''You weren't on the freaking plane!'' Callie hears over, and over, and over, as she slides down the wall of the supply closet. She covers her face with her hands. The tears have stopped now. She's exhausted.
Her body feels overwhelmed by emotion, but the tears just won't come. She throws the weight of her whole body backwards into the shelves. They rattle, things fall down, but it doesn't help; nothing does. She squeezes her head together with her fists, seeing clearly the ring on her scrubs and desperately willing her brain not to let her imagine anything else.
Months now, she has waited, patiently. She has pushed her feelings of desperation aside because they all needed her; Arizona needed her. She should have been on 'the freaking plane'. If she were on the plane she could have saved Arizona's leg, she thought, not even stopping to wonder whether or not that was true. People are afraid of flying because they have to give control to the pilot they don't know and science they don't understand. You don't have to be on the plane to feel that.
She remembers standing there, helplessly, hearing what had happened on that day. She remembers promising to save that leg, and meaning it. She remembers how performing that surgery felt like cutting part of herself away too, and the last year has certainly felt like that happened. She remembers wishing she could have taken Arizona's place. She remembers the beginning of that feeling of life-destroying guilt that she'd spent the last year trying in vain to rid herself of.
Arizona still blames her. She still blames herself.
''You weren't on the freaking plane!'' she hears again.
Arizona was the strong one. Even sitting in the apartment, refusing to move. She was the strong one. She didn't break down like Callie wanted to; she sat there in a strong-willed silence, quietly blaming Callie in a way that was all too obvious.
Callie wanted to scream. She screamed silently into her hands, willing tears to come and relieve her of what she was feeling. It was too late. She had been strong for Arizona, but she had lost everything the day of the plane crash. Everyone was getting better. The people who deserved to have been affected by it were all getting better. She was never allowed to deal with it because she had to be strong for Arizona and the others. She didn't have the right to be affected because she 'wasn't on the freaking plane'.
She couldn't stand her own thoughts any longer. She laid herself on the floor, willing the floor to cool her. Her thoughts wouldn't stop. She punched the ground with her fists. She wished she could go back in time and convince them all to not get on that flight. Though reason said she wasn't to blame, Callie felt responsibility for the entire thing. She should have known. She should have saved Arizona's leg. She should have been more understanding. She should have held it together better. She should have been on the freaking plane.
She found surgical instruments that had fallen from the shelves scattered all around her. She grabbed a saw-like object, not even registering what it was. She didn't know what to do with it. She just felt that such an instrument could inflict physical pain to heal the emotional pain. She didn't even intend to use it; she just felt the comfort in her hands for a brief moment. She wasn't thinking clearly.
She banged her head on the floor. She stopped. She laid there, unblinking and unable to move. It was like her thoughts were moving so fast they crashed into each other and nothing was clear anymore.
Slowly, the door opened and Arizona stood there. Callie watched her, mesmerised. She felt nothing. She wasn't even aware of her absence of feeling as she watched Arizona.
Arizona knelt down beside her and whispered, ''even the score''.
Arizona was no longer standing there. Callie had no idea how much time had passed, she felt as though she'd been sleeping. She didn't move; there was no point. She eventually realised she had been laid in some water, something wet. She felt weak with emotion, but her thoughts were empty. She looked at the bone saw in her hand. She failed to register anything. She felt exhausted and was vaguely aware of some pain, but couldn't tell if it was physical or emotion. ''I wasn't on the freaking plane'' she whispered to herself. She did not know anything else. Her eyes had closed and she felt nothing.
''If you just wait one freaking second'', said Alex Karev, turning to the door of the supply closet and muttering, ''interns'' to himself. He opened the door but did not register what he saw. He stood for a second, waiting for it to sink in. ''Cristina!'' he yelled to Cristina, standing at the nurses' station. Cristina came running at Karev's tone. They both stood there for a second, staring at Callie's unconscious body laid in a pool of her own blood with a bone saw in her hand. There was a deep gash in her leg that was seeping blood at a dangerous rate. There was lots of talking and running. ''I can see the bone'' Cristina said, shocked, but confused, ''looks like she's tried to cut off her own leg''.