Author's Note: I'm sorry that this chapter is late, and that the next one - the finale - will be, too. I was on break and I was juggling different things at once, and this is definitely the hardest chapter I've ever had to write. Thank you anyway for all your feedback, and I sincerely mean it when I say that I'm going to miss updating this story. It's been a good journey, folks, and I hope my denouement next week will do it justice!
The first games of cLAN began at eight in the evening. Besides the undercover FBI team, there were only two other all-women teams, and the rest were either all-men or mixed, but still had a majority of men. The convention centre began to get loud - and smelly - very quickly.
Four hours in, the five women were huddled together, pressing keys frantically as they dodged fire coming from all directions. They were playing against three other teams, and the objective was simple: kill anyone that doesn't have the same colour uniform as you in the space of half an hour. Unfortunately, their clan wasn't faring so well, and there were only five minutes left.
Cristina, who had successfully taken down three opponents with a hand grenade, took a peek at the radar on the corner of Arizona's screen. "Robbins, I think a sniper is on you."
"Eyes on the screen, Yang." Arizona didn't even look at her. "How did you glean that from peeking at my radar?"
Cristina's gaze returned to her screen, but she continued talking, "Because there seems to be an enemy approximately where the gas tank is located, and I bet my bottom dollar that someone is up there right now playing sharpshooter."
"I think we get into that team formation we talked about then," said Arizona. The others looked hesitant. "Come on, let's group together and attack that way. It'll get us the most kills in the shortest time possible, and it means that if any of us get hit by the sniper, the other team members can end that guy for like, fifteen seconds while we regroup."
"Did everyone hear that?" Cristina asked everyone else, even if they were all wearing headsets so they could hear each other. There were affirmatives from Lexie and Bailey. "Torres, you heard that?"
Callie simply grunted.
Arizona rolled her eyes. Maybe it was her inner Marine in combat, but she just wished that Callie would just forget about their fight and focus on the sting. "Okay, let's do it then. Ready?"
Affirmations again, and Callie's was a little clearer this time, as Cristina was looking straight at her.
Arizona looked at her screen and saw the other women bunched around her, then she looked Cristina and nodded. "Let's charge!" she told them. And off they went, firing in all directions, racking up kills as they went.
Great, we're getting a good lead, Arizona thought. Gritting her teeth, she led the team into a warehouse, not bothering to look at her radar.
"Uhm, Arizona, that might not be a good idea," said Callie.
"Just follow my lead, Torres!"
"Arizona," Lexie spoke up too, having glanced at her radar. "We need to back down."
Arizona stubbornly charged anyway. Because the rule they agreed upon during these formations was "leave no woman behind", the others followed after her. And that's when several grenades were thrown in their direction. Arizona's screen dimmed as the game reloaded so she could respawn.
"Now, how the fuck did that happen?" Bailey's rare use of an expletive caught everyone's attention.
Cristina was staring at her dimmed screen, stunned. "We just walked into an ambush."
"You should have listened to me," Callie growled.
They played in silence after they had all respawned until the buzzer sounded, signalling the end of the game. Their clan, as expected, was at the bottom of the leaderboard. "Oh well, guys. Shit happens," said Arizona, sighing.
"We can't keep coming last forever, Arizona," said Lexie. "We need to start winning or else this plan isn't going to work."
Arizona sighed again. She tugged off her headset and began to pack her laptop up. "I'm turning in for the night," she said, standing up after stuffing her gear in a bag. "The first set of games start at midday tomorrow." Without waiting for a response, she weaved her way to the exit through the desks. I better get a shower and some alone time before Callie gets back.
Callie was sitting on her bed when Arizona limped from the bathroom in just a towel. She fought the urge to roll her eyes as she mentally cursed her fate. Clearly I lucked out. She kept her body as rigid as possible as she dug into her suitcase for clothes. While her back was turned, Callie muttered something inaudible.
Arizona pulled a baggy UDub shirt on and shimmied into some underwear before turning around, holding onto her bed for support, dropping the towel as she demanded, "What was that?"
