TITLE: We Will Survive
FANDOM: Grey's Anatomy
PAIRING: Callie/Arizona
WORD COUNT: 1540
SUMMARY: My take on life post plane crash, some season 9 spoilers.
Authors Note: Not sure if you all guessed but this is my first Fic. Not entirely sure how long It's going to be but having been inspired by your lovely comments and follows here is chapter two, sorry it's a bit shorter. Hope you like and please review if you feel the need!
"NO! NO! I CAN'T!" The screams coming from her wife for the third successive night woke the blonde with a start and she curled herself around her other half and tried to gently wake her from her nightmare. They had started a few weeks ago ever since the night Callie had finally broken down with Arizona and there was no sign of them stopping or getting any better, if anything they were getting worse.
"Callie, Callie it's ok sweetie, wake up. It's ok, you're safe." Arizona whispered into the Latina's ear.
"mmmph, no. It won't work." Arizona started to gently shake her wife to bring her back to the present. Callie stirred and felt Arizona's arms wrapped around her and registered her soothing whispers.
"Arizona?"
"Yes sweetie, it's ok you had a nightmare. Again."
"What time is it?"
"Nearly 4, you want to talk about it?" Arizona asked knowing the answer. It was always the same.
"No it's fine it was nothing." Callie whispered, rubbing her eyes where her tears had dried. Arizona held Callie closer and pushed a little,
"Babe you've been talking and restless in you sleep for a few weeks and now you're shouting out and thrashing around. You're going to wake Sofia one of these nights."
That was the wrong thing to say.
"Yeh whatever, if I wake her with my noisy dreams I'll be sure to get up, don't worry yourself about that!" Callie spat trying to wrestle out of Arizona's embrace.
"Hey, hey hey that's not what I meant and you know it. I'm worried about you Cal, you're not sleeping and you're barely eating at home and I know you're working yourself into the ground at work. I'm just trying to help; I just want you to talk to me. Where were you just now before you woke up huh?"
"I can't remember." Callie said quickly but quietly.
"Really?" Arizona replied with her best patronising motherly tone.
Silence for a minute,
"Don't make me talk about it, please." Callie whispered.
"Babe you're nightmares are going to start affecting your work, if you don't talk to me, how about going to see Dr Wyatt? Remember what I said a few weeks ago, you can't do it all."
"They already are."
"What?"
"Affecting my work, kinda."
"Your nightmares are affecting you in surgery?"
"They're not nightmares."
"Callie"
"No I'm not shutting you out. They're not nightmares. I think I know where they're coming from but they're not nightmares…they're erm…they're memories."
"Oh."
Callie turned to face her wife and pulled her closer.
"I need to tell you the truth."
Arizona tensed in her lover's embrace, took a deep breath and held it.
"Arizona?"
"I'm listening.," she squeaked out.
Callie had never told Arizona the story of her arrival in Seattle or what exactly happened. All she knew was that Bailey fixed her ribs, lung and put in a chest tube while Callie assessed her leg and then removed it as was necessary.
"When you came out of the helicopter you were barely conscious, you were clearly hypoxic, in septic and most likely hypovolemic shock. We rushed you to the OR and Owen told me I couldn't operate. I screamed at him and told him there was nobody west of New York that was up to the task of operating on my wife's leg and he finally relented. Bailey, Kepner and I scrubbed in and got started." Callie was rushing the details out, she knew it was time to come clean but now she just wanted the guilt and secrets all out in the open as quickly as possible. Arizona just hugged her tighter, willing her to continue,
"When I got in and could properly assess the damage and thought a serious round on antibiotics would control the infection and I could use rods and external fixation to sort out your bone." Callie paused and took a deep breath.
"I..I..thought I could do it. I thought I could save it." she choked out, her voice cracking.
"Hey, sshhhh don't cry, please babe don't cry. It's ok, you did what was necessary, and I know that, we all know that!"
"No!" "I..i'm not who you thought I was. I'm no rockstar. I'm awful."
