To Love Somebody 5/?
Author:JeriBearRN.
Title: To Love Somebody 5/?
Summary: Set just after the end of Cristina's residency, she finds herself in a difficult life with Owen Hunt, but she won't give up on him because she loves him. Or she thinks she does.
Rating: Strong R.
Disclaimer: These characters are property of Shonda Rhimes/ABC and Grey's Anatomy. They do not belong to me. Reimbursment is not recieved for ficticious works.
Previous chapters:
[ One][ Two][ Three]
[ Four][??][??]
[??][??][??]
[??][??][??]
Cristina sat at the bar, longing for broken peanut shells to be scattered across it instead of a fine polish. Instead of piano music playing in the background, she tried to imagine rock and roll instead. She’d only been away from home for two days and already she missed it.
She didn’t know what had happened to her.
The bartender placed another drink in front of her and she sipped the last bits of vodka from the bottom of her glass before reaching for the fresh drink. The bar was supposed to help her relax, the drinking was supposed to help her stop thinking.
It wasn’t helping.
“Drinking alone. It’s the first sign of an alcoholic.” Burke teased in a humble voice from behind her.
Cristina knew better than to acknowledge him, let alone ask him to sit down, but she knew he wasn’t going to go anywhere. “Then sit down, shut up and drink.”
With a slight smirk, he sat next to her and glanced around. “This place isn’t your taste.”
“You don’t know that, I could have changed.”
“You’re still drinking the same exact thing that you used to. I doubt that much has changed.” He observed, gesturing towards her drink.
“I thought you were shutting up and drinking.”
“I’m beginning to wonder if they even serve what I want here.” He laughed softly, glancing around. “I think beer may be a little low brow for this place.”
“They have imports.” She answered. She had already asked herself. In the beginning, she had decided that beer would be a little gentler the next morning, but when she was presented with her choices she decided to take her chances.
“Maybe we should go somewhere a little more…welcoming.” He offered, “As friends. Colleagues. Nothing else.”
“We’re not friends and we don’t work together. And we’ll never be anything.” Her voice was flat and non-threatening. She didn’t even care enough to put passion into the statement. That part of her life was long over and she was going to keep it that way.
“Then we go as two complete strangers who are tired of sitting in an overly pretentious bar.” His voice was smooth, the tone almost soothing to her.
She had always loved the sound of his voice.
“I can’t go with you.” She mumbled, “I have a boyfriend. I have a life at home. I know what you’re trying to do and I can’t do that.”
“The only thing I’m trying to do is talk to you. Nothing else.”
Cristina sighed again, her fingers closing around her glass. “You swear you’re not going to try anything.”
Burke laughed softly, “I know that you’re spoken for. The last thing I’d try to do is sleep with a woman who has already been claimed for. Even you.”
“I don’t know if I should be appreciative of that fact or highly offended.” She muttered before taking a long drink. She told the bartender to put it on her tab and moved off of her seat without looking at him. She wasn’t going to give him an invitation.
After making sure that he had taken care of her tab, he followed her to the front of the bar. “Perhaps a cab would be the best method of transportation?”
“We’re not that far from the pier. Shouldn’t there be some places there?” She questioned, not really wanting to confine herself to that small of a space with him.
“Then we can walk,” He say, understanding her reasoning. Burke had amazed himself that even after all these years he could still understand her.
He wished that he had paid attention to that fact rather than try to change her so many years ago.
They started out in a painful and awkward silence towards the pier, their steps carefully plotted. They kept a fair distance away from each other, not wanting to even give the partial illusion that they were together.
Secretly, the silence was killing both of them.
“I thought..I should apologize. About the award. You had mentioned it. Earlier today. I just wanted to say that I tried. Believe it or not, I tried.” He started out, “I had thought about sending flowers, but then I knew that you didn’t do those. They weren’t right. Then I thought about a card, but I know you’re not sentimental. I wanted to call you, but I knew if I heard the sound of your voice that it would break me-“
“Break you?” She interrupted, “The sound of my voice would break you?” Like it wouldn’t have done anything to her at all.
