A/N: Thanks folks for the reviews, I really appreciate them. Some of you asked for Callie's POV, so here it is. I was not originally going to do it this way, but readers need to be fed. I hope it's not too wordy or overwritten. This story is a little project I've had in my head for a few years, so we will see what happens. It's definitely thought out and planned, which I am not used to doing when I write.
Let me know if you have any suggestions. Thanks again. :)
Chapter 3
24 hours ago...
Callie had planned the perfect evening for she and Arizona to spend together. It was a rare occurence that they would both find themselves home at the same time. Arizona spent most of her time on the highway, commuting to and from work and Callie's job sometimes required long, tiring hours. More often than not, the Latina would pull into their driveway well after midnight and come home to a meal in the microwave left by her wife, who had almost always already been asleep.
But today, Callie had been given a reprieve of her usually long day as she and her team had been in training for the week. No assignments, no trips or traveling, no foot-tall stacks of paperwork to complete for hand-in the following day. She had badged out by five p.m., leaving her plently of time to prepare a night for just she and Arizona which had been long overdue for the couple. She had picked up flowers from a street vendor in downtown Fredericksburg while waiting for the order of two dozen crabs she had placed on her way home to be ready for carry out. And at the corner store by their house, she snagged some fresh corn and a bottle of their favorite wine to go with dinner. When she was almost home, she sent a text to her wife.
Got your favorite for dinner. See you in a bit. I love you.
But when Arizona's body had been pinned against the guardrail on I-95, Callie had been outside on their back porch, tending carefully to the corn on the grill. She smiled as she did so, looking out into the small backyard that she and Arizona shared with their neighbors, waving politely to the man and woman across the fence that were pulling in from what she gandered had been a long day at work. The brunette turned her attention back down to the food, smiling as she thought of how excited Arizona would be when she got home.
The owner of the red Honda Civic was hysterical. A few dozen people fled their cars in an attempt to help. "Please," she screamed. "Someone, does anyone have a cell phone?"
The man from JEQ-3411 pulled a small phone from his pocket and handed it to her. She shakily flipped it open and dialed three numbers hastily. A short moment passed before someone picked up on the other end.
"Yes, please! There has been an accident - we need an ambulance now, please!" She paused, only for enough time for the dispatcher on the other line to respond. "We, uh, yes, my name is Lois. The accident is on mile marker 157 of I-95, southbound. Oh, just please send someone quickly! There is a girl, she is - she was hit by a motorcycle."
Another pause.
"Yes, CPR given, I am a nurse," She hesistated as she looked on to a bystander who had taken her place to work on Arizona, who was now unconcious. "Please - yes, I will stay on the line. Please tell them to hurry!"
Within minutes, the state police and paramedics had arrived. And an hour later, Arizona's lifeless body was on her way to Stafford Memorial Hosiptal, where she would later be declared DOA. Dead on arrival. Police officers on the scene had inspected her car, looking for her emergency contact information. After retrieving her cell phone and scrolling through her list of contacts, they found the person they needed to call. It had been easy for them. They had gone straight to the I's in the list, hoping that the victim knew about the 'In Case of Emergency' lingo that had recently caught on amongst cell-phone users.
And they had lucked out. Programmed under 'ICE Callie,' officer Williams dialed, clearing his throat as he always did right before he had to have this particular type of conversation with an assumed loved one.
But Callie missed the call, as she was in the bath and then a shower, shaving and grooming for possible sexy time with her wife. You know, just in case. She missed the second call too, lining the picnic table outside on the deck with newspaper and pouring vinegar into bowls. Setting out the Old Bay and knives. Lighting candles.
Officer Williams had retrieved Arizona's work badge, contacted the Capitol and gotten her secondary contact information. The first number listed, Callie's, he had already tried. He moved to the second on the list. Jenni Robbins. He guessed that it was a mother or sibling, taking note of the last name. The call was made and like always, it had been hard for the senior member of the state police. Telling someone that their spouse or child or even their friend was dead had always been the absolute worst part of his job.
Callie checked her watch. It was a little after seven and the usual time for Arizona to be getting home from work. When eight p.m. rolled around, she sent her a text.
