There Are Places I Remember 4/?
Author: JeriBearRN
Title: There Are Places I Remember 4/?
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|
Denial is more than just a state of being, it’s an art. It’s intricate and delicate, especially fragile. It should be admired and handled with care for the artist has a certain strength within themselves, even if it’s to make up for a weakness they cannot bring themselves to acknowledge.
The artist themselves should be handled with care as well, for they are just as fragile as the delicate work in which they have created.
Cristina Yang was that artist.
Sitting at the desk, she quietly worked on a chart and pretended not to hear the gossip, the nonstop prattle of the nurses. She imagined that instead of all eyes being on her for the obvious reasons, that people were staring her down because of something she’d done in surgery, something they’d heard about her and Owen.
They weren’t staring her down because of Burke. If they were staring anybody down because of Burke, it would have been Addison Montgomery.
His so-called girlfriend.
For a fleeting moment, her denial started to unravel but she quickly put a stop to it. She wasn’t thinking about it because she didn’t care. She didn’t care because he left. He left because he didn’t love her.
It was more simplistic than a basic appendectomy- open the patient, take out the bad parts, leave the good and sew them back up. That’s exactly what Burke had done when he left her. He excised the bad and moved on.
He was healed and so was she.
Whatever.
The ink stopped flowing from the rollerball of her pen and she heaved a great sigh, shaking her beloved blue inkpen, trying to get the last little bit of life out of it. After several failed attempts she tossed it on the counter and reached into her overstuffed pockets for another.
An overdone silver pen invaded her line of vision attached to a fair skinned hand and Cristina looked up into blue eyes, taking the pen from her boyfriend, from Owen; the one that mattered. “Thanks,” She mumbled before returning to her chart.
Owen sunk into the chair next to her and studied her for a long moment. She’d been upset recently, and though he suspected it was the merger, he knew he needed to get to the bottom of it. Or at least try to.
“So-“ Owen started slowly, watching her carefully.
Cristina’s mind automatically jumped into a defensive mode, just knowing that questions were coming but just as quickly she was saved by an annoyed scoff.
“What are you saying?” Mark argued, leaning against the counter.
“I’m just saying that I’m happy for Addison, that’s all.” Derek said, greeting Owen with the slightest of nods. “I’m allowed to be happy for my ex-wife.”
Mark wasn’t oblivious to the jab, “You would have been happy for her with me.”
“I just want her to have the best. I don’t want her to settle. Addison deserves a good man,” Derek clarified, “And Preston Burke is a good man.”
Cristina snorted involuntarily and then closed her chart, almost horrified that she couldn’t control her reaction.
Owen cleared his throat slightly and looked up at the two of them, “What’s wrong with Burke?”
Sliding an angry gaze to Derek, Mark spoke first, “Nothing. Nothing is wrong with him, unless you don’t like arrogant egoistical men. Then there’s a problem.”
“It’s a step up from arrogant egoistical boys isn’t it?” Derek laughed.
“I don’t know, why don’t we ask Yang?” Mark said, turning his gaze to Cristina.
“Why don’t we work?” Cristina answered, standing up and pulling her chart to her chest, “I’m here to work.”
Before any of them could reply, Cristina was gone and Derek looked at Mark in question and they both turned to Owen with knowing glances.
The poor man didn’t have a clue.
“Am I missing something?” Owen asked, looking up at the two men.
Mark grinned from ear to ear, more than ready to fill him in on exactly what it was that he was missing. That grin faded when he felt a sharp jab in his side and he glared at Derek once again, “What wa-“ He started but then noted the new addition to their party.
“Dr. Sloan, Shepherd,” Burke greeted, setting a chart on the counter. He extended a hand to the redheaded man behind the counter, knowing exactly who he was. “I don’t believe we’ve officially met yet.”
“Dr. Owen Hunt, and you’re Preston Burke. I’ve heard a lot about you,” Owen smiled, completely oblivious to how much he hadn’t heard.
“I’m sure that you have, Dr. Hunt,” Burke deadpanned before retracting his hand. An awkward silence lingered over the men for a long moment before Burke continued, “Dr. Hunt, I received a consult on one of your patients, a motor vehicle accident with a traumatic pericardial effusion. I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be taking him into surgery today to place a pericardial drain with a patch. I’ll probably transfer him to the CVICU rather than leaving him in the surgical ICU. I would prefer that he be in skilled hands.”
“Of course, Dr. Burke. Whatever you need,” The other man obliged.
Burke considered suggesting Cristina as the primary resident on the case, but thought better of it. If he was supposed to keep up the front of being with Addison there was no way that he could bring Cristina up in front of them. “Which resident should I page regarding the patient?”
Owen thought for a minute, flipped through his patient list, “That looks like…Dr. Grey. Meredith Grey.”
Derek and Mark smirked, looked at Burke. Mark put a firm hand on his shoulder with an almost sympathetic look. “Better luck next time, Burke.”
Burke smiled politely, seething hatred underlying the gesture and shrugged his hand off. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to locate my resident. Gentlemen,”
“Talk about feeding him to the sharks,” Mark commented with a smirk, “Your post-it partner is going to tear him to shreds.”
“My wife will do no such thing,” Derek answered in an arrogant tone, “Meredith, unlike you, is completely capable of being professional.”
