Thank you so much for all of the reviews, favourites, ect. that I got for this yesterday. Here is another one for today.
While dealing with her phantom limb pain, Arizona worries about how her wife and daughter perceive her now.
Arizona walked back into the kitchen to find Sofia dumping tiny spoonfuls of the applesauce that she was supposed to be eating for breakfast onto the floor. This was one of the new ways that she would test her limits. Instead of eating all of her food, she would eat some of it and then not-so-accidently spill the rest. They tried not to leave her alone at the table, but today Arizona had just gone to the washroom while Callie was getting dressed. It had been all of maybe five minutes that the toddler was alone and the first mess of the day had already been made.
"Sofia, we've talked about this," she told her as she took a seat beside her. "When you don't want anymore, please tell us you're all done. Can you say that?"
"Yep, Mama," she nodded.
"Then why is there applesauce on the floor?"
Sofia looked down and acted as if she was seeing her handy work for the first time. Her pretend reaction was so adorable that Mommy almost laughed, but she couldn't. That would undo the whole lesson that she was trying to teach here.
"Uh oh!" the two-year-old's little voice replied.
"You made a mess, huh?"
"Yeah," she admitted.
"What do you say when you do something you shouldn't?"
"No mo'," she promised.
"No more," she said. "Right. And sorry. Shake on it, Little Lady?"
She extended her hand, but Sofia just looked at it. Handshakes apparently weren't her style.
"Kiss on it?" Mommy suggested instead.
Sofia gave Arizona a kiss. Even she knew that her mothers could never stay upset with her for long. Her kisses and smiles worked wonders. They were powerless against them.
"Alright," she said, getting up and letting Sofia down. "I'll clean it up. Can you go find something to play with for a minute? Go say good morning to your baby doll."
Just as she said this, Arizona felt a sharp pain in her leg. To be more specific, it was in her non-existent leg. Even though she had her prosthetic on and there was no reason that it couldn't support her weight, her body quickly slammed to the ground right there in front of her daughter.
"Ow!"
"Mama?" Sofia asked. "Mama owy?"
Callie came out of the bedroom and made her way into the kitchen as soon as she heard it. She had been under the impression that Arizona was only experiencing these phantom limb pains at nighttime, yet she didn't even bother questioning her. That was beside the point right now.
"What do you need?" she asked as she got down to her wife's level. "What can I do? What helps?"
"Mama?" Sofia asked again.
"It's okay, So..." Arizona tried to say.
She didn't want to scare her little girl. This was bad enough for an adult to have to deal with; she didn't want her daughter to see her in pain.
"Mommy'll be okay," Callie assured her. "You know what you can do? I think your comfy would help. Can you go get Mommy your comfy?"
Sofia's "comfy" was one of Mark's shirts that she had started carrying around with her shortly after his death. She found it whenever she got a bump or a bruise or just when she was having a particularly difficult day. It seemed to help her whenever she had it. Of course, this would be of no assistance to Arizona, but Callie just wanted to let Sofia feel empowered instead of worried.
She nodded and set off on a hunt for the last place that she had left it.
Arizona was already working on getting her prosthetic off, but that wasn't going to be enough. She had to employ one of Owen's techniques as well. Even though having her wife stab the prosthetic was probably going to be successful, she really didn't like that idea. It wasn't exactly going to be the best thing to do in every situation.
"Get the mirror," she told Callie. "The full-length one."
"I'll be right back," she said, leaving as her wife started to massage the leg she had lost. "Breathe. Deep breaths."
"I'm trying."
"You're doing great!" she called back as she grabbed the mirror.
She returned and placed it beside Arizona's remaining leg. By this time, Sofia was also back with her favourite black shirt, but she hadn't given it to her mom. Instead, she was sucking on the edge of it herself. She must have been trying to be brave in her own little way and she needed a little help.
"It's helping," Arizona eventually said. "You don't have to stab me in the foot."
"What?" Callie replied.
"Never mind," she said. "Where's Sofia?"
"She's behind you, but she's okay. Right, Sofia?"
"Mama owy?" the tiny girl questioned.
"Mommy's owy is getting better," Arizona told her. "It's okay. We get owys and then we get back up, right?"
"Yep."
At first, all that mattered was helping Arizona through her pain. Callie wasn't concerned with anything else. However, as the workday went on, the Ortho surgeon began to feel frustrated. She could see how her wife was annoyed by being her patient, but still. She needed help. Callie really didn't think of Arizona as weak at all. No, Arizona Robbins was the strongest person she knew. She had survived the unimaginable, lost her leg, and still eventually managed to pick herself back up and keep going. Arizona had warrior-like strength. She would never view her as anything less than the amazing doctor, wife, and mother that she was. She just wished that she could make her see that.
She stood outside of the daycare watching Sofia, Zola, and a little boy named Liam play together. What she really needed to be doing was talking to her wife, but she didn't want this to turn into a fight. The second best option – venting to her best friend – was also no longer a choice. Watching her child play without a care in the world was the next thing that she could think of to help make her feel better.
Arizona walked up beside her a few minutes later.
"Let me guess," she asked. "You can't get mad at me, you can't vent to Mark, so you're hoping that this helps?"
"Yeah."
"Me too," she admitted. "I'm sorry."
"You don't have to be sorry," she said. "You just should have come to me."
"I talked to Owen about it."
"I'm your wife."
"Exactly," she said. "I just don't want you to see me as broken anymore. I've had enough of that. I don't want there to be yet another thing that gets in the way of us. I don't want to let you down."
These words took Callie's breath away. She literally had to inhale deeply before responding. "Arizona, there's no way I could ever see you as broken. You have not let me down. You have a prosthetic leg and I wish that none of this had happened. But there is nothing wrong with you. Amputee or not, you're still the same woman I fell in love with. I know you're going through things and you've changed. I have too. But I love you and you love me and none of the rest of it matters."
Arizona smiled as she heard her wife repeat what had sort of become a family motto. Of course, losing her leg did matter. Her phantom pain did matter. However, she knew that her wife wasn't trying to downplay any of it. All that she was trying to say is that their little family would band together and get through everything and anything.
"I freaked Sofia out, though. I don't want her seeing me as –"
"If you say broken again –"
"I don't want to burden her. I don't want her to grow up feeling like she has to help her mom instead of the other way around."
"I don't know what to say," Callie said. "You and I are the parents she has left, Arizona. I don't –"
Callie stopped talking suddenly. She didn't need to use words to get her point across. No, inside the daycare classroom, Sofia was doing that for her. They had just watched as Zola tripped and fell on the edge of the rug. She had hit her chin pretty hard off of the floor and was clearly in tears. Little Liam hadn't known what to do, so he was simply starring at her. Sofia, on the other hand, had taken action to make her buddy feel better. Her tiny arms were already wrapping Zola into a hug.
"Okay," Arizona said. "I stand corrected."
She had realized that her daughter wasn't going to see her as a burden. Really, she would never know any different. She would grow up always remembering her mother as an amputee. She probably wouldn't feel like this was terrible though. Instead, it would apparently make her a much more compassionate, kind, helpful little girl.
"She makes me so proud," the blond said. "Look at her!"
"Of course she does. She takes after her mama. Arizona, I've been hard on you. I know I have. But I haven't done it because I see something wrong with you. It's because I see your potential and all I want is the best for you. You make me proud, too. Look at all you've done since the crash. I know none of it was easy."
"Calliope?" she replied after a few beats of silence.
"Arizona?"
"I've been having phantom limb pain. Do you think you could help?"
"Let's go see what we can do about that," she smiled.
