Title: Extraordinary Measures

Author: J.M. Flowers

Rating: M

AN: Oh hey, look at that! Just a short chapter, but it will have to do. My recital is on Sunday (!) so the rest of my week looks crazy. I'll try to chapter 11 up before I go on vacation in a few weeks, and then we'll get back to normal by the end of June.

It'd be really awesome if I could get this story done by the end of the Summer, but I'm giving myself the benefit of the doubt and putting the end of the year as my must-be-finished deadline. As I have it figured out currently, there's 10 more chapters after this one - so half way there! Hope you're all still enjoying the ride, and thanks so much for reading.

Respice, adspice, prospice

Examine the past, examine the present, examine the future

"So then, what about Teddy?" I prompt, leaning against the wall behind a bunk, my knees tucked up under my chin. Mark lounges on the bed across from me, munching on a bag of chips he found unopened on the desk - some poor resident's abandoned lunch.

He swallows before speaking. "So, after you took off onto the elevator, Teddy came stumbling over with this chunk of glass in the side of her head. All she kept saying was sorry, so I took her into a trauma room and told Avery to get her cleaned up.

"And then the nurse at the desk said that another nurse had just called from the operating room, saying you'd rushed into the room and sliced Arizona's abdomen open. She said the bleeding was crazy, that they needed some extra hands. I told Jackson to go for me, and told April to clean up Teddy's wounds. Alex was still throwing up, I don't know. I sent all the other residents I could."

"You came to me?" I ask.

"Yeah," he whispers. "I found you in the scrub room, laughing."

"I remember that part," I tell him, "I remember until you gave me a blanket in the gallery."

He nods fervently, sitting forward. "Kepner was in shock, they said. Just shaking."

"She'd been there all day. Like thirty-six hours or something ridiculous."

"She collapsed. And I guess no one even realized Teddy was there..."

A mistake. Another mistake in the hospital, what had killed Arizona in the end. Her fate. Because if Kepner had gotten the ultrasound to them in time, they would've known better, they would've opened up her abdomen first. I never would've had to rush into surgery.

"She had a bleed, too, Callie. By the time a nurse found her..."

He takes a shuddering breath before continuing.

"She was pronounced brain dead and they pulled the plug a week later."

I feel bile creeping up the back of my throat, the parmesan from on top of my salad stabbing at my taste buds. I swallow it back down.

It's all my fault, though. I made the wrong change. If I'd gotten the ultrasound first, and then run into the elevator, let them see instead of cutting her open... Jackson would've been with Teddy instead of April, and Teddy would've gotten to CT. She would've lived.

"Where's April?" I ask.

Mark sighs, squishing the empty chip bag in his hands. "She left the program, Callie. Senna Hamilton took her place about a month ago."

That's why I didn't know her. She existed here in this reality. Everything was starting to make sense, except -

"Why is Arizona going to leave me?"

Mark runs a hand down his face, standing up so he can toss the chip bag in a little trash can beside the desk. "About a month after the accident, you started having these dreams... You'd wake up swearing that Arizona was dead, that she'd died that night. You were inconsolable. She took you to a psychiatrist, they gave you medication, you went to marriage counseling, but it just kept happening. At least once a week, you wake up with no idea what's happened. It's -"

"Exhausting," I whisper. Just as exhausting as it was to wake up in the machine after my weekly appointments. Appointments that began just a month after the accident. Twenty-four days, to be exact.

"She told you a week ago, that it had to stop. She can't keep going through it, Callie. She can't keep being reminded that she shouldn't have survived that. That her best friend didn't."

#

I find Arizona in the scrub room after her surgery, a bright smile on her face. "How'd it go?" I ask, leaning against the door while she shakes her hands off above the large sink basin.

"Wonderful. I took out all the necrotic bowel, Jamie should be eating solid foods again in no time." She giggles, drying her hands on a towel.

I can't help but smile at her, reaching forward to run a finger down her cheek.

She pulls away, dropping her towel into the waste bin. "Senna's shift ended about an hour ago. Did you still want to come with me to her dad's room?"

I don't answer, stepping closer to her.

"Callie," she whispers, dropping her gaze.

I wrap my arms around her, tugging her tight against me. "I'm sorry," I murmur into her neck.

She presses her lips against my shoulder, a feather light kiss through my lab coat. "Don't," she whispers in return.

So I seek out her mouth, wrapping my own around it and breathing her in. She bites into my lower lip, making me moan. I flick my tongue out, asking for permission, and she opens her mouth. I push against her tongue, rolling mine around it. Her fingers find their way into my hair, pulling me harder into her.

When we part, her skin is flushed; her nose a little red, her cheeks pink. A smile creeps onto her face and she slides her hands down the sides of my neck as she removes them from my hair.

"I love you," I swear.

"I know," she answers, "I love you, too."

"I'm sorry," I repeat. "Please don't leave me."

Her response is barely even a whisper. "Please come back to me."

#

Senna's exactly where Lexie said we'd find her, pacing in front of the nurse's station in General. Her glasses are on her face again, but her ponytail has been replaced with a tight French braid and her scrubs with a loose fitting pair of jeans and an oversized sweater. She stops pacing when she sees us.

"Dr. Robbins," she smiles. "How'd Jamie's surgery go?"

"Perfect," Arizona grins.

Senna nods, glancing nervously over her shoulder at a room. "Did you need something?" she asks, "Because my shift just finished, so -"

Arizona steps forward, placing a gentle hand on her arm. "Lexie told me, about your dad. I - we, just came by to tell you how sorry we are. If you need time off, or -"

Another person steps out of the room Senna's been pacing in front of. She has the same dark brown hair, the startlingly familiar green eyes. Except, I'd know this woman anywhere.

"Who's this, Senna?" she interrupts.

"Dr. Robbins, the head of Pediatrics," I hear Senna say, but my mind is a thousand miles away. "And this is Dr. Torres, she's the Ortho attending I was telling you about."

A whole reality away.

"Dr. Torres, Robbins, this is my sister, Gardenia."

"Denia," she corrects, holding out a hand to me. "All my friends call me Denia."

I take her hand, watching as her eyes flick up to me. The same, bright green eyes of Dr. Lewis' nurse, who sent me backwards once a week for two months.

"Come inside," she says now. "Say hello to our father."

But if Denia is Senna's sister, and their father is in liver failure...

I follow them into the room, stopping in the doorway even though Arizona lets herself be lead right up to the head of the bed. When she shifts out of the way, I get the answer to my hunch.

Their father is Dr. Randolph Lewis.

Their father made The Memory Machine.