“Nobody in this place is professional,” Owen half joked, maybe wasn’t even joking at all, “Besides, what does Meredith have against Dr. Burke? Shouldn’t she have something against Dr. Montgomery instead?”
Mark opened his mouth to speak once again and once more Derek stopped him, physically pulling him away under the guise of a surgery.
“What are you doing?” Mark asked, jerking his arm away from Derek. “He’s completely clueless.”
“It’s not our place,” Derek lectured, crossing his arms as he looked at Mark with a judgmental gaze.
“Don’t give me that crap. You like Yang as much as you like being outdone by me,”
Derek scoffed, “I have never been outdone by you and it has nothing to do with Dr. Yang.”
“Then what? Are you afraid your post-it partner will withhold sex if you say something?” Mark taunted, pulling his pager from the waistband of his scrubs.
“Yeah,” Derek smirked, “Something like that.”
x-x-x-x-x
Addison studied the woman across the table from her with softness in her blue eyes. She had expected some sort of contempt, some cold shoulder, but she got none of that from her. There was no idle chit-chat or conversation, no attempt at friendship or gossip- only work.
Her eyes returned to her premature patient’s abdomen and excised another small piece of necrotic bowel, held back as Cristina intuitively passed suction through the field to clear it for her and then withdrew.
If Addison didn’t feel like she was working against her, she felt that they would work well together.
“Dr. Yang, why don’t you remove the next section of necrotic tissue?” Addison suggested, extending the small blade towards Cristina.
Cristina looked up, surprised by the offer. It had been a considerable amount of time since she’d truly worked with Addison but the Addison she remembered didn’t offer residents the chance to really work on her critical patients.
As a matter of fact, she was almost sure she never offered them a chance to work on her critical patients.
Though she questioned her motives, Cristina wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity. She took up the instruments and went to work in a controlled but almost ravenous manner. She was so starved for surgery that carving out two centimeters of necrotic bowel almost felt like a bypass.
“It’s changed here,” Addison remarked idly, using the suction catheter to keep Cristina’s field cleared. “Seattle. It doesn’t feel the same.”
Cristina’s eyes remained focused on her patient, “Because it’s not Los Angeles.”
Addison’s eyes fixated on Cristina, “No, I didn’t mean like that. I meant that it doesn’t feel like the same hospital. There are new people. Old people that seem new. People that I used to know who seem like half the person that they used to be,” she explained, searching the woman before her. “Maybe like they’re incomplete.”
It was more of a question than a statement.
“Maybe you didn’t really know those people,” Cristina answered coldly, finishing excising the last of the necrotic bowel from their patient. She looked straight into Addison’s eyes for the first time. They were soft, sympathetic.
Maybe even understanding.
“Perhaps you’re right, Dr. Yang.” Addison murmured softly, resuming her work in the patient’s abdomen. “The necrotic tissue is gone and vital signs are stable. I think that the patient is ready to close,” Addison observed out loud, trying to drown out the awkward feeling in the room.
Cristina glanced up at her again and then nodded. She knew that Addison was uncomfortable but she wasn’t going to do anything to ease that discomfort.
As far as Cristina was concerned, Addison deserved all of the discomfort that she was inflicting upon herself and more.
x-x-x-x-x
Preston Burke was a man who used surgery as a tool to focus, as a tool to gather his thoughts and put them aside. Very few times did he feel as if he weren’t in control during surgery; as a matter of fact, he could only single out one person that had ever caused him to feel anything but collected in surgery.
Today, however, Meredith Grey decided to challenge that record.
Burke offered no pleasantries of letting her make the initial incision or handling the rib spreader, only let her perform her usual duties as a resident. Perhaps it was the icy glare she’d been giving him since joining him in the scrub room, or the tone she took with him during the time out procedures prior to the surgery beginning.
“Dr. Grey, if you don’t mind,” Burke mumbled into his surgical mask, eyeing a suspicious lesion on the heart wall.
She moved the suction catheter to clear his field and then took the opportunity to get in another good glare on her person’s behalf. She didn’t care if it was childish or petty or unprofessional. He was going to get a lot more than that from her the first opportunity he got.
“Have you got something in your eye, Dr. Grey?” Burke asked casually, a smirk hidden beneath his mask. He knew exactly what he was asking for.
“No, Dr. Burke,” Meredith answered coolly.
“Then perhaps you could tell me exactly what’s wrong with you that you have that peculiar look on your face.” He answered in a smug tone.
“Perhaps you could tell me exactly what’s wrong with you,” Meredith countered, still glaring at him.
Burke paused, looking up at her, “I’m not the one who seems to be having vision problems. Perhaps I should request another resident to finish out this case.”
“Seriously, Dr. Burke? Seriously ? You’re going to threaten me with replacing me with another resident. Let me guess, you’d go for Cristina. That way you can stand there across the table from her and pretend like everything is perfectly fine. Like it’s totally okay for you to be here.”
“It would appear that it’s ‘totally okay’ for me to be here. Richard didn’t seem to hesitate in offering me my previous position here at Seattle Grace,” Burke answered evenly.
