Title: Extraordinary Measures
Author: J.M. Flowers
Rating: M
Photo: Thanks to Alejandra
AN: Mucho thanks to Kaitlyn for helping me to make the last section of this chapter past perfect. You're way past perfect, too, pimp. And thank you to my other superstar beta, Anna, who continues to astound me by going completely above and beyond. Couldn't do any of this without you two!
Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit
"Perhaps someday it will help to have remembered even these things"
"It was raining," Teddy offers, albeit uselessly, throwing back another shot of liquid confidence. Her face contorts with the burn of tequila, but she makes no effort to reach for a lime; we're drinking hard and fast, trying to find the softer edges of our grieving. "Friday night."
Exactly three months ago.
I run a hand angrily across my eyes, tipping a shot of my own into my mouth, though it does nothing to ward off the tears or the nausea pressing at the forefront of my skull. She continues.
"It was so dark."
My mind races back to that night: the sheen of water across the pavement, how it glowed beneath the streetlights. How hard it must've been to see.
"We were joking around, telling stories, laughing. We were laughing."
"With you, it's breakfast."
"We'd had such a good day..." She trails off, watching Joe serving more drinks at the other end of the bar. She squishes a napkin in her fingertips, working out the stiffness of the tears it has already caught. "We had the right of way," she swears, "It was a green light."
I hear the crunch of metal in my head, the push of an engine revving long after it should've stopped. I feel the digging of a seatbelt against my shoulders - clavicle - where I'd kissed her just that morning. I smell the copper tinge of blood, hear the shattering of glass.
"And then there was screaming."
I push off the bar stool, away from Teddy, away from yet another painful reliving of that night. I already know about the day they spent together: lunch, a movie, a carefree drive. I saw the blood that coated their skin, read the reports on the accident. I know the alcohol levels of the other driver, know that he walked away unscathed.
I wander to the place where we first met, dimly lit and grimy like it's always been. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror: the sunken hollows of my eyes; the chapped texture of my lips; the blotchy paleness of my skin. I lean over the sink, gagging, but nothing comes and that just seems to make everything worse.
I collapse to the floor, sobbing, burying my face in the halo of my arms, praying that when the door opens it'll be her again. "I think you'll know." Instead it's Teddy, kneeling at my feet, stroking at my hair, whispering more apologies.
"I'm so sorry, Callie."
Sorry doesn't bring her back to life.
#
"Dr. Torres," Denia greets, opening the door to let me. She falls silent as we climb the stairs to the room where he keeps the machine. I count twenty-four steps, as I always do: the number of days she'd been gone the first time I came to see him. It's been four times that long, now.
The machine is tucked away behind the curtains, hidden from the world as it has been for years. He sits in a chair by the window, looking out over the deserted warehouse district streets, a blanket wrapped taut around his frail figure.
"Good morning, Callie," he manages, shaking with the effort. He shudders with a cough that makes Denia flinch before she rushes to his side. The wheeze has gotten thicker.
"Not much longer," I whisper, watching the tears well in Denia's eyes.
He nods. "Get Dr. Torres ready for her session," he tells the nurse tucking the blanket tighter around his frail body, "She's going to have to say goodbye soon, too."
Green eyes flick between the two of us before she reluctantly rises, crossing the room to open the curtains. I settle into the plastic covered chair, moving with it when the motors begin forcing it backwards. Denia's experienced hands attach monitors to my head and heart, the beeping that comes along with them all too familiar.
"Are you ready?" she asks softly.
I nod. I'm always ready.
The first pinch is the anaesthetic plunging into my left arm, the second a concoction formed years ago by his brilliant mind. The machine whirs to life around me, dragging me down into the recesses of my mind, back to the only reality I've ever wanted to live: Arizona.
"Calliope," she whispers into my ear, lips wrapping themselves around the lobe, "Wake up."
This is where I'm supposed to be.
#
Alex heaves into the garbage can, Kepner's eyes well with tears, Meredith shouts stats as the team of doctors moves towards the elevator.
"I'm so sorry," Teddy cries.
I run towards the stairwell, feet barely touching the ground, the distance between myself and the surgical floor getting smaller with each passing second. OR 2, OR 2. I fly through the door of the operating room, clutching a mask to my face, wrenching sobs tearing their way out of my chest when Arizona's eyes easily find mine.
"Calliope," she smiles softly, "Don't cry."
I march up to her, ignoring protests, to press my lips gently against her own. "I love you," I promise, "I will always love you."
Her eyes hood, dimples appearing in her cheeks. "I'm going to be fine, Calliope," she whispers, "It doesn't even hurt."
#
The gallery chair digs against my skin, my body somehow curled entirely into it. Mark sits beside me, both of us intently watching the surgery below.
"Start with the brain bleed," Shepherd had said, making the first incision along her scalp.
Bailey's turn begins as he is closing, a ten blade pressing along the freckled expanse of Arizona's abdomen. A freckled expanse that is all mine. Within seconds, blood is pouring out.
"Find the bleeds!" Bailey shouts, instructing Avery's hands into the open cavity of Arizona's chest. But the blood keeps coming, dark red and haunting.
My eyes settle onto the monitors, her pressure dropping.
"Dr. Bailey," Owen asks, "Can you find the bleed?"
"Her liver is ruptured," she answers, taking gauze from nurses' hands in an effort to stave off the flow. There's blood in the peritoneum.
"She's bottoming out."
The beeping of the machines settle into a solid screech, a screaming in my head. I'm on my feet, hands pressed against the glass, another scream clawing at the back of my throat.
"Clear!" someone yells.
Her body jumps beneath the paddles.
"Charge to 300. Clear!"
My stomach heaves.
"Charge to 400!"
My hands slam against the glass.
"Clear!"
There's no response. There's too much blood.
"Someone call it," Shepherd whispers.
I scream. "No! Keep trying!" The words cut at the inside of my throat. My hands go numb, banging incessantly against the glass, a single word falling from my mouth in eerie repetition. "No! No! NO!"
"Time of death 10:51 pm."
"NO!"
#
"Callie," she'd murmured across the darkness of their bedroom, already tucked beneath the covers, watching her wife change. "I need you to promise me something."
"Anything," Callie had answered easily, not stopping to look back at her.
"If it was me... If it ever came down to turning off the machines-"
Her wife had turned sharply, catching her gaze. "Don't."
"I want you to turn them off," she'd finished.
"No," had echoed through the shake of a brunette head, the space between them closing. They'd kissed fiercely, trying to erase the images of a sobbing widow that seemed to be haunting them both. "I'm never going to have to live without you."
"If anything ever happens to me," Arizona had continued, "I don't want you to keep me on life support." Full lips had opened to argue, quickly interrupted. "We work in the hospital all day, Calliope. I wouldn't want you to be coming home to that reality, too." She'd taken a deep, shuddering breath. "And if I couldn't be with you in my fullest capacity... I want to believe I'd be with my brother instead, so promise me."
Brunette head had shaken again, harder, sealing her wife's mouth with her own. "Don't," she'd cried, "Nothing is going to happen to you. We have forever."
"Promise me, Calliope," Arizona had repeated, "No extraordinary measures."