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Cristina cries for maybe half an hour, in a puddle of beautiful, ruined white. Meredith holds her, rocks her, wipes Cristina's nose with a strip torn from the hem of the bridesmaid's gown.
"I should look for a note," says Cristina.
"A note?"
"He left, but I don't know if he wants his stuff, or—shit, I'm not on the lease. I don't know what he wants done with his mail. I need to do…stuff. Figure out what stuff to do."
Meredith rolls her eyes and stands up. "Oh, Cristina. Fuck Burke. Fuck Derek. Fuck them all. You were supposed to be gone for a week anyway, and you can pull his shit together tomorrow. Or Monday. Or never." She puts a hand out and pulls Cristina to her feet. "Go raid the fridge. I'm going to raid your liquor cabinet."
"For what? What's your crazy plan?"
Meredith turned Cristina around, patted her ass, and shoved her towards the bedroom. "We're going on a picnic. Get dressed, and bring me something black to wear."
It takes about an hour to get there, because the liquor cabinet is woefully understocked. ("We didn't buy anything for the past month; we were worried about leftover wedding shit. Not everyone's a lush like you.") Also, Cristina has a sudden yen for fruit, so they detour to the farmer's market.
But finally, finally Meredith pulls up to their destination and gets out of the car.
She pulls out her bag and the booze and walks towards the entrance when she realizes she's alone. "Come on, Cristina. Bring the fruit."
Cristina opens the passenger door and sticks her head out, but she doesn't leave the car. "Is this a cemetery?"
"Yes. That's why there's a big sign directing you to the Ericson funeral at the front."
"Why are we at a cemetery, Meredith?"
"Did you miss the part where I said I was taking you on a picnic? Because I want to know what the strawberries are for, if you didn't think we were going to eat them."
"I thought we were going to a park. People have picnics in parks. At least, they do on TV."
"First of all, this is a park. It says 'Washington Memorial Park' on that sign. And second, what do you mean, on TV?"
"If they bury people in it, it's not a place of cheery woodland creatures and half-tamed foliage; it's a grassy morgue! And second, I've never been on a picnic."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously. Bodies lying around everywhere."
Meredith rolls her eyes and puts the cooler of booze at her feet. "I meant the picnic part."
"No, no picnics." Cristina gets out of the car. "I'm not eating with zombies."
"There aren't any zombies. The dead people are all safely buried. Or in their mausoleums. Doing their dead people thing." She picks up the booze and turns around. "Bring the food, I'm hungry. And I want to show you something."
"Are we there yet?"
Meredith says nothing.
"Seriously, this bag weighs as much as a man's leg, and I am not an orthopedic surgeon."
Meredith is looking from side to side. They're in an older part of the cemetery, where the graves are filled with fifth cousins and grandparents whose callous descendants have stopped paying for maintenance. She wants a particular—"There it is!" She points with her chin towards the Pirate Gravestone.
"This is kind of scummy," says Cristina. She kicks some crushed beer cans to one side, looks at the used condoms with distaste. "We should have brought a tarp."
Meredith puts the liquor down, reaches in her bag. "Got one." She clears out hard objects with her feet, and spreads the tarp and then the blanket out. "I figured highschool kids would still be littering jerks ten years later."
Cristina puts down the food and sits, pulls out a beer. "You've brought me to your high school Goth lovenest."
Meredith shrugs and says, "Lovenest is a little strong. We mostly just listened to the Cure and got stoned." She turns her back to Cristina to get out the strawberries and lets herself grin like a loon. She did lose her virginity at the Pirate Gravestone. An entire career of drunken, inappropriate sex started in this very spot.
Meredith watches Cristina pour the last of the second bottle of wine. Cristina's smiling and relaxed, stretched out on the tarp. "Meredith?"
"Cristina."
"How are we getting home?"
Meredith shrugs. "There's a bus. Or we'll call Izzie to come get us." She lies down and puts her head on Cristina's ribs. "I'm going to take a little nap right now."
"Okay."
Meredith gives Cristina's hip a little squeeze, closes her eyes, and drifts off.
When Meredith wakes up, it's dark and her head is in Cristina's lap. Cristina's rolled the blanket up around the two of them, and it's cozy. "Hi," she says.
Cristina doesn't say anything, just looks down at her.
"You want to go home?"
Cristina shakes her head. "I want to have drunken, inappropriate sex."
"Awesome!" says Meredith, and leans up to kiss her.
Cristina leans way, way back. "Inappropriate sex. I can't have inappropriate sex with you."
Meredith frowns. "Why not?"
"Because." She shrugs, pulls Meredith up until Meredith is practically sitting in her lap. "You brought me on a Goth picnic when I got left at the altar. You got me a surgery when Momma Burke took my eyebrows. You picked bridesmaid's gowns that wouldn't make Izzie or Callie kill me. I just…." She shrugged, and kissed Meredith, softly with her lips closed and her hands at Meredith's waist. "I don't think sex would be inappropriate with you."