and it was his actions that forced her into it. Now he was standing there and looking at her like that, and using that voice and making it hard for her to think, hard for her to breathe.
Harder for her to let go.
“Burke,” she finally breathed, still unmoving.
Rather than answer her this time, he silenced her with a tender kiss. His body shifted closer to hers when he felt her kiss him back and he dropped his hand from the underside of her chin, moved it slowly over her neck, her shoulders and down her arm.
She wouldn’t be able to walk away from him.
Not tonight, not ever.
Their kiss deepened, her tongue struggling to meet his and she grasped the backs of his arms tightly as if she were holding on for dear life. She hated him for this, for what he did to her with a single passionate kiss. She hated him for making her love him all over again when she had convinced herself that she was content with Owen before.
Cristina was the first to break the kiss, dizzy with desire and tensed with hesitation as his lips moved over her neck. She closed her eyes, trying to let go to the sensations of it all, fighting not to think or feel anything other than the physical.
She used to be so good at ignoring emotions, it had been effortless for her even. Now everything was complicated and lines were blurry and she couldn’t tell which way was up or down when it came to the two men in her life.
She couldn’t tell which one was wrong or right.
Again, she murmured his name as his hand slid over her breast beneath her shirt. Her hand grasped his to still his movements and she pulled away slightly, “Burke, we can’t.”
“Give me this night,” He pleaded in a low voice. “Let me have tonight. I’ll take you to the airport in the morning.”
Burke wasn’t really sure if he’d do such a thing but he knew that he couldn’t let go of her so easily, couldn’t let her walk away without making sure that she knew how much he needed her, how much he loved her. If the past four days hadn’t proven that to her, he’d find a way to say it all tonight.
Her eyes shimmered slightly as she studied him and he could see the frustration there. Her hand came up and she rested it gently against his cheek, her fingers stroking the bit of stubble at his cheek. One more night wouldn’t make a difference. The damage was done and she would leave in the morning.
Cristina didn’t verbalize an answer, instead she kissed him again.
She would never be truly ready to let him go.
x-x-x-x-x
The plane ride home left her with an unsettled feeling in her stomach and a certain amount of fear lacing her bones. It wasn’t any fault of his; Owen wasn’t the one in the wrong here.
She was.
Cristina wasn’t sure what she had expected to come home to with Owen but the last thing she had expected was an embrace or a kiss, no matter how possessive the action might have been. There were words uttered into her mouth about discussing it later and how he was simply happy that she was home and that they could move forward now.
If she were honest, maybe it wasn’t that she wasn’t expecting it but that she didn’t want it.
Maybe she had wanted him to have a change of heart about fixing things, she had wanted him to be more angry, to demand for an ending.
He would want to fix things.
She pushed the thoughts from her mind, instead focusing on making things right, at succeeding at the whole thing.
Owen had never been bad to her; they had a good relationship together. While they may have had difficult times in the past, he’d always been a good boyfriend. Outside of his issues, things were placid.
Normal.
Boring.
Again, she tried to stop her own thoughts as she focused through the rainy windows of the car. She counted the signs they passed, tried to memorize the odd bits of crap left on the side of the road by careless motorists. Just as her mind started to trace back to the situation at hand, Owen finally spoke.
“I have a friend,” he spoke, his voice even but almost commanding, “in Maryland at Shock trauma. He owes me a favor and so I called it in.”
“What kind of favor?” Cristina asked idly, her eyes still focused on the outside world.
“It’s impossible to transfer surgical residencies mid-year but he managed to do it. The cardio program at Shock isn’t necessarily world class but it’s still a program that will accept you. They need a department head and so-“
“Wait, wait, wait,” She halted him, finally turn to really look at him for the first time, “What the hell are you talking about, a program that will accept me? I don’t recall saying that I was trying to find one.”
“We need a fresh start,” Owen explained, looking over at her. “We need to get away from Seattle. Away from the distractions.”
“You mean away from Burke,” she answered pointedly. “Just say it. You want to leave Seattle because you want to get away from Burke.”
“I have good reason to.”
“I told you it was over.”
He scoffed, his grip on the steering wheel tightening, “Right. It’s over. Just like that, just like it was over when he left you standing in the back of a goddamn church.”
Cristina remained silent, turned to look back out the window instead. This was a little bit more of what she had expected.
“I’m talking to you,” Owen snapped, thoroughly annoyed by her actions.
“And I’m listening.”
“We’re leaving,” he said with finality. “We’re leaving and we’re starting over somewhere else. Somewhere that he isn’t. It will be good for both of us.”
“There’s more in Seattle than just Burke. I have other people here that I don’t want to leave,” she snapped back at him. “I’m not moving.”
“Then he is. You made the choice to come home, you’ve made the choice to commit. You don’t get to half ass this, Cristina. It’s him or me.”
Her response was more automatic than she had wanted it to be, “I’m here aren’t I?”
Owen turned his head to look at her for a moment, rather the back of her head and then turned to look back out at the road. Reaching over, he took her hand and clasped his fingers tightly around it.
She was here and he wasn’t going to let her leave.
Not today, not ever.
