Owen

Romantic Edit

Cristina Yang Edit

Cristina and Owen kiss.

Owen managed to impress Cristina as soon as they met, having performed an
emergency-tracheotomy in the field with a pen, and later closing up the gash
in his leg with a staple gun without any kind of anesthesia. Later the same
night, Owen found Cristina lying outside the hospital, having been impaled
through the abdomen by a falling icicle. He carried her inside and treated her,
eventually removing the icicle, and the two bonded. After Owen had taken
care of Cristina, Dr. Webber offered him a job, but Owen turned down the offer
as he was expected to return to Iraq. He left the hospital that night, but not
before surprising Cristina with a passionate kiss that left her completely
taken aback.
Owen returned to Seattle two months later, having been honorably discharged
from the army, and took a job as the new Head of Trauma Surgery at Seattle
Grace. Cristina first avoided him, but after he had seemingly even forgotten
her name, calling her "Christine", she confronted him. Owen then told her
about his platoon's demise and explained that while he remembered her
name, that belonged to the past, and he was now living in the present. Owen
then kept his distance to Cristina and tried to act professionally towards her,
but couldn't hide his jealousy as Mark Sloan was constantly trying to hit on
her, or his anger when he heard Sloan call her "bad, cheap wine." Owen
himself compared her to a single malt scotch.

When Owen questioned Cristina's motives on doing surgery, she opened up to

him and told him the story of her father's death, which encouraged Owen to
start moving closer. However, after a patient who became special to Owen
died, he found himself arguing with her outside Joe's and then kissing her
passionately, almost violently. This caused the two to avoid each other again,
until Owen showed up outside her house on the doorstep and told her that he
thought she was beautiful. A little later Cristina was upset for not getting the
solo surgery, so Owen took her to the Vent, which cheered her up and the two
kissed.

As Owen's moods continued to swing, Cristina snapped at him and told him to
stop his hot and cold act. Owen responded with asking her out, but in the
evening he was so nervous that he went to get a drink, ultimately showing up
on her doorstep hours late and drunk. Cristina was angry at first, but after
Owen, who was standing in her shower fully clothed and shoes on, told her
about his best and worst surgery ever, she softened, came to the shower with
him and started to take off his wet clothes. Owen then passed out and woke
up next morning, naked in Cristina's bed, where Callie then found him. Later
that day Callie told him not to give up on her too easily, and he confronted
Cristina, asking her to give him another chance, which she did.

After this, their relationship was mostly centered around stolen touches and
glances from across the room and although they flirted, it stopped when
Owen's secret ex-fiance Beth appeared at Seattle Grace, where her father
was admitted. This caused Owen to have a panic attack and Cristina calmed
him down, which resulted in Owen falling asleep on top of her in an on-call
room and Cristina smiling happily as she held him in her arms. Though
Cristina was wary at first after learning of Beth's identity, she and Owen
moved on and he soon confessed that he wanted to be around her for the rest
of his life.

Cristina and Owen started spending nights together - though they still hadn't
had sex - but were soon confronted by new problems: Owen's PTSD from his
time in Iraq started to manifest itself as violent nightmares and hypnagogic
hallucinations. Ultimately, one night Owen fell asleep next to Cristina in her
bed, and the spinning blades of the ceiling fan above the bed reminded him of
helicopter blades, which caused him to have an hallucination and strangle
Cristina in the middle of a nightmare. Cristina was rescued by Callie, who was
alarmed by the noise coming from the bedroom, and Owen woke up, having no
idea what was going on. He then broke down crying and begged for
forgiveness, and Cristina - despite Meredith and Callie's resistance - forgave
him, saying his PTSD is a war wound and not his fault. Soon after this they
made love for the first time in an on-call room, but Cristina realized that she's
afraid to fall asleep in his arms, and broke up with him. After this, Owen
started to see Dr. Wyatt, who helped him name and express his emotions and
recognize the triggers to his PTSD (such as the blades of the ceiling fan). As
Owen was further torn apart by his feelings for Cristina which he couldn't
express because he thought it would be cruel to do so, Dr. Wyatt taught him to
use three word sentences as substitutes to the three words he wanted to say
the most (I love you). As Owen continued to avoid her and only spoke to her
with brief three word sentences, Cristina became more and more confused
and annoyed. When she finally confronted him in front of the hospital, he
explained what the speaking in three word sentences meant and told her that
he was trying to make things right by letting her go. Cristina then told him to
"take care now" (I love you) and left.
As his therapy progressed, Owen started to move closer to Cristina, but she
seemed to withdraw, asking him about finally going to visit his mother and
telling her that he was back from Iraq. This caused Owen to ponder things and
he came to the conclusion that at heart, his problems were caused by his
unfinished business in Iraq. He then told Cristina that he was returning to the
army, but she gave no support to the idea, later telling him: "I don't want you
to die." She then convinced him to abandon the idea of returning to the army
and go visit his mother with her instead. After seeing his mother, Owen was
able to sleep without nightmares, and with the violent dreams now gone, he
and Cristina decided to get back together.

