Arizona couldn't remember how she had gotten on the floor but somehow all she was staring was the ceiling. She could feel it. The cold and tight feeling in her chest, her eyesight going blurry. All around her clean, white ceiling. Quickly Arizona began losing herself. Eyes closing, as the images of your life were faintly being seen in your eyelids. She had been here before, draining away. But before she lying on the forrest floor with the sights of trees and birds and now she was suck with nothing but white. It was nice not having to fight to breathe anymore, as she fell towards the darkness.
Callie had known waiting. She'd even grew accustom to it. She had waited for the ambulance with Arizona after the car crash, She had waited to be able to see her daughter, She had waited to hear from Arizona and Mark after the plane crash. She had gotten good at it. However, as she stood back watching this burley grunt of man climb up the ever ascending ladder to get Arizona down, she released maybe she wasn't so good anymore.
A hushed silence had fallen across the parking lot. An eeriness across the selection of staff, patients, parents of no longer trapped kids clutching them so tightly that you would be worried for their circulation, even a gathering huddle of press. It was if each one knew what they were all waiting for.
The silence stretched thinner and thinner, like a balloon blown big and caused Callie's muscles to tense as she saw movement near the window. Each one of the kids had been brought down in the typical fireman lift but this one, this one was heartbreakingly different.
Emerging from the window and down the steps of the ladder was Arizona draped across the shoulder and back of the Fireman. Her head hung down, unmoving behind a layer of blonde locks covered in ash. No movement. As Arizona lied still as did the doctors, stuck in a trance of watching the fireman ever slowly creep down the four story high ladder. Callie felt a grip of support on her shoulder from somebody as her mind fled to thinking the worse.
She had loved Arizona and seeing her in this way, unknowing of what was going to happen brought it all back. Callie had thought that in the seven months of them being apart she had gotten over Arizona. She'd gotten peoples numbers, she had been on dates but each time she got home there was still the one person that she wanted to talk about her day with. Deep down she knew and remembered the valid reasons why she had walked out of that therapy room. But there was always something drawing her back in.
Callie was brought out of her thought process by a man's booming voice, "Have we got a doctor?" Have we got a doctor, Callie thought, No. A whole hospital and not single doctor. She really had not got the time for this. "I've got her." Callie ran off towards the unmoving heap that was Arizona now lying on the less damp section of the ground. Nobody stopped her, nobody said she shouldn't be a doctor for some one so close to her. Everyone just stood and hoped for something good.
Callie fell to her knees next to her. "Come on Arizona." She spoke softly while fixing her position. "5 days in a forrest after a plane crash, you can do 20 minutes in a fire." Callie's efforts in coaxing her awake grew useless as her shaking hand went to check her pulse.
In medical school you're taught how at certain times you have to disconnect yourself from your patients because while your stood at an OR table putting back together the pieces that have broken you can't be thinking about their families, their kids. Everything they'd be leaving behind if the worst was to happen. However, its a whole different ball game when their family is your family.
"No!" Callie's voice cracked as she kept checking her wrist and her neck for a pulse. "Pull yourself together, Torres," she thought. "She's your ex-wife." Callie's hands, without even thinking about it, linked over each other and fell towards Arizona's chest. 1...2...3... With each chest compression hoping to bring her back Callie couldn't help but notice the missing necklace. She shouldn't be surprised, Callie wasn't wearing hers. Though the reminder didn't help hold back the tears. "Ex- wife, Ex- wife" She chanted to herself, forcing back the tears.
1 round of chest compression. Nothing.
1..2...3... She wouldn't stop, she kept going. Harder. Each push wanting to bring her back more. "Arizona, Sofia needs you. She doesn't get to start of with three parents and before she's five end up with one. No." When Mark died Sofia was so young that it didn't take much explaining about where he had gone. But if she had had to explain what had happened to her Mama... The thought brought back the tears. Now falling on the backs of her hands as they stayed underneath her constantly going up and down.
2 rounds of Chest compressions. Nothing.
She kept going. Feeling the burning sensation travel up her muscles. She kept going. "Please...." 1...2...3.. "Just wake up." Callie could hear footsteps behind her but kept her head down and focused on keeping the beat of the CPR. "Torres? Maybe we should get her in an Ambulance." Owen stood behind her watching the tears fall from Callie's eyes and the pale lifeless face of Arizona. "No! We move her and we stop the CPR and if we stop that she has no chance. She will wake up and she will be fine." Her voice snapped at Owen, never looking at him just keeping her head down. It wasn't until he was taking off his lab coat that she had noticed he was sat next to her. "What the hell are you doing." He began wrapping the coat around Arizona's burnt hand which she hadn't even looked at and was lying burn-down in to the wet, gravely floor. "I'm helping." As quickly as he sat down Owen got back up and ran over to the nearest Ambulance. Callie now saw him wheeling over a stretcher. Owen could see her defences fire up and soon calmed her down. "For when she wakes up."
3 rounds of Chest compressions. Nothing.
"Arizona..." By this Callie's arms had grown numb but she didn't stop "I'd rather be arguing with you than this. Come on, just this morning we were arguing about frickin' sandwiches." She let out a laugh to herself. She didn't even know what she laughing at but she needed something to stop her from getting angry. That thing soon ran out. "For god sake, Arizona. I know you're still there. That super magic smile is still there with the piercing blue eyes."
She was ready to collapse
to give up to return to her fetal position
she gave one more push a firm, hard punch on the centre of Arizona's chest.
Closed fist. One shot.
And just as Callie's fist left contact with Arizona's chest. A single, spluttered cough escaped Arizona's lips. Callie could see that noise fast becoming her favourite sound. The lone cough became paired with a sharp in breathe of clean air and a wince of pain. Callie was impatiently waiting for her to open her eyes, "Arizona?" Her reply came as a confused frown but slowly Arizona's eyelids lifted revealing the blood shot yet trademark blue eyes. "...Calliope." A soft, barely hearable voice. Callie's thoughts corrected themselves. Now, that was her favourite sound.
The two stayed there for a while. Arizona catching her breath and Callie regaining the feeling in her arms. Then, they shared a wordless, yet meaningful look. As if they both desired to initiate something, but both are too scared to initiate themselves. They both could easily remember how the past years had made them feel but right now neither of them cared. Callie couldn't hold it in anymore. The initial meeting of lips was filled with familiarity, feeling like home. The soft gentle kiss gradually turned into a deep passionate kiss. The silence around them quickly filled with the cheering and clapping from their friends behind them.
