A/N: Thanks for all the comments, even the more critical ones. No one is going to always agree how I see the characters. This is my interpretation and I'm sticking to my guns.
I had originally planned this out as twelve chapters plus an epilogue, but then I decided to add two scenes to this section (based on comments ) and it would have been too long as originally planned (it's already the longest chapter), so I decided to chop chapter eleven in half so now I'm up to thirteen (yipes, that's bad luck) plus an epilogue. Who knows what will happen as I write the next two chapters, but I hope you enjoy what I've put together here. Yes, I'm girding myself for the Mark hatred!
7/21/13 Update: Just updating a little historical error that an anonymous guest pointed out. No kamikazes at Pearl Harbor it would seem. My bad!
Chapter Eleven
Cristina looked over the latest notes in Arizona's chart and smiled. Who would have thought she'd be doing so well after all she went through? She almost died on that helo flight in and now the infection's almost gone. Wow! She shook her head at the improbability of it all as she put the chart back on the nurse's station and turned to push the wheelchair into Arizona's room. "You ready to move to better digs?" she asked as she entered the ICU room.
Arizona looked up at her with sad, tired eyes for only a moment before she looked back down at her right hand, which was lying in her lap. "Yeah, that's fine." She definitely didn't sound fine.
Cristina left the wheelchair near the front of the room, walked over to Arizona's right side, and looked down at her with concern. "What's wrong? Are you not feeling well?" She glanced up at the monitors over Arizona's bed and noticed that all her vitals were normal.
It was only when Arizona used her good hand to wipe at her eyes that Cristina noticed she was actually crying. Arizona took a deep breath, as if pulling herself together before speaking, and looked up at Cristina. "While I was unconscious, my father gave me this." She picked up a small military medal from where it was sitting in her lap. "It's his father's Navy Cross. Callie told me he said I was brave and deserved to have it." Her hand fell back to her lap and her eyes followed. "She told me how he gave her this big speech about how I face my fears and work through them to do what's right. But, now…" Her voice trailed off and she took another deep breath. "If I can't operate again, what do I have to be brave about? My father taught me to serve, but how do I do that without a scalpel in my hand?"
Cristina was never really someone who did well with other people's emotions. She preferred the white and dark aspect of surgery. You either fixed the problem or you didn't. But emotions were too elusive, too diaphanous to really be able to understand let alone truly analyze. At least for her. She had hated her psych rotations with such a passion, and yet she so often found herself in a position where she needed to employ skills of empathy and understanding that she was not sure she even possessed most of the time. But you are one of the few people here who understands so much of what she is going through. You saw it with Burke after he was shot. And you were there with her through the crash. She pulled the guest chair over a little more next to the bed and sat down in it. "Do you want to know how you'll do that?"
"Yes, please tell me," Arizona said with a hint of desperation in her voice. She looked over at Cristina, her eyes seeming so incredibly weary. "I mean, I know you're just going to say something about finding some other passion, or that I could still be a doctor, a pediatrician but not a surgeon, but, really, how can I do this? How can I get past losing so much? I won't be able to operate. I won't be able to pick up my daughter." Her voice choked on that last item and fresh tears glistened in her eyes.
Cristina tried to think how she would handle such a loss and it was totally beyond her. She looked at Arizona for a moment and then shrugged. "You're right, that's what I'm supposed to say. But you know what? I won't say that. I'll tell you that it sucks. It sucks a lot. I mean of all the surgeons in this hospital, you really end up saving the most lives when you think about it. You save children, children who will go on to have children of their own, and then grandchildren and so on. How many people will be alive in a hundred years because of you? Thousands? Yeah, it sucks."
Arizona let out a dry puff of laughter. "Talk about sucking. You really are lousy at this."
Cristina wasn't sure how to proceed, so she decided to change the subject slightly. "So what did your grandfather do to get the medal?"
This seemed to do the trick, because it brought a proud smile to Arizona's lips. "It was at Pearl Harbor and he was on the USS Arizona."
