After a half an hour, Cristina starts to wonder why she seems to run into him in the least expected, unannounced places, and yet, when she so desperately needs to find him, he is nowhere in sight. She'd searched the ER with as much scrutiny as a full body scan, only to get pushed into a ten minute catch-up session with April, who seemed more concerned about Cristina's desire to find Owen than inserting a chest tube in the emergency patient between them. She'd stormed into all the on-call rooms, waking up at least a dozen sleepy surgeons, none of whom were Owen. She'd checked the labs, the radiology wing, the conference room.

She is almost ready to head out and knock on the door of his little white house, when she passes the OR board and notices that he is doing a colectomy with Meredith, just down the hall.

When she stumbles into the empty gallery, she looks at the surgery through the glass. Meredith is yelling at an intern to suction, while Owen has his elbows deep into the patient's intestines. His eyes are fixated on his hands, concentrated, and she finds herself easing back on a chair and mesmerized at the screen in front of her. As she waits for an opportunity to speak, for a slow moment to get his attention, she realizes she is in the exact spot she'd said goodbye to him, all those years ago.

"Okay, Dr. Grey," she hears Owen say, as he lifts his hands from the patient's body. "Patient's stable. Thank you for your assistance. Can you update the family, while I close?"

As Meredith nods and starts to take off her gloves, Cristina quickly stands up to press the intercom. "Owen," she begins, and clears her throat a few times more than needed.

He and Meredith look up at the sound of her voice, both their expressions in complete surprise.

"What are you doing up there, Cristina?" Meredith asks, her eyes bugging out. "I thought you were staying at the house today."

But Cristina looks at Owen. "Okay, so you've done most of the talking," she says to him. "And I've done a lot of listening, but I've also done a lot of thinking. So it's my turn to talk, and your turn to listen and think."

He stares at her, for what seems like an eternity, before he grabs the sutures from the intern beside him and sits on the stool to begin suturing up the patient. Meredith crosses her arms and glares at Cristina, also making a statement that she's staying put.

"Okay," he says simply. "I'm listening."

"I love you," Cristina says, and she immediately laughs to herself. "Oh god, that's not even where I wanted to begin. But fine. I love you, okay? And I know that you know that. And I know that you love me, too. But that's never been the issue, Owen."

Cristina glances at Meredith, who looks like she might urinate in her pants, then looks back at Owen, who is just nodding while suturing up the man on the table.

"I don't want to be a replacement for the life you and Amelia built together," Cristina continues hesitantly. "I don't want you to expect that I'll move in, and that you and I and your kid will be one happy family."

Owen looks up. "You're not a replacement, Cristina."

"Shhh," Cristina says, holding up a hand. "You're supposed to be the one listening, remember?"

"All right."

"Things are different now than they were four years ago. We both got to do a lot of what we wanted, and we both had the chance to be who we wanted to be, too. I want to believe you when you say that Beau is your missing piece, and that you've found him, and that he's filled the spot in your life that has always deserved to be filled." Cristina's voice catches, and as he is now staring intently at her, she realizes that tears are filling her eyes. "I'm happy that your puzzle still has room for me. Believe me, that makes me just as happy as that offer from those big guys at UCLA. But it terrifies me, too. God, it scares the crap out of me because I want those things. I want to be with you, because even though it terrifies me, it makes me whole, Owen, and—"

"Cristina—"

"God, you're a really bad listener, you know that?" Cristina chokes out, half-laughing, half-crying. His eye dance in a ballad of wild containment, but he shuts up.

"I took the offer at UCLA," she tells him, and nods when Meredith's eyes light up, not with surprise, but with expectance. She presses her hand against the glass, looking down at him. "So I'm here. I love you, and I'm here. Of course, I'll be traveling a lot from Switzerland to L.A., but Seattle is a two hour flight away. It's not going to rainbows and butterflies. I mean, I'm not even sure how many weeks at a time I'll be able to spend here, but—"

Suddenly, Owen gets up from his stool and drops the suturing kit onto the pull-out table beside him. Without a glance at Cristina, he strips his gloves off and peels his mask over his head.

"Page me when he wakes up," he says to the nurses, who start to shuffle the patient out of the OR. Then he turns toward the door.

"What the hell?" Cristina shouts, banging on the glass with her fist.

"Owen," Meredith says, startled as he swings open the door and leaves the OR.

Cristina's mouth hangs open. "Where the hell is he going?"

Two minutes later, Owen enters the gallery, out of breath as he grips the doorknob and stares at Cristina, a smile on his face. In moments, Cristina is in his arms, and his lips are moving across hers like they'd never left. His hands intertwine with the curls on the back of her head, and her fingers slide up his chest, behind his neck.

