Title: Whispers
Author: A. Windsor
Pairing/Characters: Callie/Arizona
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. My one semester of law school could allow me to legalese this a little more, but it also tells me it's pretty useless. So please don't sue; it's not mine, I'm just playing!
Summary: "She always hears the whispers." AZ and EZ have lunch and wait for Mami.
Author's Note: More Zeq!verse. Just a little something that popped out of me yesterday. Beta'd by the wonderful, snarky roughian .
She hears the whispers, of course. She always hears the whispers. She's new-mother-exhausted, not oblivious, and they've been going on for several months. She just chooses to ignore the murmurs about their nontraditional parenting structure, the jokes about just what could have convinced her to stay, and the rumors about being cuckolded (some say just the once, others say continuously still).
Can a woman be cuckolded? She'll have to look it up.
Arizona Robbins is a strong, independent woman; she knows how to rise above, even if all of her instincts tell her to get in a nice right hook at the next person who says something . To avoid her violent tendencies, she focuses her attention completely on her lunch companion while the intrigued whispers continue to swirl around her.
"Did you have a good morning today in the nursery, EZ?" she asks the three-month-old, offering him a newly warmed bottle.
Ezequiel is all snuggled into his baby carrier, which she has rested on the cafeteria table so that he's at her eye level. While one of her hands props up the bottle that he eagerly suckles, the thumb of the other gently traces up the arch of his tiny little sock-clad foot, which reflexively pushes back against her.
"This morning I had an appy. That's an appendectomy. You make this small incision and..."
She proceeds to tell him all about how to perform an appendectomy, while he hungrily demolishes his lunch. His big eyes, getting darker by the day and already almost as brown as Callie's, watch her with newly acquired focus and, she likes to think, affection.
"Oh. And then I fixed up a little boy with your mami. She says hi, but she got paged into another surgery when it was time to come get you. She was a superstar with a scalpel, though. She took this little boy's fibula and..."
"Robbins, are you explaining surgeries to your kid?"
Arizona looks up to see Karev balancing a tray on one hand as he pulls back a chair at their table. He sets his tray down and extends a fist towards Zeq.
"Hey there, EZ-rider. How's it hanging?"
Zeq's fist flails and comes close to 'pounding it' with his momma's protégé.
"Nice," Alex praises, sitting down. "But seriously? Surgery?"
Arizona shrugs.
"It's something to talk about. It's not like he really understands anything; he just likes the sound of my voice."
His bottle done, Zeq begins to fuss, and she moves to unbuckle and lift him out of his carrier onto her shoulder, coaxing a few burps from him. A pair of particularly gossipy interns float by, and Alex and Arizona catch enough of their less than subtle whispers to understand the gist of it.
"Don't listen to them," Karev says forcefully.
She's taken aback; Karev has actually proven to be above most of the hospital gossip, and they've never really spoken of what their coworkers tend to say about Arizona's family situation.
"They don't get it. They know they'd never be able to step up the way you have. They just need something to talk about, and no one's produced another big scandal yet. So forget them. Something else big'll come up soon enough."
"Thanks," Arizona says honestly, hand tracing the tiny vertebrae on Zeq's spine as a monstrous belch escapes the infant's body. She gives the boy a surprised look. "Wow."
"Well, you see how little Torres feels about the gossip," Alex teases as he pops a few grapes in his mouth.
Arizona grins.
"I can deal with it. I can," she sighs, getting more serious. "I just know it upsets Callie, and I don't want it to bother EZ someday. When he can understand."
"Whatever. He's gonna think it's weird that people only have two parents. Kids are resilient; you know that." He takes a swig of his Coke. "Hey, can I get in on the bowel kid at three? I pulled his chart after rounds, and I've been checking his vitals."
"Yeah, sure. Want to first assist?"
"Thanks," Alex nods. He pauses mid-bite of his sandwich and says, in a rare moment of self-awareness. "I wasn't being nice about your baby mama drama just to get to cut. I like you, I like Torres, I like the little dude. I don't like Sloan, but a baby daddy's a baby daddy, and he did save my life. Also, I think I've proven myself in your OR enough to not need to suck up for surgeries."
"Thanks, Karev."
He nods and continues eating. His pager blares, and he looks down.
"Mm," he swallows quickly. "Labs are back on Jamie. I'll grab 'em."
"Okay, great. I'll meet you in his room in, say, half an hour?"
"Take your time. Later, little dude," Alex says, laying a gentle hand on Zeq's fuzzy head briefly.
When he's gone, Arizona looks down at the baby in her arms.
"We can talk later about you growing up to be a little like him some day."
Arizona manages to leave on time this evening while Callie's still wrapping up the same never-ending bone constructing surgery that kept her from her lunch date with her two favorite people.
"Dr. Robbins!"
