Callie and Arizona have put the trauma of the last couple of months behind them and are gradually healing their relationship when a seemingly innocuous incident threatens the very foundations of their love and the possibility of a future together.
Rated: M for language and mature themes.
They say that there are only 7 basic plots, so if this story feels derivative or familiar, I apologise, it probably is. Romance, angst, sex and potty humour to found herein and not necessarily in that order. I also realise that I didn't do what good writers are supposed to do i.e. arrive late and leave early, the story meanders forever; sorry about that.
If the spirit moves you, feel free to leave feedback, constructive criticism or tell me that I used the semi colon incorrectly.
Oh yeah, I speak no Spanish and I have zero medical knowledge. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: Grey's Anatomy and all characters belong to ABC, Shondra Rhimes et al. No profit being made here etc, etc etc.
Thank you for the feedback, since you've been so nice, I thought I'd add a little more.
2
A few days later, Callie and Arizona walked home from Joe's. Practically the whole hospital had crowded into the bar to unofficially welcome back Derrick, Alex and Owen. The surgeons had all recovered and returned to work, some months back but no one help felt like celebrating, especially in the midst of the suffering and loss.
But life went on, people recovered, they celebrated and they lived their lives.
The night was dark and quiet and Callie and Arizona walked the short distance back to their apartment, Arizona's arm looped through Callie's who had her hands shoved deep into her pockets. Her head was lowered and she stared at the pavement as they walked, murmuring quietly in response to Arizona's chatter.
Arizona chewed on her lip for a second as she took a sideways look at Callie's face, trying to peer through the curtain of dark hair that framed her pensive face.
"Are you going to tell me what's bothering you? Because I have to tell you, reading minds isn't one of my super powers."
"Bullshit, you can read my mind in your sleep," Callie replied absently, her eyes still glued downwards.
She seemed to realise that Arizona had slowed to a halt and was still waiting for a reply and raised her head, flashing a brilliant smile at the Paediatrics surgeon.
"I'm just thinking, that's all." She hugged Arizona's arm closer to her and began walking but stared when Arizona stood her ground.
"Maybe it's nothing, maybe I'm being a little over-sensitive but ..." Arizona trailed off and raised her eyebrows.
"You had a nightmare. Then we had the most amazing morning sex this side of the millennia and then you ...you kind of shut down...went away. You've been a little distant and I can't understand why."
Callie heaved a sigh and looked into the face of the woman she adored. She had once found Arizona so hard to read, to understand but now, the confusion was clear to see. That and her love. Now Callie could always see Arizona's love for her glowing, like a beacon in a stormy sea.
She had been a little introspective the last couple of days and clearly she hadn't hidden it particularly well.
Pulling her hand free, she tucked a loose strand of blonde hair behind Arizona's ear and smiled again, a wry twist of her full lips, acknowledging Arizona's concern.
"I've been thinking about things, about us but I didn't mean to shut you out..." she tried to explain.
"Baby, just tell me what's on your mind." Arizona smiled, nodding her encouragement.
"I've decided to make a will." Callie stated baldly. "And an advance medical directive," she added a little nervously.
"I'm not asking you to do anything but I want you to be taken care of if anything should happen to me and I want you making my health care decisions if... well, you know." She finished on a rush and looked at Arizona's face anxiously. It wasn't that it was such a big deal in the grand scheme of things, it was what couples did but Callie knew that she was deliberately steering them in a direction that she wasn't 100% certain that Arizona was completely ready for.
Arizona opened her mouth and then closed it, tilting her head slightly.
"Was that was kept you so quiet this week?"
"Yes. No. Well, only partly." Callie couldn't tell how Arizona was taking the news. All she did was raise her eyebrows at her, a gentle questioning smile curved her lips.
What the hell, right? Callie thought and went the whole hog.
"I want us to get a place of our own. A place that we both call home. I don't want to make the trip every other week to your place to pick up mail or the shirt you forgot. I want to come home to place where I know you'll always be."
Arizona listened silently, watching Callie's face become more and more animated as she talked, the fire in her eyes that had seemed banked down ignited again and her whole body buzzed with energy. She was struck again, at how miraculous, how breathtakingly stunning she found Calliope.
"We have this thing, Arizona," Callie continued, aware of Arizona's scrutiny but needing to express her thoughts, "this connection, this emotional, spiritual connection. My heart, my soul recognises yours anywhere, there's this invisible gossamer thread that's bound us together and, and..."
Callie ran out of steam and shrugged.
"I just want us to have a physical thing that ties us together as well. I want somewhere that we both call home."
Arizona smiled very slightly and leaned forward to brush her lips against Callie's. She leaned into the taller woman and whispered gently.
"I love you so much, right now, Callie and there's nothing I'd want more than to have a home with you. I don't care where, just as long as it's with you."