"God, I love you," he says, as they break apart. He touches her face, and Cristina beams at the warmth of it all.

"You're a horrible listener," she whispers, before she kisses him again.

Three months later.

Cristina smiles as she sifts through the crowds of people at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. She didn't think she'd like traveling. She didn't think she would like moving around, never fully settled before she has to pick up and leave again. She is used to staying put, in one place, with everything she needed and wanted. Never had it occurred to her that what she needed and wanted were in many different places.

The flight from L.A. was bumpy, and with all the traveling that she's been doing, she is realizing that Seattle thunderstorms are possibly the worst thing to ever run into on a flight. When she finally beats the swarm of travelers, she spots Meredith's car in a line outside the airport, with her three kids asleep in the backseat.

"Mer, sorry," Cristina says, flustered, as she walks towards her at the airport entrance and struggles to balance all of her luggage in her arms. "Seattle rain sucks."

"Two hours of delay?" she says, shaking her head, as she reaches over to pop the trunk open. "The flight is only two hours, for God's sakes."

"Thanks for picking me up," Cristina tells her, as she throws her things in the trunk and climbs into the passenger seat. She blows a kiss to Zola, who startles awake at the sound of the car door slamming shut.

"Yes, yes," Meredith says, waving a hand, feigning nonchalance. "I'm your personal chauffeur. That's what a best friend does. So how was it?"

"Oh my god, it was amazing," Cristina says, sitting back on her seat as Meredith starts to pull out of the airport parking lot. "We're officially launching this thing, Mer. After four years and two trials, I can't believe it. I mean, Grey Sloan can adopt this technology in just a matter of months."

Meredith looks at Cristina, smile wide. "You're kidding."

"I wish," she responds. "I keep pinching myself, thinking I'm going to wake up from this dream. I swear, I have like ten bruises on my arm. Wanna see?"

"No."

"I wanna see!" Zola shouts from the back.

Cristina rolls up her sleeves and turns around to show Zola a mark on her upper right arm, which she got last week from hitting it on the corner of her office desk back in Zurich, not from excessive pinching. Still, Zola is more than a little intrigued.

At first, it was hard for Cristina to come up with a concrete schedule. After her confession to Owen in the OR gallery, she'd quickly up and left back to Zurich for several meetings, surgeries, and to lead training sessions—alongside with Wendy—for collaborative techniques. Then, after printers were shipped to UCLA and the trial was ready to start on the first of the next month, Cristina flew back to Seattle for Richard's funeral. Quickly after, Cristina worked closely with Shane, and reluctantly agreed to let him run the trials in Zurich (with her flying back to monitor him on occasion), which left her traveling weeks at a time from L.A. to Seattle for the following months. It was exhausting, but equally exhilarating, and Cristina was getting used to the idea that goodbyes weren't imperishable.

"I promise," Cristina had said to Owen, two weeks ago, when they were in bed together. She cupped his face in her hands. "I'll be back more often. This project is growing so much quicker than I'd even anticipated. It's amazing, Owen, but I promise you that we're going to work this out, and that it'll be easier—"

He shut her up by kissing her, abruptly, announcing his patience. And she was grateful, at the time and now. But even so, she wanted more, something as permanent as she felt when she was with him.

Now, though, as they pull into a community of houses just a few blocks away from the hospital, Meredith eyes linger on the stuffed animal clown that creeps out of Cristina's bag. Cristina follows her gaze to where her bag is resting at her feet, and scowls at her best friend.

"Don't even," she warns.

"Is that for Beau?" Meredith asks, already cackling at probably the most hideous stuffed animal she'd ever seen. "You're going to give the kid nightmares."

Cristina grabs the clown from her bag and hits Meredith's shoulder with it, causing her to swerve slightly on the road.

"Ow!" Meredith squeals. She glances back at her kids, who are all now awake from both the bickering and Meredith's sideslip. "Kids, don't ever drive with your Aunt Cristina next to you, or else you're bound to get yourself into a car accident."

"This clown is not hideous," Cristina defends, stroking its ketchup red dreads and running her fingers along its insanely huge eyes. The outfit—a yellow jumpsuit with pink polka dots—don't help Cristina's argument at all.

"I beg to differ," Meredith says, making a turn at the stop sign. She glances ahead impatiently. "Jeez, Cristina, how far is this place, anyway?"

Cristina ignores this. Instead, she turns around to face Meredith's kids and motions the stuffed clown in the air. "Is this clown hideous?"

"What's wrong with its eyes?" Zola asks.

Bailey glances from Cristina to the clown, looking pained. "I don't like clowns."

"I want him to like me," Cristina claims, turning back around to look at Meredith, who is inappropriately amused at this entire exchange.

Meredith snorts. "Isn't he already sleeping with you?"

