Title: Sorry About All The Death (10/10)
Author: Maggiemerc
Rating: T
Summary: They may be out of the woods, but that doesn't mean they're out of the muck. Post-8x24 "Flight."
Author's Note: Whelp. This story is over. Thanks for reading it and sorry for taking so long between pieces. Yaaaay work.
I'm Just A Girl, And It's Time To Move On
The woman wasn't actually on top of Mark. She'd just rolled off him and was still glowing in a very annoying post-coital way. Callie stood in the doorway staring at her best friend and the woman she'd never seen before who looked just out of high school.
"You," she said—pointing a finger at the woman, "out."
Mark sat up, "Hey!"
She held up a hand silencing him and reached down to grab the woman's clothes which she tossed to her. "I'm sure you're very nice and once you graduate from high school I bet you'll be even nicer but you need to leave right now. This man is basically a widow and currently raising a child with two lesbians and you do not want that kind of drama. Do you?"
She shook her head and gave Mark mumbled condolences before scuttling out half-naked past Callie.
"Her name was Tiffany and she just graduated college," Mark said a little smugly.
"Congratulations. You screwed a fetus. You're supposed to be watching Sofia today."
Mark groaned and kicked his legs over the side of the bed. He stretched and moaned in that way only guys pushing, or in his case past, forty made. He pulled some boxers over with his foot and slipped them on.
"I've got twenty minutes before I need to come get her. And I could have used those twenty minutes with Tiffany. She likes cooking hamburgers and feels Cartoon Network shows are deeply misunderstood."
"Mark."
He rubbed at his face and sighed. "What," he asked looking directly at her and looking so exhausted, sad and worn out she almost didn't say it.
"Arizona skipped out on me last night and then dragged Meredith Grey home. She used that woman as a buffer and that woman saw me in things she should never ever see me in and now I have to go to work and look her in the eye and act like none of it ever happened."
"Why are you talking to me about this? She's the one you married. Talk to her."
"I can't do that."
"But you can come ruin my morning and unload on me."
"Yes."
He narrowed his eyes and pointed towards the door, "Out Torres."
"Mark—"
"No. You want a project to fix go start with the one you're living with. I'm doing fine."
"If you start sleeping with women any younger you're going to get arrested for statutory rape. That one was the same age as little Sloan!"
Poor choice in words.
"Callie I really don't want to deal with you right now."
Maybe she should have left. But the need to press someone, to point out how stupid everyone was being, was more urgent then her sense of self preservation.
"I'm not going to leave you to wallow in sex instead of dealing with what happened." She was standing strong. Like Wonder Woman.
"I lost the love of my life Callie. My soul mate—" it was only his passion that kept her from rolling her eyes at the absurd romanticism he'd suddenly attached to his doomed relationship with Lexie Grey. "If I want to grieve by screwing half of Seattle I will! But you—the love of your life is alive. She's breathing. Sure she's a grade-A bitch and she's never met a personal fight she couldn't run away from—but she's alive. And hobbled."
Okay. That was a little funny. "She really can't run can she," she asked wryly.
He nodded.
The impulse to leave struck her but Callie instead went and sat on the bed next to Mark. They sat in silence. It was amicable.
"I keep expecting to see her in the elevator."
She took his hand in her own and he rested his head on her shoulder. "I know," she said sadly.
"Was there ever as screwed up a relationship as what I had with her?"
"You and Addison."
"Derek and Addison."
"Derek and Meredith."
"You and George."
"Erica."
Silence.
"You got to talk to your girl Callie."
"I know."
"Let me live my life."
"Won't happen Mark." She pulled away so she could look him in the eye. His were dull. Haggard. He looked like a lost little boy stuck in the body of a man. "You're my family."
She pressed her forehead to his and his hands curled around her waist and for just a moment the ache of all their losses dissipated.
####
Meredith stumbled into the kitchen and rubbed at her eye. Derek and Zola were both already seated and looked at her curiously when she fell into the room.
"You were out late last night," her husband observed cooly.
"Arizona and I went to Joe's to celebrate our hemocolectomies."
She came around and kissed her daughter then went to pour some coffee.
"The surgery went well?"
"Better than well. I think I'd forgotten how much fun cutting up bowel could be."
"I've got a craniotomy later today. You should stop by. Brains are way more fun then bowels."
It was only his second surgery back. The first he'd been extremely reluctant to have her anywhere nearby. He wanted to do it alone.
"You're trying to woo me back to neuro?"