"The gap between us and the clan above us was only six kills, did you know that? If you had listened to me we would have been able to bump ourselves up the leaderboard," Callie said.
"Well, I don't think I'm the only one with listening problems here. Maybe if you had heard me out then we wouldn't be in this position right now," snapped Arizona.
Callie was taken aback with the change of subject. "You're the one who decided to keep it from me, Arizona. God knows why. You were just probably waiting to swoop in and be my knight in shining armour, weren't you?"
"You didn't seem like you objected to that."
"That's when I thought you weren't in on it, Arizona."
"In on what?"
"In on the plans of my fiancée who just decided to leave town without telling me!"
"I wasn't in on it!" Arizona told her. "Teddy told me the day after she helped Erica move her things across town, and she made me promise not to tell anyone."
"Why?"
"Because it wasn't my place to tell," said Arizona. "We're Marines, Callie. We keep each other's secrets to the death because we're a united group. Teddy and I, we have a bond."
"Don't pull that Marine shit on me!" Callie seemed to relish at Arizona's cringing response. "We've told each other things. We have a bond, too. We know stories about each other's pasts, and I was just starting to think that I could actually tell you some more stories; stories that not many people have heard. Yet you didn't think to tell me, 'Oh Callie, I knew about Erica leaving town before you did,'" the pitch of her voice raised as she mimicked Arizona, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you as soon as I found out. But I'm telling you now because I care about you!'" She spat those words out. "Were you planning to keep this a secret forever?"
I didn't think it needed to be brought up at all, so does that count as a yes? But what Arizona said was, "Calliope-"
"Don't 'Calliope' me." Callie stood up abruptly and marched towards the door, slamming it shut as she left.
It was ten in the morning when Arizona roused herself. Across the room, Callie's bed was made. She stood up and slowly walked towards it on her one leg, then gingerly touched the mattress. There was still an imprint there, so she knew that Callie did return last night to get some sleep. Arizona was sorely tempted to snuggle close to the pillows, which smelt like Callie's coconut shampoo, when a knock on the door made her freeze.
She opened it to Alex's ashen face. Despite his tired appearance, his eyes were as alert as ever. Arizona suspected that it was caused by the styrofoam cup of coffee in his hand. "Good morning," he said, completely ignoring the fact that Arizona was only in a t-shirt and a pair of boyshorts. He offered a second styrofoam cup to her. "I thought you'd want some before you started playing again."
Arizona accepted it. "Thanks." She took a sip. Just the way I like it. "So what brings you here?"
"Can I come in?" asked Alex. He saw the hesitation in Arizona's face. "I know Torres isn't up here, I ran into her at breakfast downstairs and she said you were still here. She didn't look too happy hearing your name."
Arizona stepped aside to let Alex in. He walked into the room and sat down on the armchair next the window. "So, you and Torres had a lovers' quarrel?"
"I don't want to talk about it. The most important thing right now is getting the sting right."
"If you two aren't getting along then we don't have the right factors in place to get the sting right, Arizona," Alex told her calmly. "You guys are real close to the bottom of the overall leaderboard. That's not even close to pinging the Combat Tyrants' radar. You know what you have to do."
"I've just never met someone so irrational before," said Arizona. "I thought you were the height of it, but she had to come along."
"God, Robbins." Alex blew out slowly. "You need to stop expecting people to react the way you want them to when you say something. I don't know what happened between you and Torres but I know you have a habit of treating people like their pieces of software, like you can read their code and you can tinker it so they can feel about something the way you want them to."
Not appreciating the tongue-lashing she was receiving from her student, Arizona exclaimed, "I do not!"
"You do, though! You do it to me!" Alex spoke over her. "And maybe I put up with it because I kind of like someone expecting the best from me. I don't mind it as much as I used to when we first met, and hey, it's kinda weird when you don't do it. But Callie Torres? She never seemed like the sort of person to take that from someone. She doesn't get it. You have to let her be mad at you because that's what she knows to do, and it's a bad idea to try to get her accustomed to your weird ass habits when obviously what you've done has hurt her."