Where are you, love? I made dinner. xoxo :)
A half an hour later, there was a knock at the door. Callie pulled herself off of the couch and shuffled over to the foyer, expecting to be greeted by her wife needing help with her bags and briefcase like always. Instead, she opened the door to see her best friend standing on the front steps.
"Hey Cris," She looked behind the short brunette to see Meredith hanging back on the walkway with her arms folded looking off into the distance. "Whats up?"
Cristina looked down solemnly at her own clasped hands as she leaned back on the back of her heels. She looked back up to her best friend. "Can - may we come in?"
Callie furrowed her brows and stepped aside to the let the two slide in. They skirted passed the Latina and turned around to face the brunette as she finished closing the door.
"Alright, did you guys have a fight?" Callie ushered them into the living room. "Cause I've planned a really nice evening with Arizona so we gotta make this quick."
"Callie," Cristina said with a whisper. "Let's sit down." Cristina took a seat next to Callie on the main couch in the living room while Meredith plopped on the love seat across from them. The blonde sunk down into the cushions and found an adjacent wall to aimlessly stare at. Callie noticed the disposition of them both and backed away from Cristina and into the arm of the sofa. "What's wrong with the two of you?"
Small, yet significant tears began to well in Cristina's eyes. She turned to her best friend that was seated beside her. Before she spoke, she turned away to wipe the water that threatened to spill from her eyelids. Her job right now was to be strong for Callie. She couldn't let the woman beside her see her cry, for in a few moments, she was to deliver the worst news that anyone could ever bear. Still, the tug at her heart was for many reasons. Cristina had loved Arizona as a person, as a friend, and as the woman who had made Callie, her best friend in the whole world, the person she is today. Happy, confident, true and whole. What she was about to do was surely the most terrible thing Cristina Yang would ever have to experience.
She cleared her throat and turned back to her friend who was still deer-eyed, wondering what that fuck was going on. She mentally went through in her mind all of the rehearsals that she and Meredith had gone through together just moments before arriving here on how to break the news to Callie. Cristina shook her head, still not believing it herself as she spoke, ever so quietly.
"Callie," she took her best friend's hands into her own. Cristina leaned her body forward and looked at the ceiling as she contemplated her next words carefully. She inhaled sharply and turned to focus her eyes on the woman next to her. "I - we," She glanced over to Meredith, who was still legs-crossed, looking motionless at the wall beside her. "- got a call from Arizona's mom a little bit -" Cristina began to stutter. "It, it was, well - about a half hour ago."
Callie squinted her eyes at Cristina, darted them to Meredith and then back to the best friend that sat in front of her. She tilted her head a little to the side and pursed her lips together. She knew something was wrong. She glanced at the clock on the far wall and noticed the time. 8:30 p.m. Arizona was never this late getting home. Her chest dropped in worry, in fear. The Latina released her hands from Cristina's grip. "What's wrong? What happened?"
Cristina was unable to hold back her tears any longer. They welled and they fell freely onto her lap. Looking once again to Callie, she managed to speak. "Arizona - on her way home, she was in -" Cristina took a deep breath. "There was an accident, Callie."
"No, no." Callie stated matter-of-factly. "I talked to her on the way home. Well, we were texting. She was stuck in traffic, but she was okay. And that wasn't that long ago, really." But when the brunette thought of it, that had been three hours ago.
"I need to you listen to me, Callie. I need you to really listen." Cristina said. She took the brunette's hands once again. "Arizona was in an accident. She - she was hit. Oh God, Callie, I'm so sorry."
Cristina's ramblings her cut off by Callie jumping off the couch. "What hospital is she at? What - why didn't anyone call me?" I could be there there with her! Is she okay, Cristina? I need to be there with her, she needs me!"
The brunette, clearly disheveled and upset, grabbed her jacket and keys. "Is she at Stafford or Mary Washington?" she said as she opened door. Meredith had yet to move. Cristina slowly rose from the couch and met Callie at the door. She took the keys from her friend's hands and brushed a stray hair from her face, trying to study her soul, wondering what her next words should be. She opened her mouth to tell Callie the one thing she had come to say, but the words simply wouldn't pass through her lips. "I'll drive." Cristina muttered softly.
