Hello my lovelies! I'm currently weeping away at Halsey's new single which I recommend you all check out, like...yesterday, and I think it's a lovely time to finally update this bad boy! School of course, loves getting in the way, but the semester is just about over which means much more updating and some new stuff to come. Please remember to review at the end, it makes my day, really. This chapter, though it is late, is dedicated to my Belle, who I don't know what I'd do without anymore; happy birthday my love! Usual disclaimers apply, it's probably a good thing I own nothing considering how this story's gone so far, and Chyler Leigh invented the concept of wearing lingerie.

Chapter Nine

Asking Arizona to follow the rules was apparently a moot thing, because even when Callie brought Lexie in a few days before her regularly scheduled appointments to try out another fitting of her slightly modified prosthetic, Arizona was sitting in an office chair right along the wall with a devilish grin sprawled over her face.

"I thought you were banned," Lexie teased.

"She can't say no to the woman with a robot leg, it's cruelty."

Callie, who was in her office, made a loud sort of strangled noise in response. Lexie looked over at Arizona for some sort of explanation, both of her eyebrows furrowing together despite the growing smile on her face. "She's not willing to admit it, but you and I made progress last time and she thinks it's good for you. My being here, anyways," Arizona said, emphasizing the whispered tone of her voice as if it was a secret she was exchanging, the two of them like little girls.

"What you two did last time was stupid as hell," Callie noted as she emerged from her office, Lexie's prosthetic in hand. "And believe me, I'm not dismissing it. It is the first time I've seen you remotely interested in doing anything, though, so I figure as long as I'm present in the room, it's worth the try." She shot a pointed look at Arizona to accompany the heavy stress on her instructions, but Arizona was much too busy smiling at Lexie to notice.

"Hey, I was interested in doing all of the massage therapy stuff," Lexie protested. Callie simply rolled her eyes at the excuse.

"Lexie, I'm your doctor, not your priest. You don't have to lie to keep me satisfied or spare my feelings." She snatched the medical file—most likely Lexie's—out of Arizona's hands with her spare one. "I know you're still dealing with a lot of PTSD, and while this isn't the place you come to deal with that, I think it'll maybe be beneficial for you to have her in here with you. A support system."

"A decent support system," Arizona corrected. "No offense, but your sister's idea of support is underwhelming and somewhat terrible."

Lexie looked over at Callie, lips unfolding into a beaming smile. "I like her."

"Yeah, I know," Callie grumbled. "Match made in heaven."

Callie's instructions were incredibly detailed and specific; despite Arizona being allowed back in the room, Callie wasn't about to take any more liabilities with the two of them. They could request to have the room alone if they needed, but they weren't allowed to use Lexie's prosthesis under any circumstances without Callie's presence and assistance. If Callie wasn't in the room, Lexie wasn't allowed to get up from wherever she was stationed without Callie's assistance. Arizona was not allowed to grab the handles on Lexie's wheelchair and make a run for it. The list of their rules went on and on and on, the two of them exchanging looks every so often as Callie droned on. They felt like teenagers in the middle of detention, their prison warden of a supervisor lecturing them on mostly the things they couldn't do.

But Callie kept her word. She was a silent ubiquity, only making herself known when Arizona and Lexie were ready to try walking. Callie had gotten out the parallel bars for them to use, allowing Lexie as much support as she needed by keeping the maximum amount of distance she could. Arizona did most of the motivation, and Lexie did the physical work, and Callie popped in whenever her services were required.

Arizona, Lexie quickly learned, had missed on her true calling as a life coach. Lexie attributed it to the fact that Arizona somehow understood her in a way that Lexie herself hadn't quite learned how to label yet, because she knew where to push and where to let up. She knew where to joke and where to stay serious. She knew, and she used it to keep her going. Callie had been right: before now, Lexie hadn't been the slightest bit interested in PT, she just put on the act to keep Meredith appeased and used it as her crutch for when her emotions got the better of her. PT was the place to get her frustrations out, the place she could cry when the physical pain got at her, and that was the only sort of haven it served as.