“Quit playing stupid. You know what I’m talking about. This is about Cristina and you and I both know it. I’m not sure why you had to come and flaunt Addison of all people in front of her but she’s brok-“
Burke waved his hand to silence Meredith, narrowing his eyes again at the suspicious lesion on the patient’s ventricular wall. Using the end of his forceps he manipulated the flesh around it and then recoiled as blood erupted from the lesion, the wall of the heart rupturing from the slightest touch. “Dammit!” He hissed, calling out frantically for sutures, “Grey, get more suction in there, now.”
Working frantically to get the wall rupture under control, Burke took only a moment to glance up at the gallery, to find the one resident he knew that could handle this situation. She was nowhere to be seen, “Grey, page Yang. Now. I need a set of hands in here that know what they’re doing.”
“Tell me what to do,” Meredith argued, “I can handle this.”
“Page Cristina,” Burke repeated, suturing only a little more frantically.
It wasn’t usual that Meredith would surgically do something that she wasn’t supposed to do, wasn’t usual that she didn’t follow orders while in the OR- but this was an exception. She was protecting her person. She started suturing in tandem with Burke, her delicate fingers doing the exact same thing that Cristina’s would do.
The exact same thing that Cristina taught her to do.
Burke’s jaw clenched as he watched but he said no more, turned his focus to the patient and pushed the rest to the side. They finished the surgery in near silence, only speaking when it pertained to the patient. Somehow Meredith’s cold gaze affected him more now than it did earlier in the hour.
He watched as his patient was wheeled from the OR and then rolled his head back, closing his eyes. The hot water ran over his hands from the scrub sink and he sighed heavily. It was going to be an adjustment, being back in this hospital.
Dealing with the things he had done.
Meredith stepped into the scrub room, smacked the button to turn on the sink with unnecessary force and looked up at him, “You didn’t need her. You don’t need her.”
Burke opened his eyes and looked down at the five pound woman standing next to him, “Excuse me?”
“You don’t need her. Cristina. There are other people that are perfectly capable, perfectly able to handle whatever situation it is that you’re in. Cristina isn’t it. Leave her alone.” Meredith spoke in a firm tone, one of determination to keep her friend safe from whatever stupid thing he had concocted. “Just…leave her alone.”
Meredith jerked her hands out from under the water, grabbed a towel and walked out of the room. She wouldn’t tell Cristina about any of it; only because she knew that Cristina would probably think that Meredith was out of line and that she could handle herself, could handle dealing with Burke.
The thing was though, Cristina didn’t see herself. She couldn’t see herself a few weeks prior when she was lying in a hospital bed next to Meredith and crying, sobbing about missing Burke and holding hearts and whatever other broken sentiment fell from her lips. Cristina couldn’t see how broken she was.
Meredith could and she wasn’t going to let him break her anymore.
x-x-x-x-x
Joe’s was becoming a habit far too quickly for either one of their tastes but going to a different bar seemed almost unnatural. Addison sat next to Burke, sipping on a glass of cabernet sauvignon. Her eyes moved over the crowd in the bar, took note of Cristina sitting next to Meredith in the corner and the look on Cristina’s face.
She moved her gaze over to Burke and moved so that she was sitting slightly closer to him, “Cristina is in the corner,” Addison mentioned under her breath.
Burke glanced up and his eyes lingered there, the breath leaving his chest. It was the first time he’d seen her since leaving Seattle and it was no easier than the last time that he’d seen her. Everything about her still reached into his very depths and held onto his heart with a vice grip.
“Preston,” Addison said softly, putting her hand over his and drawing his gaze away from Cristina. A blind person would be able to see that he still loved her very much, would be able to see the regret in his eyes.
It was too soon for people to see that though.
He reached for his beer and took a long drink of it before sitting it aside, “I think I’m going to call it an early night. It’s been a long day.”
“Tell me about it,” Addison answered, pushing her stir around her martini glass. “I scrubbed in with her today. Cristina, I mean.”
Burke looked at her, asking a million questions with his eyes but speaking none of them.
“She’s not the same,” It wasn’t much of an elaboration but it was the most she could conclude out of the stiflingly awkward surgery.
“Nobody is,” Burke replied, doing his best to avoid looking at Cristina once more.
The two sat in silence, sipping on their sorrows and regrets as the world moved around them. When they were both full of their own pity, they stood to depart the bar only to be stopped by Derek, accompanied by Mark and Owen.
“Addison,” Derek nodded, sitting down next to her.
“Derek,” Addison smiled, standing to give him a hug. Before she could sit back down, Mark grabbed onto her arm.
“What am I? I may be an ex, but he’s your ex-husband. I should have gotten the first hug,” He commented with a smug grin before pulling her into his arms.
She lingered for perhaps a second longer than she should have; taking just a moment to breathe in his familiar scent, except it wasn’t so familiar anymore. “Mark, what the hell are you wearing?” Addison asked with a sour face.
“It’s Ed Hardy,” He answered, pulling away with a disappointed look, “What? You don’t like it?”
“It’s his attempt at trying to be fifteen for his fifteen year old girlfriend,” Derek jabbed with a laugh, “Tell him how ridiculous he smells.”
Addison brushed her hand over the leather jacket and then frowned, “The Armani was better. It suited you.”
“The Armani was old. It was outdated,” Mark scowled.
“You’re old and outdated,” Derek smirked, patting his shoulder.
Owen shook his head at the two of them, “You two are the same age aren’t you?”