He shrugged, "It's almost," his eyes narrowed, "lonely there now."
Without Lexie.
She took the empty seat on the other side of Zola and played with her daughter's little hands. "I was thinking we need to clean out the room upstairs. I think it might be time."
Derek always had soft eyes. Eyes that suggested an endless reserve of empathy. He could look at her sometimes with a compassion she'd never thought she deserved. And he did so then.
"You sure?"
"We're moving anyways right? We should go ahead and do it now."
He said nothing. Just watched her.
She sipped her coffee. "Did you know Torres owns a strap-on?"
The soft look disappeared into a blank one. He blinked. Then, "Really?"
Pervert was totally interested.
"She was waiting for Arizona when we got back to her place last night."
"So that's why you came home?"
"She wasn't happy."
"I can say from personal experience that best friends that interfere with your sex life are unpleasant."
Cristina hopping into their bed and warming her feet. The three of them fast asleep. That would never happen with Arizona. She'd actually been more mortified then her wife.
Derek—ever astute—tilted his head, "Have you talked to Cristina lately?"
"Have you talked to Mark?"
"We do lunch. Almost daily." When Mark wasn't banging drug reps fresh off the plane. He sipped his coffee and returned to the newspaper. His tone was casual. "Robbins may be great, but she isn't Cristina."
It was an observation others had made. Meredith and Arizona had both made it. Alex had preached it. But coming from her husband it was something more.
Derek had always been the emotionally connected one. Meredith had spent three—almost four—years struggling to understand herself and her feelings but Derek had known much sooner. And he knew about her and Cristina. He never got jealous. He rarely got mad. He accepted this other person into their lives with minimum fuss.
And that intuitive man she'd fallen in love with had disappeared since the crash. He'd dug deep to find a way out of the mire they were all stuck in and somehow, all by himself, he'd found a way out.
And now he was back. Her husband. Sitting across the table from her. Lexie was gone. Cristina was gone. But Derek was there.
####
Arizona was sitting on the couch when Callie came back. She was staring straight ahead and she was swallowing compulsively. It was her method of holding back tears. Sofia was on the ground next to the couch playing with her giant blocks and completely oblivious to what was happening.
Callie came closer and noticed the phone forgotten in Arizona's hand. She took another step. Arizona's jaw clenched. Her eyes turned hard. Not for Callie. It was simply an external response to whatever was going on in her wife's head.
"Sweetheart?"
Arizona inhaled through her mouth. Exhaled through her nose. Steeling herself. She looked up at Callie, but the emotions weren't hidden. Her eyes were wet and she had to look away—down—almost as soon as she made eye contact.
"That was a resort in Belize. They were calling to ask where the remains should be sent."
Nick was dead.
Callie's heart fell and with it the rest of her. She knelt sat on the coffee table across from Arizona. Took her hands in her own. "I'm so sorry." What other words were there?
Arizona tried to smile. It failed. She rubbed at her eyes. "He didn't tell his sister." How alike Nick and Arizona had been. Brave to a fault. Reluctant to let go. Blindly stupid in the most tragic of ways. "He asked me to do it—before he left. So I need to go to San Diego, tell her and bury him."
The plan was already formed in Arizona's mind. A line between the present and the near future was drawn. And Callie didn't fail to notice that she had been omitted from it. So she asked, "When do we leave?"
"Callie—"
Mark was right. She had a problem in her own home that needed seeing to and Nick, in his passing, had presented the perfect opportunity. "No. I'm going with you."
Arizona looked to their daughter.
"Sofia can stay with Mark. You need me Arizona."
"Don't."
She ignored Arizona. Reached across the small space between them and grasped her hands tightly. "You run. I'll chase," she warned.
Arizona's eyes were inscrutable, the half formed scowl on her lips the only indication that she was irritated.
"I've been patient Arizona. With you I'll always be patient, but you need me right now."
####
They'd travelled in silence. To the airport. On the airplane. And even to the hotel. Arizona had pushed ahead of her when they stepped inside and pulled out her laptop to check where Nick's body was.
Callie had arranged for a funeral home to pick up the remains at the airport and their plan was to go there after speaking with Nick's sister and picking out a coffin.
She opened another window and checked her parents flight. They were flying from Maryland and wouldn't be in until later that afternoon.
"Any word," Callie politely asked. She could have looked over Arizona's shoulder but she was giving her space.
"The Colonel and my mom are in at five fifteen."
"Do I need to pick them up?"