Later, Cristina was missing a cardio attending to teach her, so Owen brought
over his fellow army surgeon, Dr. Teddy Altman, as a gift for Cristina. Teddy
began to mentor Cristina, and, after a rough start, the two got along well. As it
turned out, however, Teddy's presence caused a lot of trouble for Cristina and
Owen, as she and Owen had had feelings for each other in the army without
the other knowing. After this matter was revealed, Cristina was willing to
stand aside, but Owen assured her that he only wanted her. This caused Teddy
to think about leaving the hospital, and Cristina, whose workaholic nature had
been awoken by the motivation of working with Teddy, offered her an
exchange in panic: if Teddy stayed, she could have Owen. Teddy then told
Owen about the offer and he confronted Cristina, telling her that their
relationship matters and she doesn't get to toss him aside like that. Cristina,
however, remained uncertain and eventually broke up with him, telling him
that until he had made his choice, the two of them had no business together.
The triangle between Owen, Cristina, and Teddy wasn't settled until the
hospital was invaded by the murderous gunman Gary Clark. Owen and Teddy
made it out of the hospital with a patient, but after realizing that Cristina was
still inside, Owen made his decision and ran back to the hospital to find her.
He then found Cristina in an OR where she was operating on Derek, who had
been shot earlier, with Jackson, Meredith, and April - and with Gary Clark
holding his gun against her head, ordering her to stop operating. Owen then
tried to distract the gunman from Cristina, even yelling to him as he was
about to shoot her: "That is the woman that I love. You shoot her, you touch
her, and I will kill you!" The situation became even more dangerous when
Meredith stood up, ordering the gunman to kill her instead of Derek. As the
barrel of the gun moved to Meredith, Owen jumped towards Clark, forcing the
shooter to shoot him instead of Meredith. After the gunman had gone, Cristina,
not knowing the extent of his injuries, urged Meredith to save Owen. Luckily, it
turned out the bullet had only pierced his shoulder, and in the wake of the
disaster, Owen and Cristina got back together.

After the shooting, Cristina suffered from PTSD and Owen took care of her,
eventually proposing to her. Not long after, they got married in front of all their
friends in a ceremony held at Meredith's and moved in together, purchasing an
old firehouse that they decorated. Cristina later found out that she was
pregnant with their child. Owen was thrilled, but Cristina, not wanting to
become a mother, told him that she was going to have an abortion. Owen tried
unsuccessfully to talk her out of it, and ultimately kicked her out of their
home for failing to give him a voice in the matter. However, Cristina found
herself unable to go through with the abortion without Owen's support, which
alarmed Meredith, who, after telling him what sort of miserable future would
await both Cristina and the child if she kept it, convinced Owen to let Cristina
have the abortion. Owen held Cristina's hand during the procedure, but the
moment seemed bittersweet and involuntary.

It soon became clear that Owen was not okay with it. He and Cristina grew
apart, he became more and more distant and silent, until the situation finally
exploded during Zola's birthday party. Owen and Cristina got into a
huge argument in front of all of their friends, which ended with Owen accusing
Cristina of killing their baby. After this, the situation only grew worse, and
during a session with a marriage counselor, it became clear that they both
failed to understand each other's point of view on the baby issue.

Owen's discomfort and anxiety eventually led him to getting drunk and having
a one night stand with a patient's friend. He confessed his infidelity to
Cristina, who had earlier suspected him of having an affair with nurse Emily
Kovach, which completely devastated her. Owen moved out of the firehouse
and Cristina started to plan to move to Minnesota and accept the fellowship
offer at Mayo Clinic. However, before leaving, she slept with Owen one last
time, forgiving his infidelity.

After Cristina and the others had been rescued from the forest in the wake of
the plane crash, Owen promised to take care of Cristina, who was in a
psychosis. He took her to the firehouse and managed to get her to speak.
After she had fully recovered, she left for Minnesota to pursue her fellowship,
while Owen stayed back in Seattle to continue his role as Chief of Surgery.
After Cristina's mentor, Dr Thomas died, she returned to Seattle and tried to
make efforts to reconcile with Owen. Due to a lawsuit against the plane
company, Owen asked Cristina for a divorce, which would help the surgeons
with their trial. Cristina then told Owen she wanted to try again and he
agreed, but they still went through with the divorce for the sake of the
lawsuit. Their newfound happiness was short-lived, however, as the arrival of
10-year-old Ethan Dawson, with whom Owen bonded, made it very clear that
Owen still wanted children. Cristina then realized that she would never be
able to give Owen what he desires, so she left him during the super storm that
hit Seattle.
After the storm, Owen and Cristina faced the tough challenge of staying apart,
and even though they ended up having sex - more than once - Cristina was
determined to stick to her decision. Upon realizing that they could never
detach themselves from one another as long as they let things stay the way
they were, Cristina suggested that they'd start seeing other people in order to
let go of each other, and Owen reluctantly agreed. Later, during GSMH's
fundraiser gala, Owen met Dr. Emma Marling, with whom he started flirting.
Cristina, witnessing the situation, left the scene with a downhearted
expression on her face, leaving Owen with the other woman. Emma and
Owen's relationship becomes quite serious and they even consider moving in
together. However, after another emotional encounter with Cristina, Owen
breaks up with Emma realizing that he wants to have a future with a woman
who shares an equal passion for surgery as she does for children. After he
breaks up with Emma, Cristina tries to help him find someone else.