CHAPTER 4

CALLIE

Waking up was never one of Callie's favourite things but after last night she felt like she never wanted to wake up again. All she wanted to do was simply crawl into a ball and hide from the world, mainly from those people closest in her own world. Last night had started out as a romantic dinner for two but it had turned into a WWE Royal Rumble, Arizona had ended up staying at her apartment which she hadn't done in weeks. Cristina took herself to God knows where whilst Owen stayed here in their apartment. She remembered something vaguely about a burst water main but Callie hadn't really paid much attention to all of the details, she was too shocked by how the night ended up being such a disaster and all over NOTHING!

Arizona had gone mad and had somehow managed to end up on the same team as Cristina which was as big of a shock as everything else that happened last night. Mark, Lexie and Avery had been what ignited the inferno; Meredith Grey had even somehow found herself involved. It was the most ridiculous thing Callie had ever seen in her life and to make matters worse she had to sleep alone and that really didn't sit well with her at all. Owen and Callie had been innocent bystanders to the carnage that was last night yet they seemed to be the ones who had to cop the brunt of it and were forced to sleep without their respective partners. It is going to be yet another sleepless night!

12 hours earlier

Callie stood by the nurses' station watching everyone buzz around the hospital; it hadn't been a particularly busy morning so it was unusual that everyone seemed to be in such a hurry. She saw Mark and Lexie rushing into the elevator whispering to each other, looking uncharacteristically sneaky. It wasn't their usual heading to an empty on-call room persona; something else was definitely going on.

She stood there for a few minutes as more and more doctors piled into the elevator, she saw Teddy and Owen make their way into the elevator followed by Karev and Meredith. It was as if they were pairing up and slowly but surely heading to a secret location to complete a secret mission run by an evil master, most likely Cristina Yang.

As the day went on it was getting harder for Callie to find interns to help her with her patients let alone residents, she hadn't seen one single resident in over an hour. The last resident she saw was asking her where to find Arizona and proceeded to enter the elevator of no return. Now that she thought about it a number of people had been asking her where to find Arizona today, it's not possible that Arizona is the evil master behind the missing interns and residents is it? No, she had definitely thought that Cristina was behind whatever weirdness was going on here. The thought of Arizona concocting an evil plan was almost laughable, not her Arizona. Her sweet, kind, caring, unimaginably hot Arizona would never do such a thing, would she? Her thoughts were interrupted by Jackson Avery.

"Sorry Dr. Torres but do you know where I could find Dr. Robbins?"

What the hell was going on? She was getting mad now; Arizona was stealing her residents and her interns without so much as asking her, without so much as involving her in the evilness. This was something Callie would not stand for.

"No I don't Avery. How about instead of all the residents worrying about Dr. Robbins' whereabouts you start worrying about the patient in trauma 1?"

Callie shoved a chart into his chest, hard and walked away leaving him staring at her with a shocked look on his face.

As she continued on with her work Callie began to wonder why she wasn't involved in this conspiracy, many ridiculous thoughts ran through her mind until she caught a glimpse of a blonde pony rearing the corner and gliding towards her followed by an unmistakable scowl.

"Calliope! There you are. I've been looking for you all over" Arizona said cheerily whilst Cristina simply nodded in Callie's direction, it was probably an extremely warm greeting coming from Yang. Callie was now more confused than ever, if Arizona was here in front of her and had been looking for her for quite some time then who the hell was stealing all her minions?

Seeing Arizona and Cristina walking the halls of the hospital together really made Callie feel uncomfortable. There wasn't any disapproving looks coming from Arizona, Cristina didn't seem to be rolling her eyes every time Arizona spoke. It was like the Twilight zone and Callie knew that something was seriously wrong with this picture. What, were they like FRIENDS now? She was more convinced than ever that an evil plan had been put into motion at Seattle Grace Mercy West, the only thing she was unsure of was who was in fact the evil mastermind. It seemed unlikely to be Arizona since she now had a Yang co-existing with her Yin. Unless they were in on it together, which again seemed unlikely since in all the time Callie had known Cristina she hadn't proven to be a very effective team player.

Arizona had been searching the hospital for Callie to tell her about their dinner plans. This suited Callie perfectly because she planned on confronting Arizona and making her spill the beans on all this craziness, dinner at Muscalito's would be the perfect venue to squeeze information from the perky blonde. Especially after a few glasses of wine, Callie knew Arizona would be putty in her hands. All she had to do now was make it through the day without killing anyone, which she was sure, was going to be a difficult task since she was left with no residents and a few incompetent interns.

As the hours passed by at an excruciatingly slow pace the buzz in the hospital became more intense. It wasn't just interns and residents whispering, it seemed to be contagious and the attendings were catching it. Callie started to feel like a lion cub in the Zoo as everyone began pouring back out of the

elevator and onto her floor. Interns were now stumbling over themselves to fetch Callie her charts, syringes, gaurs, her coffee. You name it, the interns were more than happy to fetch it for her like small drooling puppies. The residents were also back in full force. Avery, Reed and Percy were being uncharacteristically helpful, she even began thinking they were half decent doctors. Callie had not really had much to do with any of them although she had been forced to attend the surgical wings game night, because it was invented by Arizona and Owen. It was supposed to boost morale within the staff and help bridge the gaps between the Seattle Grace surgeons and the Mercy Wester's. Surprisingly game night had become a successful event and teammates bonded during the 90 minute game of soccer or football or volleyball or netball or any other kind of sport Cristina Yang could kick everyone's ass at but once the game was over and everyone was back at the hospital, old rivalries returned and new tensions rose.

Arizona and Cristina had bonded in a scary way over the whole games night thing. They both wanted to win and they both had the necessary skills to do so, they were the perfect unbeatable duo when it came to games night, but just like everyone else once the games were over and they'd had enough Tequila at Joes they went back to being Callie's way too perky girlfriend and well, Cristina. Or so she thought anyway.

