"Amelia talk to me!" Arizona begs her.
"H-he's gone. I-I just spoke to him yesterday. A-And he's gone." She says still in shock over her brother's death.
It took Arizona about 15 minutes to track Amelia down after she found out about Derek's death.
"I'm so sorry." Arizona says holding her tightly. "Let's just take the rest of the day off. You need some time..."
"No, I don't need time. I need to understand. Why didn't Meredith call me? I'm a goddamn neurosurgeon and he died of a brain bleed! This is such bullshit, where does she get off not calling me?" Amelia says angrily, pulling away from the blonde and stalking across the room.
Unsure what to do or say, Arizona just remains silent. She knows that defending Meredith will only make things worse.
A knock on the office door interrupts her and Owen sticks his head in the door. "Amelia, I cleared the rest of your day. Just uh, go home. Take some time to uh, well take some time." He stammers awkwardly.
Glaring at him, Amelia doesn't respond. So he looks over at Arizona and then thinks better of saying anything further.
"Amelia, has anyone called your Mom or sisters?" Arizona asks carefully.
"Oh god, I-I don't know." She mumbles and then starts looking in her pockets for her phone.
Realizing what she's looking for Arizona walks over to her desk and picks it up. No missed calls. No calls in or out to any of her family, except yesterday morning's call from Derek.
"I can do this, if, if you want me to." Arizona says holding her phone.
"No, it's my, I-I should do it." She says softly, reaching for the phone.
Fumbling through her contacts she pulls up her Mom's number and hits send. "Mom? It's uh, it's Amy." she barely gets that out before she breaks down, taking the phone, Arizona says, "Mrs Shepherd? Yes, this is Arizona. No, no Amy is fine. It's Derek. He ... yes, something happened. There was a car wreck and he was badly injured. I'm sorry, I don't have all the details, but I saw Meredith this morning and Mrs Shepherd your son passed away." Arizona finally gets out.
Hearing Arizona talking to her Mom, Amelia takes a deep breath and reaches for the phone again. "Mom? No Mom, he's gone. No he wasn't here at our hospital, he was on his way to the airport and it was a small community hospital. I don't even know which one yet. Okay, yes. Okay. Send me your flight info and we'll pick you up. Mom, stop. Mom, you can stay with us. We have an extra room. Plus if you stay with us, that means everyone else has to stay in a hotel. So please, please stay with us." Amelia says smiling through her tears.
The rest of the week was a blur for Amelia and Arizona. Unfortunately it was the first time for Arizona to meet Amelia's family and it's under the worst possible circumstances.
Callie kept Sofia and Henry. While Addison and Arizona's condos were full of the Shepherd family all struggling to understand Meredith's behavior and why she didn't call anyone until after Derek was gone.
Sitting there quietly Arizona understands shutting down. When her brother died it was how she reacted. Mentally numb from grief and unable to process the loss for weeks, she just fumbled through her routine, even attending classes. Until the semester ended, then she totally fell apart and hid from everyone for several weeks.
Thank god that Addison was here though. Arizona could barely support Amelia and her mother, then the sisters arrived and it was all just way too much for the blonde to comprehend. The grief and the anger of the Shepherd family was enormous and Meredith was holed up at her house with Izzy and Cristina, not talking to anyone. So no answers were forthcoming. Finally Cristina called Addison one night and explained what she'd been able to find out from Meredith. And Addison dutifully relayed the story to the Shepherd family and it did help them to understand a bit.
Apparently, when the police showed up at her door, all they said was Derek was in an accident. So Meredith packed up the kids and went to the hospital with them, forgetting her phone at home. Once she got to the hospital, she found out it was substantially worse than she had imagined. The neurosurgeon and trauma team had downplayed the situation, but one look at her husband in the bed, Meredith knew it was over. The longer it went on, the more numb she got as she realized her husband died because he had the bad luck to be injured and taken to a low level community hospital. He should have been flown to Seattle from the scene and never transported to this place. And now it's too late to do anything for him. The damage was done and no one, not even Derek Shepherd could save him now.
After the funeral, Amelia and her Mom took a long walk down by the pier to watch the ferry boats. It was Derek's favorite place to go and they needed to feel close to him.
Arizona took some time to go to the house and see Sofia and Henry. She missed her daughter and just needed a break from the grief.
"Do you want some coffee?" Callie asks as she opened the door, still in her clothes from the funeral.
"No, not really. I just need to see Sofia." She says as she steps into the house.
"Sofia, Momma is here." Callie calls out down the hall.
"Momma!" The little girl says running and launching herself at the blonde.
"Hey little Miss, how's my girl?" Arizona says smiling through her tears as she moves over to the couch to sit down.
"Momma, is Zola's daddy with my daddy in heaven?" the little girl asks, positioning herself on her mother's lap and taking a strand of blonde hair to play with.
"Yes, honey. I am sure that they are there together." Arizona says looking over to Callie as if to ask where that came from.
"She's been very focused on that this week. I'm not sure if she overheard it somewhere or why exactly." Callie tries to explain.
"Actually, it's probably comforting for her to think that her daddy isn't alone and has a friend in heaven. When you think about it, kids don't understand being alone because they aren't ever alone." Arizona replies thoughtfully.
"Oh, well I never thought about it like that, but you're probably right." Callie admits. "How are you holding up?"
"I'm fine. I've never really been around anyone with this much family, it's a bit overwhelming especially because everyone is grieving and upset. I just can't believe after everything he'd been through that he dies from a brain injury in a rural hospital after helping save lives." Arizona says tearing up.
Callie pulls the blonde into an embrace with Sofia between them.
"Momma, are you sad about Zola's daddy?", the little girl asks.
Taking a moment to wipe her eyes, Arizona looks her daughter in the eye and says, "Yes honey, I am very sad about Zola's daddy and do you remember that he's also Amy's brother?"
"Oh Momma, tell Amy I love her." Sofia says as she wraps the blonde in a big hug.
"I will and you remember that Amy loves you too. Now I've got to go home and check on her, so you stay here with Mami again tonight, baby girl. Okay?" Arizona asks as she rubs noses with her.
"Yes Momma. Good night." Sofia replies as Callie takes her from the blonde.
"Good bye Arizona and let me know if I can do anything to help." Callie says reaching out to squeeze her hand.
"You're doing it right now Cal. Thank you." Arizona replies as she turns to leave.