She was in it now, she knew what being in it was like and she wanted more. Lexie was hard on herself, exactly as Mark had told her and what she knew quite explicitly as well, and she always wanted to go the extra limit, even if it was clearly a bad idea by Callie's standard, which she always wore on her face. There were no bad ideas off limits in Arizona's world. They existed, but they weren't definite structures. Limits were meant to be prodded and pushed.

Because Lexie had finally settled on a prosthetic model she liked, Callie's prescription was more frequent visits to work on getting used to standing with it, regaining her balance and moving towards the next milestone of walking. And Arizona seemed to make each little thing easier as Lexie hammered herself into the ground pushing herself. But all of Arizona's cheerful and sunshine and rainbows didn't ward off the darkness forever, it didn't alleviate any of the pressure.

In hindsight, Lexie could see herself breaking sooner rather than later.

It happened on their fourth or fifth session, Lexie wasn't entirely sure. They'd all started to bleed into one another, coming higher in frequency and shorter in length throughout the weeks. She was coming in every other day, it seemed, and while she could ward off most of the physical exhaustion as long as she needed to, it was the mental tiredness that was starting to eat at her. And of course, the only thing she needed to push her to her breaking point was having another nightmare that previous night of Mark's death, again.

She'd come in with bags under her eyes and swollen eyelids from where she'd woken up screaming and in tears, not even one of Arizona's usual greeting prods bringing the light back into her irises. Callie knew something was off after taking one look at her; she'd seen Lexie through one of these days before and was aware of how to handle her. Arizona, however, wasn't.

Come to think of it, Lexie wasn't even sure Arizona knew the Mark situation was a thing unless Callie had filled her in.

"Lexie Grey, Lexie Grey," Arizona sang as they got Lexie's sock on. "Ready to do some walking today?"

For a moment, Lexie just stared at her. Arizona, full of light and bliss and the overall epitome of the walking smiley face symbol, currently her complete contrast with the way she felt. "You're such a pediatrics person," she noted, and even though there was a hint of malice edging at her voice, Arizona didn't notice. That, or she chose to ignore it entirely.

"I had the sneakers with the wheels on the heels; I'd skate to and fro on the peds floor. You're preaching to the choir, sister."

From the corner of her eye, Lexie could see Callie begin to bristle uncomfortably. She knew where this was going; she was, after all, the physical therapist. She knew how things went down here on days like this, and Arizona didn't. It was there on her face that she wanted to step in and drag Arizona out of the equation, but she kept quiet.

They had the parallel bars in place; Arizona was flocking to the left of Lexie while Callie kept her distance to the right, fist resting against her pursed lips as she watched on quietly. With the guiding of Arizona's hand on the small of her back to help her stand, Lexie's hands clung onto the bars with a white knuckled death grip. Usually in her mind, she was screaming at herself and grinding her teeth down as she kept herself upright and steady. Arizona nodded for Callie to move in a little closer while she stepped away; another thing that they'd quickly adopted into their already unorthodox routines was to play music in the background while they worked. Lexie and Arizona had similar tastes and it tended to lighten the mood.

"No music," Lexie quickly spat out, taking a deep breath as she went back to focusing on holding herself upright. Arizona stopped in her tracks, looking over her shoulder at Lexie with a puzzled look on her face.

"You sure?" she asked. Lexie nodded quickly.

"I'm sure."

She stood there for a moment, staring straight ahead as she willed herself to walk. Her mind was about as clear as the desert on a windy day; her thoughts were clouded by her incredibly vivid nightmares that still haunted her long after they were over. Mark's face was at the forefront of it all with every slow and painful step she made forward, Arizona's voice merely background music. Days like this were hard, add on the fact she was doing something just as physically and mentally exhausting on its own and Lexie was questioning how she was still keeping herself on two feet. The prosthetic felt like added weight, a foreign attachment along with the rest of her body as she moved.

