Hello everyone!

first time posting so please be gentle! :) please read and review as well! Calzona endgame (:

disclaimer: all characters (except for mikka) belong to shondaland. The song is life is a song by Patrick park

"You say life is a dream, where we can't say what we mean

Maybe just some roadside scene that we're driving past."

- Life is a Song, Patrick Park

Mikka

I can't believe i'm here again. It's been 4 years and everything still feels familiar. People are sporadically passing by, and I can hear random medical jargon scattered among what seems to be drama and gossip. I see a few familiar faces, it seems like many things haven't changed that much. I hope she's still here. I doubt I'll get to see her but I hope with all that I am that I'll at least get to see her. She's the silver lining to me here and I haven't been back in years. I can't help how I feel and I don't know that I want to. I finally figured it out, I only hope that I'm not too late.

I'm being wheeled slowly through the hallway. The sterile walls feel like they're closing in on me. The nurse behind me is chatting away and I feel guilty that I can't hear her through sound of my blood rushing through my ears. I can't believe I'm back here. She is saying nice things about how I'm going to have the best care here and I can feel my eyes sting with tears. This wheelchair has a loose wheel. It squeaks as we roll by and I hate it with a blinding passion. It's no one's fault but I can't help it. If I believed in God, I'd say it was his fault and that he was punishing me for something I have yet to do. I'm only twenty, I've barely lived so I haven't done much yet.

When I was sixteen, I was was admitted with abdominal pain, due to mature cystic teratomas on my ovaries. It seemed easy enough to diagnose, but what did I know, I was only sixteen and I wasn't a doctor, still aren't. Things seemed to progress fairly quickly. Unfortunately, they were malignant and then it felt like a long and winding road from then on. My ovaries were removed and I had several follow ups, chemo until I was finally in remission. I still can't help but wonder if I would have made a cute pregnant woman one day. It doesn't matter now, though.

I'm back with what my doctor thinks might be an osteosarcoma. They say once you have cancer, the odds of recurrence increase… or something like that. I was sixteen and honestly, I was more mad that I wasn't out with my friends. Who wants to be the girl with cancer stuck in a hospital bed?

I hate this gown, I feel like I'm overexposed, like I'm weak and frail. This bracelet around my wrist feels constricting. I'm in socks and slippers and I feel a hundred. Sorry, lady but no amount of small talk is going to make this feel better. I appreciate the effort though. Fuck. I want to just yell out FUCK. I don't want to be here. I don't want to be trapped here.

She slows the wheelchair and I can tell we're close to our destination. It turns slowly, entering a room that somehow feels a thousand times smaller than it did last time, even though I'm sure all the rooms here are roughly the same size. Maybe it's because I'm older now, bigger and my perception is all wonky because of all the cancer. I wish I could just shrug this off. Instead, I look up at the number on the door through glassy eyes.

2203

Who knows how long this room is going to be my home for. I really hope she's around here somewhere.

Arizona

I'm walking at a relatively brisk pace to her room, my tablet tucked carefully under my arm. I haven't seen this girl in 4 years and I wonder how she's been. I can't believe she's back again but then again, I'm not really surprised. I just hoped that maybe she was one of the lucky ones. She was a patient of mine for over a year and one of my most memorable. I run a hand through my short blonde hair and sigh deeply. 2203. Here we are.

"Dr. Robbins! I was wondering when you'd show up!"

I hear her voice and i feel my heart break a little. Her dark hair is longer now with blunt bangs across her forehead. Her blue eyes are still bright as ever, filled with wonder and hope but there is sadness laced in them. She looks weaker than she did before, almost tiny in the big hospital bed. The blanket is pulled up around her waist as her hands play with the fabric, her fingers tracing the stripe.

I feel myself want to pause and process what is happening to this girl, but that wouldn't be fair to her. I suck in a deep breath and smile, I know my dimples are out in full effect. I know they're a distraction for most people. How can anyone not feel instantly happy at dimples? "Oh, come on, Mikka, we both know you're itching to say it."

"Say what, Dr. Robbins?"

I look at her, with my arms folded, one eyebrow raised. This girl, sassy as ever. I met her when she was sixteen and she had come in for abdominal pain. While she technically was under pediatric care, she was well beyond her years. Talking to her had definitely become a highlight and I started to think of her as a friend even though there was quite the age difference between us.

"Okay, don't say I didn't give you a shot," I say, shrugging it off and walking further into the room. I stand at the end of her bed and pull up her file on my tablet. Referred by Dr. Peters after three visits due to increasing and persistent pain, and an unexplained limp. X-Ray was inconclusive. Possible osteosarcoma…. Damn. I flip through her history, though I already know everything there is to know. Mikka Anderson. Age twenty. Diagnosed with mature cystic teratoma at sixteen and underwent a full oophorectomy at my scalpel. Extensive chemotherapy and radiation. Was in remission.

