Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum
A/N: Wrote some of this with an almighty hangover. That whole 'beer before liquor' thing is a load of hokum. I tried it both ways around the other night, and neither one stopped me from wishing for a quick and painless death! Sorry if some of this sounds… weird… as a result!
Thanks for all the reviews! In the words of Arizona Robbins, you're awesome!
Chapter 8: Fortes fortuna iuvat
Life is like a game of roulette. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. There's no skill to roulette, there's no bluffs like in poker, no educated estimations like in blackjack. It's just you, a ball and 38 red and black spinning pockets.
So why do people play? When the house always wins, what's the point?
Addicts tell you it's the rush, the adrenaline, the fear and anticipation - believing that as much as you may lose, sooner or later, you're going to win, and probability agrees. Play the game long enough and every now and then you'll win - and win big, others you'll lose every last cent you've got, but that's all part it. In a game of roulette, when all is fair you either win or you lose.
Luckily, unlike roulette, life isn't so black and red. Sometimes in life, when it looks like you've lost, you've actually won. And won the jackpot.
"You ever sleep, Torres?" Mark asked picking up a vial of watery liquid and shaking it about before peering into it.
Callie had been working on her artificial cartilage project ever since the… incident. Even if she had yet to be cleared for surgery by the hospital appointed shrink, that didn't mean she had to sit around doing nothing all day. Besides, it was quiet in the lab, gave her time to think.
"What?" Callie replied distractedly, not really listening to her best friend as she pipetted a drop of murky looking liquid into a small glass vial.
"You know, it's this thing when you, usually, get into a bed, close your eyes and…" Mark played, putting down the vial he had in his hand before perching on the edge of Callie's desk.
"I know what sleep is, Mark." Callie answered sarcastically before stoppering the newly made solution and popping it into the centrifuge.
"You do it?" Mark probed, watching Callie intently.
"Of course I sleep, Mark. I am human, after all."
Mark made a face of shock and awe at his best friend, one to suggest that he couldn't quite believe what she'd just said.
"You are? I was wondering there for a while." Mark couldn't help himself. He loved the banter between himself and Callie. It was just one of the many parts of their relationship that was easy and comfortable.
"Is it just me or are you looking a little pale..? Hey, I didn't realise they kept blood packs in here..."
"Haha, very funny Sloan. Now, if you're done being so hi-larious, can you, I don't know… Shove off? I'm trying to work here." Callie snapped, although she had to hand it to Mark. She'd never have suspected him to go so Twilight on her ass. It was just plain wrong – on so many levels.
"You do know that we have people who do this kind of thing for you?" Mark answered, making no attempt whatsoever to move.
"Yep." Callie replied simply. She really didn't want to have this talk again, not after having had it so many times before with every single researcher and developer currently employed at Seattle Grace Mercy West.
"So why don't you let them do it?" Mark asked, really not understanding why his friend was wasting her time doing something other people were paid to do when she didn't have to.
"They said it wouldn't work." Callie replied sharply, always keeping her eyes averted from the older surgeon.
Mark went to open his mouth, ready to express his opinion, when Callie beat him to the punch.
"Before you say it, it will work, Mark." Callie rebutted the unasked, unwanted and unnecessary statement waiting on Sloan's lips.
Arizona needed it to work.
"Okay…" Mark said disbelievingly before Callie inhaled deeply and started up the centrifuge, the pair staring intently at it before the machine began to slow, it's programmed time up.
"It has to…"
"Honey, why don't you let me do that for you?" Barbara pleaded with her daughter as she attempted, in vain, to adjust the pillow she had at her back.
"Mom, its fine! My leg may be back in the shit, but my arms work perfectly well! So just leave it, okay!" Arizona snapped, immediately regretting using the tone with her mother.
"Mind your language, please. There's no need for those kinds of words." Barbara chirped. These were obviously practiced words from her mouth.
"Sorry Momma…" Arizona blushed, sinking down into the rough hospital sheets.
"It's okay, baby, I know this must be hard for you. To have to do all of this again."
Hard was an understatement. They say that surgery is a team sport, but recovery isn't – recovery is lonely as hell. Arizona didn't know about surgery, but the latter half was definitely true.
"No it's not okay. I'm sorry, I guess I'm just a little frustrated, that's all." Arizona breathed, knowing that her mother really didn't deserve her wrath – no-one did. It was just one of those things that was hard to keep internalised 24/7, however hard Arizona's resolve was.