“I didn’t want to stay away. In my own very foolish way, I thought I was doing the right thing. If I heard your voice, if I had seen you, I would have lost my will power. An email wasn’t enough, a phone call would have made it even harder. And then….then I decided that I had hurt you. That you had to be hurting, because I was. I decided that if I didn’t say anything at all that you would hate me. That somehow you hating me would make it all easier. So I said nothing.”
Cristina remained quiet for a long moment before stopping at some railing and leaning against it. “It worked.”
Her words hurt him, even though his mission was accomplished.
“Good,” He murmured, standing next to her. He faced the opposite direction that she did, looking out at the water, watching as the waves gently rocked the boats. “I wish that I could say that I never meant to hurt you- but that moment changed a lot of things. I wish now that I could take it back.”
“I wish that you wouldn’t wish that.” She mumbled.
“A man is allowed to have his regrets, Cristina.”
“Yeah, well, his regret doesn’t want to know about it. His regret has a life of her own and somebody waiting for her to come home.”
Burke’s fists tightened around the railing, “So you’ve said.” He looked over at her, studying her closely. “Do you love him?”
“Of course I do.” She answered without hesitation in her voice. “He’s important to me.”
He couldn’t help but smile slightly at the fact that she couldn’t say that she loved him. She really hadn’t changed at all. His eyes turned back to the water, but he glanced at her from time to time. “Does he understand you?”
“We understand each other.”
“Anna didn’t understand me.” Burke admitted softly, “At first it was a novel thing, the cooking together. The holding hands. The things that you wouldn’t do. I had convinced myself that it was what I was looking for. A wife. She talked about children and houses, the things that you roll your eyes at. I lived with it, I played into it and months turned into two years. She started talking about when we were going to have a family, and I would find reasons that we couldn’t discuss children. I pulled away from her when she got too close. I had to laugh at myself, because the only thing I could think was that it was how you must have felt when I was pushing a wedding.”
“Karma.” She said, not able to withhold a smile.
“That’s the first time I’ve seen you smile this entire time. A real smile.” He noted, a sad smile on his own lips. “I hope he makes you smile.”
“He does.”
“Have I heard of him?” Burke asked, curiosity getting the best of him. She had a history with heart surgeons and he was willing to lay odds that this one was no different.
Cristina didn’t miss his intention, “He’s not a heart surgeon.”
“But he is a surgeon,” He pressed.
“Trauma.” She muttered, irritated by his grating curiosity.
Burke scoffed, “You’re dating a glorified ER physician? I’m surprised that you even gave him a chance.”
“He’s not a glorified ER physican!” She argued, “He’s a trauma surgeon. It’s not like he handles earaches and overdoses.”
“No, he does hack jobs of suturing patients and they end up in our care three days later with a raging infection.”
“You’re wrong.” She said, shaking her head, “You don’t know him. You don’t know what he’s capable of.”
“I have an idea. There must be something about him that caught your attention. That’s certainly not an easy thing to do.” He quipped, rubbing his hands together.
Silence fell once more between them and Cristina pushed herself off of the railing and started wandering in the general direction of the dirtiest looking bar she could find. “Your wife sounds like a nurse.”
“Nothing gets by you, does it?” He asked, not too surprised that she had figured it out on her own.
“No surgeon in their right mind talks about children and houses. We’re too busy for that. We don’t talk. We do. We do it and discuss it after the fact.”
“I would beg to differ. We consider the consequences first; look at the risk and the benefit. Our decisions are precise.”
“The point is, she’s a nurse and that’s beneath you.” Cristina said, ultimately ending the conversation. “You should have known better than to date a nurse. That was your problem.”
“The problem was that she wasn’t you.” He corrected her, gauging her reaction carefully.
She stopped dead in her tracks and spun to face him. “You said you weren’t going to start with that crap.”
