The pounding rain made the whole world hum around Callie Torres. The storm, the sudden and complete darkness, even her patients were not enough to stifle the niggling feeling in the back of her brain that was steadily screaming that she needed to find her wife, right now. She was surely safe in the hospital, but Callie couldn't fight the feeling that something was desperately wrong. "Avery, keep the shoulder still in the meantime, and I'll take an x-ray when we get the power back on, okay?" Not waiting for a response from the man in the bed Callie shouldered her way through the curtain and started toward the stairs and the NICU.
Arizona Robbins groaned as she leaned against the on-call room door. She couldn't have done this. She wasn't this person. She loved her wife. She loved Callie Torres. She didn't have sex in on-call rooms with women she'd known for less than a week. But she had done just that. Just let herself be convinced that being 'out of control' was worth destroying her marriage. Because she knew she wasn't in control now. She hadn't been in control of her life in years. Long before the plane crash. Since her daughter's birth, at least.
But what she'd just done had done nothing to help her regain control of anything. Instead, it felt like she was spiraling more than ever. How could she ever look Callie in the eyes again? How could she look into her wife's face and tell her that she'd just slept with another woman? She was going to be sick, nausea rolling through her stomach. One hand shot out to catch herself against the wall, her good knee not willing or able to keep her up. She felt dizzy, had to close her eyes and breathe deep, her heart pounding a rapid tattoo against her chest.
A rumble of thunder was followed by a flash of lightning (or had that been an explosion? Had something exploded?) and it snapped her back to the present. She'd cheated, betrayed her wife, but she still had patients, infants in the NICU who would die without her. That had to mean something right now. She might have destroyed her own life but she would not let the parents in her ward suffer the same fate today. She was going to save some lives tonight if it killed her.
Alex and Jo were already there, bustling around trying to keep the tiny human makers calm in the storm. The interns were looking to Karev, but he looked to her, catching her eyes as soon as she limped in, his brows furrowing as he noticed her staggered pace. Arizona shook her head, dismissing his concern. She didn't matter right now. Nodding toward the desk, she let him herd the interns to her. She wasn't sure her leg could hold her if she moved away from the desk right now.
"What's the plan?" Alex asked breathlessly, Jo and Stephanie huddling up to protect their conversation from prying ears. Arizona went stiff when another slim body edged into the circle, her knuckles going white as she gripped the edge of the counter tightly. "Dr. Robbins," Alex said firmly when she didn't speak, frowning at the expression on her face. "What are we doing here?"
"Arizona..." Lauren started to speak, her voice quiet, trying to soothe her, and Arizona couldn't take it.
"No!" she snapped, dimly aware of Alex blinking at her, the two interns exchanging confused glances. "Alex, um, the generators are down, apparently, so we're going to start losing these monitors. I want you in here, keeping parents calm and helping me with the babies. Interns, check every supply cabinet and closet on this floor and find us some more batteries," Arizona ordered, taking a deep breath and resolutely avoiding Lauren Boswell's eyes.
"What should I do?" Ignoring her clearly wasn't helping. Arizona sighed, pushing herself away from the desk and trying to leave. A narrow hand caught hers before she could escape. "Hey! What's going on? Are you not going to talk to me? What did I do?"
Arizona jerked her hand away, moving so quickly upsetting her balance and sending her sprawling. Strong arms caught her long before the floor found her. Strong arms that were instantly familiar and made her heart jerk in her chest. Callie's expression was confused, protective, and concerned over her head and Arizona scrambled back onto her feet, stumbling out of Callie's hold and putting a hand up when her wife moved to follow her. Callie took her hand to keep her steady, brown eyes traveling between the two fair-haired women. "Honey, are you okay?" Arizona's mouth moved without words coming out. "What's going on here...?" Blue eyes couldn't meet her own and Callie jerked her gaze to where Lauren stood watching. "Did you do something to her?" She didn't know what was happening here, just that something was definitely occurring beneath the surface here. Something between her wife and this woman.
"Callie..." Arizona's protest was weak behind her, and Callie turned to face Lauren squarely, placing herself directly between the two women.