Derek looked to Owen, slightly offended by his defense of Mark. “And I thought we were friends,”
“Looks as if you’ve been betrayed,” Burke remarked dryly, his eyes moving to the man that was dating Cristina. That had physically hurt Cristina, intentionally or not. It took a lot not to do the same to him just thinking of it.
Owen’s glance met Burke’s and he thought he noted contempt but chose to ignore it, deciding instead to carry on conversation with the man. Cristina had been missing cardiothoracics, had been lost without a mentor and now was the perfect opportunity to bring it up.
x-x-x-x-x
“I can’t watch this,” Cristina groaned softly, burying her face into her arms. “Is he seriously sitting with Burke?”
Meredith couldn’t help but laugh at least a little bit at her friend’s pain, “He’s doing a lot more than sitting with him. They’re having a full blown conversation.”
“What could they possibly be talking about?” Cristina asked, jerking her head up. “What does he have to say to him? They’re not friends. They can’t be friends.”
“They probably wouldn’t even be talking if you had told Owen about Burke by now.”
“Aren’t there enough nurses talking for me?” Cristina groaned, “Seriously? They never shut up. He should have heard by now.”
Meredith smirked, “I’m not even dating Owen, but I know enough to know that he doesn’t listen to the nurses. At all. Ever.”
Cristina sighed, watching them. “I’m going to have to go over there, aren’t I?”
“I don’t know,” Meredith answered, picking at a peanut shell. “I think you should stay here. This is fun.”
“Yeah,” Cristina sneered, sliding off of her barstool, “For you.”
With a pout, Meredith watched as Cristina skulked across the bar, jacket in hand but then her expression brightened when she realized that the ensuing show could be as entertaining as the previous one.
x-x-x-x-x
It was a fight to keep a straight face for Burke as Owen carried on, obviously clueless to his past with Cristina, but he did it. It was just like Cristina, to never once mention to her boyfriend that they had been involved, had been ridiculously close to marriage.
The predictability of it all made him nostalgic for a different time; a time when he had been in Owen’s shoes.
“I have a few surgeries that she can scrub in on this week,” Burke finally spoke to Owen’s near-plea to let Cristina get her hands into a few procedures, even if it could be considered favoritism.
“I’m sure she’ll be quite excited to work under you once again, Burke.” Mark joked causing Derek to nearly spit out his beer.
“Just don’t ride her too hard,” Derek added, wiping his mouth with a napkin to disguise a grin.
Burke coughed to cover up a laugh, looking away from Owen. For the first time since he’d come to Seattle, he was actually enjoying himself.
Even if it was at the expense of Cristina’s boyfriend.
“Don’t get too hard on her though,” Mark continued, “She may not be able to handle it.”
“Cristina is tough,” Owen answered the accusation, “She can handle more than you think. I’m sure she can handle anything that Burke puts her up against. She’s worked under him before.”
The entire table burst into laughter, leaving Owen confused as to what was so funny. He chuckled nervously with them, pretending to know what was going on until he felt a hand on his lower back. Glancing over, he smiled to see Cristina at his side, “We were just discussing you.”
Mark cleared his throat and reached for his jacket, “That’s my cue to leave.”
Derek grabbed onto Mark’s arm to make him stay. He was aware that the show could just be starting, “Not yet. You haven’t even finished your beer.”
Cristina glared at Derek and then shifted her gaze to Owen, “Are you ready to get out of here? I want to go home.”
Owen glanced at his watch with a furrowed brow, “It’s still early.”
“It is early,” Burke echoed, watching her closely. “You should sit down and have a drink with us.”
Her gaze shifted to Burke for a moment before she leaned over to Owen and whispered something into his ear, blatantly trying to get under Burke’s skin.
It was working.
With slightly reddened cheeks, Owen put some money on the table and stepped down from his seat, “When they say you have to go, you have to go, right?” He laughed softly, “I’ll catch you guys later, we need to do this more often.”
“Of course,” Burke answered in a hollow voice, not watching him as he responded, but Cristina instead. He watched as the two of them walked away, her fingers laced with his and his gaze darkened considerably.
“Looks like you won’t be the one that’s riding her hard,” Mark grinned, looking at the distracted man across from him.
Afraid of blowing their cover, Addison did the only thing she could. She leaned over, put a hand against his cheek and kissed him softly to draw his attention from the woman that he’d rather be with. “Maybe we should go too,” She murmured in a low voice.
Mark stood up once again, having seen more than enough. “I need to get out of here too. It may not be late but I have an early surgery.”
Swirling the last bit of scotch in his glass with a smug grin, Derek looked to Mark. “So much better,” he quipped before bidding a goodnight to the duo and crossing the bar to Meredith.
Addison shrugged apologetically after they were in the clear, “Sorry. You were being a little more than obvious.”
“I apologize,” He answered, finishing his beer and then standing up. “Sloan seemed offended at your actions. Perhaps he’s not as infatuated with Grey as one would suppose.”
Changing the subject was easier.
“Are you kidding? He shaved his goatee off. He’s wearing cologne made for kids in college. I’d say that Mark Sloan isn’t an option. Which is fine with me because I’ll just steal Richard’s job and marry the hospital instead.”
“You’re going to have to fight me for it,” Burke remarked dryly, walking out of the bar with her.
Addison wasn’t deterred by his words as she laid a hand against the back of his arm, “Oh no. We have bigger plans for you, Preston. Much bigger plans.”