Arizona didn't speak for a moment. She sat on the end of her bed, staring at the floor for a few seconds. She reached for her prosthetic leg and fastened it before looking up and making eye contact with Alex. "Since when did you give speeches like that?"
He smiled ruefully. "I learned from the best," he admitted.
"How did you know I was the one who messed it up?"
"You treat women only marginally better than I do," Alex replied, indicating the amount using his thumb and forefinger. Ignoring Arizona's glare, he kept on talking: "Also, if Torres was the one in the wrong, she'd be the one staying up here, and you'd be the one holding your head up high during breakfast, hoping that no one would notice that you're spreading full-fat butter on your bagel."
"I always spread full-fat butter on my bagel. There is no other way." Arizona crossed her arms.
Alex stood up and tossed his empty coffee cup in the trash can. "I'm off. You should start getting ready so you can think up of a winning strategy for today," he told Arizona. "I hope I've given you something to think about."
Arizona watched him walk to the door. "The guys in the can put you up to this, didn't they?"
He stopped in his tracks and pulled a small electronic device out of his pocket. "You forgot that you have microphones on you. They heard everything last night. Including what happened in the hotel room." He pressed a button on a device, put the earpiece in and clipped the microphone under the neck of his t-shirt.
"Shit! Fuck!" Arizona's mouth was agape. "I completely forgot about that." The other people on the team didn't even know that Callie and I were together!
"Shit happens, Robbins," said Alex, shrugging. "Just remember to turn it off next time you turn in for the night." He turned to leave, but the door opened, so he took a step backwards.
Callie was standing in the doorway. "Alex," she said evenly. "What are you doing here?"
"I just went to wake Robbins up so she can get ready to take on the day," Alex said brightly, jerking his thumb towards Arizona, who had since jumped up from her bed since Callie's arrival. "How was breakfast?" Alex asked Callie, as if the tension in the room wasn't so palpable.
"The bagels were good," said Callie. "Even better on the government's dime."
Alex shoved his hands in his pockets. "Well, I'm gonna hurry on and grab some for me," he said. He hastily weaved around the FBI agent to get out the door, leaving Arizona and Callie standing far apart, staring at each other.
She must be really mad, Arizona thought, her eyes wandering over Callie's face, she's oblivious to the fact that I'm just in my underwear.
"The team wanted to ask if you wanted to sign on for the twelve-thirty LAN," Callie said.
Appeasement is the way to go. Arizona tried to flash her best smile at Callie. "Sure, let's go for it!"
The team underwent a huge turnaround that morning, rallying hard to climb the leaderboard. They won or came second in all of their LANs, and they were starting to seem invincible. At five o'clock, Cristina determined that they were high enough in the leaderboard to take a break.
They were enjoying pizza and soda - their first substantial meal after breakfast - when the leaderboard reshuffled itself. "Hey," Lexie said, pointing it out to the others. "We're coming fourth."
Arizona craned her neck to look at it. "Shit, that was fast. Good work, team."
"Yeah, we're really starting to mesh together. It's kinda strange," Bailey said.
Arizona couldn't help noticing the suspicious glances that she gave her and Callie.
"But it's kinda awesome, right?" she asked her.
"Sure," said Bailey. "So, what's the significance of being fourth on that board?"
As if on cue, a PA announcement boomed across the convention centre: "The leaderboard is now frozen. The top five teams on the leaderboard will compete in a special one-hour LAN at nine-thirty PM, and the winner will get to LAN against the Combat Tyrants tomorrow. All other LANs will still be running as usual, except that points earned from these do not count towards the leaderboard. Enjoy!"
No one reacted for a few seconds, until: "Awesome!" Cristina yelled out in jubilation. She looked at the stunned faces of her teammates. "What? I'm just playing the part," she said in a lower voice.
Callie looked at Bailey. "Yeah, right," she said out of the corner of her mouth. "Yang's a total nerd, isn't she?"
Bailey nodded. "The nerdiest of the nerds."
