There Are Places I Remember 2/?

Nov 01, 2009 21:32

Author: nursebadass
Title: There Are Places I Remember 2/?
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.



There were only two women that could cause Preston Burke to doubt his sanity; two women that could cause him to take pause and really wonder exactly what the hell he was doing. One of those women stirred so much doubt within him, that in a long lingering moment of hesitation he made what he considered to be the biggest mistake of his life.

The other woman made him wonder if he was getting ready to make the second biggest date of his life.

His eyebrow remained in a high arch on his forehead creased with worry lines as he studied the brochures in front of him, “These are real estate guides, Addison.”

“There are some rental guides in there too,” She answered nonchalantly, pouring two large green mugs of coffee. She carried the steaming hot liquid over to the table and settled one in front of him.

“I think you’re missing the point,” Burke chuckled, “Shouldn’t we-“

“No,” Addison interrupted before he could even get his question out, “Mark. Mark stayed at the Archfield. Derek lived in a trailer with wheels, one that could move. When I left Derek I lived in a suite, Preston, a hotel room. Trailers and suites scream that we’re ready to give up and admit defeat, the scream that we’re not committed, that we’ll run at the first sign of a difficult situation. We need permanence, we need an apartment. We need them to know that we’re not going anywhere.”

Burke couldn’t hide the smallest sign of amusement at her obviously well practiced argument. He couldn’t deny the validity of that argument as well, “So I suppose that we’re looking at real estate then.”

“We’re looking at real estate,” Addison agreed in a firm tone. She pulled the guide from his hand before he could even open it up, “I found this great little condo just a few blocks from the hospital. I think that it’s the one.”

“You’re not going to look at it in person?” He asked, his eyebrow raised again. “That isn’t wise,”

“I’ll make it work. I don’t want them to know we’re there until we’re there. It’s all in the plan, Preston. We show up, already settled and moved in, it will leave them in a state of disbelief. It weakens their defenses.”

“This isn’t war, Addison.”

“On the contrary, Preston, it very much is war.” She countered with a grin, “Relax. The pictures in these guides are fantastic and my real estate agent would never fail me,”

Burke remained silent. Buying a place was a huge step. It wasn’t the money, wasn’t the fact that he wouldn’t be able to sell it- he really wasn’t that concerned about whether or not he could sell it. Money was no object.

He was more concerned with the message it would send to Cristina.

Addison did make the point that it showed he was in it- in it for the long haul as Cristina would have said so long ago, it showed that he was committed.

“Don’t over think it Preston,” Addison said, reaching out to put her hand over his. “At my party, you had no hesitation. You said your home was in Seattle. Hold onto that. Hold onto how good it will feel to be home. The rest of it will come with time, right? It will have to come.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then we can say that we tried. We can say that we gave it our all and obviously it wasn’t meant to be. You said it yourself though- if it was the right thing for us to do, for us to leave Seattle, why doesn’t it feel right?”

There were only two women that could cause Preston Burke to change his mind in a span of five minutes and Addison Montgomery was definitely one of them.

x-x-x-x-x

When Cristina Yang considered surgical programs, atmosphere was definitely not something that she had taken into account. She didn’t give a crap about culture or music or history or climate- the only thing she cared about was the presence of a renowned cardiogod and how long it would take until she was a cardiogod herself.

The rest of it, she would deal with as long as the program suited her.

The Seattle Grace Surgical Residency wasn’t always the first on everybody’s list- they wanted the name residencies- Hopkins, Harvard, Mayo; Cristina knew that it wasn’t always about the name. Sure, Seattle Grace was a name, but it was an underrated name- that’s what made Seattle so perfect.

Cristina Yang would be a name that everybody knew and she would appear out of nowhere; shock and awe, the second coming, whatever they wanted to call it she would be the go-to for cardiothoracics and everybody else would be forgotten.

Seattle Grace was going to get her there.

Or at least she thought it would.

There were several factors that Cristina hadn’t taken into account; one being her love for the city. She was born and raised in southern California but she hated the sunshine, loathed beaches, didn’t do the whole shopping thing- it wasn’t her lifestyle. Seattle, however, with all of it’s dingy bars, the people who donned shirts proclaiming that pale is the new tan, the non-stop gray rainy skies and the coffee- oh god, the coffee- she hadn’t counted on falling in love with the city.

