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Late Tuesday night, he spies her alone at the nurse's station, writing up charts, and comes up from her blind side to steal a sip of her coffee. She glares at him and he smirks a little from behind the cup.
The saccharine sweetness of the chocolate syrup shocks him. He promptly chokes and grimaces.
"Mocha latte?" He coughs to clear his throat and chooses to ignore her smirk. "It's too sweet."
"I need the extra sugar, Bailey's running me to the ground." She turns back to scribble on her chart.
"Sure." He says, taking off his glasses to clean. After several moments of unnecessary wiping and choosing his words, he says, "We both have Friday off."
"Yes."
He holds his glasses to the light to make sure they're particle free. "We can go out. There's a Yulefest, and they're lighting up the Christmas lights display downtown."
She looks up at that; stares at him for several moments. He holds her gaze, holds his ground. He barely gets to interact with her beyond the four walls of the hospital and that has to be remedied. Their demanding work schedule and all the hot sex (not that he is complaining) leave little time for them to talk. And he would really like to get to know her.
Not Dr. Cristina Yang, M.D., PhD, surgical intern extraordinaire, but Cristina Yang.
"We can go out." She agrees. And some of his excitement must have bled into his face as her hand comes up to massage her temple. "Not to that. Too much holiday cheer. Literally anything else."
"It's a date." His heart swells a little as he says it; he grins and takes another sip of her coffee. She scowls, pulls the cup out of his hand, and moves it out of his reach.
"Get your own, thief."
He opens his mouth to protest but his pager interrupts him. "I've to go. Here," he says, pulling a protein bar from his coat pocket and folding her hand over it. "Eat. You look pale."
He manages to catch a flicker of a smile on her face as he strides away.
Burke vacillates between making plans and letting things go their natural flow. Truthfully, he doesn't care what they do as long as they get to spend time together and talk about anything other than medicine. But he recalls their awkward first date, and how she left him with Stevens for close to an entire day on Thanksgiving, choosing surgeries over staying with him, and he thinks he needs to put in more effort into making plans and doing things she enjoys.
But she is a closed book. And when he thinks of the state of her apartment (which he tries not to do often as it makes him want to drown the nearest possible surface in bleach and scrubbing it clean), he is rudely reminded of how much he doesn't really know her.
He considers asking Dr. Grey for advice, and quickly shelves that idea. She will probably use it to leverage herself into one of his surgeries; he doesn't need to owe the interns anything. He decides to make a list of places to visit and things to do and suggest some of the more plausible ones to her on Friday morning. And they can do the one that she objects to the least.
Burke doesn't remember putting this much effort in preparing for dates. Ever.
(He catches her eyes across the ER, and somehow, he knows without a single doubt that she is worth it.)
Ultimately, all of his plans were for naught.
He wakes up on Friday morning with a searing headache, as though someone is drilling into his skull at three different axes. The tickle in his throat that he had ignored last night had worsened; he is convinced there is sandpaper scratching at the insides of his throat, leaving it raw and throbbing.
The sunlight filtering through the blinds is not doing him any favors. He groans, throwing his arm across his eyes. His other hand gropes around the nightstand for his phone.
He manages to grab hold of it and dial Cristina's number.
"Hello?"
"Cristina." He rasps. Tries to clear his throat and fails. "I can't make it today."
There was a long pause. He thinks he hears Bailey in the background. "Are you sick?"
He grunts in affirmation. "Are you in the hospital?"
"No." She says, quickly. "Okay, yes. But I'm about to leave."
"Oh." He says, cursing the headache for limiting his vocabulary.
There's a pregnant pause. "Um, get well soon?"
"Thanks." He says, and then breaks into a coughing fit. He hangs up the phone, feeling oddly disappointed and bereft and not knowing why.
Burke presses his face into his pillow and wills himself to sleep.
He jolts awake, sweat beading on his forehead.
The headache is back with a vengeance. Or it never really left. He presses his palms into his eyes and breathes in and out slowly.
He hears a key turn in the lock and the front door open. Then noises drift in. Footsteps. The rustle of plastic bags. The clink of metal cans on the counter. He thinks he recognizes the tread of her steps, tries not to sound too hopeful when he calls out to confirm, "Cristina?"
She appears in the doorway. He sees two of her as she strides towards him. Both Cristinas resolve into one as she sits down on the edge of the bed. Her cool hand presses against his forehead as her face creases with concern. He leans into it, grateful. "You don't really have a fever."
"I don't." He starts, and dissolves into a coughing fit which he tries to muffle with his pillow. A bottle of water nudges his fingers and he props himself up on his elbows to take a long drink. "Thank you."
He places the bottle on the nightstand and slumps back down, kneading his temple. "Sore throat. And headache. I'm seeing double."
Cristina nods, her fingers absently rubbing his cheek and jawline. It is strangely comforting. She roots around the plastic bag she brought in and finds some aspirin to offer him. He swallows them.
After several heartbeats of silence, she says something under her breath.
"What?"
"I brought soup." She repeats, staring at his forehead. "Chicken noodle. The deli had beef barley too but that didn't sound appealing even to healthy people. And you don't eat red meat. I also bought ginger ale and saltines. Meredith told me those are sick people food. I wouldn't know. If you want other things I can run out to the store and -"
"Cristina." He covers her hand with his. Her mouth shuts with a click. "Whatever you brought is good. Thank you."
"You're welcome."
He squeezes her hand and turns what she said over in his mind. "You don't know what sick people eat?"
She shrugs, says with a grimace, "That's a nurse's job. I chug DayQuil and work."
He laughs, and regrets it when a needle of pain pierces his temples. "Well. Thank you. For the food and for coming." He half smiles at her. "I want to sleep this off. You should go."
She tears off her jacket and climbs over him in response, snatching the book on his nightstand in the process and almost hitting him in the face with it. There's a small smile on her face as she settles against the headboard and cracks open the book. "I'm staying."
He turns towards her, tucking his right hand under his pillow, and frowns. "I might give it to you."
"Oh, no, you won't. I already had it couple days ago."
He opens his eyes at that and squints at her. The days since he asked her out had been chaotic. A seven car pileup on the expressway turned the ER into a mess, and the hours flew by in a blur of surgeries. Bailey had assigned her to other attendings and he worked with every other intern except her. Other than occasional glances across the ER and hallways, he barely got to see her. She had looked fine. Like her usual competitive, cutthroat, brilliant self.
But this is Cristina.
Cristina, who powered through a 40-hour shift with a 102 degree fever. Cristina, who insisted on working the day after undergoing a major surgery. Cristina, who always looked put together, even when she was in pain. Of course she looked more than fine in the few fleeting glimpses he stole of her.
And he drank from her coffee cup.
He narrows his eyes at her and accuses, "So you gave it to me."
"You are the one who drank my mocha latte." She points out serenely. Her free hand moves into his hair and his eyes struggle to stay open as she starts to scratch lightly. "See, this is why you shouldn't steal people's coffee."
"I've learned my lesson." Burke says, dryly. His eyes drift shut. "We didn't get our date again."
"Dates are overrated." He peers up at her. She raises her eyebrows at him and grins.
He thinks of how she has shown up, revealed a part of herself to him, how she chose to stay. He breathes out a laugh in agreement, reaches his hand till his fingertips connect with her thigh. Her fingers thread through his hair.
With these points of contact anchoring him, he falls asleep quickly, content.