"When was the last time you saw Callie?" Barbara asked seeming disinterested as she continued to busy herself with the half-finished crossword on her lap.
"What?" Arizona asked a little too defensively. Of course her mother had noticed. Her mother hadn't missed anything in Arizona's whole entire life. Ever.
"Oh, come on, Zona, I'm your mother, I can tell that something happened." Barbara looked up from her crossword once more, levelling her own blue eyes at her daughters. A mother's intuition was never wrong – not in Barbara Robbins' case at least.
"Soo…" The elder Robbins drawled, trying to coax some response out of her daughter. She'd let her stew for the week that she'd been in Seattle after the shooting debacle, knowing that Arizona usually told her everything she needed in time. Only this time Barbara couldn't wait, wouldn't let Arizona wait that long, not when she'd seen how happy the Latina made her only surviving child.
"I dunno..." Arizona lied, she knew exactly the last time she'd seen Callie – it was always too long ago.
"A week ago?"
Arizona slumped back into her bed, catching another knowing glace from her mother. The days following the accident had been hard, especially with the surgery on her knee and all of the affected surgeons and patients needing to go through grief counselling. She'd luckily managed to get out of that particular chore by grace of her military experience. She'd dealt with madmen with guns many times before, too many times before.
"Why don't you go and see her?" Barbara continued in an inquisitive yet not too forceful tone, the one parents' use to make it seem that they're suggesting something, when actually what's said is meant in the imperative.
"I don't know, momma…" Arizona groaned, as much as she yearned to see the woman that made her heart run riot in her chest just by being in the same room, but Arizona wasn't sure if the Latina was ready yet.
"Arizona…" Her mother scolded, slightly surprised at her daughter's caution. Arizona was rarely one to doubt what she wanted, and usually jumped at any opportunity head first.
"What if she needs some space? What if I go and see her and she doesn't want to talk to me anymore or have anything to do with me?"
It was one thing knowing the reality that Arizona had killed countless people, but it was another thing actually seeing it. Something like that can change everything you thought you knew about a person and turn them on their head. In some ways, doctors were the complete antithesis of the men and women on the frontline. Doctors swore an oath to do no harm, and soldiers carried death machines around on their hips day in, day out, and didn't think twice about using them.
"Why would she want to do that, Arizona?" Barbara replied shortly. Arizona was obviously being ridiculous, and Barbara had had enough of this game. Weighing the odds of making Arizona retreat into herself or actually spurring her daughter into action, Barbara decided to go for it. She'd thought her daughter had learned the lesson that you only live once, but obviously she needed a bit of a reminder.
"Go and see that girl, Arizona Robbins! I had enough of your moods when you were a teenager, so you're going to get your butt into that wheelchair and you're going to go and see that magnificent surgeon and stop being so…"
Was her mom really going to say pissy? Arizona had never heard a curse of any kind fall from the lips of one Barbara Robbins.
"Grumpy."
Nope, polite as always. That's not to say she didn't have a point...
"Ay mios Dios!" Callie grumbled impatiently. She'd tried formula after formula, reaching a gloopy consistency, but never becoming fully solid, and it was grating on her nerves. She was always so close, but never got the cigar.
Callie continued to mutter in what sounded to Arizona to be angry Spanish, before throwing the test tube she'd been holding into the trash can beside her desk. Seemed that whatever Callie was doing wasn't going all that well.
Pushing the door further forwards in front of her, Arizona used her good leg to prop it open as she managed to wheel her way slowly into the lab.
Returning her attention to the captivating Latina hard at work in front of her, Arizona was surprised to find brown eyes eying her up and down, a small smile on her lips that reflected gently in her eyes. That look would never stop Arizona's heart from fluttering.
"How's your knee?" The Latina asked gently, putting down the pencil that she'd been using to write notes to give her full attention to the newly arrived blonde.
"Meh. It aches." Arizona replied, rubbing her leg unconsciously.
It always ached. In some ways, Arizona thought it was worse than the pain of actually getting shot. Intensity wise, sure it was so much more painful, but that had gone away after the surgery. This, however, nagged at you, day in, day out, never relenting. The meds helped a bit, but she'd been taken off the morphine a couple of days after the surgery - something about acquiring an addiction or something like that. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, when the pain stopped her from sleeping, Arizona wished she could just hack her leg off from the knee up and be done with it.
