Title: Be Great
Author: A. Windsor
Pairing/Characters: Callie/Arizona
Rating: PG-13 (some cursing, some angst)
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 and a half years 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!
Series: Thing!verse
Summary: "She's good at it. She's great at it, and she always has been." [November 2033]
Author's Note: Here's chapter one of this. It's been quite the adventure to write. Sorta a threequel to Kiss the Girl and Puppy Love. I've been working on it, actually, for over a year now, off and on. It might've been up earlier but I spent the whole weekend hanging out around Boston with roughian and brckbybrck. Throw all tomatoes at them. :P Beta'd by the wonderful, the weirdy, the panda-reindeer roughian.
"Lena! Baby Grey! What do you think you're doing?" Miranda Bailey demands, stopping in her tracks at the sight of the two teenagers in states of half-dress in her parking lot.
"We have practice, Aunt Miranda," seventeen-year-old Lena defends, pulling a warm layer of insulating long sleeves over her sports bra.
"We were just dropping off the little ones," Grey adds, yanking his sweatpants on.
"And you couldn't change inside?"
"No time," Lena shrugs, pulling another t-shirt over her head. She ducks her head into the open driver's side. "Geez, Grey, your shoulder pads reek. Can't you leave them at school?"
"Sorry if it stinks when you're fogging up your windows with Mia, but your cleats and shin guards are no bed of roses, Baby Blondie."
Lena smirks, and Bailey looks to her feet.
"I'm guessing this is yours, then, Miss Lena?" she asks, as she gives the ball at her feet a gentle kick.
Lena catches the ball with the inside of her foot, jockeys it around on the ground a little bit, and then kicks it into the air, where Grey catches it and tosses it into the backseat.
"Nobody's watching, you big showboat."
"No rainbow around the world for Chief Bailey?" Lena asks cheekily, looking far too much like her mother for Bailey's comfort. In fact, looking far too much like her mothers; it's pretty damn freaky, Robbins's dimples, Torres's mannerisms.
"You're spreading rainbows around the world just fine without showing off," Grey teases. "What are you doing Friday afternoon, Chief? Can you make it to the girls' game? The football team has a bye, so we're all going to cheer them on in soccer. They're on their way to state again."
"I'm working, like the rest of normal adults."
"Yeah, our parents, too," Lena frowns.
"Good luck, though," Bailey says as consolation. "Now get your clothes on and get out of my parking lot."
Grey and Lena laugh and salute, the Sloan boy running around to the passenger side door.
"Have a nice evening, Chief!" he calls after her as he hops into the car. He's got that disarming smile of his father's, along with those twinkling light eyes, but he's also got enough of his mama in him to keep it sweet rather than smarmy. So far.
"You, too. Be safe!"
Callie comes home just in time to smell dinner almost burning. She fights back a groan.
"Nope, nope, everything's okay!" Lena assures her as soon as she walks in the door, adorably frazzled and Arizona-like.
"Maybe if you weren't so busy making out there'd be more stirring and less frying," fourteen-year-old Caroline remarks. Lena sticks out her tongue in retort.
"Hi, Mia," Callie sighs, seeing the girl busying herself chopping vegetables at Lena's side.
"Hi, Dr. Torres," Lena's girlfriend says sweetly.
"Are you staying for dinner?"
Lena turns to Mia hopefully, but she declines with a shake of her head.
"I should get home. I promised my mom," she says, dropping the veggies into the sizzling pan and moving to wash her hands.
"Caroline, check the rice. I'll walk you out, Mia mia," Lena says, practically throwing her spatula at her little sister.
"Oh, that's exactly what you need. More making out," Cari snarks.
Callie heads to the bathroom as the girls continue to bicker. One foot in, she slips and catches herself on the doorframe. She glances at the toilet seat and growls.
"Dammit."
Down the hall in the playroom she can hear music, so she sticks her head out of the powder room door and yells:
"Mateo! I don't care how busy you are, hombrecito, you have got to aim for the toilet!"
The music cuts out and Teo's head emerges from the playroom, grinning sheepishly.
"Hi, Mami. Sorry," the eleven-year-old says.
"Just don't dance while you're peeing, okay?"
Teo gives a good salute. "Yes, ma'am."
"Thanks, dude."
He gives her a wink and disappears back into the playroom.
"Dinner in five, Teo!"
"Got it, Ma!"
Callie retreats to the master bathroom and emerges four minutes later, face washed and feeling less like strangling her three younger children.
"Hi, Mami," Lena greets her with a smile and a kiss on the cheek, no longer distracted by sucking face with her girlfriend.