Callie was out of the door and in Cristina's SUV within seconds, beeping the horn in hasty, half-second increments for her friend. Meredith shot her girlfriend a bewildered look and Cristina could only manage a slight shrug in return. The blonde rose from the couch and passed the brunette on the way to the kitchen. "I'll clean up here. Please take care of her. She trusts you the most."
Cristina managed a nod before closing the door behind her. She shuffled quickly to her car, fumbling with her keys along the way. The brunette was silently cursing herself for not being brave enough to tell Callie that Arizona was-no, she didn't want to think about that right now. She couldn't. Cristina needed to get through the ten minute car ride to the hospital before she could break down in front of her friend any more than she already had.
Hopping into the driver's seat, Cristina buckled herself in and turned the key. She took a moment to send Arizona's mom a text. It was a longshot as she doubted the woman would be thinking about anything other than her daughter right now.
Callie and I are on our way. She doesn't know yet.
"Come on, Cristina!" Callie pleaded as she thumbed through the missed calls and voicemails on her phone. "They tried to call me and that was two hours ago. We need to go!"
Cristina nodded quickly, threw her phone into the console between them and pulled out of the driveway. The last thing she saw was Meredith through the bay window of the Torres house, cleaning up the date that Callie had spent the better part of the evening planning for her wife.
Callie ordered Cristina to drop her off at the entrance to the emergency room and didn't even let her friend shift into park before jetting out of the car. The sliding glass doors barely opened fast enough for the Latina as she ran through full-speed and straight to the front desk.
"Yes, please, I need to know what room or whatever Arizona Torres is in."
The red-headed triage nurse on the other side of the counter began typing into the computer in front of her. "Ma'am, do you know what time she came in?"
"I don't know - within the last one to two hours I think?" Callie hopped on the balls of her feet as she anxiously awaited information. She scanned the chairs of the waiting room and suddenly found two that were occupied by Arizona's mom and a doctor clad in blue scrubs. The Latina abandoned the nurse and ran to them, eveloping her mother-in-law with a massive hug. Callie pulled away quickly. "How is she, Jenni?"
The older woman glanced at the doctor, who smiled kindly before excusing himself from the room. "Oh, Callie. Honey, come here." Jenni said as she hugged the brunette once again.
Arizona's mom had loved Callie from the start. She had first met the fiesty girl when Arizona brought her home from school one day to work on a science project. They were twelve. And best friends. Through the years, Jenni saw the love between the two girls blossom, though she knew that it would take years for Callie to come to terms with herself and who she was. She waited alongside her daughter while the Latina pushed Arizona away when things got too hard and pulled her back when she missed her too much. Still, she could never bring herself to have any ill feelings for the girl, for her daughter was the happiest with her. And when the brunette finally came out to the world and publically began to love Arizona, she was right there with her the entire way. Jennifer Robbins had, from the start, considered Callie Torres like her own daughter.
Callie pulled back from the tight embrace. "Where is she? What happened?"
Jenni's eyes searched for an answer as she stood motionless, but full of sadness in front of the Latina. She hung her head low for a moment and then returned a sad, empathetic gaze to her daughter-in-law as tears began to form in her eyes.
Callie didn't know this look from personal experience, but she'd seen it before. She had been witness to it when Arizona had found out that her grandmother had died as the brunette had been by her side when her mother had delivered the news a few years ago. Callie took a step back and cocked her head slightly as the blood drained from her face. The brunette squinted her eyes with anguish as the truth began to set in. She brought a hand to her mouth. "No,"
Arizona's mom leaned forward to comfort Callie. The Latina took a step back and dropped her than that was cupping her mouth, she shook her head back and forth. "No, no, no. No, no, no." She couldn't find her breath and she backed up until she found herself bumping into Cristina, who had just walked into the room.
Callie was startled by the contact. Her best friend wrapped the Latina in her arms from behind and guided her to the chairs where Arizona's mom had settled in. Jenni and Cristina spent the next hour, though it seemed like a lifetime, calming Callie down. They answered her questions as to what had happened, wiped the tears that she shed, and made their feeble attempts to soothe her heart, even though theirs were hurting as well. They selflessly gave themselves to Callie in these moments, for they knew what she and Arizona were to each other. Friends. Lovers. Soulmates. Everything.