When Callie's shift ended that night she had gone up to the PEDS floor to find Arizona. Upon reaching the correct floor Callie found herself hesitating to exit the elevator as it was eerily quiet, a very rare thing for the paediatric floor. As she reared the corner that would lead her to her destination she was astounded to find an army of doctors silently skulking around outside Arizona's office.

Callie noticed that Mark had his ear pressed up against the door, Lexie was standing behind him nervously biting her nails, a gaggle of shaking interns were lined up along the wall to Lexie's left and Meredith Grey was silently pacing up and down the hallway. Avery, Reed and Percy were huddled together to the right of Lexie and Mark who was now trying to see into the room. Derek Shepherd and Owen Hunt had taken a more relaxed approach and pulled up a hospital bed to perch themselves on whilst waiting for whatever it was that was going to come flying out of the room that Mark had all but broken into.

Callie looked around stunned for a few minutes, not really knowing what to make of this situation. She noticed that Arizona was nowhere in sight and that Cristina was also missing from the crowd that was growing larger by the minute. Just as she was about to break up the party Callie saw a flurry of black curls bounding down the hallway, Cristina was stopped by Meredith Grey.

"Oh my God. There you are! Where have you been? I didn't think you'd miss this for the world" Callie heard Meredith whisper to her best friend, Cristina gave her a look of indignation before spitting out her next sentence which seemed to be directed to every one of the doctors gathered in the hallway.

"You should all be ashamed of yourselves. This is just gross" Cristina began pushing her way past the other doctors and heading towards the office door that was causing all this fuss. Callie heard the interns gasp as Cristina reached the door and stood staring at Mark with a look of disgust on her face.

"I knew you couldn't stay away. You're a sell out just like the rest of us" Mark gave Cristina a smug grin as he tore his attention away from the door for the first time since Callie had been standing there watching. Cristina just shook her head at him, it was like she was so disgusted by him that she was lost for words.

Callie watched as Cristina raised her hand to knock on the office door but was swiftly stopped by Mark's firm hands and seconds later by Lexie throwing her arms around the top half of her body, she had her almost in a head lock.

"Whoah Yang, what the hell are you doing?" Mark shot her a look of utter disbelief.

Callie was worried now; Cristina looked as if she were going to murder little Grey.

"Tell your girlfriend to get her hands off me before I detach them from her body in a way that you won't be able to rectify" Cristina spoke calmly to Mark but with a seriousness in her voice that made Lexie let go of her and jump back as if she had just been scolded. Mark also withdrew his hands slowly, it was as if he was afraid that moving them away too quickly would frighten the beast and make it bite his fingers off. He was probably right.

Without further hesitation Cristina knocked on the door and what happened next sent Callie's mind spinning. As soon as Cristina lifted her hand to knock, the once stationary doctors began to scramble in all different directions almost falling over each other to get as far away from the door as they could. With all of the doctors scrambling away Callie was unable to see what was going on at the door, but she heard it open and by the time everyone had dispersed there was no one there and the door was once again shut.

Mark and Lexie were the only two people left in the hallway and Callie was going to take full advantage of this situation.

"Okay you two, on-call room NOW!" by the looks on their faces they knew they were in trouble.

Callie had managed to grab Mark and Lexie each by one of their arms and swiftly drag them into the nearest on-call room. Once she had aggressively shoved her friends inside the small room and loudly slammed the door shut she turned her intense glare on them. Mark was looking anywhere he could but directly at her and Lexie was standing there with her eyes squeezed shut. Callie would have laughed at the sight of Lexie if she hadn't been so unbelievably mad.

"What are you doing Grey?"

Lexie shifted awkwardly on the spot but did not open her eyes.

"I can't look at you while you yell at me" Lexie had now covered her eyes with one of her hands.

"What are you, 12? Open your eyes!" Callie swatted Lexie on the side of her head causing her to remove her hand and open her eyes reluctantly although she was still refusing to make eye contact.

"Ouch" Lexie let out a sigh of pain barely audible

"Hey Torres, relax" Mark looked up at Callie for the first time since they entered the on-call room, trying to defending his girlfriend.

"Don't even get me started on you. Now neither of you is going to leave this room until you tell me what the hell is going on"

Mark and Lexie shoot awkward glances at one another before turning their attention back to Callie.

"I Can't tell you" Mark looks at Callie almost apologetically, she's his best friend and he doesn't like lying to her or not being able to share things with her, so the past few weeks have been torture for him. He has even gone so far as to avoid her the past few days, but his main loyalty was to Lexie so he was determined to keep his mouth shut.

"Excuse me? You can't tell me? Since when have you ever been able to keep a secret from ANYONE let alone from me?"

"It's got nothing to do with you Cal I swear" Callie could tell that Mark was pleading her to let this go. She wasn't going to.

"Does it have anything to do with Arizona?" Callie shot him and accusing glance and he bowed his head to the floor. Callie could feel her anger growing inside her, if this had something to do with Arizona which she undoubtedly knew that it did, it was ABSOLUTELY her business.

Callie turned on him now; she spun around so fast that neither Lexie nor Mark had seen her coming. She grabbed him by his left nipple and twisted causing him to yelp in pain but remain completely still knowing that moving would only make the situation worse.

"Mark, I swear to God if you move I will twist it right off!" Mark didn't speak but gave her a look that ensured her he had no intention of moving.

"Alright, alright. I'll tell you! Just let him go" Callie eyed Lexie suspiciously as she finally spoke. She reluctantly let go of Mark's nipple and grinned to herself as she saw him rubbing it tenderly.

"Okay then Grey… Spill!"