"What the hell is happening here? What did you do to my wife?" Callie demanded, her voice flat and cold. She was still holding Arizona's hand, her arm twisted behind her to maintain the contact. She didn't turn when Arizona squeezed her hand, too scared to turn around and see confirmation of what she feared in her partner's eyes. "What did you do?"
"Callie," Arizona tried again, pulling lightly on Callie's fist. "It wasn't, she didn't, it was my, it was me-"
It was too much, Callie jerking her hand away and lunging forward. She'd let George wreck her, stood by and let Izzie steal her husband. It wasn't happening like that again. Not this woman, not her wife.
Lauren recoiled backwards at the same time that Arizona grabbed for Callie's arm, Alex suddenly there and pushing Callie back. She tripped over her own feet, and Arizona's, sending them both falling backwards toward the desk. Confusion and anger didn't stifle her protective instincts and Callie caught Arizona's waist before more than her elbow could strike the counter. She couldn't maintain the hold past Arizona regaining her balance, her hands clenching and relaxing at her sides as she tried to fathom what her next move could possibly be. Because her wife had cheated on her. Had there been confirmation of that? A glance at blue eyes seemed to suggest that those were the facts. But those facts just wouldn't compute at this moment. Her Arizona wouldn't do this. Her wife wouldn't hurt her this way, knowing everything she'd been through in her past. And they were finally almost good again. How could this be happening?
"Torres," Alex growled, uncertain but still maintaining a barrier between the Ortho surgeon and Dr. Boswell. Behind them, the tiny human makers were growing restless. Something needed to end this, and soon. "Dr. Robbins..."
Arizona forced her back to straighten, Callie looking at her in disbelief over her shoulder as the Peds surgeon fixed her lab coat and turned back to her work, limping stiffly away from the mess she'd made. She needed to talk to Callie, try to explain, but they couldn't do it here, with petrified parents watching her life fall apart. And, frankly, she wasn't sure she'd be able to fix this and wanted to delay the inevitable for a while longer. She was going to keep these kids alive if it killed her.
Death might feel better than the look on Callie's face right now.
Alex didn't move when Arizona did, not sure what would happen to Lauren if he wasn't in Callie's way. He had to admit that she had some balls to still be standing there. He wasn't oblivious to the flirting the visiting doc had been giving Arizona. And he hadn't missed his Attending's flattery at the attention. Whatever had happened, he knew Arizona wasn't a bad person, though. Maybe Lauren deserved what Callie clearly had coming for her, but she hadn't run yet. And as fun as it might be to witness a catfight (his money was on Torres), he couldn't let it happen here or now.
"Torres..." he started again slowly.
Lauren spoke over him, taking a step closer to his back as she did so. "Dr. Torres," Callie's eyes flashed and she retreated a half-step, "I don't know what's going on, but I swear to you, I didn't do anything with your wife." Brown eyes narrowed, scrutinizing her sharply. "Maybe I was flirting, maybe Arizona flirted a little back," Callie took the step forward this time and Lauren felt the edge of the desk dig into her back as she unconsciously tried to maintain safe distance between herself and the angry woman, "But she didn't do anything wrong here! She told me in no uncertain terms that she is married, happily, to you." She tried a smile, feeling a little bit wistful. Arizona Robbins was hot. She was kind of bummed that she hadn't gotten a chance with her. Not that she would be expressing that thought to Arizona's wife when the other woman already looked like she was ready to beat her down. "She couldn't stop talking about your gorgeous, magical eyes." Callie frowned but her shoulders appeared to relax just slightly. "You're a very lucky woman, Dr. Torres," Lauren told her. "I can't say I'm not jealous."
Callie's quick pace forward made her eyes go wide, Lauren pressing herself back against the counter as Callie shouldered her way ably past a shocked Alex Karev. She didn't touch her though, simply crowded her back against the half-wall and stared her down, dark eyes searching her face for something. Callie's shoulder bucked off Alex's hand when he started to pull her back, her gaze not faltering. That look was enough to make Lauren squirm. Arizona was totally her type, but she could definitely see why Arizona was so devoted to this woman.
"Callie," Alex said, trying again to defuse the situation. He didn't touch her again though. "This isn't the place for this."
Callie didn't move. "You didn't touch her," she declared, not blinking.
Lauren let out the breath she didn't know she'd been holding. "No. I didn't."