Cristina glared at the two women. "Bailey, you once had to skip out on a work dinner because you wanted to attend a Star Wars movie marathon at the public library. You said it was just the original series, because the prequel trilogy isn't worth your cheapest action figure" She turned to Callie. "And Torres, you're tagged in photos of your high school chemistry club on Facebook. You're the one holding the placard with the club name so I'm going to make an educated guess and say that you were president."
The two women seethed at Cristina while Lexie clamped a hand over her mouth, trying to hold back the giggles. Admittedly, Arizona felt like laughing, too. She was about to, unrestrainedly, when a hand snatched a pizza piece from the box in front of her. "Hey!" She whirled around, half-expecting it to be some hungry college kid.
"Calm down, Robbins. I've only had lunch." It was Alex. Close enough. PhD student status notwithstanding, he is still a hungry college kid. "Great going on the leaderboard, huh?"
Arizona looked at him. "Did you place too?"
Alex nodded, his mouth clamped around the pizza slice. "We're coming in second," he said with a full mouth, spraying pieces of pizza everywhere. When he saw the women glaring, he chewed then swallowed. "The guys are ecstatic. But they're going to kill me when I throw the game."
Bailey's eyes widened. "Karev, you probably shouldn't have said that so loud."
"You're still up for that, right?" Arizona tried to read his face to no avail. She knew that Alex must have paid around a thousand dollars, give or take, to prepare for the LAN party, and although the FBI took care of his accommodation fees, that kind of money wasn't usually available to him.
He lifted a finger, opting to finish his pizza before answering. When this was done, he said, "Of course." He shrugged. "We gotta do what we gotta do. And there will be other LANs that aren't funded by dirty money. We'll win those ones." With that, he walked off to reenter the crowd of gamers.
"Is he gonna be okay?" asked Lexie.
Arizona didn't know what to say. It seems like such an insignificant thing for us to worry about but no one comes here to throw games. "He's Karev," she finally said. "He'll bounce back."
There were ten minutes left on the clock and they were in second place to Alex's group when all their screens dimmed and play was suspended. For a good minute and a half, gamers frantically yelled at each other, desperate to know what was going on. Finally, the voice over the PA boomed: "Sudden death round! For the last ten minutes, only the clans in first and second place will be able to compete for the prize of a thirty-minute LAN with the Combat Tyrants! Other competitors will be able to stay where they are and compete in an alternate game."
"That's awfully convenient," Cristina told Arizona out of the corner of her mouth.
We're just lucky, I suppose. Arizona thought, but didn't respond out loud. Instead, she made eye contact with Alex and they shared nods. The PA came on again. "Your game starts," a beat, "now."
"All right, guys." Arizona watched her screen loading the new game. "I'll have Yang on sniper, please," Cristina nodded. "Everyone else following me."
"Watch your radars," Callie reminded everyone. Arizona looked at her gratefully. Her deep brown eyes returned to her screen.
With the four in a huddle and Cristina assuming a position on a structure where she was able to see everyone, they maneuvered through the course. "Lure them to that open space over there," Cristina told the others. She frowned when Callie gasped, her screen dimming as she waited to respawn. "And don't die on the way," she added pointedly.
The game continued and their opponents gained a six kill lead on them with two minutes to go. Bailey and Lexie closed it down to a three kill lead. "We need you to get a handle on that sniper, Cristina," Arizona said as she fired at someone who was returning the same favour.
"I am!" Cristina ran a hand through her hair. "They know I'm up here though. They're careful."
"One minute and twenty, guys," Lexie announced.
"Shit." Arizona shut her eyes tight, trying to find a solution to close the lead and overtake the other team. When she opened them, she saw Alex looking straight at her. Please get yourself killed, she silently pleaded with him, but he looked away before Arizona could discern if he got the message. "Any of you carrying a RPG?" she asked her teammates.
"I am," said Callie.
Arizona noted Callie's location on her radar. "Can you take it to Yang? Grey, Bailey, we're gonna go cover her." While Callie made her way to the rooftop of the building that Cristina was on, Arizona, Lexie and Bailey fired at their opponents, making sure they got adequate cover to recuperate in between shots. They couldn't afford to increase the opponents' kill counts.
"I got the RPG!" Cristina declared. She trained it on her screen.