"Dude, I heard you were here. What are you in for?" I hear a deep voice behind me and turn to face Alex Karev, leaning casually against the doorframe. I look over and see her cerulean eyes shining with excitement. I hand him my tablet and walk over to her bedside.

I look up at Alex and watch him pour over the information. He was the resident on her case, he knows it all just as well as I do. "Oh, not you too, Alex. Come on, what happened to all the happy happy, positive that you peds people should be emanating? I'm looking more at you, Robbins. Alex, I expected some kind of half-mean comment with the subtle undertones of caring."

"Bite me."

"There he is!" she laughs brightly and opens her arms to him. He smiles and rolls his eyes before obliging. He isn't one for hugs but spending as much time as we did with her all those years ago have blurred the lines of patient-doctor and friendship. Seems like a common occurrence here at Grey-Sloan.

"And you, what's your excuse for not wheeling in here like a ten year old?" she questioned pointedly, looking up at me, our eyes meeting. I forget that she wasn't around for everything that happened a few years ago. I don't feel like telling the long sad tale of what happened years ago. I rarely do. It brings up memories I wish didn't exist and heartache I try to forget.

"Mikka…" starts Alex. I see him look to me, apologetically, clearly unsure of how to proceed.

"Well, I'm waiting…"

I shake my head as my lips curve upward in a sad smile, "I can't."

Mikka brandishes her hand at me, "Can't is can but will not try, Dr. Robbins. How many more times do I have to tell you that?"

I can't help but smile at her. She's so positive, even after all she's been through. I find her strength amazing, I wish I had had her strength at the time. She's lost so much at such a young age. I recall my own losses and remember losing myself for a while and then losing the family I'd built and the love of my life. Mikka looks at me expectantly, her arms folded over her chest. I sigh deeply and lean over, pulling up my navy blue pant leg to show her the prosthesis, "I was in a plane crash a few years ago and lost my leg."

Her eyes widen as she looks me up and down, "Oh my God. Shit, I'm so sorry. I'm such an ass!" She covers her face with her hands and I can see the blush creep up her cheeks. This has gotten awkward.

"Hey, it's ok. You didn't know and it is what it is. I'm still me and I'm still awesome!" I force a smile onto my face and place a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently, "I mean, I am still awesome, right?"

She chuckles gently and looks up at me, "Super."

I can see Alex smiling and shaking his head across the room. I need to make a mental note to ask him what he finds so damn amusing.

Before I can even think to make a move, I hear footsteps behind me, "Arizona? What are you doing here?"

I turn to see her standing there in all her badass glory. Her dark hair pulled up into a neat swirled bun at the base of her head, her perfectly arched eyebrow raised ever so slightly. Her lips parted, God, do I ever miss those lips. I can barely keep myself from looking her over, my gaze following the delicious curves of the body I'd known so well.

"Dr. Torres! It's nice to see you again! Sucks it had to be because I might have cancer, again." I hear her voice and it snaps me out of the brief trance Calliope Torres seems to constantly drive me into. It literally feels like time stops when she's around.

"Mikka, it's nice to see you too. Let's see what we have here, okay?" Her gaze softens as she looks past me and my heart breaks. We've come such a long way, the wrong way. She walks around to the other side of Mikka's bedside, a curly blonde-haired intern at her side.

"And you are?" Mikka asks the blonde directly.

"Isaac Cross, ma'am," he stutters. I roll my eyes. These particular interns are special this year, except for DeLuca. He's quite the step above a lot of these I may be biased, he is my roommate after all.

"Don't ma'am me. You're older than I am!" Mikka pretends to be offended and I am smiling at the interaction. Cross looks like he's going to wet himself. He needs a new pair and a new spine.

"Uh, yes, ma'am, I mean, sorry, uh," he stutters again and she stares at him. He seriously needs a new pair.

"Present, Dr. Cross otherwise Dr. Torres isn't going to be too happy with you."

Cross looks nervously at Callie, her eyebrow raised yet again as she looks at him, unimpressed. We're all waiting for him to present. He finally opens his mouth and presents the case to Callie, who promptly tells him to draw some blood and run some tests before taking her leave, the intern nodding furiously behind her.

I look at her walk out of the room without so much as a look toward me and I am crestfallen. This is just awful. I try my best to suck up the hurt and continue visiting with Mikka only to find her staring at me, really staring.

"You wanna tell me what the hell that was, Zones?" there it is. That horrendous abbreviation of my name she insists on using.