But Callie had seen Arizona's eyes, the guilt there. Something had happened. "But, why...?" She shook her head. She wasn't going to air her dirty laundry with this woman. "You need to get away from me, right now," she stated seriously. Lauren was immediately slipping out from between her and the counter where she'd been pinned. "And..." Lauren stopped, not turning back toward her but listening. "Stay the hell away from my wife."
Lauren resumed fleeing, Callie letting out a deep breath and slumping into the counter. Alex was standing watch at her side and the familiarity made her chest ache. He'd been her shadow after the crash, rarely speaking but always there. She shrugged off his hand when he touched her shoulder.
"What is happening, Alex?" whispered Callie, confused and still scared. Something was wrong. She could feel it. It was vibrating in the air around her the same way the storm outside was rattling the very atmosphere. "I saw her face. Something happened. She cheated on me." It felt like a stabbing pain in her heart to even say it. It just rang so patently false. Her Arizona was not a cheater. Period. "But..." But when, how, where, with who? And why? After everything they'd survived, how could this happen?
Alex sighed, shaking his head and finding Arizona moving between beds over Callie's shoulder. "She's only ever here, working, or in physical therapy, or she's home with you." Callie's eyes found him and he shrugged. "And, yeah, she flirted with Boswell, but..." He fell silent as something occurred to him. Arizona had walked Lauren to the on-call rooms earlier if Stephanie was to be believed. That's what she'd told him when he'd been looking for Arizona right after the power went out, at least.
Callie felt the weight of the loaded silence and her mouth fell open. "What? Alex, you have to tell me what you know! Something is wrong here!"
He took another deep breath, unable to keep her gaze. "According to one of the interns, Boswell asked Dr. Robbins for an escort to an on-call room. She said she likes to spend the night close to the patient after a procedure."
Already shaking her head in denial, Callie was frowning. "Lauren Boswell didn't sleep with Arizona. I would have seen it." Alex looked less than convinced. "Believe me. I would have known." The Bailey stare did not fail. It hadn't failed her this time, even if it felt like all of her other senses were betraying her. Everything in the world felt fundamentally wrong right now.
"Then what's going on?" Alex asked, leaning his head in and lowering his voice. He couldn't handle intercepting anymore guilty glances in this direction. "Because Robbins keeps looking over here..."
"I don't know, Karev!" Callie didn't mean to snap but she just couldn't seem to stop herself. Nothing was right.
He didn't object to her lashing out, taking a breath to steady himself. "Well, we kind of need her up here right now..." The glare Callie gave him was positively poisonous. "Unless you want to – Callie, is this the best time for this?"
"You don't tell me how to deal with my wife, Dr. Karev," Callie ordered him, standing up straight. But outside of posturing for Alex Karev, she had no further clue how to deal with this entire situation. Dragging Arizona somewhere private was the only thing she wanted to do. But whether that would help or hurt she wasn't sure. "Don't let her leave," she declared under her breath. "I'll be back when I can." She could check on patients. Do something to figure out why the generators weren't working. She didn't know anything about electricity, but she felt a burning need to do something that would have a productive result.
She didn't know what talking to Arizona would end in.
"And Alex?" He looked at her steadily, lines of anxiety around his eyes. "Keep an eye on her," she requested, not an order.
"I've got her back," Alex promised. Callie didn't look back, marching away stiffly and leaving him at the desk to stare at between the pair of women. When Arizona ducked into the supply closet he quickstepped across the room to slip into the small room behind her. "What's going on?"
Arizona didn't face him, her shoulders tight. "I cheated on my wife with that woman out there."
"What makes you think that? Did you say something you shouldn't have to her, maybe a kiss, or something?" Lauren said they hadn't slept together. And Callie bought it, whether or not it was true.
Arizona glared sharply. "No, Karev! Believe me, I wish a kiss is all that happened!"
"And this happened with Boswell? The new chick?" he checked. Maybe Callie was right. Something was seriously off here.
Arizona took a swat at him this time. "Yes! Alex, I cheated on my wife! I'm not going to relive it for you! You think I don't feel awful? It was a mistake! It was a huge mistake!"
