"Dr Robbins?" Leah approaches the surgeon tentatively, after hearing Steph and Jo talking about her at lunch, she figured it would be better to just get this reunion with her ex over and done.
"Dr Murphy, welcome back," Arizona replies barely glancing up from her chart.
"For the record, I am as surprised as you are that I'm back," Leah admits.
"Oh don't bet on that. Considering that I am on the board and I had no idea they were considering bringing you back," Arizona remarks as she finishes what she's doing and places the tablet back into the stand before walking off.
Leah stands still a moment absorbing the verbal blow.
"She's a bit stressed right now," Andrew says walking up to the resident. "Hi, I'm DeLuca, Andrew DeLuca."
Leah looks at him a moment, before asking, "Why are you making excuses for her?"
"Oh, well we live together, so I feel like I should explain..." he begins.
"You. Live with Robbins?" Leah blurts out.
"Not like that, we're roommates. She's not into dudes," he replies quickly.
"Oh, that I know," Leah says before extending her hand, "I'm Leah Murphy."
"Ah," he says now realizing who she is and why Arizona was bitchy.
"You know who I am?" Leah asks curiously.
"You're the reason we have the love contract," he stammers.
"Ha! You're a first year and you already know about the love contract?" Leah jokes. "Obviously nothing around here has changed," she adds walking off.
"Chief, may I have a word with you?" Arizona asks as she walks up to Bailey and Webber.
Bailey takes one look at the blonde surgeon and she immediately blurts out "He did it." She holds up her hands and backs away. "He is in charge of the resident program and it was his decision to bring Murphy back, don't lay this on me," she adds before walking away.
Arizona huffs and takes a breath as she turns to Webber, but before she can begin, he interrupts her.
"She is a good doctor. And we are down residents right now, in case you hadn't noticed Dr Robbins," Webber replies before she can say another word.
"Oh, I noticed," she snaps angrily. Unless you've forgotten that I am head of two departments, just... just keep her off of my service. I'm fine with DeLuca and Wilson," Arizona says glaring at him before turning to leave.
"Catherine is pushing us to replace Karev," Webber informs her before she walks off. "I just want you to know that it could get worse before it gets better," he adds not wanting her to be blindsided again.
She stops and turns back around, her eyebrow arched. "Karev is an attending, last I knew hiring and firing attendings are decisions for the Board of Directors" Arizona points out angrily. "Not to mention that he is part owner of this hospital, or have you forgotten that Yang left him her shares of the hospital," she asks.
"Shares of the hospital do not guarantee anyone a job here," Catherine says entering the conversation.
"Shares of the hospital don't seem to guarantee us anything any more," Arizona quips before storming off.
"Is it true? Murphy is back?" Meredith asks when Arizona enters the lounge.
"Yeah, she's back," Arizona groans. "Hey, did you know that Catherine is pushing Bailey to fire Alex?" The blonde asks as Meredith hands her a bottle of water from the fridge.
"I heard," Meredith replies before taking a sip of water. "But it's a board decision," she adds.
"Hmm, is it?" The blonde huffs.
Meredith raises and eyebrow in question, then Arizona continues.
"It's not really fair for him to be fired over this. It didn't even happen on hospital property," she concludes.
"Wow, I didn't think you would defend him ... considering," Meredith remarks in surprise.
"Andrew explained everything to me. It was an unfortunate misunderstanding, but if he can get past it, then I don't see how the hospital can justify firing Alex over it," Arizona exclaims.
"Well, you know that I agree with you," Meredith admits with a smile.
"Hmpf," Arizona scoffs and takes a drink from the water bottle.
Meredith flinches. She knows that Arizona is still upset with her for siding with Callie during their custody dispute.
"That wasn't about you," Meredith reminds her. "That was me standing by one of my oldest friends."
"I thought after everything that we've been through..." Arizona begins, but stops and closes her eyes. "I'm not doing this, not here," she snaps ending the conversation and walking out of the lounge.