Title: There Are Places I Remember 4/?
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|
Denial is more than just a state of being, it’s an art. It’s intricate and delicate, especially fragile. It should be admired and handled with care for the artist has a certain strength within themselves, even if it’s to make up for a weakness they cannot bring themselves to acknowledge.
The artist themselves should be handled with care as well, for they are just as fragile as the delicate work in which they have created.
Cristina Yang was that artist.
Sitting at the desk, she quietly worked on a chart and pretended not to hear the gossip, the nonstop prattle of the nurses. She imagined that instead of all eyes being on her for the obvious reasons, that people were staring her down because of something she’d done in surgery, something they’d heard about her and Owen.
They weren’t staring her down because of Burke. If they were staring anybody down because of Burke, it would have been Addison Montgomery.
His so-called girlfriend.
For a fleeting moment, her denial started to unravel but she quickly put a stop to it. She wasn’t thinking about it because she didn’t care. She didn’t care because he left. He left because he didn’t love her.
It was more simplistic than a basic appendectomy- open the patient, take out the bad parts, leave the good and sew them back up. That’s exactly what Burke had done when he left her. He excised the bad and moved on.
He was healed and so was she.
Whatever.
The ink stopped flowing from the rollerball of her pen and she heaved a great sigh, shaking her beloved blue inkpen, trying to get the last little bit of life out of it. After several failed attempts she tossed it on the counter and reached into her overstuffed pockets for another.
An overdone silver pen invaded her line of vision attached to a fair skinned hand and Cristina looked up into blue eyes, taking the pen from her boyfriend, from Owen; the one that mattered. “Thanks,” She mumbled before returning to her chart.
Owen sunk into the chair next to her and studied her for a long moment. She’d been upset recently, and though he suspected it was the merger, he knew he needed to get to the bottom of it. Or at least try to.
“So-“ Owen started slowly, watching her carefully.
Cristina’s mind automatically jumped into a defensive mode, just knowing that questions were coming but just as quickly she was saved by an annoyed scoff.
“What are you saying?” Mark argued, leaning against the counter.
“I’m just saying that I’m happy for Addison, that’s all.” Derek said, greeting Owen with the slightest of nods. “I’m allowed to be happy for my ex-wife.”
Mark wasn’t oblivious to the jab, “You would have been happy for her with me.”
“I just want her to have the best. I don’t want her to settle. Addison deserves a good man,” Derek clarified, “And Preston Burke is a good man.”
Cristina snorted involuntarily and then closed her chart, almost horrified that she couldn’t control her reaction.
Owen cleared his throat slightly and looked up at the two of them, “What’s wrong with Burke?”
Sliding an angry gaze to Derek, Mark spoke first, “Nothing. Nothing is wrong with him, unless you don’t like arrogant egoistical men. Then there’s a problem.”
“It’s a step up from arrogant egoistical boys isn’t it?” Derek laughed.
“I don’t know, why don’t we ask Yang?” Mark said, turning his gaze to Cristina.
“Why don’t we work?” Cristina answered, standing up and pulling her chart to her chest, “I’m here to work.”
Before any of them could reply, Cristina was gone and Derek looked at Mark in question and they both turned to Owen with knowing glances.
The poor man didn’t have a clue.
“Am I missing something?” Owen asked, looking up at the two men.
Mark grinned from ear to ear, more than ready to fill him in on exactly what it was that he was missing. That grin faded when he felt a sharp jab in his side and he glared at Derek once again, “What wa-“ He started but then noted the new addition to their party.
“Dr. Sloan, Shepherd,” Burke greeted, setting a chart on the counter. He extended a hand to the redheaded man behind the counter, knowing exactly who he was. “I don’t believe we’ve officially met yet.”
“Dr. Owen Hunt, and you’re Preston Burke. I’ve heard a lot about you,” Owen smiled, completely oblivious to how much he hadn’t heard.
“I’m sure that you have, Dr. Hunt,” Burke deadpanned before retracting his hand. An awkward silence lingered over the men for a long moment before Burke continued, “Dr. Hunt, I received a consult on one of your patients, a motor vehicle accident with a traumatic pericardial effusion. I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be taking him into surgery today to place a pericardial drain with a patch. I’ll probably transfer him to the CVICU rather than leaving him in the surgical ICU. I would prefer that he be in skilled hands.”
“Of course, Dr. Burke. Whatever you need,” The other man obliged.
Burke considered suggesting Cristina as the primary resident on the case, but thought better of it. If he was supposed to keep up the front of being with Addison there was no way that he could bring Cristina up in front of them. “Which resident should I page regarding the patient?”
Owen thought for a minute, flipped through his patient list, “That looks like…Dr. Grey. Meredith Grey.”
Derek and Mark smirked, looked at Burke. Mark put a firm hand on his shoulder with an almost sympathetic look. “Better luck next time, Burke.”
Burke smiled politely, seething hatred underlying the gesture and shrugged his hand off. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to locate my resident. Gentlemen,”
“Talk about feeding him to the sharks,” Mark commented with a smirk, “Your post-it partner is going to tear him to shreds.”
“My wife will do no such thing,” Derek answered in an arrogant tone, “Meredith, unlike you, is completely capable of being professional.”