Alex Karev was no stranger to crazy women and he was starting to feel it here in this closet. Something in the air warning him, a sixth sense he'd developed. The crazy made waves in his head. And Arizona earnestly believed she'd betrayed Callie, but there were alarms going off in his brain. This wasn't right. "Hey, I know!" he tried to relieve her. "It's okay. It's going to be okay."
The interns outside the closet were dealing with teaching the parents to operate the breathing bags for their babies as the monitors failed one by one, and things were going as well as they could possibly be going considering the circumstances. Arizona split from his side as soon as they left the room, though she stopped short when the direction she'd chosen to flee in put her on a trajectory with Lauren Boswell. The visiting doctor looked in their direction, pretty face marred by a frown of genuine concern. Arizona stumbled, spinning from side to side and seeking another avenue of escape.
It was simultaneous relief and dread that filled Arizona when the lights finally snapped back on sometime before dawn. She couldn't hide in the dark anymore. Whatever she'd done to her life, whatever mess she'd made, it was going to be exposed to the light now. Now she could see perfectly exactly how destroyed Callie was when she told her what had happened. What she had done.
She couldn't hide anymore.
Somehow unable to sense that the world, her world, was going wrong a nurse on two told her where she could find Dr. Torres, her wife already pacing the floor alone in the Attending's lounge. Callie turned when Arizona slipped into the room and closed the door behind her. The deja vu when she hesitated before deliberately clicking the lock into place made her choke.
"Arizona..." Callie's voice was hoarse from tears. "Tell me what is going on."
She wished she could just keep facing the door, didn't have to turn and look into Callie's face as she destroyed their marriage. She loved Callie too much to not look her in the eyes as she told her this though.
There were already tears on Callie's face, her shoulders slumped with defeat. It was enough to break her heart.
"I cheated on you." Callie blinked and there were more tears sliding down her face.
"With Dr. Boswell? You s-slept with h-her?"
Arizona nodded, trying to swallow the lump in her throat. "Yes. But Callie -"
"You didn't," Callie said flatly, her lip trembling.
"Yes, I did. But I am so -"
"No," Callie denied again. "You didn't. You wouldn't."
"I did."
"You didn't!" insisted Callie, her volume rising. Arizona jumped, frowning. This wasn't the argument she'd been braced for. Callie knew she'd cheated. Could see it in her eyes even if she was denying the words she said. "I talked to Dr. - her, I talked to her. She didn't sleep with you." Sweat broke out at Arizona's temple, her head throbbing suddenly. "I looked her in the eye, Arizona. She said you two didn't do anything." She took a trembling breath and a shaky step forward. Arizona was swaying on her feet, her skin pale and sweaty. "But if you slept with someone else, I need to know," Callie said, sheer will keeping her voice steady. "I need to know right now, Arizona."
Confused, Arizona shook her head, a few strands of hair escaping from her messy ponytail and falling in her face. "It-it was Lauren. I slept with Lauren." Hearing her say it over and over again didn't make it hurt less, for all Callie that knew in her soul that it wasn't true. Arizona was convinced she had betrayed her. And Callie was convinced that it hadn't been Boswell. So why would Arizona keep insisting that it was? They were facing infidelity. The who almost didn't matter.
Except for the conviction in Arizona's blue eyes. She had slept with Lauren. Or she believed she had.
All the evidence Callie had been able to find, or the complete lack thereof, rather, via nosy nurses (and who actually had the time to be nosy when they were in the middle of a superstorm, seriously) had told her that, yes, Arizona had escorted Lauren to an on-call room. But that was it. They'd chatted in the doorway for a few minutes before Lauren had shut the door with herself on one side and Arizona on the other. Nothing remotely suspicious had been noticed.
"Who did you sleep with, Arizona?"
"Lauren!" Arizona was crying now too, her hands squeezing the sides of her lab coat tightly. She was swaying worse and Callie took another slow step forward.
"I don't believe you," Callie said softly, edging forward. "Who did you sleep with?"
"Lauren." Arizona was shaking, her eyes cloudy and unfocused. Her voice was lower now, answering the quieter tone in Callie's voice instinctively. "Lauren." Callie shook her head, drawing closer every moment. "It was Lauren." Callie murmured a negative. "No, it was," Arizona insisted, almost whispering. Rocking between her toes and her heels, Arizona whispered the name again and again. Her eyes didn't seem to see Callie's approach. She didn't react to her wife's proximity at all until a gentle hand found her cheek and turned her face to meet dark eyes. Callie really did have beautiful eyes. Arizona went stiff suddenly, her tears sticky between her cheek and Callie's palm. "Callie?" she asked, whimpering and scared. "What's happening?"