Summary: Their's is a love story that's unlike any other; a story of heartache and angst. One of emptiness and loneliness and learning the hard way that they were made for each other. It's not a story of holding gazes across a crowded room and smiles playing upon their lips. It's a story of tears prickling their eyes and fighting back angry words. It's a tale of hating and healing all at the same time.
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.
one/ two/ three/ four
There’s something to be said for desperation and the things that it can make a person do.
Preston Burke was unashamed to call himself a desperate man when it came to Cristina Yang. He would use every demeaning word in the book if it meant that he’d get his second chance, that she wouldn’t continue her half-relationship with Hunt.
His eyes fixated on her vibrating cell on the bedside stand, Owen’s name flashing across the display. She was only finishing up a shower and he could easily hand the phone to her.
He could but he was desperate.
With haste, he lifted the phone and flipped it open. If he could at least plant the seeds of doubt it could easily culminate to his advantage. The chances of it backfiring were there too but they weren’t nearly as great.
Really, the odds were in his favor.
“Hello?” His voice was quiet but also bright, one that was happy and less than professional.
Owen paused for a second, glancing at his phone to make sure that he’d dialed the right number and lifted it back to his ear, “I’m sorry- is this your phone?”
Burke couldn’t resist a grin as he answered, “No. I’m sorry but she’s not available. May I take a message for her?”
The smugness of the voice on the other end of the line cued voice to whom it belonged to and his voice lowered into a near growl, “Burke.”
“Dr. Hunt, now that we’re acquainted would you like me to take a message for Cristina? Or do you want to call back when she’s not indisposed?”
“What the hell are you doing with her phone anyway?”
“She left it lying on the bedside table,” Burke answered honestly, only slightly emphasizing the phones location as he did. “It was ringing and I answered it for her. Wouldn’t you do the same?”
Owen was silent, his mind racing with circumstances in which Burke would be in Cristina’s hotel room that didn’t have to do with her cheating on him, that didn’t involve all of the things he’d suspected for far too long.
A slight smile crept over Burke’s lips at the lingering silence and just as he was about to add injury to insult, Cristina changed his plans.
“Baby?” Her voice floated from a few feet away behind him and he flinched ever so slightly. He snapped the phone closed and gently placed it on the table in front of him before turning to face her. The fact that Owen had probably heard her call him that traced his mind and it helped ease his tension slightly.
Even if she found out he’d answered her phone, it would be worth it.
The odds were in his favor.
x-x-x-x-x
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
Burke felt his shoulder tense at the tone of her voice and he flipped the page of his book nonchalantly despite the tension, “Nothing is wrong with me. Should there be?”
Cristina’s eyes narrowed on the man before her. Never before had she wanted to physically harm him as much as she did right now. “You answered my phone. When Owen was calling,” there was venom in her voice and she clutched her fists at her side, “What the hell were you thinking? Do you have any idea what it took to explain that? What I have to do to smooth this all out?”
“I’m sure whatever it is that you have to do, I have a better option.”
“Burke,” She sighed heavily, sitting on the edge of the bed with her back facing toward him. She couldn’t even look at him right now.
“Leaving him would be much easier than whatever ego stroking ritual you have to go through to soothe his ruffled feathers,” He continued, setting his book and reading glasses aside. “There’s no reason for this charade to continue. We both know what we want.”
“And I told you that we can’t have it!” Cristina snapped, spinning to look at him. “I had a balance, I had this figured out and it was working.”
“It is working,” Burke answered, his voice unwavering.
“Was,” She said quietly, “Was. Burke, we can’t do this anymore. I have to go home.”
“So what? He knows. Is he honestly going to continue this knowing that we-“
“He said he forgives me,” Cristina interjected, “He forgives me and he wants to work it out and he understands and whatever else. I’m not walking away from him Burke. I already told you that I wasn’t, that I can’t.”
“You barely love this guy, Cristina!” Burke argued, “Why the hell are you throwing your life away on him?”
It was a question she didn’t really have the answer to. Maybe it was that she was trying to prove to herself that she could do it, that she could stick no matter what and not fail miserably at a relationship. Maybe it was some stupid drive to do everything the right way and she was so close to being successful for a change that she couldn’t pass it up.
Whatever the answer was, she couldn’t put it into words so she simply responded with an apology and stood from the end of the bed.
Burke stood as she did, “Where are you going?”
“I told you that we can’t do this anymore. It’s over, Burke. This is over.”
“No,” He answered, advancing towards her. “No, it’s not. We have three days left, we-“
“Are done. I’m going home. I’m sleeping in a separate room and I’m going home.”
Reaching out, he took hold of her hand, “Don’t.”
“I am,” Cristina mumbled, “I have.”
Burke stepped closer, brushing a curl from her face and tracing his finger down her cheek to her jaw then to the edge of her chin to tip her eyes up to meet his. He could see her unwillingness to really walk away and he mentally kicked himself for the act of desperation.
The odds were in his favor.
“Not tonight,” he uttered, the hand that was closed around hers wrapping around her waist instead.