“Nobody in this place is professional,” Owen half joked, maybe wasn’t even joking at all, “Besides, what does Meredith have against Dr. Burke? Shouldn’t she have something against Dr. Montgomery instead?”
Mark opened his mouth to speak once again and once more Derek stopped him, physically pulling him away under the guise of a surgery.
“What are you doing?” Mark asked, jerking his arm away from Derek. “He’s completely clueless.”
“It’s not our place,” Derek lectured, crossing his arms as he looked at Mark with a judgmental gaze.
“Don’t give me that crap. You like Yang as much as you like being outdone by me,”
Derek scoffed, “I have never been outdone by you and it has nothing to do with Dr. Yang.”
“Then what? Are you afraid your post-it partner will withhold sex if you say something?” Mark taunted, pulling his pager from the waistband of his scrubs.
“Yeah,” Derek smirked, “Something like that.”
x-x-x-x-x
Addison studied the woman across the table from her with softness in her blue eyes. She had expected some sort of contempt, some cold shoulder, but she got none of that from her. There was no idle chit-chat or conversation, no attempt at friendship or gossip- only work.
Her eyes returned to her premature patient’s abdomen and excised another small piece of necrotic bowel, held back as Cristina intuitively passed suction through the field to clear it for her and then withdrew.
If Addison didn’t feel like she was working against her, she felt that they would work well together.
“Dr. Yang, why don’t you remove the next section of necrotic tissue?” Addison suggested, extending the small blade towards Cristina.
Cristina looked up, surprised by the offer. It had been a considerable amount of time since she’d truly worked with Addison but the Addison she remembered didn’t offer residents the chance to really work on her critical patients.
As a matter of fact, she was almost sure she never offered them a chance to work on her critical patients.
Though she questioned her motives, Cristina wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity. She took up the instruments and went to work in a controlled but almost ravenous manner. She was so starved for surgery that carving out two centimeters of necrotic bowel almost felt like a bypass.
“It’s changed here,” Addison remarked idly, using the suction catheter to keep Cristina’s field cleared. “Seattle. It doesn’t feel the same.”
Cristina’s eyes remained focused on her patient, “Because it’s not Los Angeles.”
Addison’s eyes fixated on Cristina, “No, I didn’t mean like that. I meant that it doesn’t feel like the same hospital. There are new people. Old people that seem new. People that I used to know who seem like half the person that they used to be,” she explained, searching the woman before her. “Maybe like they’re incomplete.”
It was more of a question than a statement.
“Maybe you didn’t really know those people,” Cristina answered coldly, finishing excising the last of the necrotic bowel from their patient. She looked straight into Addison’s eyes for the first time. They were soft, sympathetic.
Maybe even understanding.
“Perhaps you’re right, Dr. Yang.” Addison murmured softly, resuming her work in the patient’s abdomen. “The necrotic tissue is gone and vital signs are stable. I think that the patient is ready to close,” Addison observed out loud, trying to drown out the awkward feeling in the room.
Cristina glanced up at her again and then nodded. She knew that Addison was uncomfortable but she wasn’t going to do anything to ease that discomfort.
As far as Cristina was concerned, Addison deserved all of the discomfort that she was inflicting upon herself and more.
x-x-x-x-x
Preston Burke was a man who used surgery as a tool to focus, as a tool to gather his thoughts and put them aside. Very few times did he feel as if he weren’t in control during surgery; as a matter of fact, he could only single out one person that had ever caused him to feel anything but collected in surgery.
Today, however, Meredith Grey decided to challenge that record.
Burke offered no pleasantries of letting her make the initial incision or handling the rib spreader, only let her perform her usual duties as a resident. Perhaps it was the icy glare she’d been giving him since joining him in the scrub room, or the tone she took with him during the time out procedures prior to the surgery beginning.
“Dr. Grey, if you don’t mind,” Burke mumbled into his surgical mask, eyeing a suspicious lesion on the heart wall.
She moved the suction catheter to clear his field and then took the opportunity to get in another good glare on her person’s behalf. She didn’t care if it was childish or petty or unprofessional. He was going to get a lot more than that from her the first opportunity he got.
“Have you got something in your eye, Dr. Grey?” Burke asked casually, a smirk hidden beneath his mask. He knew exactly what he was asking for.
“No, Dr. Burke,” Meredith answered coolly.
“Then perhaps you could tell me exactly what’s wrong with you that you have that peculiar look on your face.” He answered in a smug tone.
“Perhaps you could tell me exactly what’s wrong with you,” Meredith countered, still glaring at him.
Burke paused, looking up at her, “I’m not the one who seems to be having vision problems. Perhaps I should request another resident to finish out this case.”
“Seriously, Dr. Burke? Seriously ? You’re going to threaten me with replacing me with another resident. Let me guess, you’d go for Cristina. That way you can stand there across the table from her and pretend like everything is perfectly fine. Like it’s totally okay for you to be here.”
“It would appear that it’s ‘totally okay’ for me to be here. Richard didn’t seem to hesitate in offering me my previous position here at Seattle Grace,” Burke answered evenly.
“Quit playing stupid. You know what I’m talking about. This is about Cristina and you and I both know it. I’m not sure why you had to come and flaunt Addison of all people in front of her but she’s brok-“
Burke waved his hand to silence Meredith, narrowing his eyes again at the suspicious lesion on the patient’s ventricular wall. Using the end of his forceps he manipulated the flesh around it and then recoiled as blood erupted from the lesion, the wall of the heart rupturing from the slightest touch. “Dammit!” He hissed, calling out frantically for sutures, “Grey, get more suction in there, now.”