"This the reason I haven't seen you in months?" Arizona pointed to the equipment and notes splayed haphazardly around the stressed out Latina, the pencil sticking wildly out of her jet black hair making Arizona smile in spite of her mock annoyed tone.
"Arizona…" Callie laughed gently.
"It's only been, what? Two, three days?"
"9 and a half days." Arizona stated matter-of-factly. There really wasn't much for her to do now that she didn't have P.T. and Callie had disappeared, apart from count the days. She'd seen Teddy a couple of times, and her mother, but they weren't Callie. Compared to her, and as much as she loved them, Momma and Teddy just didn't quite cut the mustard.
"What?" Callie almost shouted in disbelief, getting a dirty look from the couple of people who were also using the lab. There was no way she hadn't seen Arizona for that long, was there? The shooting only seemed like yesterday…
"I haven't seen you for 9 and a half days." Arizona repeated, unable to keep the emotion out of her voice. Since when had she become so sappy? She was badass, hard-core. Usually.
"I've missed you." Yep. At this moment, Arizona was definitely not being hard-core.
"You're joking, right? I mean…" Callie couldn't believe that it had been that long since she'd seen the blonde, yes she'd been working hard, but could she really have been missing days?
"Shit." Callie growled as the realisation hit her. Maybe Mark had a point…
Watching Callie bang her head gently at the desk in front of her before she turned her soulful brown eyes to the soldier's bright blue ones, Arizona's heart skipped a beat. She was sure that she was staring at the surgeon, but Arizona couldn't find it within herself to care. Even all mussed up and stressed out, the Latina just oozed sexy.
"Go out with me." Arizona blurted, wheeling her chair slowly over to where the breath taking surgeon was sitting
"Okay, now I must be hallucinating or something, because I swear you just asked me to go out with you." Callie rubbed her hands roughly up and down her face, the weariness of the past couple of weeks finally seeming to catch up with her.
"You're not hallucinating, Calliope. Go out with me." Arizona repeated, just the thought of taking Callie on a date making her dimples pop so much, she thought her face was about to fall off. No more time dancing around each other. She couldn't just ignore that kiss – it kept her awake every night, not that she really minded.
"A break will do you good; maybe it's what you need to get your project back on track. Some perspective or whatever they call it." Arizona coaxed, seeing the apprehension in the Latina's enrapturing chocolate eyes.
"I don't know, Arizona, the Chief really wants this done asap, and…" Callie replied slowly. Did she want to go on a date with Arizona? If she was honest with herself, she probably had been immersing herself in the cartilage project so she could avoid the inevitable conversation she was due with Arizona.
"Balls to the Chief. He owes me, anyway, for dealing with the madman with the gun, remember? I'm sure he won't mind if you take one day off. So what do you say, hotshot?"
"You can't leave the hospital…" Callie continued; resolve crumbling quicker than a chocolate chip cookie.
"Nope… Go out with me." Arizona replied simply, determined not to let Callie wiggle her way out of this one. She wanted it, Arizona could tell, Callie just needed an extra little push – just like Barbara had given her earlier.
"I have my ways, Calliope. Just you wait. I won't disappoint, I promise!"
Thank God her mother was here, for once her finicky ways would be oh-so useful.
"Oh my God, this looks amazing!" Callie cried as she pulled the blindfold Arizona had forced her to wear off of her face. She was amazed at what the blonde had achieved in such a small space of time, and in the setting that she had.
The familiar room had been completely transformed. A dreary on-call room by day, it turned out the small space was an intimate Italian style restaurant for two, complete with mood lighting, a single pillar candle in the centre of the table, and a red rose, set delicately across in front of the yet unrevealed meal.
"You like?" Arizona asked shyly, suddenly anxious that the Latina would find this overly cheesy and laugh in her face at her attempt of a romantic setting. She should have stuck with the
"Like it? I love it, Arizona, how did you manage to do all this?!" It was… miraculous. Everything was perfect. The light, the candle, the rose, all of it. Some people may have called it tacky, and Callie was usually one of those people, but it wasn't like that at all. It was understated, yet elegant. It said what it meant and meant what it said. Just like Arizona.
"Like I said, I have my ways." Arizona hadn't even had to ask her mother to cook the meal for her romantic evening not-quite-out with Calliope, before Barbara had practically ran out of the room to get all the necessary ingredients for one of Ma Robbins' classic mouth-watering dishes.