Callie released the breath that she hadn't realised that she was holding.
"Are you ok with the rest, the will?"
Arizona started walking and Callie fell in beside her, examining her face. A car drove past, its headlights lit up the street and Callie could see the sudden sheen of tears in Arizona's eyes.
"Arizona?"
"I honestly can't bear to think of a world that doesn't have you in it, living, breathing, loving me but if it gives you peace of mind, I'll sign it and we'll put it away and never talk about it again." Arizona turned to Callie and added, "At least not until the children come. And as for the advanced directive, I've got one as well. I was just waiting for the right time to talk to you about it. Just, please, please don't tell me you've got a DNR."
Callie nodded but couldn't get any words out. Her throat was tight with emotion and she blinked a few times to stop the tears from building up.
It was the first time Arizona had voluntarily mentioned children in their future. She knew that the blonde was still adjusting to the fact that she had agreed to parent with Callie but this was a major step. Perhaps it meant that she was accepting parenthood not as something she was doing for Callie, but something they were doing for each other.
Arizona pulled Callie to a sudden halt and flung her arms around her in a bear hug and then landed a huge sloppy one on her surprised mouth.
"What was that for?" Callie laughed at Arizona's sudden exuberance.
"We're getting a place together. Yay!"
Callie grinned at her and basked in the warmth of Arizona's love.
"Yay."
Callie read her pager and made her way to the ER. Arizona had paged her but seeing as she hadn't asked her to come to their favourite on-call room, she was guessing that she needed an ortho consult and not a midday quickie. Which was a shame.
She could see Arizona talking to a middle-aged couple, April Kepner taking notes by her side. Her face was sombre and though Callie couldn't hear the words spoken, the woman, who had to be some poor child's mother, crumpled at what was being said. April and the husband propped her up and led her away, quietly sobbing.
"What can I do to help?" Callie asked as she approached a curtained off cubicle.
Arizona looked up from her chart and smiled. It was a weary, unhappy smile and Callie knew that whatever it was, it couldn't be good. She turned to April instructing her to complete the history and check up on the patient.
"Josiah Benton, 16 years old, appears to have broken every bone in his right hand. It was crushed between a fender and a brick wall." She looked at Callie and shrugged, "Parking the family car, needed to open the gates and forgot the parking brake. The car rolled towards him and ..."
Callie nodded. It would probably be an intricate and time-consuming procedure but hardly life threatening. She couldn't understand Arizona's internalised distress.
Arizona made some notes in the chart her eyes fixed on the page in front of her.
"He was due to start a pre-college programme at Julliard, studying the violin." She finally looked up and sank her hands into her pockets.
"Full scholarship, wanted to be a concert violinist, apparently a very promising talent. The parents are crushed and they're worried about how this will affect him. It's something he's wanted all his life."
Callie's heart sank. It was one thing to fix bones, it was completely another thing to try and repair every last bit of bone and nerve damage that might have been done to the fragile hand of a teenager.
"I've explained to Josiah's parents that with the level of muscle bone and nerve damage, he's likely to experience some considerable loss in mobility..."
That explained the mother's collapse.
"Let's look at the films first, ok?"
Callie looked at the films and chewed her lip, thinking hard. It was every bit as bad as Arizona had intimated but Callie loved a challenge and the longer she looked at the films, the more she was convinced that this kid didn't need to give up his dreams.
"Arizona, there's a possibility that I can do more than just patch up the bones and send Josiah home." Callie explained as she pointed to various points on the film.
"I need to do a little research but we might be able give this kid a shot at playing at Carniege Hall."
Arizona looked from the films back to Callie's face.
"You really think it's possible?"
"Going in blind, I'd give it maybe a 40% success rate, but give me an hour to check out a procedure they did at Barts in London and order some more pictures, an MRI would help, perhaps even a 3D scan as well."
Arizona smiled as she could hear the enthusiasm in Callie's voice as she spelt out her plans. Most of her colleagues took pride in their work; they were interested in the outcome of their patient's lives. But Callie took this commitment to a different level. Callie wouldn't think twice of going the extra hundred miles for her patients; she cared like crazy for them, investing everything of herself, her whole heart sometimes, in mending their broken bones. Arizona thought of how Callie had mended her broken heart. But now was time to be a professional support to the Orthopaedic surgeon, not a besotted and more than a little horny girlfriend.
"The surgery will be long and difficult. We'll have to order a specialist titanium alloy to Josiah's exact specifications."
40 minutes later Callie detailed her plans to Josiah and his parents as Arizona looked on.
Callie turned and spoke directly to Josiah, smiling at him; projecting all the confidence she could to bolster his courage and allay his obvious fears.
"I'm not going to lie to you. If this works, you're still going to have months of physio. You're going to need to build up additional muscle in your forearm to have the extra mobility and range of movement and sensitivity that you need in your fingers. There's going to be a lot of hard work involved."