“I’m not starting any crap, Cristina. I’m stating facts. If you want to pretend that we were never anything, that’s your decision. I know differently and I feel differently. I have no qualms with admitting that I loved you, and I will not remain silent about that. I will not act as if it never happened. It doesn’t mean that I’m trying to get you into bed or win you back.” His eyes remained fixed with hers as he spoke in a hushed tone, emotion seeped into every word- maybe some disappointment, a dash of hurt, but mostly regret.
Cristina was really starting to believe that he truly regretted what he had done. She searched his eyes and she knew he needed some sort of validation, some sort of acknowledgment. Her own eyes softened a little and she sighed, “Yeah. I loved you too.”
Burke dare not show an ounce of reaction to her words, but they surprised him monumentally. It was like her- to always keep him guessing. Reaching past her, he pulled open the door to the bar and gave her a slight nod.
She had left him speechless.
He followed her into the bar and took a seat next to her, both of them ordering a simple beer- just as they had wanted. The silence between them had somehow grown more comfortable over the past hour and neither felt like there was anything to say.
Perhaps it had already been said.
Idle conversation ensued at points- work, his parents, her mother, Meredith and Derek- and Burke found himself longing to go home again. The years he’d spent away from Seattle were not unbearable ones- but he never felt like he was where he belonged. He entertained the thought that perhaps he felt like that because he didn’t have her, but he knew that having her was not an option.
Seattle however, was.
He spoke nothing of the idea to her, only listened as she spoke about Hahn’s new preference for women that led to her departure. At this point, he had to stop her and laugh- never being one to picture Erica preferring women.
“I knew you guys had a thing.” Cristina interjected at one point, her suspicions finally confirmed.
Burke shrugged it off with a grin before he took a drink of his beer.
Their evening lasted longer than either one of them had suspected. When they parted ways for the evening, there was a sense of everything being okay again.
Cristina settled into her bed, content with the evening’s events and what had transpired. Seeing Burke again had crossed her mind several times, though not nearly as much as when she had found Owen. The thought always had a different ending, but nothing she had imagined was like this.
None of the endings were ones where she could imagine herself talking to him again.
None of them involved her thinking of what might have been.
Title: To Love Somebody 5/?
Summary: Set just after the end of Cristina's residency, she finds herself in a difficult life with Owen Hunt, but she won't give up on him because she loves him. Or she thinks she does.
Rating: Strong R.
Disclaimer: These characters are property of Shonda Rhimes/ABC and Grey's Anatomy. They do not belong to me. Reimbursment is not recieved for ficticious works.
Previous chapters:
[ One][ Two][ Three]
[ Four][??][??]
[??][??][??]
[??][??][??]
Cristina sat at the bar, longing for broken peanut shells to be scattered across it instead of a fine polish. Instead of piano music playing in the background, she tried to imagine rock and roll instead. She’d only been away from home for two days and already she missed it.
She didn’t know what had happened to her.
The bartender placed another drink in front of her and she sipped the last bits of vodka from the bottom of her glass before reaching for the fresh drink. The bar was supposed to help her relax, the drinking was supposed to help her stop thinking.
It wasn’t helping.
“Drinking alone. It’s the first sign of an alcoholic.” Burke teased in a humble voice from behind her.
Cristina knew better than to acknowledge him, let alone ask him to sit down, but she knew he wasn’t going to go anywhere. “Then sit down, shut up and drink.”
With a slight smirk, he sat next to her and glanced around. “This place isn’t your taste.”
“You don’t know that, I could have changed.”
“You’re still drinking the same exact thing that you used to. I doubt that much has changed.” He observed, gesturing towards her drink.
“I thought you were shutting up and drinking.”
“I’m beginning to wonder if they even serve what I want here.” He laughed softly, glancing around. “I think beer may be a little low brow for this place.”
“They have imports.” She answered. She had already asked herself. In the beginning, she had decided that beer would be a little gentler the next morning, but when she was presented with her choices she decided to take her chances.
“Maybe we should go somewhere a little more…welcoming.” He offered, “As friends. Colleagues. Nothing else.”
