AN: Sorry for the wait, have three fics going at the same time and I may have bitten off more than I can chew.
Glioma, it was all Arizona could think about all day. She'd been relegated to menial cases ever since her return. An inflamed appendix here, a broken foot there (which she found particularly grating as it was really just an excuse for Callie to check in on her). But today, she was getting a glioma. Though she was definitely curious about who neuro was sending to scrub in with her. She figured it was going to be Dr. Nelson, the shadow Shepherd. He wasn't perfect, but he'd do. She pushed her way into the scrub room only noticing a figure already inside and not paying much attention to who it might be.
"Dr. Nelson, haven't seen you in a…"
"Who's Dr. Nelson?" Amelia cut her off.
Arizona looked up in surprise at Amelia who was busy shaking her hands dry before putting her gloves on.
"Should be fun working together again" Amelia smiled, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "I'll see you in there Dr. Robbins." Then she put her hands forward and pushed her way out of the room using her back.
Working together again was a reference to the two year period they spent at Hopkins. They were on different specialty tracks, but managed to have three very important interactions, three very unforgettable interactions; each for very different reasons. The first was in the OR, Arizona had been assigned her first peds solo surgery and she was having trouble finding another resident to assist her. Okay, maybe more accurately she was being overly picky about who she wanted in there with her. She'd earned a bit of a reputation for being a dismissive snot with a superiority complex and while she didn't really understand its origins she wasn't about to let just anyone in her OR. So, three hours before the surgery when she still hadn't picked an assistant, Amelia came striding along to the surgical board and wrote her name onto Arizona's surgery.
"Excuse me, what are you doing?" Arizona asked, still staring at the board as if on the precipice of a decision.
"You were being indecisive" Amelia explained. "I decided for you."
Arizona stomped her foot in protest. "I wouldn't have picked you." She leveled the statement as if it were the highest of insults.
"You wouldn't have picked anyone" Amelia defiantly shot back, earning an eye roll from Arizona.
"You are an entitled brat with a cesspool worth of doctors in your family. This surgery doesn't excite you, it's just a means to an end." Arizona explained.
But it didn't matter, the surgery was in three hours and Amelia was right, she wouldn't have picked anyone. They were stuck with each other. Their patient, a nine year old with an arrow shot through his ear. It was an injury that happened at day-camp during an archery exercise. X-rays showed the arrow was a clean shot that hadn't really interfered with any area of the brain or any major nerves. All Arizona really had to do was pull it out. no muss no fuss.
Except that Amelia made the mistake of pushing when all she was supposed to do was gently guide the arrow through to Arizona. They weren't even three minutes in and their patient, a little boy named Tracey looked to be stroking out.
"What the hell did you do?" Arizona demanded.
But Amelia was in denial, she refused to own up to doing anything wrong and instead went with blaming Arizona.
"You said the pathway was clear" she protested. "Maybe you should have been paying more attention to the monitor."
Without a second's hesitation , Amelia had pushed the doors open and was half way out the door dragging the patient's gurney behind her. She turned to Arizona who just stood there dumbfounded, her mouth agape.
"Hey this surgery just got ten times more interesting, are you coming or not?"
Arizona wanted to snap at her. She really couldn't decide if Amelia was completely incompetent or if the young resident had done it on purpose for the sole purpose of raising her own interests. But there she was charging out the door with Arizona's patient, there was no time to question her. They needed to get Tracey to an OR with more appropriate equipment fast.
So, that was their first interaction, which is why Arizona was so thrilled to be working with her again.
~~~~XX~~~~
Today's surgery was supposed to take place in two stages. This was done in order to reduce the potential for swelling. Amelia took the opportunity to grab a quick bite and try and introduce herself to some of the staff. Well, one staff member in particular. She'd spotted him on her way to sign her staff contract. She didn't recognize him, but she liked what she saw. He was tall and dark with deeply defined cheekbones and arms that looked like something off the cover of a cheesy romance novel. She overheard him saying he'd be having lunch with a Dr. Torres at two o'clock. So, naturally she made sure she'd be in the cafeteria and conveniently passing by his table at that time.
Amelia saw him sitting just opposite buffet line chatting up a distractingly gorgeous brunette with impossibly white teeth. She'd been planning this for a while now, but didn't want to be obvious about it.
"Hi" she introduced herself, arm fully extended and expecting a handshake. "Amelia Shepherd, haven't met you, but I've been reading a lot about you're research."
Callie looked at the hand extended in her direction. She knew the name right away; she also knew Amelia wasn't even slightly interested in her research. She recognized the side glances being thrown in Frankie's direction, it was the same way she often found Arizona looking at her when she thought no one was looking. She decided to play along anyway.
"Derek's sister right?" Callie asked and received a swift nod of confirmation. "Today's your first day?"
"Yeah, I actually just got out of a surgery with the head of pediatrics, do you know her?"
Callie took a minute to study the other woman's expression she never knew what to expect after people first encountered Arizona. They were likely to do anything from sing her praises, to declare her criminally insane.
There wasn't much time to respond though, Amelia quickly jumped at the opportunity to continue speaking. "You don't want to, the woman's a total nightmare hasn't changed since Hopkins. She turns every single OR into…"
Callie wanted to save Amelia any further embarrassment. She held up her hand waving it in the air to reveal her wedding band.
"Crazy chick's my wife." Callie explained which effectively changed the subject.
It didn't pass by Callie that Amelia mentioned knowing Arizona at Hopkins. She made a mental note to try and have a chat with her about that, it was rare that she had the opportunity to meet anyone from Arizona's past who wasn't dead or dying. But for now, she needed to find Arizona, she was worried the surgery might not go well and from what Amelia described, she figured Arizona would need to talk about it.