"Don't you think it took hard work to get a full scholarship to Julliard?" The boy, not quite a man yet, spat out, his dark eyes flashing.
"Josiah, manners." Amelia Benton snapped, sending an apologetic glance in Callie's direction. Callie shook her head briefly, shaking off the boy's outburst. If she were faced with the prospect of never going into surgery again, she'd be more than a little snippy.
"I can only imagine how hard you have to work, practising for hours a day, every day, to get to where you are. But you're a musical athlete, Josiah not a physical one. After this surgery, you're going to have learn to be both." She pulled up a stool and sat down using her own arm as a template.
"I'm going to put very thin, very flexible rods here, here and here," she pointed to various spots on her forearm. I'm then going to do something similar in your fingers; this will help reinforce the broken bones and give you the strength you need to play for long periods of time." She looked up to make sure that everyone was following her." She paused for half a second at the admiration that shone out of Arizona's eyes. Willing her blush to go away, she turned back to Josiah.
"As far as the scans show, there's minimal nerve damage, what little there is can be repaired. This is a good thing. But for all this to work, Josiah, for you to play the violin the way you want to, these muscles will need to be developed. Considerably." She dropped the smile and looked at him seriously.
"Are you up for it?"
"Dude, why aren't we in surgery already?" Josiah burst out eagerly. He shot a look at his parents and quickly amended.
"I mean, Yes. Yes, ma'am, I am. When can we start?"
Callie laughed at his eagerness and stood up. She admired the kid's courage and tenacity. He knew what he wanted and was willing to do whatever it took to reach his goal. She patted Josiah on the shoulder. She admired him a lot.
"I've made some calls and we should get the right materials in a few hours and then we'll be ready for surgery first thing tomorrow."
Callie shared a smile with Josiah and his parents and made to leave but sobered upas a final thought occurred to her.
"There is one final thing that you need to be aware of." She looked at the parent's faces and saw the fear come rushing back.
"It's not too bad, it shouldn't be," she reassured them. "But you need to be aware that African-American skin is prone to forming keloids. It's like a lumpy but smooth scar tissue. There's very little research to indicate why this happens or predict when it might happen. We may need to get a Plastics consult after the surgery."
"If you can help me play again, I'll happily live with a few scars," Josiah was earnest as he looked up between Callie and Arizona.
"I just want to be able to play again."
"Wow, I'm super-excited about this; it's pretty revolutionary, right?"
They had left the family and were walking towards the nurse's station, Arizona fairly bouncing beside Callie. She had spent the previous evening going through the procedure, making sure that the rods were the exact specifications required and talking the op through again with Josiah.
The Orthopaedic surgeon grinned at the blonde's boundless enthusiasm.
"One step at a time. We need to see if the surgery works first and then whether he can use his hand the way he wants to." Callie was excited but was also cautious about the prognosis. It was one thing to successfully carry out this surgery, but she wouldn't be satisfied until she heard Josiah playing his violin like a maestro.
"Yeah, but still ..." Arizona refused to be anything other than hugely impressed with her bad assed girlfriend. Predictably, her pager went off.
"Gotta go?" Callie queried, seeing Arizona's moue of disappointment.
"Uh huh. RTA. Ruptured spleen in a 6 year old." She hooked up her pager and reached up on tip toe to plant a gentle kiss on Callie's smooth cheek. Stroking the soft skin, she smiled into Callie amused eyes and grinned.
"I will come find you the minute I get out of surgery or I'll be in the gallery, leading the cheering section."
"Go. Be awesome, I'll see you later." Callie took a quick look round and seeing that the coast was clear, took a quick kiss from Arizona's lips.
A few hours later, Callie was in the lounge busy checking the chart and diagrams for the surgery, mentally going through the procedure in her mind.
She'd hoped to see Arizona before she started but an emergency had pulled her into another surgery and she was still busy.
Mark strolled in and grinned at Callie.
"You looking forward to 10 hours on your feet, Torres? I swear you're a glutton for punishment."
Callie stuck her tongue out at him.
"You'd do the same, Sloan. If you had the skills."
"Funny..." He was about to respond further when a petite woman in scrubs entered the room.
Callie didn't immediately recognise her but smiled and caught a faint expression flicker over Mark's face.
"Dr Torres?" she asked of Callie.
"That's right. I'm sorry... I don't believe we've met."
The woman smiled and Callie wondered if Mark had checked her out yet. She was probably in her mid thirties and had incredible bone structure, incredibly high cheekbones and a delicate jaw. She had what looked to be russet hair stuffed under her scrub cap and the most unusual green eyes. She was a very striking woman.
She offered her hand and Callie stood up to shake it. She was slightly surprised and a little impressed with the firm handshake the tiny woman offered. She couldn't be entirely sure, but it seemed that she also held the handshake for a faction of a second longer than was strictly necessary.