Or any of it’s inhabitants.

Falling in love with Burke should have never happened- he was a mentor and after Marlow, she had completely sworn that crap off. The last thing she needed was some smug bastard chasing her with a ring and plans to chain her to an oven, the last thing she wanted was puppy dog eyes glistening whenever she said no for the ten millionth time. She wanted to cut open a heart. That’s all she wanted. Or needed.

And totally opposite of what she got.

To say she had rehashed the Burke situation in her head a million times was an understatement- it had to be three million at least. Carefully, she had dissected out the good things (or thing) about their relationship (sex) and decided to throw out all of the rest. There would be no more attachments or emotions or messy sticking involved.

Sex was okay.

Love was not.

Of course, at that time, Cristina hadn’t counted on one Owen Hunt coming into the picture either. Owen Hunt, upon initial examination, was the epitome of hot and very off limits to her. There was no way in hell she’d fall for another attending and certainly no way in hell that she’d ever let one invade her life again.

She wasn’t in Seattle to get laid or pick up a husband, she was in Seattle to be a surgeon. At a number twelve hospital with no cardiogod (because she had run him off) and a very bleak future. So bleak as a matter of fact, she found herself in Meredith’s bed, blithering on and sobbing about how she missed Burke and she could hold hearts and blah blah blah blah.

Cristina was making herself nauseous just thinking about it, so she chose to erase that memory and erase the last four hours of her day from her frontal lobe.

Just like that, it had never happened.

Today was the perfect kind of day for Cristina- gray, rainy, just the slightest bit of chill in the air. The only thing that could possibly make it better was if the giant truck in front of her apartment and the burly men unloading furniture in the noisiest way possible would go far far away.

Cold brown eyes scanned over the belongings coming out of the truck and she nearly rolled them at the posh interior design that she pictured from the three pieces she had seen. Clearly somebody fancied themselves to be a designer whatever and that’s the last kind of person she wanted to live next to. With Mark Sloan living in the apartment across the hall, she had enough of New York in the building and she didn’t care to deal with anymore.

Her slender features reached out for the handle of her building when the glass came forward at a jarring rate and she stumbled backwards, landing flat on her ass and more importantly, scraping her hands on the pavement.

“Excuse me!” She snapped with a disgusted look on her face, “Did you not see me trying to open the door? It’s glass. The damn door is made of-“ Cristina finally stopped to look up and her jaw fell slack. “Addison?”

Addison looked startled and immediately scrambled to help the brazen young woman up from the ground, “I’m so, so sorry Cristina. I don’t know what I was- well, I know what I was doing. I don’t know how I-“ She stammered and then stopped, trying to halt her thoughts that were going at a million miles per hour. “Does Mark live in this building?”

“Dr. Sloan?” Cristina repeated slowly, “Yes. He moved took the apartment across the hall from me and Callie,” She added in a grumble, her disdain highly apparent.

“W-wait. You live here too?” Addison clarified.

“I just said he took-“

“I heard you,” Addison smiled politely, forcing the mannerism at Cristina’s less than savory tone. “Then I guess we’re going to be neighbors.”

“And coworkers?” Cristina questioned slowly, somewhat surprised that she hadn’t heard anything of Addison’s return, yet alone potential return to Seattle Grace.

“And colleagues,” Addison confirmed, “It’s good to be back. In Seattle. A lot of things are going to change. For the better. A lot of things. You know. A lot.”

Cristina snorted, “Not unless you brought a cardiogod with you,”

Addison nearly choked on her own saliva, “No. No cardiogods with me. Not even in my moving truck,” She answered, smacking the side of it and then wincing slightly when she felt something sharp against the palm of her hand.

“Yeah, figures.”Cristina muttered, walking towards the door.

“So, I’ll see you around Yang?” Addison called after her, “Neighbor?”

“Yeah. Whatever,” Cristina answered before disappearing inside.

Addison waited a few minutes before pulling her blackberry from her bag, thinking a lot of four letter words that a lady should never think.

Preston would never believe this.

character: addison, author: nursebadass, character: cristina, character: burke

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