Summary: It's fifteen years later. Liam is admitted to Seattle Grace-Mercy West after collapsing during a baseball game.
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"You're late," Callie grins at her former roommate as she takes a seat next to her on the bleachers at the local high school baseball diamond.
"Sorry, lost track of time."
"Must be nice, my husband stopped distracting me like that 6 weeks ago. Do you have any idea what it's like to be pregnant with twins and have your husband withhold sex, citing it's too dangerous? Of course you don't, you and Roller Girl went at it like bunnies from the first." Callie laughs heartily, waving at her son on the pitcher's mound when he looks up at the sound.
"Actually I do – well, not the husband part at least – the last time Arizona and I 'went at it' when I was pregnant was a few hours before I went into labor, but before that it had been almost a month." She pats Christina reassuringly on the knee. "Don't worry, it'll all be over before you know it, and it'll all be totally worth it."
"Yeah, yeah."
Despite her grumbling, Callie can tell that Christina is really excited about her pregnancy. The first one, eleven years previous had been a total shock, more so when they found out that their OB had misread the ultrasound and Christina had delivered a second boy just minutes after the first. That trend had followed throughout the boys' lives, with Steven always hiding behind his twin brother, doing things just a few minutes after him. The adults all claim it's because Steven wants to make certain that he won't get into trouble for their actions, which seems odd, because even if David does get into trouble, Steven will often do it anyways, if only to split the blame for his brother. This time around they know for a fact that they're having two girls, a fact Owen is ecstatic about, Christina also, despite how much she'll state otherwise.
Looking around, Callie spots Steven and David Hunt just behind the home team dugout, playing catch – David a bit more enthusiastically than his brother. Callie easily recognizes the glove the young boy is using. For the longest time, Liam had refused to get a new glove, merely stitching up his old one with dental floss and fishing wire. When he had made the Varsity team as a freshman, he'd recognized that he'd finally need to retire his original glove and get a new one. Much to David's delight, Liam gave the young boy his old glove and the younger child never went anywhere without it.
Farther down the first base line, Carter stood with Lauren Sloan, Eileen Weatherly and Andy Robbins-Conway. Carter is bouncing her soccer ball around on her knees, ignoring the ranting of her friends. She still sports the mud-stained, blue and silver uniform from her own game that morning. Rather than sticking around for the boys' soccer game that followed hers, she headed down to the baseball diamond to watch her brother, returning the favor as he'd watched her game, skipping out on the team's usual pregame rituals for his own.
Eileen Weatherly, the 16-year-old stepdaughter of Teddy Altman, is listening to her ipod, bouncing her head along to the beat. Anyone that knows her knows that she's listening to her own recordings, not in vanity, but for improvement. She'd found out the previous day that she'd been accepted into Julliard's summer music program for high school students and had been practicing nonstop in preparation.
Lauren Sloan looks like she would rather be anywhere else but spending her Saturday at school, but she's always been the supportive Sloan, and she knows that the college scouts in the bleachers are not only watching the seniors, but also her boyfriend, Liam, who is only a sophomore and the starting pitcher, thanks to the usual starter hyper-extending his shoulder during spring break.
Andy Robbins-Conway looks like he would fit in better in a college lecture rather than at a high school baseball game. The oldest child of Jamie and Erin Conway had decided in childhood that he wanted to follow his father, Uncle Daniel and Cousin Michael into the Naval Academy and had striven to give the appearance and play the part of a future midshipman from that moment on. Always he wore crisply pressed khakis and freshly starched polos or long-sleeved button-downs with the collar lying flat over a sweater or sweater vest. His closet and drawers were always immaculate, with his clothes folded or hanging precisely the same way and color-coded. His schedule for maintaining the neatness was set in stone, and he had more than once been unofficially diagnosed with OCD. Those that knew him knew otherwise, for he was a total slob at heart.
With all of the kids accounted for, Callie settles in to watch the game, looking around at the crowd. She waves to a few of the parents, noticing that many of them are surreptitiously observing a few of the spectators. She's quick to spot the men and women wearing college jackets and picks out the scouts from Yale, Harvard, Notre Dame and Stanford. She doesn't see anyone from a service academy and is once again thankful that they don't have sports recruiters. Knowing that her son wants to play baseball in college is the only thing keeping him from applying to a military academy, though she knows he'd be able to make any team, whether he was asked to play or if he had to try out.