Arizona looked up, a confused expression on her face. She tenderly took her hand up to Callie's cheek and gently wiped the fresh tears away. "Whatever you are trying to tell me and what is clearly eating you up will feel much better once you tell me. I promise. I know you couldn't save my leg, I know you did all you could. I don't blame you Cal, I never have and I never could."
"I didn't. I didn't do all I could. I fr…I froze." More tears fell and Arizona kissed them away this time.
"Oh my darling Calliope. Please do not tell me you've been beating yourself up for nearly 5 months because you had a human moment during surgery."
"It wasn't a moment Arizona. Owen was right, I had no right to be in that OR but I'd be so damn cocky and insistent that he'd had no option and then with you open and vulnerable on my table I froze and I couldn't continue."
Arizona continued kissing her wife's tears away and her own started to flow.
"What happened then babe?"
"Bailey."
Arizona smiled. "Of course."
****Flashback****
"Callie, Callie look at me. You're ok, don't think about who this is, just think about what you need to do and get it done girl."
"I can't"
"You can, it's ok just keep breathing"
"No, No Bailey I can't. I can't save it."
The smaller surgeon looked up into the eyes of her friend and valued colleague. Callie wore a plastic eye visor with her scrub mask, which was usually a safety thing to keep any bone fragments out of her eyes, but right now it was keeping the tears cascading down her cheeks from falling into her wife's unsalvageable limb.
"Dr Kepner"
"Yes Dr Bailey?"
"You are going to take over from me here please and finish the chest tube and I am going to go round to Dr Torres' side of the table ok?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Julie can we get Dr Torres a stool please."
As Bailey got situated on Callie's side of the table she took one look at her distraught friend, sitting in the corner slumped over on an OR stool, her sterile mask ripped from her face as she emptied the contents of her long forgotten lunch into a small plastic basin.
"I've got her Callie, I've got her." Bailey whispered under her breath, cleared her throat and then asked, "Drill please."
Arizona just held Callie close and she recounted the events in the OR.
"Nobody knew because nobody asked, they just assumed I'd done it. We'd shut off all the galleries for you guys surgeries and Bailey or Kepner didn't ever correct anyone." Callie said as she blew her nose and tried to stop crying. She was exhausted.
"Cal, Do you remember the sinkhole?"
"Of course."
"Why did Owen go down there?"
"No Arizona that was different. He was just a guy. He couldn't cut his wife's leg off because he'd never done it before or was freaked at the sight of it or whatever."
"You don't know that."
"What about you? You've done it?"
"What?"
"Sofia."
"No. Callie that was different."
"How? How was that any different? I'm not supermom, you are!"
"Is this why you've been throwing yourself back into work and trying to be super mom/wife and doctor?"
Silence.
"Callie, you were coding on the table. I couldn't help you but Sofia couldn't breathe. Lucy was out of her depth and Addison was trying to save you. I stepped up because I had to and it was the hardest thing I've ever had to do." Arizona pulled Callie's chin up so she could look into her eyes, "You're forgetting the next part."
"I am?"
"Stark's repair a week or so later. Things weren't going too good and I was watching it and suddenly I couldn't face it. I ran out the OR, terrified I was loosing someone else that I loved. Mark pulled me back in a few moments later. I wasn't a surgeon then, I was human. I was her Mommy. It wasn't a life or death moment just like yours wasn't. Owen was right. I understand why you were in there but nobody could do what you tried to do that night babe. Please please believe me."
Callie let out a deep sigh. "I don't know." "I guess I'm just glad you know, I think I've been terrified of what you'd think and now you know its just gone, like that weight has been lifted. Like I can breathe."
"Feel better?"
"Mmmhm"
"Think you could get some more sleep?"
"If you promise not to move."
"I promise."
They settled down and felt closer again that they had since Arizona had arrived home.
"Arizona?" Callie mumbled sleepily.
"Yes babe?"
"You excited? For today?"
"Yes."
"You're getting a new leg."
"I'm getting a new leg."
"Love you"
"Love you too. So much."