Callie sat upright, staring aimlessly at her surroundings. She took a breath and turned to Lisa. "Can I see her?"
"Of course you can, love." The blonde woman replied through her own tears, brushing a few strands of hair from the Callie's damp cheeks.
Arizona's mother had already said her goodbyes to her daughter, so she didn't go with the Latina. Jenni knew in her heart that it shouldn't have been this way, Callie being given this news in a pale, unforgiving hospital waiting room. Even though Arizona was her daughter, her own flesh and blood, she knew that Callie should not have been on this receiving end of the news. To her, it should have been the other way around and it broke her heart that it had turned out like this. Most of the world had always viewed people like Callie and her daughter as whatever they wanted to without knowing them. Best friends. Confused. Going through a phase. Sinners. But in her eyes, and it was true, they were examples of pure, requited, endearing love. And in a moment like this, a mother's love is all that matters. And in this moment, she gave it to Callie. It is what Arizona would have wanted.
Cristina led her friend, who was silent, yet still fighting to grasp the situation, through the wide halls of the east wing of the hopsital. After a few minutes, the pair landed themselves in front of a large, pale-orange door.
"O - Okay, so I guess this is it." Cristina fumbled with her hands before nervously clasping them behind her back.
Right now, she knew she had to be her normal self - the Cristina Yang that everyone knew. Strong, even-minded and without emotion. That's how she rolled. Usually, anyway. But today, it was taking everything in her not to break down. In any other situation, she'd play these emotions off like she didn't give a flying fuck. But this moment was bigger than her and what she did in the next few minutes were more important than being a great intern to her best friend, who was still next to her, wide-eyed and most likely still in shock.
Yes, for these next few moments, Cristina was going to be a friend to Callie. Her inner thoughts that had been tugging at her to retreat back to the hospital were shut down quickly when she realized the magnitude of everything that had taken place tonight.
Cristina knew good people when she met them and Arizona Robbins had been one of them. She had been one of the very, very few that the fiesty Asian had let in to her world. She didn't do friends. Cristina barely even ever had time for herself, let alone a silly girlfriend of Callie's. But everyone, including herself, had always seemed to make time to get to know Arizona. She was just one of those people that stumbled into your life and made everything just a little bit brighter. And happier. And better.
Cristina was pulled from her thoughts when she noticed that she and Callie still hadn't entered the room that they had been looming behind for the past five minutes. Her friend was peering through the narrow window and her somber eyes were focused on the lone steel table that was situated in the middle of the room.
If the two friends had been in each other's minds at the moment, they would have found themselves wondering the same thing. Why was it that the place where people would have to say goodbye to someone so bare and white and, just, plain? You would think that a building that could break hearts with unexpected grief would, at the very least, be humble and warm and comforting. But as the two brunettes stood behind the bland pink door, they both noticed, separately, the absence of anything of the sort on the other side. It was cold and ugly.
"Come on, Callie," Cristina managed sweetly. "Let's go." She took the Latina's hand before turning the knob to walk in.
There was silence between the two girls after entering the room. Cristina had taken a seat on a swivel stool in the corner while Callie hadn't made it further than resting her back on the other side of the door that they had just entered. The Latina's palms lay flat against the door as she studied the ground beneath her feet, refusing to confront the inevitable. Cristina leered at her friend from afar, waiting for the moment that Callie would look up to her for reassurance.
Minutes of unexplicable silence passed. Cristina sat patiently, waiting for her best friend to find the will and the way to move her feet towards the table that rested in front of them. After what seemed like forever, it finally happened and she met eyes with Latina, nodding to her softly that it was okay to go on.
But when Callie reached the table, she froze like ice. There was only a thin, white sheet that separated her from Arizona and she couldn't bring herself to pull it back. She didn't want to say goodbye. She couldn't. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. This was not a part of the life they had planned together.
Cristina rose from the stool and went to her friend's side. "You have to do this Callie."
"I know." The Latina barely managed with tears beginning to well in her eyes. She looked blankly at the table in front of them, willing her brain to send messages to her hands to pull back the shroud.