Meredith closes her eyes. She hadn't intended to choose sides, when Callie asked her, Meredith assumed that Arizona would ask too. She even told Callie that she wasn't choosing sides. Inwardly she groans as she drops her head into her hands. The friendship with Arizona was new at the time, but they grew close quickly. "I need to fix this," she mutters to herself.
"She still hates me," Leah says before taking a sip of her drink.
"I'm sure that she was just shocked to see you," Stephanie replies tactfully before ordering another round. She's going to need many drinks to get through this conversation.
"I just thought that we could at least be civil to each other. We are professionals," Leah points out finishing her drink before taking a sip from the next one.
"A lot has happened, I'm sure that seeing you again just caught her off guard," Stephanie counters.
"Is she seeing anyone?" Leah blurts out.
"Murphy, don't be that girl," Stephanie snaps.
"I'm not. I mean, I'm not even single. My, uh, my girlfriend is coming into town this weekend, actually," Leah adds quickly.
"Uh, huh. Sure, she is," Stephanie says not really listening as she watches Jo and DeLuca enter the bar.
"What's with them?" Leah asks.
"Nothing, they're just friends," Stephanie replies, but keeps eyeing them warily.
"Did Karev really beat him up?" Leah questions watching the two sit down at the bar.
"Yeah, but it was just a misunderstanding," Stephanie says standing up. "Uh, excuse me," she adds before walking over to Jo.
"Hey Steph, what's up?" Jo asks as DeLuca hands her a beer.
"I was about to ask you the same question," Stephanie says pointedly nodding at the two of them.
"What? Two co-workers can't grab a beer together?" Jo quips.
"Not you two, come over and sit with me and Murphy," Stephanie demands grabbing her hand and pulling her up to her feet.
"Uh, no thanks. I'm good here," Jo says shaking off Stephanie's hand.
"Well, I'm not, so you two are coming over there," Stephanie snaps glaring at DeLuca who picks up his beer and nudges Jo to follow.
"What's going on?" Arizona asks as she approaches Meredith in the ER the next morning.
"I wanted to apologize," Meredith replies softly to the blonde.
"You paged me to the ER first thing in the morning to apologize?" Arizona asks annoyed.
"No, I paged you because there's a ten year old in Trauma 3 and you're covering Peds," Meredith reminds her before offering her the chart. "And you didn't answer when I called last night."
Arizona rolls her eyes, but snatches the tablet and quickly begins looking over the chart. A moment later the blond heads into the trauma room with Meredith scrambling after her.
"Page Cardio. We need a cardiac workup," the blonde says as she begins examining the child.
"Maggie is on her way," Meredith adds as Arizona looks over the scans.
Not a minute later Maggie enters the trauma room to examine the patient.
Meredith stands at the door and watches the two surgeons evaluate the patient. Finally she clears her throat and they look towards her.
"Dr Robbins, find me later?" She asks.
Arizona stares at her a moment, before shrugging not really committing to it. But not saying no.
Meredith is disappointed, but she isn't going to press the issue in the middle of a trauma.
"What was that about?" Maggie asks moving to continue her evaluation of the patient.
Arizona groans, "Nothing important," she says tiredly.
Maggie looks from her sister to the blonde and assumes that this is about what Meredith discussed with her last night. Deciding to try to help her sister, Maggie offers, "She was waiting for you to ask her."
The cardiac surgeon offers before turning back to writing orders on the patient's chart before handing it to the nurse.
"Pardon me?" Arizona says watching the nurse leave.
"The custody thing. Meredith expected both of you to ask her to testify. She said yes to Callie, but you didn't ask," Maggie explains. "That's the only reason that she didn't testify for you."
"I didn't think I needed to ask. She is the mother of an adopted child, I thought that she of all people wouldn't take sides," Arizona counters.
"Callie is her friend, of course she agreed to help," Maggie points out matter of factly.
"Yes, but Callie didn't need her, the biological mother always has the advantage," Arizona points out.
"Maybe, but you won and Callie lost, so one could argue that you didn't need her," Maggie counters.
Arizona doesn't respond, instead she pulls up the rails on the gurney and begins pushing it out of the room. Maggie grabs the end of the bed to help and the rest of the trip to the OR is patient focused.