“We’re not friends and we don’t work together. And we’ll never be anything.” Her voice was flat and non-threatening. She didn’t even care enough to put passion into the statement. That part of her life was long over and she was going to keep it that way.
“Then we go as two complete strangers who are tired of sitting in an overly pretentious bar.” His voice was smooth, the tone almost soothing to her.
She had always loved the sound of his voice.
“I can’t go with you.” She mumbled, “I have a boyfriend. I have a life at home. I know what you’re trying to do and I can’t do that.”
“The only thing I’m trying to do is talk to you. Nothing else.”
Cristina sighed again, her fingers closing around her glass. “You swear you’re not going to try anything.”
Burke laughed softly, “I know that you’re spoken for. The last thing I’d try to do is sleep with a woman who has already been claimed for. Even you.”
“I don’t know if I should be appreciative of that fact or highly offended.” She muttered before taking a long drink. She told the bartender to put it on her tab and moved off of her seat without looking at him. She wasn’t going to give him an invitation.
After making sure that he had taken care of her tab, he followed her to the front of the bar. “Perhaps a cab would be the best method of transportation?”
“We’re not that far from the pier. Shouldn’t there be some places there?” She questioned, not really wanting to confine herself to that small of a space with him.
“Then we can walk,” He say, understanding her reasoning. Burke had amazed himself that even after all these years he could still understand her.
He wished that he had paid attention to that fact rather than try to change her so many years ago.
They started out in a painful and awkward silence towards the pier, their steps carefully plotted. They kept a fair distance away from each other, not wanting to even give the partial illusion that they were together.
Secretly, the silence was killing both of them.
“I thought..I should apologize. About the award. You had mentioned it. Earlier today. I just wanted to say that I tried. Believe it or not, I tried.” He started out, “I had thought about sending flowers, but then I knew that you didn’t do those. They weren’t right. Then I thought about a card, but I know you’re not sentimental. I wanted to call you, but I knew if I heard the sound of your voice that it would break me-“
“Break you?” She interrupted, “The sound of my voice would break you?” Like it wouldn’t have done anything to her at all.
“I didn’t want to stay away. In my own very foolish way, I thought I was doing the right thing. If I heard your voice, if I had seen you, I would have lost my will power. An email wasn’t enough, a phone call would have made it even harder. And then….then I decided that I had hurt you. That you had to be hurting, because I was. I decided that if I didn’t say anything at all that you would hate me. That somehow you hating me would make it all easier. So I said nothing.”
Cristina remained quiet for a long moment before stopping at some railing and leaning against it. “It worked.”
Her words hurt him, even though his mission was accomplished.
“Good,” He murmured, standing next to her. He faced the opposite direction that she did, looking out at the water, watching as the waves gently rocked the boats. “I wish that I could say that I never meant to hurt you- but that moment changed a lot of things. I wish now that I could take it back.”
“I wish that you wouldn’t wish that.” She mumbled.
“A man is allowed to have his regrets, Cristina.”
“Yeah, well, his regret doesn’t want to know about it. His regret has a life of her own and somebody waiting for her to come home.”
Burke’s fists tightened around the railing, “So you’ve said.” He looked over at her, studying her closely. “Do you love him?”
“Of course I do.” She answered without hesitation in her voice. “He’s important to me.”
He couldn’t help but smile slightly at the fact that she couldn’t say that she loved him. She really hadn’t changed at all. His eyes turned back to the water, but he glanced at her from time to time. “Does he understand you?”
“We understand each other.”
“Anna didn’t understand me.” Burke admitted softly, “At first it was a novel thing, the cooking together. The holding hands. The things that you wouldn’t do. I had convinced myself that it was what I was looking for. A wife. She talked about children and houses, the things that you roll your eyes at. I lived with it, I played into it and months turned into two years. She started talking about when we were going to have a family, and I would find reasons that we couldn’t discuss children. I pulled away from her when she got too close. I had to laugh at myself, because the only thing I could think was that it was how you must have felt when I was pushing a wedding.”
“Karma.” She said, not able to withhold a smile.