"I'll do it." Cristina said with a sympathetic whisper. It was a statement, not a question. Not that she was in a hurry, because she wasn't. Still, Cristina knew that if she didn't take point on this one, the two of them would be here all night. This would be the hardest part, but it was something that needed to be done. Her friend needed the farewell. God, this was so incredibly unfair.
Callie nodded.
"You ready?" Cristina said with her thumbs and index fingers clasped to the top of the sheet.
The Latina inhaled sharply. Another nod. And then a shaky "yes."
Cristina slowly, with tenderness and empathy, pulled back the cloth, stopping at the top of Arizona's chest. She stepped back and to the side to give the girl beside her some space.
Callie winced at the sight before her. She cocked her head pointedly to the left as her tears finally fell.
You couldn't tell that Arizona had been in a fatal traffic accident, most of the damage most likely hiding beneath the lower portion of the sheet. This is what Cristina figured anyway. She studied the blonde, noting the almost-perfect hair, free of debris or blood or dirt or anything else she had been expecting to see. Really, the only way she knew that the person lying on the table was dead and not asleep was the blue tint to her lips and the absence of the normal rise and fall of someone's chest.
It was agony for her to watch Callie in these moments. The Latina went back and forth between wailing loudly and sobbing quietly. She cried, she wept, she mourned. She cried so much she dry-heaved all of the bile in her stomach onto the floor. And though Cristina wanted to puke as well while cleaning it up, she did so without question. And she held her friend, hard and with conviction. That went on for an hour until Cristina finally spoke up.
"Callie, hon. We can't stay here forever." They were both sitting on swivel stools, next to each other.
"But she is my forever, Cristina." she said, looking back to the blonde on the table as she held a cold, limp hand in her own.
"I know." Cristina thought out her next words carefully. "But you need to say goodbye. We-there are things that must be done."
Callie nodded and looked down into her lap. "Right." She took a deep breath and looked at her friend. "Can you give me a few moments alone?"
Cristina smiled. "Of course." She got up, rolled her stool to its resting spot under a table on the other side of the room. "I'll be right outside if you need me."
After the door closed behind her, Callie turned her head back to the body in front of her. Tears began to well once again. She pushed them back as she rose from her stool and shoved it aside. She went to the back end of the room to fetch a spare gurney she had noticed earlier. Rolling it slowly through the room, she managed her way around the curtains, chairs and cabinets until finally it rested flush against the table where her wife was. The Latina locked the brakes in place, grabbed a blanket from the linen closet and climbed on.
Callie rolled onto her side to face Arizona. She draped her blanket over both of them, just as she did every night before they went to bed. Most nights, she was the second to arrive home and her wife had already been asleep, but the Latina would always cover the both of them with her own sheets or blankets as the blonde would kick hers off in her sleep.
She snuggled into Arizona, wrapping her arm, outside of the covers, around the body next to her.
"I was so mean to you the day we first met." Callie, somehow, smiled at the memory. "I'm sorry for that."
The day in question was one that both women had laughed about over the years. Mark Sloane, Callie's crush in high school, had asked Arizona to his Junor prom. He was two years their senior and hadn't a clue of the Latina's semi-undying love for him. When she had found out, she had cornered the blonde stranger on the football field during one of his practices. The confrontation had been silly, but ended in a fight with Callie locking Arizona in a bathroom stall in the fieldhouse.
"I'm so sorry I kept you waiting for so long back then." Callie moved her head into the crook of Arizona's cold neck. "I was just so confused and so scared. But you waited for me. You waited because you loved me. Thank you for that."
She hugged the blonde tighter.
"I remember the night that I proposed to you. I was such a nervous wreck, but Cristina helped me with it all. Some of it was actually her idea. I don't know if you ever knew that."
Of the two of them, Arizona had been the kid that refused to grow up. She wore heelys that she would skate around with on the sidewalk when walking their dogs. She was the one who got the most excited for holidays and birthdays. She was happy-go-lucky and it was the thing that Callie had found most endearing about the blonde.
Before their jobs had consumed every moment of their days, they would, at Arizona's pleading, visit the park near their house in Virginia. They would glide back and forth on the swings, side by side, with giggles and smiles. They would build sandcastles in the sand after a storm. And sometimes, they would have have timed races on the monkey bars.