"Oh, is that how you got your name?" Cristina laughed when she nodded. "I always figured you were born in Arizona or conceived there or something."
"Okay, first off, please no mention of my parents and any sexual act that led to my existence. No child wants to put those two things together. And second, yes, that's how I got my name." Her eyes fell on the medal in her hand. "When the attack started, he ran up on deck and was soon blown overboard into the water during an explosion. He helped nineteen men get into life boats, even though they all said he was clearly injured. But he kept swimming over to the next guy and helping to drag him onto the few small boats that were out trying to scoop up survivors. He was swimming over to that last guy, the nineteenth, when a Japanese plane crashed into one of the nearby ships. My grandfather was hit with burning shrapnel from the explosion. That must have been just enough to cause him to weaken, because he got to that last guy, he was an eighteen year old kid barely old enough to enlist, and he helped get him up onto some floating wreckage so he'd be out of the water. The kid tried to get my grandfather to climb on with him, but he shook his head no and started to swim off to another hurt sailor. That's when he succumbed to his injuries and drowned."
"Wow, that's an amazing story. Truly brave," Cristina said after Arizona finished the tale. "I may not be the most observant Jew around, but one of the sayings from the Torah that I've always loved is something about when you save a life you save the world. Both you and your grandfather have saved a number of worlds."
"But will I save any more?" Arizona was quiet for a few moments, her only movements being the tips of her fingers playing with the medal in her hand. Finally, she looked up at Cristina. "Do you believe in karma?"
"Like reincarnation?"
"That's not what I mean." Arizona looked thoughtful for a moment before her eyes refocused on Cristina. "You know, just what goes around comes around. Like, I've been such a good person my whole life, always trying hard to do what's right, helping others. And I finally thought that I'd gotten my reward." Just the smallest hint of a smile touched her lips. "I mean I've found this amazing woman and I get to spend the rest of my life with her. I actually get to wake up every morning to her in my life and that's just miraculous. And we have Sofia, who it turns out is pretty much the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. And we have great jobs, great friends, our families. Except for losing my brother, I'd have to say my life's been pretty perfect in the great grand scheme of things." She then looked over to her left arm. "And now the bubble's been popped and it turns out karma was just waiting to kick me in the ass."
Cristina fixed her with a frustrated glare. "Okay, normally your perkiness is annoying, but really, depressed Arizona is way worse." She scooted her chair closer. "I want you to listen to me. And I want you to listen good." She waited until Arizona turned to look back in her eyes. "Your grandfather was an amazing man, and maybe the universe owed him better than what he got, but you and I both know that bad things happen to the best of people. Bad shit does not discriminate. Do you think your grandfather would have sat around and had this pity party?" When Arizona just glared at her Cristina nodded. "Yeah, okay, that was below the belt. But you need to realize that nothing is decided here. You know Derek and Mark and everyone here will do everything in their power to get your arm back for you. But if even the genius surgeons here can't fix it enough for you to operate, then you'll continue to go out and fight to save lives. Clearly you come from a long line of life savers. That's just who you are. You've got to live up to that ridiculous name of yours after all."
"I suppose." She didn't sound so convinced.
"You just said Sofia is about the best thing that's happened to you. And you have Callie. You're smart, you're passionate about helping all those tiny humans. You'll find a way through this. You have so much good in your life. It's not all about surgery. And, yes, that's coming from me. If I can admit there's more to life than surgery, then it has to be true."
Arizona looked at Cristina for a few moments, her expression unchanged, but then she broke out in laughter. "What the hell happened to you, Yang? You're not usually so, well, insightful."
Cristina couldn't help but smile slightly. "I dodged death twice this week. I'm feeling a little, um, adventuresome I guess."
Arizona's brow furrowed. "Twice?"
Now it was Cristina's turn to laugh. "Guess Callie didn't pass on my story of the bear."
"There was a bear? Did I sleep through that or something?"
"I went outside to set up something so the search planes could find us and when I turned to go back to the plane there was this bear. And he was standing on his hind legs maybe twenty or thirty feet away but blocking my way to the plane." She stood up and extended her arms up over her head in an imitation of the encounter. "And he was all like grrrrrrrrrr."