“That’s the first time I’ve seen you smile this entire time. A real smile.” He noted, a sad smile on his own lips. “I hope he makes you smile.”
“He does.”
“Have I heard of him?” Burke asked, curiosity getting the best of him. She had a history with heart surgeons and he was willing to lay odds that this one was no different.
Cristina didn’t miss his intention, “He’s not a heart surgeon.”
“But he is a surgeon,” He pressed.
“Trauma.” She muttered, irritated by his grating curiosity.
Burke scoffed, “You’re dating a glorified ER physician? I’m surprised that you even gave him a chance.”
“He’s not a glorified ER physican!” She argued, “He’s a trauma surgeon. It’s not like he handles earaches and overdoses.”
“No, he does hack jobs of suturing patients and they end up in our care three days later with a raging infection.”
“You’re wrong.” She said, shaking her head, “You don’t know him. You don’t know what he’s capable of.”
“I have an idea. There must be something about him that caught your attention. That’s certainly not an easy thing to do.” He quipped, rubbing his hands together.
Silence fell once more between them and Cristina pushed herself off of the railing and started wandering in the general direction of the dirtiest looking bar she could find. “Your wife sounds like a nurse.”
“Nothing gets by you, does it?” He asked, not too surprised that she had figured it out on her own.
“No surgeon in their right mind talks about children and houses. We’re too busy for that. We don’t talk. We do. We do it and discuss it after the fact.”
“I would beg to differ. We consider the consequences first; look at the risk and the benefit. Our decisions are precise.”
“The point is, she’s a nurse and that’s beneath you.” Cristina said, ultimately ending the conversation. “You should have known better than to date a nurse. That was your problem.”
“The problem was that she wasn’t you.” He corrected her, gauging her reaction carefully.
She stopped dead in her tracks and spun to face him. “You said you weren’t going to start with that crap.”
“I’m not starting any crap, Cristina. I’m stating facts. If you want to pretend that we were never anything, that’s your decision. I know differently and I feel differently. I have no qualms with admitting that I loved you, and I will not remain silent about that. I will not act as if it never happened. It doesn’t mean that I’m trying to get you into bed or win you back.” His eyes remained fixed with hers as he spoke in a hushed tone, emotion seeped into every word- maybe some disappointment, a dash of hurt, but mostly regret.
Cristina was really starting to believe that he truly regretted what he had done. She searched his eyes and she knew he needed some sort of validation, some sort of acknowledgment. Her own eyes softened a little and she sighed, “Yeah. I loved you too.”
Burke dare not show an ounce of reaction to her words, but they surprised him monumentally. It was like her- to always keep him guessing. Reaching past her, he pulled open the door to the bar and gave her a slight nod.
She had left him speechless.
He followed her into the bar and took a seat next to her, both of them ordering a simple beer- just as they had wanted. The silence between them had somehow grown more comfortable over the past hour and neither felt like there was anything to say.
Perhaps it had already been said.
Idle conversation ensued at points- work, his parents, her mother, Meredith and Derek- and Burke found himself longing to go home again. The years he’d spent away from Seattle were not unbearable ones- but he never felt like he was where he belonged. He entertained the thought that perhaps he felt like that because he didn’t have her, but he knew that having her was not an option.
Seattle however, was.
He spoke nothing of the idea to her, only listened as she spoke about Hahn’s new preference for women that led to her departure. At this point, he had to stop her and laugh- never being one to picture Erica preferring women.
“I knew you guys had a thing.” Cristina interjected at one point, her suspicions finally confirmed.
Burke shrugged it off with a grin before he took a drink of his beer.
Their evening lasted longer than either one of them had suspected. When they parted ways for the evening, there was a sense of everything being okay again.
Cristina settled into her bed, content with the evening’s events and what had transpired. Seeing Burke again had crossed her mind several times, though not nearly as much as when she had found Owen. The thought always had a different ending, but nothing she had imagined was like this.
None of the endings were ones where she could imagine herself talking to him again.
None of them involved her thinking of what might have been.