Working frantically to get the wall rupture under control, Burke took only a moment to glance up at the gallery, to find the one resident he knew that could handle this situation. She was nowhere to be seen, “Grey, page Yang. Now. I need a set of hands in here that know what they’re doing.”
“Tell me what to do,” Meredith argued, “I can handle this.”
“Page Cristina,” Burke repeated, suturing only a little more frantically.
It wasn’t usual that Meredith would surgically do something that she wasn’t supposed to do, wasn’t usual that she didn’t follow orders while in the OR- but this was an exception. She was protecting her person. She started suturing in tandem with Burke, her delicate fingers doing the exact same thing that Cristina’s would do.
The exact same thing that Cristina taught her to do.
Burke’s jaw clenched as he watched but he said no more, turned his focus to the patient and pushed the rest to the side. They finished the surgery in near silence, only speaking when it pertained to the patient. Somehow Meredith’s cold gaze affected him more now than it did earlier in the hour.
He watched as his patient was wheeled from the OR and then rolled his head back, closing his eyes. The hot water ran over his hands from the scrub sink and he sighed heavily. It was going to be an adjustment, being back in this hospital.
Dealing with the things he had done.
Meredith stepped into the scrub room, smacked the button to turn on the sink with unnecessary force and looked up at him, “You didn’t need her. You don’t need her.”
Burke opened his eyes and looked down at the five pound woman standing next to him, “Excuse me?”
“You don’t need her. Cristina. There are other people that are perfectly capable, perfectly able to handle whatever situation it is that you’re in. Cristina isn’t it. Leave her alone.” Meredith spoke in a firm tone, one of determination to keep her friend safe from whatever stupid thing he had concocted. “Just…leave her alone.”
Meredith jerked her hands out from under the water, grabbed a towel and walked out of the room. She wouldn’t tell Cristina about any of it; only because she knew that Cristina would probably think that Meredith was out of line and that she could handle herself, could handle dealing with Burke.
The thing was though, Cristina didn’t see herself. She couldn’t see herself a few weeks prior when she was lying in a hospital bed next to Meredith and crying, sobbing about missing Burke and holding hearts and whatever other broken sentiment fell from her lips. Cristina couldn’t see how broken she was.
Meredith could and she wasn’t going to let him break her anymore.
x-x-x-x-x
Joe’s was becoming a habit far too quickly for either one of their tastes but going to a different bar seemed almost unnatural. Addison sat next to Burke, sipping on a glass of cabernet sauvignon. Her eyes moved over the crowd in the bar, took note of Cristina sitting next to Meredith in the corner and the look on Cristina’s face.
She moved her gaze over to Burke and moved so that she was sitting slightly closer to him, “Cristina is in the corner,” Addison mentioned under her breath.
Burke glanced up and his eyes lingered there, the breath leaving his chest. It was the first time he’d seen her since leaving Seattle and it was no easier than the last time that he’d seen her. Everything about her still reached into his very depths and held onto his heart with a vice grip.
“Preston,” Addison said softly, putting her hand over his and drawing his gaze away from Cristina. A blind person would be able to see that he still loved her very much, would be able to see the regret in his eyes.
It was too soon for people to see that though.
He reached for his beer and took a long drink of it before sitting it aside, “I think I’m going to call it an early night. It’s been a long day.”
“Tell me about it,” Addison answered, pushing her stir around her martini glass. “I scrubbed in with her today. Cristina, I mean.”
Burke looked at her, asking a million questions with his eyes but speaking none of them.
“She’s not the same,” It wasn’t much of an elaboration but it was the most she could conclude out of the stiflingly awkward surgery.
“Nobody is,” Burke replied, doing his best to avoid looking at Cristina once more.
The two sat in silence, sipping on their sorrows and regrets as the world moved around them. When they were both full of their own pity, they stood to depart the bar only to be stopped by Derek, accompanied by Mark and Owen.
“Addison,” Derek nodded, sitting down next to her.
“Derek,” Addison smiled, standing to give him a hug. Before she could sit back down, Mark grabbed onto her arm.
“What am I? I may be an ex, but he’s your ex-husband. I should have gotten the first hug,” He commented with a smug grin before pulling her into his arms.
She lingered for perhaps a second longer than she should have; taking just a moment to breathe in his familiar scent, except it wasn’t so familiar anymore. “Mark, what the hell are you wearing?” Addison asked with a sour face.
“It’s Ed Hardy,” He answered, pulling away with a disappointed look, “What? You don’t like it?”
“It’s his attempt at trying to be fifteen for his fifteen year old girlfriend,” Derek jabbed with a laugh, “Tell him how ridiculous he smells.”
Addison brushed her hand over the leather jacket and then frowned, “The Armani was better. It suited you.”
“The Armani was old. It was outdated,” Mark scowled.
“You’re old and outdated,” Derek smirked, patting his shoulder.
Owen shook his head at the two of them, “You two are the same age aren’t you?”