"Ten seconds!" Lexie exclaimed.
Arizona watched Alex lead his teammates to a section of the map. Alex looked at her again and nodded. "Shoot it to where the red clumps on your radar are, Yang," she told Cristina.
Cristina bit her lip, pressed a few buttons on her laptop. "And…" she held her breath. "Fire."
And then it was all over.
They could hear the collective groan emanating from where Alex's clan was. Arizona sat back in her chair, watching the leaderboard on the screen. They were right on top. "We did it, guys."
Bailey's lips were pursed as she removed her headset. "Well, that's the hard part done."
"You're saying that we actually have to game with them? We can't just get in that room and flash our badges and be like, 'You fuckers didn't think you were gonna get away with it, did you?'" Callie demanded in a manner so aggressively that it made the typically jovial Derek Shepherd cringe on the other side of the screen.
They were on Skype with Derek, who was on duty in the control van, and Owen, who came along anyway, as a final briefing before tomorrow. "We're trying to avoid a standoff," said Owen.
"Meh, I like Torres's idea." Cristina folded her arms. "I don't like talking."
"Well, what we've been listening to says otherwise," said Owen.
This made Arizona snort. Cristina was the queen of trash talk. "Hang on." She remembered something. "When are we getting our guns?"
Since she was offscreen, the agents were momentarily confused. "That was Robbins, wasn't it?" she heard Derek ask. Then Owen grunted in affirmation. "Robbins? We're sending Wilson and Avery up with them right now," Derek said.
"So when do we draw the guns?" asked Lexie. Arizona could tell that the young agent was nervous about handling weapons, since she was rarely ever on the field.
"You only draw guns when they do," said Derek. "Otherwise, show your badge and let Bailey body check them."
Bailey, considerate of the younger woman's feelings, scoffed exaggeratedly. "Shepherd, a body check from me would kill those guys. Make Yang do it."
Lexie visibly relaxed while the others laughed. "It's the home stretch, team," said Derek. "I'd say go out with a bang, but we all want this to go as smoothly as possible." He heard Cristina snort offscreen. "Yes, Cristina, even you."
Arizona had no idea how to wear a shoulder holster. She shot pistols in the Marines, but they were of the smaller variety that were on hip holsters. If she was being honest, she did away with it in favour of the knife strapped to her shin and her trusty assault rifle.
She looked at herself in the bureau mirror. There was something awkward about how the pistol rested on her ribcage. Her fussing was interrupted by the sound of the bathroom doorknob rattling. Shit, I can't let Callie see me like this. As she made a final attempt to fix up the holster, the bathroom door opened and Callie emerged, fully dressed.
"What the hell are you doing with that holster?" Callie asked. She looked amused.
Goddamit. "I- I was trying to put it on," Arizona stammered. "Rusty."
Callie stood behind her and Arizona could breathe in the smell of coconuts wafting from the FBI agent's damp hair. "It's like this." She adjusted the straps on the holster so they fit Arizona securely. "You don't have to lie, you know. Everyone knows that they don't wear shoulder holsters in the Marines."
Arizona let out an embarrassed laugh. "Yeah…" she said. She kicked herself for being so speechless. She blamed it on being keenly aware of Callie's fingertips still lingering on her sides. Who wouldn't be speechless? "Callio-," she started to say, but stopped herself.
Callie blinked rapidly, but let it slide. Instead, she picked up her own shoulder holster and put it on effortlessly. "You think we'll get 'em today?"
The academic examined herself in the mirror. "We have the one shot." She picked up her jacket and put it on, then admired the lack of lines the holster made underneath it. I look badass, she decided. "Let's go?"
"Uhm, Arizona." Callie bit her lip to conceal a smile. "You forgot something."
"What?" Is there something stuck in my teeth? I thought my hair looked fine.
"You wanna go in there with a useless paperweight?" Callie opened her hand to reveal her gun's magazine.
The LAN was set to begin at two-thirty in the afternoon, so the team had a long brunch and strategy meeting at the hotel beforehand. They didn't talk to so much about the game, but how they were going to steer the talk from the game to the fact that the LAN party was funded by stolen money, and how some of this stolen money has made their way into the clan members' own pockets.
