A/N: There may be discrepancies with medical terms here, but it's alright. Suspend disbelief for a while. I'm trying here.
Big thanks to Cali for helping me with the idea, and the plotline. Love ya girl.
Disclaimer: Yeah, I don't own anybody from either show. Wish I could. But I don't.
"Doctor Robbins!" Arizona could hear Lexie's shout from across the ER. The younger Grey was on her service today, and she'd sent her out to greet the ambulance after she'd gotten the page. After all, the only thing they'd said was she was found with massive blood loss, possible internal trauma, and unresponsiveness.
Arizona looked up from the child with stomach pains she was currently diagnosing.
"Yes Doctor Grey?"
She didn't need Lexie's reply to know it was bad. All she had to look at was Lexie's face, and the faces of the EMTs that were wheeling the gurney in with the resident, telling the doctor about the girl's stats in the field.
"I'll be right back," she told the little boy and his mother, smiling at them, despite the knot of dread forming in her stomach. She tried to squash it; but it seemed fruitless. She just got so worried about her patients.
"Talk to me," she ordered the group at large when she arrived at the hospital bed they were situated beside.
"Teen Jane Doe found in an alley, trauma to the abdominal area, with possible internal damage. Unresponsive in the field. Massive blood loss."
The EMTs lifted the young girl onto the bed, and Arizona took the split second to observe the patient. She looked about thirteen, maybe fourteen, with ragged red curls sprawled around her unnaturally pale face. Arizona didn't have time to take in the whole girl, only her injuries, so her trained eyes kept searching. They landed on a thick white bandage around the girl's stomach, obviously the temporary treatment of the wound.
"Hey," she said as the girl's head lolled towards her. Lexie busied herself hanging bags of blood and sticking in IV lines as the EMTs began to disperse. "Hi sweetie. What's your name?"
The girl was quiet, a moan slipping from her white lips, her eyes screwed tightly shut.
"More blood, Lexie," Arizona ordered, her hands flitting towards the bandage. "This might hurt," she told the girl, though she wasn't sure she could be heard.
The girl only groaned again.
Arizona lifted the now-bloody bandage, revealing the girl's wound.
"Oh," she breathed. Blood had begun to ooze from the reopened wounds, which were deep and wide. The already dried blood, the fresh blood, and the seemingly random cuts formed a mess on the girl's stomach. Blood seeped from the edges of the cuts – more like slices – and Arizona thought she could actually see the girl's internal organs.
"We need to get her to an OR," Arizona said, her head snapping towards Lexie. "See what's free."
Arizona turned back to the bed, and noticed the girl's wound had stopped oozing. Already.
"Also, Lexie, she has thrombophilia," meaning the girl's blood clotted easily.
"OR three," Lexie piped up from the phone, hanging it back on the wall.
"Okay," Arizona waved over a nurse. "Prep her please. Hurry. We're going to get scrubbed."
The nurse nodded, brown curls bouncing, as Arizona and Lexie took off towards the scrub room.
X
In the operating room, Arizona and Lexie were stitching up the girl's cuts, whilst making sure she was receiving enough blood. Ever so slowly, her face was returning to a somewhat normal colour, and her heartbeat seemed stronger over the monitor.
"Oh my god," Lexie breathed, once pulling the last stitch tight.
It took Arizona a minute to catch on, but when she did, she too breathed out in shock.
Their stitches were perfectly lined, holding the reddened, yet now clean, flesh together. Each line of stitches was in perfect alignment with a cut of the girl's skin, but it wasn't so much the cuts themselves that had the two doctors taken aback. It was their formation.
The wounds on the girl's stomach spelt out the word SNITCH.
Arizona covered the skin with padding, pressing down lightly so as to absorb the excess blood. Not that there was any, the girl's blood clotted too easily.
"We don't show her," she said softly, though it was unnecessary. Lexie nodded her agreement. "I'm going to go and organise a room for her, and all that. Can you finish up here?"
"Sure," Lexie agreed, as Arizona headed for the door.
"Oh, and Lexie?"
"Yeah?"
Arizona looked sadly at the girl on the table, who seemed so tiny. "Call the Seattle police. Let them know what we found."
Lexie nodded seriously, watching Arizona's retreating back until she left the OR.
X
An hour later, Arizona was having lunch with Callie when her pager beeped shrilly at her hip.
"What is it?" Callie asked, sticking a fry into her mouth.
"The police are here. They want to talk to me. They're at my Jane Doe's room," Arizona stole a fry from Callie's plate as she stood, dodging Callie's half-hearted attempt to swat her hand away.
"Don't get arrested," Callie joked, but Arizona could hear the sincerity in her tone.
"I'll be fine," Arizona smiled back at her girlfriend.
X
"Good afternoon," Arizona greeted the people already in the room as she entered. There were three: two policemen and one patient. One of the policemen was tall, with a goatee and beady eyes. The second one was smaller in stature, and rounder at the waistline. Jane Doe, who was lying on the bed, was as still as a statue, her green eyes wide and sparkling with terror. Arizona noticed her red curls were tamer than they had been, and her face was a more normal shade. Purely on instinct, she stood unconsciously closer to the girl.
"Good afternoon," the taller policeman said. "I'm Detective Jones, and this is Detective Samuels," he gestured to his partner.
Arizona nodded.
"We're here to talk to you about this young lady," he gestured to Jane. "As she won't talk to us."
"Well," Arizona began. "Technically you can't question a minor without an adult present."
"We know that," the shorter detective piped up, his deep voice not matching his appearance at all. "But we know nothing about her. And she won't talk to us. We were hoping you may have better luck."
Arizona blinked a little in surprise. "Sure," she managed to say, albeit a little apprehensively.
"Hi sweetie," Arizona turned to the girl on the bed. "I'm Doctor Robbins. Do you remember me?"
The girl looked back at Arizona with green eyes so bright they seemed like stars. Arizona thought she saw a flicker of recognition in their depths, though the girl showed no other signs.
"Can you tell us your name?" Arizona prodded gently.
Again, she was met with a shaky kind of silence. The girl wrung her hands in her lap, the fingers of her left hand twisting and tugging the ones on her right. Her gaze kept flicking warily to the two policemen, but always returned to Arizona's face.
"Do you have any parents?" Arizona asked, trying a different angle. Surely this young girl had someone. Someone out there was bound to know she was missing, was bound to be worried about her.
The girl blinked, silent.
"Should we let anyone know you're here? What happened to you?"
Nothing. Arizona glanced at the policemen, who both shrugged.
Arizona reached up and tucked a rough curl gently behind the teen's ear. "Well, if you ever want to talk, you can just buzz me or a nurse." She gave the girl a smile (she liked to think of it as her magic one) and turned to walk away.
A small hand on her arm stopped her.
Arizona followed the hand to its owner, who was looking up at her shyly from under lowered lids."
"Tia," she said in a small voice.
It took Arizona a moment to catch on, but when she did, she nodded, and her smile grew.
"Hi Tia," she said, sliding her hand into Tia's smaller, colder, more fragile one. "We're gonna find who did this to you."
A/N: Rizzles fans, don't worry. The next chapter will feature the dark haired detective and her medical examiner.
Let me know what you think?