"Hey, Lena-nena. Dinner looks good."
"It's a miracle," Caroline speaks up from putting drinks on the table.
"Did Mia get off okay?" Callie ignores the color commentary and asks her elder daughter.
Lena nods.
"Teo, ven a la cena," [Come to dinner.] Cari calls down to her brother. "Are we waiting for Momma?"
"No, sorry, m'ijos. Momma got held up with a surgery, so it's just us."
"More food for me," Teo sings, throwing himself into his chair.
"Mami, tell Lena I don't have to go to her game," Caroline requests as they all join hands.
"I wanna go," Teo says, so unhelpfully.
"You're both going. Susie'll be there: no whining. Now, Teo? Please say grace."
"Female soccer player, seventeen. Collided with the goalkeeper in a high school game. Left knee is swollen, no sign of head trauma."
"Scored the goal, though," the girl on the stretcher quips. "Won the game."
Her voice is tight with pain, but her smile remains in place. A dimpled smile that ortho surgical fellow Malcom Rushdie immediately recognizes.
"Lena!" he exclaims. The resident on his service freezes, looking to the patient.
"Shit."
"Aw, thanks, Gibbons," the patient says dryly.
"Page Robbins and Torres," Rushdie instructs Lara Gibbons. "Now."
"You know her?" the paramedic questions.
"Her parents are surgical attendings here," Rushdie informs her. "One's head of ortho."
"Convenient, right?" Lena continues to grin as they wheel her through the ER. "Hey, Rush, can you check on Caroline and Teo? Coach Franks was following with them and the Sloans."
Malcom nods for a nurse to do just that while they settle Lena into one of the curtained areas. He pulls back the blanket on Lena's leg, and his heart sinks at the sight of the mangled knee. He prays he's not seeing the end of a full ride at Stanford staring him in the face. He meets Lena's eyes and knows that despite the smiles and the banter, she knows exactly how serious this is.
"It's just a sprain, right, Rush?" she asks for the lie hopefully, using his boss's nickname for him.
"We've gotta get an x-ray and MRI first, Lena. Then we'll know more."
He chooses to examine her for less obvious injuries first before subjecting her to the pain of the exam of her primary injury.
"Did you hit your head when you fell?" he asks, fingers probing her neck gently as he searches her bright blue eyes.
"Not hard. You don't need to get neuro."
"Yeah, that's gonna fly with your moms." He turns to one of the nurses. "Page neuro and get me Shepherd or Grey. No one else."
"Rush..." Lena starts with a grimace.
"No complaining. Did you try to catch yourself? Do your arms hurt?"
"No. Nothing else hurts. No time to catch myself."
Rushdie drops his hands gently to her left knee, poking, prodding, and guiding.
"How's the pain?"
She cries out at the contact, which answers his question.
"Rush," she says, breathless, less jokey and confident, more scared little girl. "I felt the pop. I heard the pop. This isn't just a sprain."
"Like I said," Rushdie smiles warmly at his mentor's daughter. "We don't know anything yet, and we won't until we get a better look."
"It's my ACL."
"We don't know that."
"Teenage soccer player, Rush. If I weren't Mami's daughter, you'd've already made the primary diagnosis."
"Let's just get you some morphine and wait for..."
"Lena!"
"Mami, cálmate. Estoy okay. No te preocupes, I'm fine," Lena quickly puts her confident demeanor back on. [Mami, calm down. I'm okay. Don't worry, I'm fine.]
"Ambulance, Lena!" Callie cries, still in panic mode from Gibbons's page.
"It's just protocol. They don't wanna get sued," Lena assures her.
"Lena..."
"Mami..."
"Your momma is gonna die."
"She scored the game winning goal," Rushdie deflects, smiling reassuringly at the teen.
"It was awesome."
Callie quickly embraces her brave daughter, noticing the wince of pain when the knee is jostled. She takes in the damage, and her stomach drops. She tries her best to school her features. One look at Lena's wide, wet eyes tells her she's failed.
"Mami, it's rota, no? My ACL." [It's broken, right?]
"Gotta run the tests, Lena. Let's not jump to conclusions."
She's pretty sure they're just delaying the inevitable.
"I ordered x-rays and an MRI, Dr. Torres," Rushdie informs. "Anything else I should order?"
"No, that's good. I'll take her up when they're ready. I have a different job for you. I need you to go intercept and prepare her mother."
"Ma'am?"
"You know those moms who freak out when their kids get the littlest scrape on their elbows? Dr. Robbins, though she tries valiantly to fight it, is one of those."