Step forward.

Mark.

Bring the other foot up.

Mark.

Breathe.

Mark's no longer breathing.

Her clever mind, willing the rest of her body to speak the same language it was rolling in, was dragging her below the surface.

"Stop," Lexie finally said after she'd made it about halfway through, loosening her grip a little on the bars. "Stop...stop. I need..." Callie was by her side in an instant, one hand along Lexie's shoulders and the other resting near her lower back.

"You wanna sit down for a minute, Grey?" she prompted, and Lexie nodded.

They got her adjusted back over where the bed was, helping her sit back down on the edge. "Do you want a minute alone with Arizona?" Callie asked again softly, Lexie too preoccupied in her fumbling as she tried to get her prosthetic off. Already, she could feel a knot starting to form in her throat, the tears threatening to start welling at any moment. She shook her head furiously, and Callie was quick to back off and retreated back out of sight.

Arizona, on the other hand, was somewhat baffled at the quick 180. "Lexie," she said, sitting down on Callie's rolling stool and sliding closer to her. "Hey, Lex, lemme help you."

"I can't," she gritted out, ignoring Arizona entirely as she talked mostly to herself. "I can't do this."

"Lexie," Arizona chided, tilting her head to the side and giving her a look. "You aren't allowed to say that."

"Yeah, well, here I am, saying it."

One of Arizona's eyebrows lifted at the acidic tone in Lexie's voice. "Are you having a day?"

"What gave you that indication?" Lexie mumbled, still trying to break free of her prosthetic.

Both of Arizona's eyes widened, her hand reaching out and resting over top of Lexie's struggling ones. "Whoa, hey, talk to me. What's going on?"

"Just...help me get this fucking thing...off!" Arizona swatted both of her hands away as her voice cracked, helping her whether she wanted the assistance or not before she ended up breaking the thing. She was panting, as though she'd forgotten to breathe in the process, both of her hands falling in her lap and hunched over as she tried to calm herself down.

"What's the matter with you?" Arizona asked, propping the prosthetic up on the opposite side of the bed and turning her attention right back to Lexie. "Come on, Grey. Don't hide behind the tears, you know what you wanna say. So say it."

"I don't want to do this!" she cried out, voice strangled as it began to crack and the tears building in her throat weighed down. "This is all a waste of my time, walking around on this goddamn metal second chance acting like I'm getting my life back. I keep pretending I am and the rug keeps ripping from under my ass the minute I get out of here saying I'm not, and I just—I can't fucking do this anymore!"

"What are you talking about?" This time, Arizona's voice was gentler, leaning in closer to Lexie.

"I...I lost more than just my leg in my accident," she said slowly, the words slipping off her tongue carefully. "I lost somebody. I lost my—I lost everything, Arizona." She tilted her head back as though it would stifle the tears and keep them in her eyelids long enough, to no avail of course. "People died, and I lost my leg. And it keeps haunting me, the fact I lost someone I cared about more than anything, and I can't fucking sleep anymore without waking up screaming or crying or both and I just..." Lexie sighed, a few tears escaping her. "God, I sound like a raging lunatic. I'm making no sense to you, am I?

Arizona was quiet for a moment, more than likely processing the information. This wasn't supposed to be a session with Dr. Wyatt, Lexie spilling out all of her thoughts and emotions and feelings like the sink running over when the faucet wouldn't shut off, but it had happened and neither of them could ignore all the water on the floor. Both of her hands reached for Lexie's, gripping onto them tightly. "Look at me, Grey." Lexie's head remained cast downwards, and Arizona was having none of it. "Lexie, look at me."

Slowly and cautiously, Lexie tilted her chin up, tear-blurred eyes looking at Arizona. "You lost somebody. You're still grieving. I get that. I told you day number one, I get you, and that what you needed was for someone to get you. I do. You don't have to make any kind of sense to me."