One day, while conquering the playground area, Callie had taken Arizona by surprise. The blonde had just made her way down the slide and instead of sliding behind her, Callie had sent a modest, simple diamond ring down the metal pathway from the top. Arizona had retrieved it from the grass below and looked up to the brunette with surprise.
"You were so beautiful that day, Arizona. You said yes before I could even get down to you. But it was perfect. I had barely just come out to my parents and I was so terrified, of everything. But I just knew. I knew you were the one I would always be with."
Callie now found herself holding her wife's hand, playing with it as she reminisced. "Our honeymoon was disasterous. Remember? I gave into your pleading wishes of going on a cruise to Tahiti. For seventeen days. On a boat. In October. In middle of hurricane season, Arizona."
The brunette smiled, thinking back to the the two weeks they had spent with each other after their wedding. The romantic trip that Arizona had wanted turned into days of sea sickness, puking, and sleep. That was it. No boom boom time, no romantic walks on the beach, no crystal-clear blue waters of Bora Bora. Some unnamed typhoon or whatever has sent them all across the choppy waters of the Pacific.
Still, though, Callie had thought it to be perfect. It was time with each other as newlyweds and they had made the most of it they best they could. It had been unexpected and adventurous, just like Arizona.
The brunette sniffled back a few tears. "We were going to start a family together. A big one, Arizona. Sophia, Stephan, Daniel, and Cabell. Well, that was the plan anyway." Callie took note, if just for a moment, how silly she must seem, talking to her dead wife while wrapped in her arms, holding her cold hands. But she didn't care.
Somewhere around recalling some memory of a stupid fight about something stupid, following by an amazing make-up session, an emotionally exhausted Callie managed to drift off into a comfortable slumber.
Cristina had witnessed most of this through the small sliver of the window in the door, only taking two breaks - one to nap for a few minutes and the other to use the bathroom and grab a snack from down the hall. Normally, Cristina Yang wouldn't any part of this, wasting time watching something she couldn't hear. Trying to understand something she would never get. She could be learning or operating or fucking Meredith sideways or any way she could. Something tangible she could use or recall later in life.
But right now, she found herself dwelling on how her friend was doing on the other side of the door. Nothing useful to her personally, but definitely important.
Cristina's watch showed a little past five a.m. when Jennie approached her with a coffee in hand.
"You're my hero." Cristina said as she took a sip and then a gulp. "I didn't want to leave her."
Arizona's mom took a few swigs of her cup. "How long has she been sleeping in there like that?"
"Few hours." Cristina shifted her feet uncomfortably beneath her before peering again through the window to her friend. "I just couldn't bring myself to wake her up."
Jenni nodded. "This had been the worst day of my life, just like it has been for Callie, I am sure." Jenni cleared her throat. "That girl in there loves my daughter more than anyone in this world."
Cristina nodded. "I would have to agree, Mama Robbins."
"But the funeral director is here. To get-they need to take her body." She wiped tears from her eyes. "They've been here for two hours."
Cristina knew what Jenni was trying to ask without actually saying it. She handed the older woman her almost-empty cup of coffee and nodded before entering the room in front of them.
Her eyes rested on her friend, who was asleep in the arms of her wife. She hesitated for only a moment, finally approaching the table. Cristina nudged the Latina, who awoke almost immediately.
It was a Cristina Yang moment, one that she would regret later. "Callie, we need to go."
The Latina looked back to her wife beside her and then to her friend. "A few more moments?"
"No, you can't lay here forever with her."
Callie got up from her resting spot and shoved the gurney from her so she could stand above the table and close to Arizona. She had said everything to the blonde that she wanted to earlier, but it all just didn't rest well enough for her for that to be it. And she didn't care that Cristina was in the room right now.
Callie peered down to the body in front of her with a sad, painful smile. "I don't care what you believe, Arizona. And it doesn't matter what I believe now either." She touched her nose to the blonde's. "We will meet again," Callie was whispering in an ear that couldn't hear her. "for I have seen enough in life to know that we most defintely will."
The brunette placed a soft kiss on Arizona's cold, blue lips. Tears fell from her eyes as she finally finished. "You taught me that. I love you."
Cristina led her best friend from the room, Callie not tearing her eyes from the blonde the entire way.