Callie caught her as Arizona slumped suddenly into her, barely keeping them up as Arizona went limp, dead weight in her arms. "Arizona!" Calling her name gained no response and Callie struggled to drag them to the nearest couch. Arizona's shoes pulled and caught on the carpet as they moved. They more or less fell to the cushions, Callie's heart pounding when Arizona didn't moan on groan when she dropped on top of her. The blonde's breathing was loud, her eyes open but unseeing. Callie slid off the couch to her knees, both hands pulling Arizona up by the sides of her coat. "Arizona!" She was sitting up now, her head bobbing as she made no effort to hold herself up. "Look at me!" No answer. "God damn it, Arizona! Look at me!" As soon as she released one side of her wife's lab coat to reach for her phone the other woman slumped to the side, nearly catatonic.
Callie did the only thing she could think to do, calling Alex. He didn't answer the first call and she impatiently swiped the screen again. "Karev, I need you down here!" she said as soon as he picked up, too anxious to preface her words. "It's Arizona. I can't reach her!"
"What? Torres, what -?"
"Get here!" Callie snapped. "The lounge on two." Hanging up, she tossed her phone aside and tugged Arizona back upright, standing on her knees so their faces were nearly level. "Arizona, wake up! Come back to me!" Hard breathing was the only thing that answered her. This day felt like a never-ending spiral of confusion and pain, Callie scrambling to keep her head above water. "I don't know if you can hear me, Arizona, but I can't do this without you. Come back!" Still nothing, and Callie's head dropped, forehead resting on her wife's left leg, the metal of her prosthetic tangible beneath the plastic covering it. Grimacing, Callie shifted her head to the other leg, sighing gratefully at the human warmth she could feel through Arizona's scrub pants. Unable to stop herself, Callie felt tears leaking from the corners of her eyes to drop into obscurity against the navy cotton under her face.
Minutes passed, the door opening and closing, and then Alex was there, sitting on the couch beside Arizona and leaning over to look at her face while Callie straightened back up and surreptitiously wiping her eyes. "How long has she been like this?"
Callie shook her head, uncertain and beyond scared. "I-I don't know. We were talking. She started shaking, an-and it was like she couldn't hear me. She collapsed when I touched her. Alex, what is wrong with her?" Callie pleaded, needing someone to help her. She'd been trying to do everything on her own since the crash. It felt like drowning in slow motion.
He held one hand up in front of Arizona's face, snapping his fingers twice with no reaction. Alex frowned and stood up, gently pushing Callie aside and taking her place in front of the catatonic woman on the sofa. "Hang on," he said without looking away from his mentor. Biting his lip, he made a decision. The crack of his hand against Arizona's cheek was sharp in the quiet room and Arizona gasped even as Callie shoved Alex off his feet, hard. He hit the floor with a thud and a loud groan but Callie couldn't care less.
Because Arizona's eyes were watering but focused, finding her worried gaze. "Wha-? What – where are we? What's happening? Callie..." She was scared, couldn't remember how they'd gotten here, couldn't remember past... Arizona frowned, shaking her head and trying to come up with her last memory. The things she saw in her head were hazy and didn't make sense. Lightning and flashes of skin. But not Callie's skin.
"It's okay, it's okay," Callie said quickly, leaning in and grabbing her wife's face with both hands. "I'm right here." Arizona's cheek was warm where Alex had struck her and Callie wanted to hit him. How dare he slap her wife? It had worked though, bringing Arizona out of her fugue state. "Look at me," she pleaded, heart pounding at the sight of tears in deep blue eyes. "Are you okay?"
Arizona slumped forward, both arms wrapping around Callie's shoulder as she succumbed to her confusion and fear. Sobs broke free and she buried her face in the warmth of her wife's neck. "Callie, I don't re-remember!" she cried, clinging to her. "Callie..." Callie wasn't sure she'd ever heard her wife sound so scared and she wrapped her arms tighter around the trembling woman. "What's happening to me?!"