"I wanted to introduce myself to you. I'm Elizabeth Bennett; I'll be your anaesthetist on the Benton case today, Chief Webber just assigned me to you." She nodded at Mark who responded with a slight smile.
"Oh, right. What happened to Ben Warren?" Callie asked a little nonplussed at the sudden switch.
"I understand that he's been taken sick and had to go home." The woman leaned against a table and gave Callie a frank stare.
"I know that you've probably got a crew together that understand what you need from them and it's a pain to be landed someone strange at the last minute but I've read through the notes and checked Josiah's chart and we should be just fine."
Callie nodded absently. Something the woman said caught her attention.
"I'm sorry, did you say Elizabeth Bennett?"
The woman laughed lightly, a soft melodic sound and rolled her eyes.
"Yes. Mother was a Jane Austin fan, but most people call me Liz."
"Right," Callie nodded and paused. Mark had been uncharacteristically quiet during this exchange. Something he never did in the presence of a beautiful woman.
For the merest hint of time, Callie's thoughts went to Arizona and she wondered if she was on her way. It felt as if she was nearby.
"I have to say, I'm really excited to see you work, I've heard a lot of good things about you." Liz Bennett smiled again and raised an eyebrow.
"You have quite the reputation, Dr Torres. Or may I call you Calliope?"
"Umm, people call me Callie, actually," Callie responded, trying to ignore Mark's muffled laughter. She had a sneaking suspicion that he knew something she didn't.
She crossed her arms in front of her and then wished she hadn't. It made her look defensive and there was nothing for her to be defensive about.
"And reputation...?" she prompted. The way the woman said it, it almost sounded laden with innuendo. But that was just her imagination, right? This woman really wasn't coming on to her 30 seconds after meeting her?
"For being one of the very best when it comes to orthopaedic surgeries. I've heard that these hands can work wonders."
Amazingly the woman actually trailed her small hand along Callie's arm from her elbow to her hand, where she let it remain.
Mark's eyes bulged and Callie, after a stunned pause, carefully removed the hand from hers and allowed it to drop.
Yeah, Liz Bennett was hitting on her.
Terrific.
Fixing a pleasant smile on her face, Callie decided to kept things professional and ignoring the frankly inappropriate touching, she responded lightly.
"I try my best. I'm pretty passionate about my work."
Liz gave her a long stare, her unusual green eyes sparkling with amusement and something else.
"I imagine that you're pretty passionate about lots of things."
Callie blinked. She really should have seen that coming.
Faintly she could hear Mark choking and hoped he'd swallowed his adam's apple. She also wished the ground would open up and swallow him. She knew she was never going to hear the end of this.
She opened her mouth, this time to make it clear that she wasn't available but a couple of attending surgeons came in and milled about, ruining any chance of ending the conversation satisfactorily.
"I'll see you in the OR, Callie." Liz Bennett smiled lightly and looked briefly and Mark before winking at him and walking out.
Callie spun to face a laughing Mark Sloan.
"Did you put her up to that, Mark?" Callie didn't know whether to groan out loud or smack him in the face. She was too shocked to feel any amusement and it didn't even cross her mind to be flattered.
She also felt slightly uneasy, ever since the shooting, Callie had developed a weird kind of sixth sense when it came to Arizona. She now had the strangest suspicion that her girlfriend might have witnessed Dr Liz Bennett's little performance.
She looked over at the small window in the door but there was no one there. She knew that she'd be hopping mad if she'd come across some beautiful woman flirting with Arizona.
"Mark, I'm waiting?" she shot him a hard stare. He looked like he was enjoying himself way too much and she held up hope that the waaaaay over the top flirtation was just a prank.
"I swear I didn't but I have to say, I really like her style. Putting it out there, right off the bat, you gotta admire her...balls." He smirked at her.
"Wait, how the hell does she know I'm gay but not that I'm with someone. The way this hospital talks, Dr Elizabeth -my-mothers- a- Jane- Austen -fan Bennett must know about me and Arizona." Callie was perplexed.
"Torres, don't be naive. Dr Bennett looks like she'd crawl over a few bodies to get to what she wants, incumbent girlfriend notwithstanding." He gave Callie an amused look.
"Great, just what this hospital needs, another whore." Callie rolled her eyes and went back to her notes.
"Cal, all I'm saying is, she's hot. You're hot. Robbins, for all her chirpy demeanour, is also hot. You give me front-row seat to a threesome and I'll die a happy man. Ouch."
Callie, realising that she couldn't actually break any of his bones, poked him hard in the chest.
"Do not piss off Arizona, by teasing her about this, you hear me Sloan?"
"Awww, you're no fun." Mark rubbed the sore spot on his chest and ambled away.
TBC