Arizona was finishing up the first trauma when she was paged to another OR by Chief Bailey. Technically, she reminds herself, she wasn't avoiding Meredith, although now, she is, since she's holed up in her office waiting for Wilson to bring her a smoothie, still thinking about what Maggie said to her earlier instead of charting.
She looks at the clock and groans. Ordinarily at this time of the day, she would be able to remove her prosthetic and spend a few hours charting, but since she's covering Peds for Alex she can't risk it, so instead she massages her upper leg through her scrubs.
"I can't believe that you drink these things," Meredith says from the doorway.
Startled, the blonde spins around to face her. "You develop a taste for them," she quips as Meredith approaches, hands her the smoothie, then sits down in the chair beside the desk.
"If you say so," Meredith replies taking a deep breath as she looks around the office slowly taking it in.
Arizona can tell from the look on the other woman's face, she's thinking about the last time that she was here in this office.
"We haven't exactly talked since before the trial... or, well, since the last time that I was here ...in your office," Meredith says nervously.
Arizona nods slurping on the smoothie as she watches the other woman fidget uncomfortably in the chair.
Then deciding to take the bait, she replies, "Yeah, I sort of remember you kissing me and then bolting from this office like a scared animal," Arizona says sarcastically.
"I'm sorry." Meredith groans. "I panicked," she adds.
"No kidding," Arizona remarks with a wry smile. She leans back in her chair now and considers the admission.
"About that," Arizona punctuates her remark by pointing her smoothie at the other woman. "I know that we had gotten close, but blindsiding me with a kiss because you're curious, was totally out of line. I thought that we were friends."
"We were. Are friends. At least I hope that we still are. And for the record, I didn't do it out of curiosity, " Meredith retorts.
"Wait, what?" Arizona asks pointedly.
"It was late and I had that panic attack because I had to work a trauma in that room," Meredith reminds her.
"I remember, I was there," Arizona recounts softly.
"Something changed for me that day, you were amazing. And then that night we sat here and ate ice cream and talked. I looked over at you and you had this look on your face. It was soft and, and I just wanted to kiss you. And it's not like you didn't kiss me back," Meredith challenges.
"Which was obviously the wrong thing to do. Because then you ran away, avoided me for over a week, then sided with my ex-wife to take my child away from me," Arizona snaps.
"That's not exactly..." Meredith begins to explain, but the blonde cuts her off.
"I did nothing wrong here," Arizona gently scolds her.
"I know," Meredith admits before taking a deep breath and closing her eyes.
"I just wish that you would have told me that you were feeling like that about me," the blonde says her hands gesturing wildly.
"Arizona, I can't explain it. I just... I just suddenly felt closer to you than I ever have, it was confusing," Meredith proclaims dropping her head into her hands.
The blonde sighs. She would definitely agree that it was confusing. She felt it too, but wasn't going to act on it.
"Have you talked to anyone about it? Because Maggie said something to me earlier," Arizona remarks tiredly.
"No! Oh god, what did she say?" Meredith asks genuinely worried; taking a moment to think back over the conversations that she's had with her sister.
"I didn't ask you to take my side because it didn't occur to me that you would take sides, Meredith." Arizona says trying to keep the anger out of her voice.
"I expected you both to ask me. So when Callie asked I said yes, assuming that you would ask and I would testify for both of you, " Meredith replies defiantly.
"Excuse me for thinking that I couldn't ask after you kissed me and bolted from my office," the blonde exclaims heatedly.
"You have every right to be angry about that. I have been waiting for you to be angry about it," Meredith explains.
Arizona tosses the empty cup into her trashcan and turns around to face the other woman, but now Meredith is pulling her phone out of her pocket.
"This is Dr Grey," Meredith says into the phone, but her eyes are on the blonde. "I'll be right there," she says ending the call.
Arizona grimaces, they both need to get back to work. "Go Meredith, it's fine."
"We're not done talking about this," she challenges the blonde as she walks toward the door.
"Fine," Arizona replies over her shoulder.