A sharp exhale of breath was released from Lexie's gritted teeth. "I'm just so...angry..." she began, hands balling into fists inside Arizona's hold on them. "How do I get my life back, like you said, when I had my whole life taken from me by some stupid way of the universe continuing to laugh in my face?"

"You...you figure it out," Arizona said after a moment of contemplation. "You go back to the drawing board, erase it, and start over. Just because I said you get back to your life doesn't mean you're going to go back exactly how it was. Everything's going to be different now, no matter what. You're going to have people follow you around with wheelchairs and get handicapped license plates and probably have the phone number of a multitude of therapists in your phone until you've got more wrinkles than you do hairs on your head. Life isn't supposed to be the same, and if that's what you got from me when I said that two weeks ago, then I'm sorry I made you think that. But your life isn't over, Lexie Grey. You've got the whole damn world ahead of you."

"And if I don't want the world?"

Arizona rolled her eyes. "You're such a neurology person," she mocked, reminiscent of Lexie's comment earlier as she squeezed Lexie's hands. "You take what you want. And I know you want this. I know you want it, because I see it in your eyes every single time you stand up. You want this? Take it for yourself and don't let your nightmares or your really unconventional sister or hell, even the stupid universe tell you you can't have it." A smile curved over Arizona's lips gently.

"You're not supposed to be this nice to me when I'm a bitch to you," Lexie sighed after a moment of nothing but staring at Arizona in a revering silence, wiping underneath her eyes. Arizona, the one person she had an ally in in this big world that always seemed out to get her, reminding her it was okay to command attention and demand something for her own gain every now and again. Arizona, a breath of fresh air when she was still breathing in primarily smoke.

One of Arizona's shoulders rose and fell in a shrug, her hands never loosening their wrap on Lexie's. "I'm a good man in a storm. This is just another one of those storms."

. . .

"Lexie?" A pause. "Lex. Lexie. Oh, for the love of god, Lexie, get up!"

If being startled awake by Meredith was going to be a new routine of any kind, Lexie was going to go insane.

"Jesus, where's the fire?" Lexie muttered under her breath, the upper half of her body twisting over in the direction of Meredith's voice. Meredith's hands had left her body and relieved her of the shaking, Lexie curling up tighter underneath all of her blankets as she blinked a few times and trying to adjust. She rubbed at her eyes, yawn ripping through her. Meredith was still somewhat blurry in her vision as she slowly but surely woke up, but she could clearly make out the outline of her sister hunched over in her closet rummaging around for something.

Something suddenly hit her square in the chest, startling her the rest of the way awake. Lexie pulled herself up against the mountain of pillows, glancing down to see what it was exactly that Meredith had thrown at her. Sitting on the covers was a bra, a pair of leggings and a t-shirt. "Why are you throwing my clothes at me?" she moaned, her body slouching back down under the comforter. "It's Saturday, we don't have to be anywhere today. PT was yesterday." She knew that much for certain; it was impossible to forget that mentally draining of a day had happened.

Meredith was a woman on a mission, and she wasn't putting up with or even remotely acknowledging Lexie's protests. "Come on, get up, get dressed, let's move!"

"Why?" Lexie asked again, a hand knotting in her scalp as she pushed her bangs and some of the free-falling hair back out of her face. Meredith didn't even bother to glance back over her shoulder as she slung Lexie's sock drawer open.

"You've got visitors."

Before I leave you, just wanted to remind all of you to please please please leave a review on your way out; they make writing this story even more worthwhile and I love hearing what you all have to say, your voices matter! Who do you think Lexie's visitors are? How are you enjoying the Lexie/Arizona dynamic? Let me know! I'm biased, but this is one of my favorite stories I've ever written and I like knowing what you think. Also, Lexie Grey and Mark Sloan deserved way more than what the Grey's writers are currently giving them, having Meredith get on a plane to make out with a guy only for it to supposedly go down? Where's the justice for my kids? xo