"And Mark owed me a favour, and when Mark owes you a favour, that also means his interns owe you a favour." Arizona smirked when she remembered the conversation she'd had to have with the Latina's best friend to get him to set up the room and ward off any tired surgeon or nurse looking for a convenient place to take the weight off.
Apparently this particular room had had to be sealed when a sudden outbreak of pink-eye in staff members who had used this room as their make-shift bedroom for the night had revealed itself. No-one wanted pink-eye, did they? She also had the older surgeon keeping an eye out to make sure anybody making for the door was warded off before they could reach their destination and ruin all of Arizona (and Barbara's) intense planning.
Arizona really had to remember to thank Mark the next time she saw him, he'd really pulled it off.
Arizona wheeled herself to the table and guided Callie gently around to the one of chair set opposite an unseated plate, its contents hidden beneath a makeshift napkin tent.
Sitting down at the proffered seat, Callie watched as Arizona pulled the napkin off with a flourish revealing a more than appetizing looking dish of what appeared to be a gourmet version of beef stew. Callie had to chuckle. It's exactly what she needed at the moment, a nice comforting, hearty meal on a cold and wet Seattle day.
"Oh my God!" Callie moaned when the food hit her mouth, an unexpected, but entirely welcome hit of chili tickling her taste-buds delightfully.
"This isn't even hospital food! Arizona…!"
Callie couldn't believe the effort that the blonde had gone to in order to make this the best evening possible under the circumstances. She may not have looked the part, still in her scrubs and lab-coat since she'd just gotten off her shift, but Arizona sure made her feel the part. There was just something in the way the marine looked at her…
The surgeon's eyes widened as Arizona pulled out a bottle of red wine from underneath the table, already uncorked and ready to go. Arizona wasn't wrong when she said she had her ways, a bottle of the good stuff surviving more than 10 minutes whilst unattended in this place before being pilfered by one of the interns for their crazy parties was a miracle.
"Arizona, you do know that when we mean no alcohol, that includes wine, right?" Callie laughed, picking up the glass of red liquid Arizona had poured generously into the waiting wine glass.
"Right! It's grape juice, Calliope! Sorry to disappoint!" Arizona giggled as the Latina wrinkled her nose, grape juice wasn't exactly her most favourite drink in the universe, but you had to give Arizona credit for getting as close to the forbidden alcoholic alternative as possible.
"Plus you're on call, so…"
Callie nodded unwillingly in acceptance. Thinking about it, it probably was a good thing she wasn't drinking considering what happened last time Callie, alcohol and Arizona had been in the same room. That was definitely not one of her finest moments.
The meal continued in a comfortable silence, the only sounds filling the room those of two contented women enjoying their delicious Mrs Robbins' special chili steak stew. It was always one of Arizona's favourites that her mom used to make when she was feeling rough, or if any member of the family was ill.
"I'm sorry I've been so busy lately. I just… I just needed a bit of time to process, I guess…" Callie said quietly once she'd had her fill, wiping her mouth gently with the now discarded napkin.
The more she thought about it, the more Callie came to the conclusion that she couldn't just avoid problems in her life like she had been doing up until now. If the shooting had taught her anything, it was that life was short, and you had to live it while you had it, not fritter it away not doing something you wanted because you thought it was risky. Getting up in the morning, going outside, driving to work, it was all risky, yet she did that every day. How was this any different?
"And…" Arizona asked expectantly, wanting to know more than she ever thought possible what conclusions the Latina had come to. It was possible her whole future hung on the next sentence that fell from the surgeon's perfect lips.
"And…" Callie mimicked, fiddling with the foot of her glass of grape juice.
"And I think that I don't want to be left wondering what could have been if I only took the chance. I'd rather live knowing I tried, even if it doesn't work out."
Arizona let out a long breath that she didn't realise she'd been holding, the beating in her chest kick starting back into life after remaining still for what seemed a lifetime.
"Really?" Arizona asked quietly, a small smile coming to her lips as she reached her hand across the table towards the woman that had saved her life, not only once, but twice.
"Really." Callie replied, taking Arizona's cool hand in hers, a shot of electricity shooting up the Latina's arm, their fingers intertwining perfectly.
"Thank you." Arizona breathed to an invisible deity, smiling all the while like, Arizona was sure, a complete goofball.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you."
A/N 2: Thanks for reading, you guys. Again, I'm sorry it took so long! Not really sure yet what's going to happen in the next chapter, if you've got any ideas on where you want the story to go, you're more than welcome to drop me a PM or put it in a review!
Thanks again for reading!