~~~~XX~~~~
Arizona was in the parking lot digging through her car trying to figure out what happened to her secret stash of cigarettes. She was sure she still had half a pack left. With each passing minute that she couldn't find it, she grew more and more agitated, she couldn't be around anyone when she got like this. She was usually cool and collected, but right now she felt heat washing over her in waves and her heart felt like it might pound out of her chest. Still, no matter how many times she searched there was no pack to be found, no opportunity for reprieve. She slammed the door behind her and slouched against the car's frame.
"Damn it" She sighed.
"Looking for something?" Callie questioned, already fully aware of the answer as she approached the car.
"Where is it?" Arizona demanded, a bit too forcefully.
Callie wasn't all too shocked, at least she wasn't as shocked as she'd already been when she first found the cigarettes in Arizona's glove compartment.
"You know you shouldn't be smoking like at all right?" Callie warned. "What were you thinking? You just got off antirejection medication." Callie was growing frustrated and she tried everything to calm herself down.
Arizona sighed, she knew Callie was right and she was too tired to try and protest.
"I wasn't ready" Arizona admitted.
Callie looked down at the ground, she couldn't help feeling guilty. Things wouldn't be this complicated if she'd just had the strength to cut off the leg in the first place. She looked up at Arizona's leg again, it looked fine, perfect actually. But Callie didn't want to take any chances. She reached out and brushed Arizona's cheek, brushing a loose curl out of her wife's face.
"If you were still in pain you should have said something. I'm your doctor, I should know that."
Arizona looked in anticipation as Callie reached into her lab coat pocket. She thought she'd be getting her cigarettes back, but instead Callie pulled out her prescription pad.
"Here" Callie stated reassuringly as she scribbled into the pad. "This should get you through the week and we'll just see how it goes from there."
"Thank you" Arizona sighed, folding the prescription into her own pocket. She didn't dare tell Callie that she wasn't actually in any physical pain. But she couldn't put Callie in that position again. She didn't want Callie to feel any more responsibility for what she was going through.
She kissed Callie's cheek then pulled away slowly.
"You called yourself my doctor" Arizona started. She hesitated only slightly before finishing. "I want a different doctor."
Callie looked a combination of confused and insulted. She ran her hands through her hair and tried to convince herself this was just some momentary last minut decision Arizona would quickly change her mind about.
"Arizona, don't okay."
Arizona was crying now, it was silent, but still she was crying.
"I hurt so much and I can't talk to the one person I need to talk to about it" Arizona explained, "because she's my doctor."
Callie couldn't take the sight of Arizona crying like that any longer. She pulled her into a hug and kissed her repeatedly.
"Be my wife." Arizona pleaded, her voice falling softly against Callie's cheek.
~~~~XX~~~~
Arizona was at the hospital pharmacy getting her prescription filled when she got a 911 page. Doctors were supposed to run at a 911, they were trained to run. She actually had to fight the natural instinct of her legs to do just that because right now, she really needed that prescription. She waited impatiently, craning her neck around the counter to observe what was taking them so long. Relief finally coming when the pharmacist placed a brown bag with her name on it in the filled order window. The only objection she had left, why did the bag have to be brown? It conjured up images of winos aimlessly meandering the street doing a poor job of hiding their chosen vice. She didn't have time to ruminate on it any further, it was time to run. Arizona took off in a mad dash toward the OR. She was in such a hurry that when she got to the top of the stairs and opened the door she couldn't slow her momentum down soon enough and nearly ran Cristina over.
"I'm okay, thanks for asking" Cristina called after Arizona's quickly fading figure.
Arizona pushed the OR room doors open to reveal a familiar sight. Amelia had taken hold of the gurney and was ready to run down the hall with it all by herself.
"What did you do?" Arizona demanded.
"What did I do?" Amelia shot back, "I cut out a section of her scalp to relieve the swelling and then you covered it with a plate instead of bandages."
Arizona couldn't recall doing it, and she was not about to admit making a mistake to Amelia Shepherd .
"I still don't see how that, led to this" Arizona defiantly blurted, her hands motioning to the scene before them.
"Plates don't stretch Dr. Robbins." Amelia's voice was full of condescension. But then a quick thought, a possibility that she quickly shook off as impossible. Not Arizona Robbins.
"Well, are you coming or not?" Amelia demanded, "this surgery just got ten times more interesting."
Arizona was not in the mood today she just wanted to get in the OR and have Amelia shut up, but Amelia was the one doctor she couldn't seem to intimidate or irritate into silence.
At first they worked in complete silence, but then Amelia saw Arizona's wedding band forming a small hump against the latex of her gloves.
"So, I met your wife today" Amelia smiled, not at all fazed by the icy cold look Arizona shot her in return.
"We are not going to talk about her." Arizona stated, and Amelia ignored.
"She's really pretty."
Arizona thought back to her second encounter with Amelia. It was two weeks after the surgery from hell and she'd had a particularly long day. She called her then girlfriend, a free-spirited aspiring chef who couldn't really be bothered with intellectual conversations, but with Arizona's schedule she barely had time for conversations so it worked, at the time. They were supposed to meet up at the local bar, but Arizona was running late. She walked in to the bar looking every bit worth the wait. Then, there Amelia was drawing a crowd of skeezy men, shoving her tongue down Arizona's girlfriend's throat.
When Arizona tried to get her to leave, Amelia offered this wonderful piece of advice.
"chill out Robbins, sharing is caring."
So, that was their second encounter, which is why Arizona was so excited to be talking with Amelia about her wife.
"You're not Callie's type." Arizona confidently asserted.
Amelia smiled mischievously, she knew she should stop, but she was having too much fun getting under Arizona's skin.
"Oh so she's in to paranoid and bossy then?"
She was so excited to be working with Amelia again, so very excited.
AN: As always thanks for reading