Alex had casually walked by their table during their lunch. "I just came back from the can," he said, sitting down at a free chair next to Lexie. He pulled some papers out of his jacket pocket and handed them to Bailey. "Mark wanted me to give you this."
Arizona had leaned over, trying to see what Bailey was reading.
"I got the names of the Combat Tyrants and had Sloan check on their financial transactions over the last three months," Alex had explained. "They've been busy." He pointed at a line on the paper. "Check that out. A Robert Stark purchased a new car for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars."
"What the fuck." Arizona stabbed at her hash brown. "Let's not be too gung-ho, then. I want to have the satisfaction of getting these people to confess."
So now they stood outside the room where they were going to have the LAN, waiting to be let in. Arizona had began chewing on her lip anxiously. She shifted her weight from her prosthetic to her leg when someone grasped her wrist gently.
It was Callie. "Hey, it'll be all right. It'll be over quickly."
"It better be." Arizona attempted to put on her usual cocky front, but the weight of the gun on her left ribcage was making her jumpy.
The door opened. A bearded, heavyset man in his late thirties opened the door. Arizona recognised him from the suspect list at Tommy Moskovitz. "You gals ready?" he asked cheerfully.
Arizona felt Callie remove her grip on her wrist. "Yeah," she said.
Moskovitz led them inside the room. On the other side was a window overlooking the entire convention centre's ground floor, which was bustling with gamers and illuminated with screens. One half of the large table in the room already had whirring laptops set up. Moskovitz gave nods to his four other teammates in the room. Arizona noticed that Gary Clark was one of them, and although he was the supposed leader, he was trying to make himself scarce. He probably recognises me. Stark, however, was nowhere to be seen.
"We'll give you ten minutes to set everything up," Moskovitz told them. "Tell me if you need any spare powerboards."
"So," Callie started unpacking her computer. "This has been an awesome LAN. Kudos to you guys for organising it."
Arizona was busy unpacking as well, but she couldn't help looking up when she heard the bite in the agent's voice. The taller woman sounded casual, but Arizona knew by her squared shoulders and tense jaw that she was out for blood. What the hell is she playing at?
"Tell me something," Callie continued. "How did you manage to pay for all this?"
"Sponsorship, of course," Moskovitz replied easily.
"You didn't have many sponsors on the back of the schedule." Callie was ignoring the glares she was receiving from the other agents, and from Arizona. "You must have needed a lot of money to pull this off."
"Not much, really," another one of the Combat Tyrants said. They were starting to give each other uncomfortable looks, and only Gary Clark seemed unfazed by it all.
Callie was about to open her mouth, but Lexie spoke first: "Okay, we're finished setting up."
Cristina brushed past Callie to get to her seat, and Arizona heard her hiss: "What the hell do you think you're doing, Torres?"
Arizona sat down and put her headset on as Moskovitz started explaining the rules. Thirty minutes, friendly fire setting turned off, don't hang out in spawn spots. And then the computer counted them down to the beginning of the game.
The Combat Tyrants were a silent but deadly force. They killed more quickly and more efficiently than any of their past opponents, and they did it with little talk between them. For long stretches of time, they only exchanged grunts and single-word exchanges. Arizona's team, on the other hand, would have been making a spectacle of themselves. Profanity was being thrown left and right.
During a systematic blitz killing of three of the members, Callie - who was waiting to respawn - spoke. "Hey, Gary, right?"
Clark's eyes snapped abruptly from his laptop screen. Arizona felt herself break into a sweat. Fuck, don't do this right now, Callie.
"Yeah…" Clark said slowly. "How do you know my name?"
Callie didn't answer. "Nice watch," she said. "That's Rolex's new line?"
"Tag Heuer," Clark corrected self-consciously. "Why do you ask?"
"Focus on the game, Clark," Moskowitz snapped.
He focused his eyes back on his screen. But then he looked at Callie again. "How do you know my name?"