She and Zeq are stopped outside of the attendings lounge by Raul Santos, a plucky young intern that's taken a shine to orthopedics already. He's taken a shine to his ortho attending, as well, in Arizona's opinion, but her usual jealousy is strangely unthreatened by this puppy-like man-candy.
"What's up, Santos?"
"Dr. Torres says she's twenty minutes away from scrubbing out on our case, and she would really appreciate it if you and Ezequiel waited for her," the young man says, a little breathlessly. He adds, for good measure: "She said I could hold the retractor for the last fifteen minutes if you said yes."
"Oh in that case..." Arizona teases the poor kid. He waits expectantly. "Yeah, okay. We'll wait for her here. Half an hour, no more. Tell her that."
"Yes ma'am," Santos says easily, taking off for the OR again.
"Your mami really likes to use the interns as slaves. Isn't that funny?" Arizona asks their son as she leans down to remove him from his carrier, brushing her nose against his in an Eskimo kiss. She doesn't know when she started talking to the infant like he was going to talk back, but it's really become a disturbing habit.
Callie hurries in the scrub room and leaves the follow up with her favorite resident. A giant weight lifts off her chest when she identifies the cries coming from the attendings lounge as the hungry protestations of her beloved son. She pushes into the lounge and smiles widely at the sight greeting her. Arizona is pacing the room, rocking Zeq in an effort to keep his wails to a minimum, whispering reassuring lullabies into his ear.
"You waited," Callie says, breathless with her love for them.
"Thank goodness, you're here. We're out of bottles, and he's really hungry," Arizona greets, depositing Zeq in her arms with a warm kiss on Callie's cheek. "Wait, why wouldn't we?"
"Are you saying you two just want me for my boobs? And I just thought you might've gotten sick of waiting."
"No, we want you for more than your boobs, but we really like those, too. And of course we waited."
"Whoa, wait, my head hurts. Can we have one conversation at a time?"
Arizona grins and kisses her again. "Sorry. I'd like to stick to the one about your boobs, if possible. And so would EZ."
Their son is in fact nuzzling insistently against her swollen breasts, so Callie sits down on the lounge couch and lifts up her shirt for his dinner.
"Ouch," she grimaces as Ezequiel latches on. "You're very hungry."
Callie feels Arizona's eyes on her and blushes a little self-consciously.
"For someone who likes to complain about boob staring..." she teases.
Arizona smiles sheepishly and sits down beside them.
"Sorry. I just didn't ever think breastfeeding would be this beautiful. But it does combine my favorite things."
"Our baby and my boobs?"
"I was going to say our baby and you but those too."
Arizona rests her head on Callie's shoulder, stroking down Zeq's little arm and then smiling as his tiny fist grabs her pointer finger.
"Any special reason we had to wait?"
"I just like it when we walk home as a family. It makes my day better."
"Okay," Arizona says gently, kissing her shoulder, wondering if there's something more.
Callie lets out a sigh and then comes clean.
"I may have verbally eviscerated a nurse in the OR today for... insinuating something."
"Insinuating what?"
"That we were doing more than co-parenting with Mark."
"Ew."
Callie feels better already, laughing at the adorable way Arizona's nose wrinkles in distaste. She leans over and kisses that cute nose, earning a dimpled smile.
"Alright, well, I know what we're doing to get that image out of my head after the little man goes to bed," Arizona says, snuggling in further.
"You promised that last night, and then fell asleep on top of me."
The blonde laughs. "Sorry about that. The baby..."
"I know. I was tired, too. It's okay. I'll just pump you full of caffeine at dinner tonight. Okay?" Callie teases.
"Okay," Arizona readily agrees. "EZ and I had lunch with Karev today."
"Really?"
"Mhmm. I think he actually likes Ezequiel."
"He probably just wants to borrow him to pick up chicks."
"That's probably it," Arizona agrees, although they both know it isn't true. Alex Karev is a total softie for babies. "For the record, I like walking home with you two, too. Even when you don't 'verbally eviscerate' nurses. It feels very domestic when we do it. Though, I walked home with Mark and EZ yesterday, and some old lady said we were 'a very beautiful family'. And that was weird."
"You are. Not the way she meant it, obviously, but you are. Zeq has a lot of attractive people in his life."
She rests her head against Arizona's, and they sit in comfortable silence for a few minutes while Zeq drinks his fill.
When he's done, she passes him off to his momma while she puts herself together. Arizona sits him up on her lap, supporting his neck as she burps him with practiced ease while Callie goes to change into her street clothes. After she changes, she heads back to the bathroom while listening to Arizona talking to Ezequiel in a soft, lilting voice. They're still talking when she comes back, and Callie pauses to watch them.
Then she wraps them up from behind, dropping her chin onto Arizona's shoulder and whispering:
"I love you. Let's go home."
el fin