"What are dese?" your almost five-year-old asks you from the floor. She's in front of the hall closet, boxes and boxes of your old junk sitting around her in clumps. Today is cleaning day. Moving has been a process.
Let's get a house.
And then you see what she's holding.
Sofia's got a pair of Arizona's stupid old Heeley's on her feet, skinny legs stretched out in front of her—all striped stockings and knobby knees—and she's giving you this gappy grin that makes you wonder how you're supposed to act in a situation like this. Because "Oh those were from back when your mother had all four limbs intact" didn't exactly seem like a prize winner in the answer department.
"Those were Mommy's roller skate sneakers," you tell her, "From a really long time ago."
"Momma," she says, "Mommy doesn't wear two shoes." Her brow furrows a little bit and for a second, you see Mark in her, Mark Mark Mark Mark, and you wonder if that's what she looked like four years ago when she saw machines and machines and machines pushing into her father's chest as he lay there, just lay there, because this was supposed to be one of the good days and there wasn't a reason why.
You're glad she doesn't remember. That, you think, was the first small miracle of many that eventually piled and piled on top of one another until the bad days seemed farther away than the good ones. Until you were all better, all of you, for the most part.
She's looking at you like you're crazy, like you're giving her nonsense. Two shoes instead of one feels akin to calculus, and you don't think that's fair. To you. To Sofia. To Arizona.
You can't believe that it's been almost four years since the crash and almost four years since the amputation and almost four years of the three of you taking things one day at a time because there had been a long time where you weren't sure if all of you were going to get to tomorrow. But now she's wiggling her feet and the sneakers are clunking against the ground because they're so big on her, and you wonder how you ever lucked into something so perfect before you swallow and convince yourself that talking, talking is productive.
"You know, Sof, she used to. When you were really, really little. And she used to ride around on those things all the time."
"Did she walk and stuff?" and your daughter is curious, and her lips crinkle because the gap separating then and now isn't making sense. It has never made sense, it has only calmed in the aftermath. Quieted. Healed, a little, in the days that you were a single mother and your wife was mourning the loss of something you'd made the decision to take away.
It is still the aftermath, you realize. It is still the story, this story, the same story.
"Yeah," you say, and you're remembering how she would dance up to you in the cafeteria line or pace when she was trying to make a point or squeak her way into O.R. 1, heels pressed on the wheels of her stupid toy shoes.
"Yeah, she could walk. And she danced really silly, too. And stomped around when she was mad."
Sofia grins. "Like you?"
Sloan, you think, I blame you.
"Yeah. Like me. But only when little people go sneaking through the boxes that I just closed up, huh?" You ruffle her hair and she makes a face before laughing.
"Momma?" she pauses, mulls it over, waits. "For the walking stuff... I was a baby so I couldn't 'member it, right?"
"Right," you tell her, and now you're kneeling with her on the floor. "But she saved a lot of little girls like you with those shoes on. She would wheel around all over place. So they're special."
"Magic special?"
You are reminded that your world consists of things like glass slippers and fairy godpumpkins and birds that pull at your clothes and forget to give you privacy in your cold, Medieval shower. You smile. Nod.
"Magic special."
Apparently this affirmation means the world, because—"Can I wear 'em?"—And her eyes are brown and her hair is a mess and you think that that's popsicle smudged across her cheek but God, you love this kid more than anything.
"When you're bigger," you tell her, and smush a kiss onto her temple. "But for now I think you're just gonna have to stick to Mommy's chair, okay?"
"'Kay," she tells you, before she stands up and shakes Goldfish crumbs off of her tutu and informs you that this plan is fine, because Arizona's wheelchair is magic special too. And as your daughter flounces herself into the kitchen to sit on your wife's lap and exhaust her absurd amount of patience with incessant toddlerbabble, you stop. And breathe.
It will never be fair, but it works, because this life is the only one Sofia knows. She looks like her father. She acts like your wife. You wonder if everyone else sees little bits and pieces of you in her, and you decide that whatever they are, they are skin deep. Your daughter is your wife. Resilient. Brave. Overwhelmingly, blindingly optimistic.
You hear Arizona saying something about dinosaur nuggets and then one sentence later the conversation has switched to race cars, and something about a puppy, with your younger counterpart talking too fast for anyone to understand and your wife pouring over every word like it was Henry Gray himself giving a lecture from your dining room table.
You realize that you are still kneeling on the hardwood floor, two rooms away. But you're okay.
You have been okay. You are all okay. This is okay.
Because wheeley sneaks or no wheeley sneaks, two shoes or one, you are magic special.
A/N: Arizona Robbins is the key to my heart and Sofia is beautiful and Callie is herself. This honestly just popped into my head and I couldn't get it out, so. Voila. I've never written Calzona before, or Grey's at all, actually, so this was interesting and new and fun and I will send you a muffin in exchange for feedback. Thank you! -PS