Arizona looked up—surprised at the use of a singular pronoun. She wasn't—she wasn't accustomed to having someone like Callie. She'd had Tim and she'd had Nick and she'd even had Nick's sister but there had always been a little distance. A line no one would dare cross. They were family.
Callie was the partner she'd never known she wanted.
"They're renting a car," she said softly.
Callie nodded and made herself busy arranging their bags and hanging their clothes up.
"Callie?"
Her wife paused.
"When we go to talk to her, could you stay in the car?"
She opened her mouth to object so Arizona had to be faster. "Things didn't end well, between her and me and she doesn't really like crying in front of other people. I want to be comfortable."
"When you say between you…were you—did you date her?"
She choked out a laugh. Did she and Sarah date? The idea of it grossed her out. No it was the opposite. "She was married to Tim."
Callie didn't know what to say.
"When he died she didn't take it well. None of us did you know? But Nick and I had each other and she was just—she was angry. There were some pretty major fights between the three of us."
"When was the last time you talked to her?"
"When I moved from Baltimore."
She could see it on Callie's face. Callie didn't cut ties. Callie still talked to her dead ex-husband's mother. She sent her own mother, a woman who refused to go to her wedding, letters once a month with photos of Sofia.
"She didn't know Nick was sick?"
Arizona shook her head. No. She did not.
####
Arizona looked nauseous and no amount of leg pats, hugs or gentle words were going to help. She'd pushed her seat all the way back to give allowance for her extended leg but halfway to the sister's home she'd tilted her seat back and covered her eyes with her hand.
She'd asked Callie to stay in the car. Gotten as close to begging as Arizona Robbins was ever likely to get. And in the hotel room Callie had agreed. Now out in the sunlight, nearly to this woman's place she was reconsidering.
She followed the GPS to a small home with white shingles and bright blue trim. It was very East Coast despite them being on the west. There was a SUV in the driveway with a sticker proudly saying that someone's kid was an honor student.
Beside her Arizona took a deep breath. She tried to give Callie a reassuring smile, but it didn't quite succeed. "I'll be right back."
She watched her wife go and very much wanted to follow. But she didn't. Arizona had made just one request and the least Callie could do was oblige.
The door opened and a tall woman with Nick's long face and dark hair opened the door. She studied Arizona a moment then shut the door. Her wife, not to be deterred, knocked. The door opened again. Arizona said something. The woman dissolved into tears. Arizona crossed the threshold and held her.
####
Barbara and Daniel's flight ended up being delayed and when Callie gave her wife the news she accepted it mutely. She'd been inside talking to her sister-in-law for over an hour and when she came out it was alone. Callie told her they were on their own for the evening and she just accepted it.
Seeing that her wife was clearly distressed Callie turned the car back towards the hotel. That drew Arizona's attention. "Don't we have a meeting at the funeral home?"
Apparently they did.
Arizona was bright in the funeral home. She made a few jokes. Spoke fondly of the deceased. Tried to convince the funeral director that Nick really would have wanted a coffin embossed with enamel butterflies.
"You know it's funny," she mused while the director ran to get a quote on a mahogany coffin Arizona liked, "when we were kids I'd always tell them exactly what I wanted for my funeral. Lot of flowers and a clown to greet everyone at the door. But now I'm the one always stuck planning their funerals." Arizona turned to look at her wife, "What about you? Am I spreading your ashes in Malaga? Burying you next to Mark?"
It was supposed to be a joke. But Callie honestly had no idea how to reply.
"If, by some mean moment of fate, I manage to die before you," Arizona continued, "I'd like something small and simple. Just a memorial service. Donate my body to science." She looked down at the coffee the director had given them when they'd first entered. "This is really good."
####
The dike broke eventually, as all must. You can service them. Scale their walls and patch the holes as you find them. But at some point there are too many holes and not enough little dutch boys to stop the onslaught.
It was after the funeral. Callie stood between her wife and the sister-in-law she didn't know she had. Her nephew, an eleven year old with Arizona's blond hair, stood to his mother's left. Nick's parents were both gone and most of his friends and coworkers travelled too much to attend so the funeral was small. Just family. Barbara cried. Daniel held her. Arizona was resolute. The cuts on her face had long healed, but in the southern California sun Callie could see traces of them. Faint marks against her tan skin.
Her fully leg brace had been replaced with something smaller and less obtrusive and she'd finally moved from two crutches to just one, but the trauma her wife had experienced was still quite visible. Roiling emotion just behind a dam of facile strength.