"She is totally gonna freak," Lena groans. Her hand has found her madre's, holding tight as she tries to keep being brave.
"She'll be fine. You'll be fine," Callie reassures, moving a stray blonde curl out of Lena's eyes. "¿Dónde están tus hermanos?" [Where are your siblings?]
"Coach brought them in. Grey and Susie should be with them. Teo was a little freaked out by the ambulance."
"Yeah, well, ambulances are scary."
"Holy crap, my baby!"
Callie can't help but smile at Arizona's exclamation. The curtain leaps aside, and Lena gets a bear hug before she can even process it.
"Momma, gotta breathe," Lena croaks, squeezing tightly herself.
"Right, right. Sorry, I just... Lena!"
"She's okay. We're gonna take her up to radiology soon. Did you see Cari and Teo?"
"They're at the nurses station with the Sloans. Mark's coming to get them; he just finished up a surgery. I..." Arizona trails off, obviously still shaken at the sight of their daughter in an ER bed. "Oh, Lena. What happened?"
"I had a breakaway. The keep' came out to challenge. I planted with my left and took the shot, but the goalie had already started her tackle and couldn't pull up. We got tangled up, and my left leg went one way while the rest of me went the other. I think I broke her nose when I fell on her."
The story does little to calm her mothers, because they've both seen enough sports injuries to know what happens next.
"Did Rush get some morphine in you?"
"Not yet."
"Okay. I'll go get that for you," Callie says gently. "You stay here and keep your momma from hyperventilating."
She squeezes Arizona's hand and kisses her cheek on her way out.
"Holy crap, my baby," Arizona repeats, taking Lena's hand.
"Momma, just breathe..."
"Shit."
"No. No, no, no. Don't say that. Calliope, don't say that. It's just a..."
Callie zooms the MRI image in on Lena's knee, grateful for the soundproofing.
"Oh my god. It's..." Arizona can't look at it any longer without feeling sick.
"A mess. As it is, it won't support her weight."
"That's one of the worst ACL tears I've seen," Rush adds with a little awe, not thinking.
"Not helping, Rush."
"Right. Sorry, Dr. Torres."
"You can fix it, right?" Arizona says hopefully, looking to her wife. "'Cause you're a goddess. A super star with a scalpel."
Callie looks between the scans and Arizona, then through the glass to where their daughter lies anxiously. She fights down the dread, always unable to deny Arizona anything, and latches onto her wife's words.
"Yeah. Yeah, I can fix it."
"So she'll walk again?"
"Of course," Callie dismisses.
"So she'll play again?"
Callie hesitates. "I can fix it."
"Yeah, no. Not happening. Absolutely not. Rushdie can do the surgery," Chief Bailey says resolutely.
"No offense, Rush, but no," Callie says, arms crossed over her chest.
"Dr. Rushdie is a great surgeon. Your great surgeon. I'm not having my attendings operating on their own child. And yes, Robbins, that means you're not scrubbing in either."
"She's technically peds!" Arizona whines, already capitulating.
"Bailey," Callie demands.
She gets a Nazi eyebrow of doom.
"Chief Bailey. Rush is the second best ortho surgeon I know, but that's our baby girl and she's not getting second best anything." Callie pulls up the x-rays and MRI on Bailey's office screen. Arizona has to look away again, and Callie instinctively grabs her hand even as her attention is elsewhere. "Look at that knee, Bailey. Imagine Lena not with a soccer ball. Ever again."
"Torres, that ACL is torn to shreds. Dr. Rushdie, what's the chance Miss Lena will ever play competitively again? Even if our ortho goddess here performs the surgery."
"Dr. Bailey, I'd really rather not..."
"Rushdie."
"Slim, Chief. Very, very slim. She won't play at Stanford; it'll take a year to get her back to full function in her knee, and even then one wrong twist could undo everything."
"You don't know that," Callie objects.
Arizona puts a calming hand on Callie's shoulder.
"Calliope..."
"No, if she has a half a chance, we have to..."
"Lena doesn't need you to be her surgeon in this, Callie. She doesn't need to be able to resent you for not fixing her knee. She needs you to be her mom. She needs you to hold her hand when it hurts like hell and help her see that there is more to life than kicking that damn soccer ball." Bailey's tone softens. "She's got enough of both of you in her that she is going to be a terrible patient. So you need to be moms, not doctors."
"Rush'll do the surgery," Callie concedes, deflating.
"And neither of you will be in the gallery, making him nervous. You'll wait, like parents, and be with Teo and Caroline, who're worried sick."
"Okay, Chief," Callie sighs.
tbc