AN: This would NOT leave me alone until I'd written it. I hope this affords people the same closure it has afforded me.
AN2: I've changed my name on here. Hi, it's littlepixiecullen88 :)
Enjoy.
Callie Torres had just scrubbed out of a very successful surgery. She'd been able to re-build a rather mangled clavicle, which had been the result of a grisly car wreck, and the family of the patient was thrilled. Having only spoken briefly to her wife before the surgery, Callie was now eager to find Arizona and tell her how it had gone. Upon arriving in PEDS, she was informed that her wife was in one of the empty exam rooms.
"She's been in there for a while, Dr. Torres." A nurse said quietly. Callie was suddenly apprehensive. Her wife's bad days were not nearly as frequent as they had been just after the crash, but not every day was 'awesome' just yet.
"Thanks, Kate." Callie nodded to the nurse before anxiously making her way to the exam room.
She could see her wife's long, blonde hair through the large glass windows, but her face was out of view, looking at a set of scans on the wall. Callie opened the door quietly, but Arizona still startled a little.
"Sorry…Nurse Kate said I could find you here." Callie smiled, coming to a stop beside her wife. The blonde barely responded to her wife's appearance, and now, for the first time, Callie could see her face. Her expression was blank, but darkness swirled in Arizona's usually bright blue eyes.
"Hunt just gave me these scans. He said we're operating next week." Arizona's voice was cold, devoid of any emotion. Callie briefly glanced at the scans, unable to understand why they were affecting her wife in such a way.
"Ok…"
"We should have operated on them months ago." Arizona said bitterly, her eyes still fixed on the scans.
"I doubt they're any less conjoined now than they were a few months ago." Callie joked, smirking.
"Meredith, Cristina, Derek, Alex, Mark and Lexie should have operated on them. Months ago. In Boise." Arizona's voice was barely above a whisper.
A painful realization dawned on Callie. These were the twins that her wife, her best friend, and her colleagues had been flown to Boise to separate. A flight that didn't reach its destination and a surgery that had never taken place. In the months after the crash Callie honestly hadn't given a moments thought to the intended recipients of the surgery. She'd been too busy mourning her best friend's death and fighting to keep her wife's depression from destroying her that she'd not stopped to think about how the lives of these poor babies had been affected by all of this.
"I remember these scans so well." Arizona said.
"Because Karev...because I wasn't too familiar with the case, I was studying them on the plane. I'd just handed them over to Derek and Meredith when -" her voice faltered. Callie placed a gentle hand knowingly on her shoulder.
"I know, sweetie."
Arizona finally looked at her wife, fear and hesitation swimming in her eyes.
"I don't know if I can do this, Callie."
0
A short time later, Callie paged each of their necessary colleagues to the exam room. Her heart felt heavy as she paged Jackson Avery instead of Mark Sloan. Aside from Avery, every other surgeon in the room recognized the scans immediately.
"Where did you get these?" Cristina asked Arizona.
"Hunt." The blonde answered quietly. It was all the information Yang needed to turn on her heels and leave, no doubt in search of her ex husband.
Meredith and Derek remained quiet, as if waiting for the other to raise an objection. Meredith was unsure if Derek's newly healed hand and his renewed confidence were up to the challenge, and Derek was more than aware that this case had cost his wife her sister.
Finally Derek spoke.
"Do we have a choice in this?"
"He said he wasn't going to force us if we didn't feel we could do it, but these babies have waited months for this. Their parents have waited months for this. I don't really want to let them down again."
Callie was shocked at her wife's words. Somewhere in the sea of depression Arizona had been lost in were these twins. The Latina realized that her wife actually harbored guilt about not being able to help these patients that she hadn't even met.
"You guys did not let them down." Callie attested vehemently, making sure that not just her wife, but her colleagues realized this as well.
"I still think Arizona's right though. I think we owe it to them to do it." Meredith spoke, looking to Derek and Avery. They both nodded in agreement.
"Ok. I'm going to find Cristina."
0
Alone again the exam room, Arizona paged a familiar number. A few minutes later, the door opened.
"You paged, boss?"
"Hunt wants us to separate Boise's conjoined twins. Here. Next week."
Karev gazed at the scans of the surgery he thought he'd never get the chance to scrub in on.
"You're going to do it?"
"Yeah, we are. But I want you in there. I need you in there."
He grinned as his mentor looked at him with pleading eyes.
"Nowhere else I'd rather be."
The blonde was silent for a few moments.
"Alex, I never meant what I said. You're not a horrible person. In fact, you're one of the sweetest, most amazing people I know, and I'm sorry if what I said ever made you doubt that."
The PEDS fellow blushed at the sentiment.
"You're pretty amazing yourself, Robbins."
0
Usually the dim, quiet scrub-room had a relaxing effect on Arizona Robbins. It gave her time to really focus on the procedure she was about to do, but today, as she scrubbed vigorously at her hands, she could feel them shaking. She watched as the anesthesiologists put the twins under, willing her brain to shut up long enough for her to do her job. Alex, Meredith and Derek were already scrubbed in, waiting for her. Suddenly, a familiar face joined her in the scrub room.
"You've got this."
"I don't know if I do. My hands won't stop shaking."
"They will once you get in there. And I'll be in the gallery the entire time. You can do this, Arizona."
Taking a steadying breath, the blonde looked into the loving and supportive eyes of her wife, repeating her words quietly.
"I can do this."
Callie placed a quick yet lingering kiss on her wife's lips before leaving. All of a sudden, Arizona felt much more calm.
Making her way into the O.R. she was gowned, gloved, and a headlight was placed on top of her scrub cap. Glancing quickly to the gallery, she saw not one of her girls, but both of them, wearing matching smiles.
"Alright. Scalpel?"
0
Derek joined Arizona in the scrub room as Grey and Karev closed. The twins were stable and separated. It had been a long, complex surgery, but thankfully no complications had arisen. Taking off his lucky ferry boat scrub cap and running a hand through his hair, Derek smiled softly.
"I'm glad we were all in there together."
Arizona smiled sadly, removing her own scrub cap. Her hair underneath was intricately braided.
"Well…most of us."
Derek looked through the glass at his wife as she spoke with one of her interns.
"I like to think Lexie and Mark were with us in there. Watching over us."
Tears pooled in blue eyes as the PEDS surgeon dried her hands.
"I like to think that too."
"How about we go out for a drink. All of us. To celebrate. We'll leave Zola and Sofia with Bailey or someone and we can just…take stock."
"Definitely."
0
A few hours later, the team sat around a table at Joe's. Bailey had been thrilled to watch the two toddlers as their parents engaged in some much needed adult time.
Laughter and food had flowed freely, as had the wine for everyone but Meredith. As the conversation lulled, the general surgeon raised her glass of sparkling water.
"I'd like to toast to us. If anyone had told us a few months ago that we'd have successfully completed that surgery, I'd have called them a quack."
Derek smiled, pressing a kiss to his wife's cheek before raising his glass.
"Here's to Callie, without whom I wouldn't have been able to do that surgery."
Callie's cheeks colored, but she smiled as Arizona took her hand under the table, raising her own glass in her other.
"To Mark and Lexie. Two extraordinary surgeons and incredible people. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about them." Arizona spoke softly, tears shining in her eyes as Callie's hand gripped hers just that bit more tightly, and each glass around the table clinked to hers.
"To Mark and Lexie."