Liam is called in to the coach and the two have a short conversation before Liam heads back out to the mound, trying his hardest to keep a smile off his face, though failing, and allowing a tiny grin to grace his features, showing off his dimples. Callie knows that he's been informed that he'll be playing the entire game; having treated the other pitcher the previous week she knows that he won't be playing for most – if not all – of the rest of the season. She knows there's another pitcher waiting in the wings, but she also knows that the third-string pitcher isn't really ready – he could play, but he wouldn't be a guaranteed game winner.
Cheering her son on as he throws a couple warm-up pitches, Callie starts to worry; she notices that he's not throwing as strong as he tends to. Moments later, he's seen massaging his chest and Christina is on her feet and heading out onto the field – moving with surprising speed for a woman that's 8 months pregnant with twins – before Liam hits the dirt.
While Christina moves out onto the field, Callie calls Carter and the kids over, corralling Steven and David while Carter calls for an ambulance. The children have all been around the hospital long enough to know the direct line for the ambulances and how to bypass the 911 center.
Minutes later, EMTs are arriving on the scene and Christina is running through Liam's vitals while Andy holds Callie back and out of the way. Eventually Callie gets into the ambulance while Christina takes her friends keys and herds the kids out to the cars, allowing Andy to take Callie's car while the rest of the older kids pile into Eileen's car for the trip to the hospital.
"Hey, what are you doing here? I thought Liam and Carter had games today." Teddy approaches Arizona in the ambulance bay.
"They do, but I've taken too many Saturdays off lately with all the tournaments this year. Calliope is at the games though. What have we got coming?"
"I suppose we're about to find out, the call didn't go through the hospital emergency board, so we don't have any details." Teddy rushes forward to greet the ambulance, stopping short when Callie leads the EMTs out of the vehicle.
"Calliope," Arizona looks past her to the body on the stretcher the EMTs are leading into the ER. "Liam. What happened?" She rushes forward to check on her son.
"He collapsed during warm-ups."
"There's something funky going on with his heartbeat, but for anything more technical, you'll need to get a cardiologist down here." The young EMT comments after his colleague spout off Liam's stats, handing over the paperwork.
"That's where I come in," Teddy steps in. "And for future reference, kid, I suggest you not use adjectives like 'funky' when describing a kids' heart function to their surgeon parents."
"Right," the young man has the decency to look embarrassed while shooting an apologetic grin to Callie and Arizona before heading back out with his team.
"I swear those kids get younger and younger every day." Teddy comments before heading into the trauma bay, shouting out tests for an intern to get a spot in line for Liam along the way.
"So, what's the verdict?" Carter attacks Teddy as she approaches her brother's room, reaching for the chart that Teddy quickly holds out of her reach.
"Inside," Teddy leads her into the room that is already packed to capacity. Over the years, the hospital has grown accustomed to seeing the children of its surgeons in the building as patients and long ago threw out the 'two person per hour' rule. Arizona called Alex in to take her place as the pediatric attending on the case with Erin to supervise him – not that he needs the supervision – and he's constantly watching Liam's stats, while Christina is on hand to keep an eye on his heart functions. While she wanted nothing more than a case to come in on to get her off of maternity leave, it's obvious that these circumstances are not the ones that she wanted.
"So, unfortunately there's no way to sugar coat this," Teddy faces Callie and Arizona who is grasping one hand, while Lauren grasps his other hand. "His heart is failing."
"He's fifteen." Callie comments, incredulously.
"There's an indication in his blood work of an infection, we're working on narrowing it down and once we have, we'll get him on antibiotics. Good news: it's fixable with surgery, so he might not need a transplant."
"And the bad news?" Arizona is clearly afraid to know.
"I'm not comfortable performing this surgery. I've done it, but not in a very long time. I'd recommend bringing someone in to perform the surgery."
"What part of his heart is affected?" Arizona questions.
"The echo indicates that the wall between the two halves of his heart is what was weakened by the infection and the heart is now leaking blood between the two halves."
"Aunt Erica," Carter exclaims, causing everyone in the room to turn toward her. "She's done tons of research on the topic – heck the research earned her a Harper Avery – if there's anyone out there that can perform this surgery, it's her."
Callie and Arizona share a look. Fortunately the relationship between the women has vastly improved. When Erica married her girlfriend ten years ago, the two women asked Carter and Liam to be their flower girl and ring bearer; Arizona and Callie were also asked to be the godparents to their oldest child. The women speak often, at least once a month, sharing the newest details of their lives. After a few silent minutes of conversation, Callie pulls out her phone and hits the speed dial for Erica.
"Hey, Erica, it's Callie… I need your help."