Derek looked to Owen, slightly offended by his defense of Mark. “And I thought we were friends,”
“Looks as if you’ve been betrayed,” Burke remarked dryly, his eyes moving to the man that was dating Cristina. That had physically hurt Cristina, intentionally or not. It took a lot not to do the same to him just thinking of it.
Owen’s glance met Burke’s and he thought he noted contempt but chose to ignore it, deciding instead to carry on conversation with the man. Cristina had been missing cardiothoracics, had been lost without a mentor and now was the perfect opportunity to bring it up.
x-x-x-x-x
“I can’t watch this,” Cristina groaned softly, burying her face into her arms. “Is he seriously sitting with Burke?”
Meredith couldn’t help but laugh at least a little bit at her friend’s pain, “He’s doing a lot more than sitting with him. They’re having a full blown conversation.”
“What could they possibly be talking about?” Cristina asked, jerking her head up. “What does he have to say to him? They’re not friends. They can’t be friends.”
“They probably wouldn’t even be talking if you had told Owen about Burke by now.”
“Aren’t there enough nurses talking for me?” Cristina groaned, “Seriously? They never shut up. He should have heard by now.”
Meredith smirked, “I’m not even dating Owen, but I know enough to know that he doesn’t listen to the nurses. At all. Ever.”
Cristina sighed, watching them. “I’m going to have to go over there, aren’t I?”
“I don’t know,” Meredith answered, picking at a peanut shell. “I think you should stay here. This is fun.”
“Yeah,” Cristina sneered, sliding off of her barstool, “For you.”
With a pout, Meredith watched as Cristina skulked across the bar, jacket in hand but then her expression brightened when she realized that the ensuing show could be as entertaining as the previous one.
x-x-x-x-x
It was a fight to keep a straight face for Burke as Owen carried on, obviously clueless to his past with Cristina, but he did it. It was just like Cristina, to never once mention to her boyfriend that they had been involved, had been ridiculously close to marriage.
The predictability of it all made him nostalgic for a different time; a time when he had been in Owen’s shoes.
“I have a few surgeries that she can scrub in on this week,” Burke finally spoke to Owen’s near-plea to let Cristina get her hands into a few procedures, even if it could be considered favoritism.
“I’m sure she’ll be quite excited to work under you once again, Burke.” Mark joked causing Derek to nearly spit out his beer.
“Just don’t ride her too hard,” Derek added, wiping his mouth with a napkin to disguise a grin.
Burke coughed to cover up a laugh, looking away from Owen. For the first time since he’d come to Seattle, he was actually enjoying himself.
Even if it was at the expense of Cristina’s boyfriend.
“Don’t get too hard on her though,” Mark continued, “She may not be able to handle it.”
“Cristina is tough,” Owen answered the accusation, “She can handle more than you think. I’m sure she can handle anything that Burke puts her up against. She’s worked under him before.”
The entire table burst into laughter, leaving Owen confused as to what was so funny. He chuckled nervously with them, pretending to know what was going on until he felt a hand on his lower back. Glancing over, he smiled to see Cristina at his side, “We were just discussing you.”
Mark cleared his throat and reached for his jacket, “That’s my cue to leave.”
Derek grabbed onto Mark’s arm to make him stay. He was aware that the show could just be starting, “Not yet. You haven’t even finished your beer.”
Cristina glared at Derek and then shifted her gaze to Owen, “Are you ready to get out of here? I want to go home.”
Owen glanced at his watch with a furrowed brow, “It’s still early.”
“It is early,” Burke echoed, watching her closely. “You should sit down and have a drink with us.”
Her gaze shifted to Burke for a moment before she leaned over to Owen and whispered something into his ear, blatantly trying to get under Burke’s skin.
It was working.
With slightly reddened cheeks, Owen put some money on the table and stepped down from his seat, “When they say you have to go, you have to go, right?” He laughed softly, “I’ll catch you guys later, we need to do this more often.”
“Of course,” Burke answered in a hollow voice, not watching him as he responded, but Cristina instead. He watched as the two of them walked away, her fingers laced with his and his gaze darkened considerably.
“Looks like you won’t be the one that’s riding her hard,” Mark grinned, looking at the distracted man across from him.
Afraid of blowing their cover, Addison did the only thing she could. She leaned over, put a hand against his cheek and kissed him softly to draw his attention from the woman that he’d rather be with. “Maybe we should go too,” She murmured in a low voice.
Mark stood up once again, having seen more than enough. “I need to get out of here too. It may not be late but I have an early surgery.”
Swirling the last bit of scotch in his glass with a smug grin, Derek looked to Mark. “So much better,” he quipped before bidding a goodnight to the duo and crossing the bar to Meredith.
Addison shrugged apologetically after they were in the clear, “Sorry. You were being a little more than obvious.”
“I apologize,” He answered, finishing his beer and then standing up. “Sloan seemed offended at your actions. Perhaps he’s not as infatuated with Grey as one would suppose.”
Changing the subject was easier.
“Are you kidding? He shaved his goatee off. He’s wearing cologne made for kids in college. I’d say that Mark Sloan isn’t an option. Which is fine with me because I’ll just steal Richard’s job and marry the hospital instead.”
“You’re going to have to fight me for it,” Burke remarked dryly, walking out of the bar with her.
Addison wasn’t deterred by his words as she laid a hand against the back of his arm, “Oh no. We have bigger plans for you, Preston. Much bigger plans.”