She clung to it at the funeral. Stood strong. Held her mother and her father and Nick's sister. She smiled at her nephew and invited him to meet his cousin sometime. Afterwards they all went out for coffee and traded stories about Nick. And Tim.
And Arizona was so strong. So good.
It was back in the hotel. Callie flopped on the bed and pulled out a magazine. Arizona went to take a shower. The water stopped. The door opened. And Arizona just stood there. Her face immutable.
Once upon a time Callie wouldn't have known how to react. She might have ignored it. Or rushed to hug her. But she'd learned things over the years. She used to not get her wife and she'd happily turned away from ever trying to understand her. But somewhere between the sight of her fresh off a plane from Africa and their wedding things had started to click. The mystery of her wife had become clear.
Now…now she understood her wife and when she stepped out of the shower in a t-shirt and a leg brace with her hair still wet and that blank look on her face Callie understood her a little more.
"You did good. Today."
Cracks in the facade. Arizona nodded.
"They would have been proud."
"But they all leave."
Callie might have argued that point once. Tim and Nick's deaths weren't choices. They were tragedies. She said nothing. This was Arizona processing. Interanlizing everything until a moment of catharsis.
"And I'm always okay." She looked away. Looked up. Callie couldn't say anything. Even if she'd wanted to.
Tim went away to war. And died. And Nick ran away from death and it caught up to him anyways.
"It's not just Tim and Nick. It's our car crash. And that gunman. I was at the front of the plane Callie. Statistically that's the worst place to be, but it was Lexie who died. And I walked away with a new knee and some metal in my leg."
"You were—"
"Lucky? Why? That's what I don't get Callie. Why me? I'm a great doctor and a good wife but my brother was a wonderful husband and a good father. So why me?"
There was no easy answer. It was a question surgeons dealt with daily. One they wrestled and one they often overcame. How one could survive and another could die. Life was fickle, the unseen threads of existence that kept them all in place were impossible to understand.
And Arizona knew that. It wasn't about answering the question. It was just about asking it.
It was saying it. Wondering out loud how cruel the world could be that finally did it. The first few tears could be ignored easily enough. But then they continued and a sniffle turned into a sob and Callie was up and catching her wife in her arms before she hit the ground.
Arizona clung to her as she cried. Held on more tightly than she'd ever had. There were no words. No wails of misery from Arizona or attempts at comfort from Callie. Only tactile relief. Long kisses and soft hands and two women wrapping themselves up in each other. Trying to live just a little bit longer. Riding the waves of grief and just…moving on.
####
She'd stolen the ashes. Not all of them. Most were interred because that what her father and her half-sister desired. But she'd taken just a small amount. A snack baggie full. She'd kept it in her locker and every day she'd open her locker and look at the ashes and try, as hard as she could, to think of where they should go. Down the drain like her mother? Over a cliff. Out on the beach.
She thought about asking Mark. Or Derek. She even almost broached the subject to Alex and Arizona. But she never did. She just walked back in and looked at those ashes resting inert in her locker.
They were the last thing left of Lexie. Her bedroom was cleared out. Her belongings packed up and given away. Everyone had a memento or two, but they were no longer Lexie's things. Just bits of minutiae to remember her by.
These ashes sitting in her locker were all that was left of a sister she'd never wanted but had managed to love so deeply.
She missed Lexie. More than she thought she would have. But what was worse wasn't the missing, it was all the possibilities shattered. They'd never steal each other's surgeries or play on the floor with Zola. She'd never get to tell her how much she'd meant. Never get to find out if Lexie really understood the depth of her love for her. She'd never watch Lexie get married in a big stupid overblown Izzie-style wedding or get a niece or nephew. She'd never get to really apologize for those first few months they knew each other.
It was all gone.
Nothing left but some gray ashes in a baggie in her locker.
"You know, staring at your dead sister's earthly remains that you've stuffed into your locker might be considered creepy."
She wouldn't smile. That wasn't what Meredith Grey did. She turned. Cristina was wearing her leather jacket and leaning against the door.
"You're back."
"Mayo blows. Teddy might not be here, but I get a way bigger research stipend because of it. And I get to tell Kepner what to do in the OR."
"I missed you too."
That was all that needed to be said. Cristina nodded in apology and acceptance then clapped her hands together loudly. "Okay! So what are we going to do with Lexie? Because pouring her down the sink to spend eternity with your mom is just cruel…"
And like a rubber band the world snapped back into shape. Maybe a little different. But change could be good right?
The End.