"I'm not talking about Owen, genius," Cristina says, stuffing the clown back into her bag. "I mean Beau."

"You want him to like you… so you bought him a hideous clown doll?"

"Yes, is that so bad?" Cristina sighs, exasperated. "I don't want him to hate his daddy's girlfriend, the one that comes to visit on the weekends, and moves him away from that little house on the prairie. I don't want to drive him away from being with Owen just because I'm in his life, too. That doesn't seem fair."

"Cristina," Meredith says, grinning as she shakes her head. "He's two years old. And besides, Owen loves you. And his kid will, too. My kids were so excited that you were coming back, they were all willing put on their shoes without me having to nag them this morning. Isn't that right?" The three of them nod enthusiastically in the back. "So don't sweat it."

Cristina glances at the clown, peeking out of her bag, and smiles. "Thanks, Mer."

"No problem," Meredith responds. "Now where the hell are we going?"

It isn't until they've circled the same community about five times, before they realize they're lost. "I don't know," Cristina says, glancing around for a familiar landmark. "I've only been here once, when Owen and I signed the lease."

"What's the house number again?"

After several minutes of going down the same road, they finally spot it. It's not a small little white house, but it is about the same size, only grey and more modern. There isn't a whole lot of grass, which Cristina appreciates, but it's modestly perfect.

"Are you sure you want this one?" Owen had asked her, when they stepped inside for the first time to sign the papers. "Because we can keep looking. It doesn't have to be the first thing we see."

But Cristina didn't have any hesitations. Not when she stepped in to see vacant rooms and dark brown vinyl floors and white walls, a fresh slate. Not when she and Owen plastered scans of their best surgeries against their bedroom walls, or installed brand new marble countertops, or built a swing set for Beau in the backyard. And especially not the night they moved in, and Beau was with his mother that night, they spent the entire night together in empty rooms, in each other's arms, just waiting for the moment to catch up to them.

"So, drinks tomorrow night, right?" Meredith says, rolling down her window as Cristina grabs her luggage from the trunk. "To celebrate the end of your research."

Cristina laughs. "More like the beginning of something greater."

"Well," Meredith says. "Cheers to that."

As Cristina waves to Meredith and her kids, she makes her way up the steps and finds that the door is slightly opened. Owen had told her that he would be in surgery when she arrived, but he didn't think he would leave the door unlocked, never mind gaping. Slowly, she pushes it fully open and steps into a darkness. For a moment, Cristina fears she has the wrong house, but then she notices the same marble counters, and familiar faces in frames along the kitchen hallway.

"Owen?"

She sets down her luggage and holds her bag, along with the creepy clown in it, close to her chest. Anxiously, she walks past the kitchen and gasps when she sees Owen, at the dining room table, with a single candle over a batch of brownies. When he looks up at her, he grins, standing up.

"What is this?" Cristina asks, walking closer with a sly smirk on her face.

"Welcome back," he says, taking her hand. He kisses her, once, then again, longer and fuller. "Want a brownie?"

Cristina laughs, pushing him playfully. "I thought you were in surgery."

"Your flight was two hours late," he tells her, his arms finding their way around her waist. "Plus I wanted to do something special for you."

As Owen leans in to kiss her again, he notices the clown in between them. "What's this?" he asks, grabbing the stuffed clown from Cristina's bag and looking at her curiously.

"It's for Beau," she says sheepishly.

Owen bursts out laughing, not unlike the way Meredith had just a few minutes earlier. He sets the doll on the dining room table and reaches out to pull back some of the hair in Cristina's face. "He's with his mom tonight, but thank you," he says softly. "He'll love it."

"Good," Cristina says, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Because kids who are afraid of clowns are pansies."

Without another word, Owen lifts Cristina into his arms, his lips finding its way to her mouth again. They topple over each other, as they make their way up the staircase, laughing as they sprawl onto their bed. She looks around the room, then back at him, touching his face lightly as the corner of his lips touch the side of her hand.

And as she kisses him again, with the night rolling over them, Cristina knows that there isn't anything that feels better than coming home.

A/N: So this is where I leave you. I just wanted to thank you guys so much for all the reviews. It was such a joy writing this, and I'm so happy and grateful that you've taken time out to read and respond. It means so much!

I don't think that Cristina and Owen will ever stop being complicated. They are the definition of complicated, and they will continue to have bumps in the road in their journey together. I definitely don't mean to be haste, even if this particular ending seems like it. I find comfort in the ambiguity of it all... that we have this peace of mind that they are always going to be together, in some capacity, but that we are left with imagining the details of where their future might be.

Anyways! Thank you again for reading, and indulging in my random rants. I do have a few more C/O ideas in mind, so maybe they'll come to life in the near future. :)