Cristina stood frozen in his arms, entranced by his gaze. There wasn’t a bone in her body that wanted to pull away from him or give him up. Really, only part of her brain had considered it and it was his actions that forced her into it. Now he was standing there and looking at her like that, and using that voice and making it hard for her to think, hard for her to breathe.
Harder for her to let go.
“Burke,” she finally breathed, still unmoving.
Rather than answer her this time, he silenced her with a tender kiss. His body shifted closer to hers when he felt her kiss him back and he dropped his hand from the underside of her chin, moved it slowly over her neck, her shoulders and down her arm.
She wouldn’t be able to walk away from him.
Not tonight, not ever.
Their kiss deepened, her tongue struggling to meet his and she grasped the backs of his arms tightly as if she were holding on for dear life. She hated him for this, for what he did to her with a single passionate kiss. She hated him for making her love him all over again when she had convinced herself that she was content with Owen before.
Cristina was the first to break the kiss, dizzy with desire and tensed with hesitation as his lips moved over her neck. She closed her eyes, trying to let go to the sensations of it all, fighting not to think or feel anything other than the physical.
She used to be so good at ignoring emotions, it had been effortless for her even. Now everything was complicated and lines were blurry and she couldn’t tell which way was up or down when it came to the two men in her life.
She couldn’t tell which one was wrong or right.
Again, she murmured his name as his hand slid over her breast beneath her shirt. Her hand grasped his to still his movements and she pulled away slightly, “Burke, we can’t.”
“Give me this night,” He pleaded in a low voice. “Let me have tonight. I’ll take you to the airport in the morning.”
Burke wasn’t really sure if he’d do such a thing but he knew that he couldn’t let go of her so easily, couldn’t let her walk away without making sure that she knew how much he needed her, how much he loved her. If the past four days hadn’t proven that to her, he’d find a way to say it all tonight.
Her eyes shimmered slightly as she studied him and he could see the frustration there. Her hand came up and she rested it gently against his cheek, her fingers stroking the bit of stubble at his cheek. One more night wouldn’t make a difference. The damage was done and she would leave in the morning.
Cristina didn’t verbalize an answer, instead she kissed him again.
She would never be truly ready to let him go.
x-x-x-x-x
The plane ride home left her with an unsettled feeling in her stomach and a certain amount of fear lacing her bones. It wasn’t any fault of his; Owen wasn’t the one in the wrong here.
She was.
Cristina wasn’t sure what she had expected to come home to with Owen but the last thing she had expected was an embrace or a kiss, no matter how possessive the action might have been. There were words uttered into her mouth about discussing it later and how he was simply happy that she was home and that they could move forward now.
If she were honest, maybe it wasn’t that she wasn’t expecting it but that she didn’t want it.
Maybe she had wanted him to have a change of heart about fixing things, she had wanted him to be more angry, to demand for an ending.
He would want to fix things.
She pushed the thoughts from her mind, instead focusing on making things right, at succeeding at the whole thing.
Owen had never been bad to her; they had a good relationship together. While they may have had difficult times in the past, he’d always been a good boyfriend. Outside of his issues, things were placid.
Normal.
Boring.
Again, she tried to stop her own thoughts as she focused through the rainy windows of the car. She counted the signs they passed, tried to memorize the odd bits of crap left on the side of the road by careless motorists. Just as her mind started to trace back to the situation at hand, Owen finally spoke.
“I have a friend,” he spoke, his voice even but almost commanding, “in Maryland at Shock trauma. He owes me a favor and so I called it in.”
“What kind of favor?” Cristina asked idly, her eyes still focused on the outside world.
“It’s impossible to transfer surgical residencies mid-year but he managed to do it. The cardio program at Shock isn’t necessarily world class but it’s still a program that will accept you. They need a department head and so-“
“Wait, wait, wait,” She halted him, finally turn to really look at him for the first time, “What the hell are you talking about, a program that will accept me? I don’t recall saying that I was trying to find one.”
“We need a fresh start,” Owen explained, looking over at her. “We need to get away from Seattle. Away from the distractions.”
“You mean away from Burke,” she answered pointedly. “Just say it. You want to leave Seattle because you want to get away from Burke.”
“I have good reason to.”
“I told you it was over.”
He scoffed, his grip on the steering wheel tightening, “Right. It’s over. Just like that, just like it was over when he left you standing in the back of a goddamn church.”
Cristina remained silent, turned to look back out the window instead. This was a little bit more of what she had expected.
“I’m talking to you,” Owen snapped, thoroughly annoyed by her actions.
“And I’m listening.”
“We’re leaving,” he said with finality. “We’re leaving and we’re starting over somewhere else. Somewhere that he isn’t. It will be good for both of us.”
“There’s more in Seattle than just Burke. I have other people here that I don’t want to leave,” she snapped back at him. “I’m not moving.”
“Then he is. You made the choice to come home, you’ve made the choice to commit. You don’t get to half ass this, Cristina. It’s him or me.”
Her response was more automatic than she had wanted it to be, “I’m here aren’t I?”
Owen turned his head to look at her for a moment, rather the back of her head and then turned to look back out at the road. Reaching over, he took her hand and clasped his fingers tightly around it.
She was here and he wasn’t going to let her leave.
Not today, not ever.