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When Callie got home, she realized she didn't have any of the ice cream she was craving, so she decided to head to the store to get some.

However, when Mark came over an hour later, his best friend wasn't there. He called her phone and got no answer three different times, so he figured she had probably ended up getting called back to work for some reason. After all, especially since they lived so close to the hospital, this happened often.

He went in through the entrance to Emergency thinking that, if she had been called back suddenly, he would probably find her there. He didn't see her, though.

"Do you know if Callie's here?" he asked Derek.

"I haven't seen her," he said, putting on a trauma gown and a pair of gloves.

Mark watched as a representative of most specialties came running to join Derek. Something big had happened and they were waiting for the patient or patients to get to the hospital.

"What happened?" he asked. "Need me for anything?"

"Pregnant woman with severe head and chest trauma," Bailey answered. "Collided with a truck, and wasn't wearing a seatbelt."

"So she went through the windshield," Owen added.

Mark cringed, but before he could say anything, the patient was being rushed through the doors.

"How many weeks is she?" Lucy asked the paramedics.

"Not sure," one of them answered. "She's conscious, but we weren't able to get a straight answer. And she was the only one in the car."

"That's –" Lucy said, looking down.

Mark finally got a good look, too. It felt like this whole thing was suddenly happening in slow motion. He was used to trauma situations, but he never expected to see what he saw. The woman on the stretcher – the woman who had been thrown through a windshield – was Callie.

"What the -?" he asked, reaching for his own yellow gown.

"Mark, let us do this," Derek said. "We've got this." He looked down to Callie. "Callie, we've got this okay?"

"Has she lost consciousness at all?" Owen asked the paramedics.

"Not since we arrived on the scene," he was told.

"I'm doing this," Mark demanded as they rushed off with Callie. "I have to!"

They took Callie into a trauma room, but Richard took a minute before going in. He understood exactly why Mark felt like he had a place in that room, but he just couldn't let him in.

"Sloan, you can't do this," he told him. "That…in there, that's your family. You can't think like a doctor. You'll think like a friend and a dad. Torres needs surgeons."

"They're everything I have," Mark said.

"I know," he nodded.

"She needs me in there," he told him. "Please."

"Fine," he caved, just wanting to get in the room now. "Out of the way, okay?"

"Got it."

When they went in, the first thing Mark saw was Lucy trying to find a fetal heart rate. Everyone else was busy stabilizing Callie, but the baby was Lucy's focus, which Mark was glad for. Callie needed help, but so did their baby. He needed both of them to make it.

"I can't hear anything," Lucy said.

"Keep trying," he told her.

"Sloan, we don't need comments right now," Bailey said.

She was having a hard enough time as it was. Callie wasn't just any patient. The last thing she needed was to hear the desperation in Mark's voice.

"Got it," Lucy said as the wonderful whooshing sound began to be heard. "Baby's stable."

Callie's eyes locked on Mark.

"Torres, I need you to stay still," Derek told her. "Can you do that for me?"

"Callie, the baby's okay," Mark told her. "And you're gonna be okay, too. Both of you will get through this. Hear me?"

"Mark…" she forced out.

"I'm right here," he told her. "It's okay, Callie."

"Sorry," she replied weakly.

"Don't be sorry," he said. "Just stay with us. That's all you need to do."

"We're going to the O.R. now, okay Torres?" Richard asked, surprised that Callie was still conscious and even speaking. "We've got you."

"Mark…"

"Mark'll be in the gallery," Owen said. "He's here and he's gonna be here when you get out. Don't worry about him."

"Mark…"

"What?" Mark asked, moving closer.

He knew Callie and he knew there was something she wanted to say that felt important enough to be said right now. She wasn't going to give up until he knew what it was.

"If…if… -"

With that, Callie suddenly lost consciousness, causing all of the monitors to sound. Without even communicating it, everyone began racing to the O.R.

Five hours later, the doctors trailed out of the O.R. one by one, but Mark already knew what they were going to say.

"I can't," he said.

"We don't need a decision right now," Derek replied. "Torres is stable."

"But the sooner we do something, the better," Teddy said. "Callie's heart is –"

"I know," he said. "Callie'd have a better chance if the baby wasn't a part of all this."

"She would," Bailey nodded.

"And Fields is in over her head."

"I'm calling Addison," Derek said. "If anybody can save the baby, it's her."

"Is there anything we can do, Sloan?" Richard asked.

"Tell me what to do," he said. "Just…tell me."

"We can't do that," Owen replied. "You know the pros and cons, but we can't tell you what choice to make."

"I never thought this was even a hard choice," he said. "The baby's not here. Callie is. I always thought that was a no-brainer. But that's my kid. Here or not, that's my kid. And Callie wants that kid."

"Are you saying…?"

"I don't know what I'm saying," he said. "How the hell did this happen?"

"Derek," he said.

"Yeah?"

"What would you do?"

"Mark, I –"

"If that was Meredith," he said. "What would you do?"

"I don't know," he admitted, shaking his head.

"Go sit with Callie," Bailey said. "Maybe that'll give you some clarity."

"It won't," he said. "I have to pick which one of them I wanna give a decent chance. Do you know how impossible that is?"

"We can try to save both of them," Owen said.

"But is that really likely?" he asked. "We all know it's not."

"No."

"Can somebody call her dad?" he asked. "She'd want him to know."

"I can," Lexie nodded.

"We think you'd want to give Baby the best chance," he was telling Callie about an hour later.

Mark had spoken with Carlos Torres – who was doing his best to fly out as soon as he could – and they had decided that Callie wouldn't want them to deliver the baby so soon unless they absolutely had to. She wouldn't want to die either, but she would do anything for her child. Saving both of them wasn't likely, but they had to try.

Callie's father wasn't exactly Mark's biggest fan, but he did see that Mark clearly knew his daughter well and cared for her. He had told Mark that he was glad that he was there for Callie because, right this second, he couldn't be.

"So, we're not delivering Baby yet. Addison's coming. She's going to figure out what to do. She already told us to start steroids to help develop the baby's lungs just in case. You're almost twenty-four weeks. With the help of the steroids, this could work out. Okay? Even if we have to deliver it. Which we don't want to have to."

"Good," he heard a voice say from the doorway.

He looked up and saw Arizona. "You left her. Twice. You wanted nothing to do with this. You couldn't handle it when everything was fine. How can you handle it now?"

"I still love her, Mark," Arizona told him. "And when I heard –"

She started tearing up.

"This is my family. You didn't want this, Robbins."

"I didn't think she'd be clinging to life, though."

"Well, right now, she's stable. The baby's stable. You've seen her. Enough."

"It's good that you're not delivering the baby yet," she said. "Baby's born this early are so likely to have a whole host of problems."

"You don't think I know that? You don't think I'm not imagining my life with them both as vegetables? Believe me, I get exactly what could happen. And guess what? Unlike you, I'm not going to walk away."

"I'm here aren't I?"

"It's too late for that," he said. "She doesn't need you now."

"How do you know what she wants? She's unconscious."

"So now you think you can just step in and be the good girlfriend? What about all that time before? I had to pick up the pieces of what you broke, Arizona."

"I know. And I don't know what I want. All I know is that I heard what happened and being here was all that I wanted. I might not be her girlfriend and that might not be my baby, but I want what's best for her, Sloan. Love like we have doesn't just disappear."