Callie blinked. "Doesn't everyone know your name? You being the leader of the Combat Tyrants and all?"
"My name isn't anywhere publicly. I'm known by my gamer handle," Clark insisted.
"Gary," Moskowitz said. "The game, please."
But Clark wasn't no longer listening to his teammate. "Seriously, how do you know my name?" he asked indignantly.
"I heard people use it around the convention centre," said Callie. Even if she was fibbing to defuse the man, her posture was still on guard. "Think nothing of it, if you're really that insecure of people knowing your real name."
"You're a fed, aren't you?" Clark's question was sharp and slightly menacing. "You're all feds! I should have known as soon as you walked in the room."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Callie was smirking. "We're not feds!"
"Yes, you are!" Clark grew increasingly frantic. "I should have known." He turned on Arizona. "I know you. You work at the university with Stark! Arizona Robbins, right? The FBI consultant?"
Arizona didn't bother denying it. "Where's Stark? Is he here?"
"I knew it." The game had stopped now; it was just the ten people in the room staring at each other. "Have you come to arrest us?"
"Only if there's something to arrest you for," said Callie. Arizona glared at her. "Is there something to arrest you for, Gary Clark? Like, I don't know, a series of robberies amounting to about forty million?"
"Stop talking, bitch!" Clark stood up, reached inside his jacket and pulled out a revolver, training it at Callie. Arizona blood went cold.
Upon hearing a loud crack, she dived and knocked Callie to the ground, shielding her. When she landed, there was a sudden weight on her back. And from the ground, she was just an observer. Protecting Callie was her first objective. She watched Bailey and Cristina draw their guns. She watched Clark stand his ground - although he was shaking - as the other put their hands up in surrender. She watched Lexie tackle Clark out of nowhere, knocking his gun out of reach. Then there were boots thundering in. Mark's voice: "FBI! Freeze!" He was accompanied by Owen and the young agent Avery.
Knowing that they have backup, Arizona knew it was safe to move again, but the heaviness on her body restricted her mobility. "Calliope, are you okay?" She tried her best to check Callie for injuries by running her hands lightly where she could on the taller woman's body. But then she felt something warm and sticky trickling on her own jacket. I've been shot.
"Oh my god." Cristina ran over and pushed something off Arizona. Her shoulders felt lighter, and suddenly there was no pain, except in her knee from when she fell.
"I think I'm fine, guys," said Arizona. But that didn't explain the blood.
Callie sat up, then gasped. "It's not you, Arizona," she said. When the blonde looked at her confusedly, she placed her hands on her shoulders and steered her to look at what - who - was behind her.
"Fuck!" Arizona let out a strangled sob. "Alex!" She stroked his hair. He lay there, his face screwed up in pain, blood blossoming on the side of his shirt.
"Let me check on him," Callie said gently, even though she was practically lifting Arizona by the arms and moving him aside. "Yang, can you call an ambulance?" Cristina nodded and pulled out her phone.
Arizona watched helplessly as Callie lifted up Alex's t-shirt to examine the wound. "It's just a flesh wound," Callie told her.
"But there's so much blood!" She backed further away from Alex and hugged herself as she kept herself from hyperventilating.
"Granted, it's slightly deeper than usual. But it hit a fleshy area of his body so as long as we stop the bleeding, he'll be fine." Callie smiled reassuringly at her. She stood up and picked up a dishcloth that was hanging on a hook in the room's kitchenette. She kneeled back down to press it against Alex's wound. "Hey, I'm gonna need you to stay awake until the ambulance gets here. Can you do that?"
Alex laughed, then groaned in pain. "I need a caffeine injection. Or some Ritalin or something. Or some really strong ibuprofen."
"I'm sure they won't work as fast as you think you want them to work," Callie chuckled. "Just keep talking to me, okay?"
Alex turned his head to look at Arizona. "Robbins," he croaked. "Shit. I ruined your jacket."
With this, Arizona snapped out of it. "You better not die, Karev, because you owe me a new one."
Next chapter: Everyone makes their rounds visiting Alex in the hospital. Have the academics forged a bond with the FBI agents now?