Arizona laughed harder at her actions. "Grrrrr, really?"
Cristina lowered her arms. "Yeah, grrrrrr. Just like that." She couldn't help but laugh quietly. "Hey, this is serious. I could have been eaten."
"Eaten? You realize most of the bears out there are black bears, right? They usually don't eat humans." Arizona laughed again and shook her head. "And here I thought I hated the outdoors."
Cristina sat back down in her chair. "I grew up in Beverly Hills. Of course I hate the outdoors. They teach a class in elementary school about hating the outdoors." Cristina took a quick breath and rolled her eyes. "Look, long story short, I tried to talk the bear down and then I played dead, but it started stalking me. I'd be dead if that guy Zach didn't pull up on his white knight ATV and manage to scare it off."
"Zach. That's his name. I was trying to remember." Arizona looked back down at the medal in her hand. "I should give this to him. He really was our hero, huh?"
Cristina reached over and touched Arizona's arm and waited for her to look up. "You were the one that jumped in that co-pilot's seat and got us down in one piece. That was heroic." She then sat back up in the chair and smiled. "Besides, Owen is planning something for Zach and the doctor that helped us, Henderson. Our friends are collecting money to help outfit Doctor Henderson's little clinic so it's not something out of the Middle Ages and we'll do something special for Zach, too. You keep that medal. It's your legacy."
Arizona nodded and closed her eyes, suddenly seeming very tired. "Thanks for the pep talk, Yang. You're better at it than you think."
"No problem. But I'm sorry if I wore you out. Do you want to wait to go up to your room? There's no rush." Cristina's eyes tracked up to the monitors over Arizona's bed and she was relieved that there had been no noticeable change, but if she was too tired, it would be better from a medical standpoint to let her rest a little while.
Arizona took a deep breath and her blue eyes popped back open. "No, I want to be in my new room before Callie gets back from lunch with her mother."
"Lunch with her mother? The woman who less than a year ago was condemning her to fire and brimstone? That sounds ominous." Cristina moved around to the opposite side of Arizona's bed and started to remove the electrodes attached to her torso.
"Hopefully she's had a change of heart when it comes to our marriage. Or at the very least, I hope she's willing to be Sofia's grandmother. I know it's hard on Callie, but if her mother can at least be there for Sofia, that's an improvement and that's the most important thing. I can play the martyr and accept being persona non grata to her as long as Sofia gets a grandmother." She didn't seem to truly believe what she was saying, but Cristina wasn't going to push it.
"Grandmothers are important," she said as an aside.
"Hey, can I ask you something?"
The sudden change in topic made Cristina pause. She stopped disconnecting the heart monitor and looked at Arizona with a raised eyebrow. "We practically lived through an episode of Lost together. Of course you can ask me something. I may, however, reserve the right to take the fifth."
"That's fair," Arizona said with a nod. "But this isn't personal, at least not about you. On the plane or maybe after I started losing it with the delirium, did I mention a fight Callie and I had? There's so much that I can't remember."
"About you getting pregnant? Yeah, you mentioned it before the crash. That's probably the time period your amnesia is affecting."
"Did I…" She trailed off for a moment and shifted her weight, seeming a little uncomfortable. "Did I say I came to any conclusions about that?"
Cristina thought back to their conversation and tried to remember exactly what Arizona had said. That Arizona had opened up to her about something so private had been surprising, but that surprise was also short-lived as their predicament had come fast on the tails of the revelation. "If I remember correctly, you said you didn't want to become pregnant yourself. But Callie had made you want things in the past that you hadn't previously wanted, and they always turned out well. So, I think you thought maybe that was how this would work out."
"That makes sense," she said absently.
Arizona seemed to drift off into thought then and Cristina decided to just let her be as she finished up the preparations to move her out of the ICU. Finally, after lowering the bed, she brought the reclining wheelchair over and set the back to a position that would not overly stress Arizona's incision during the brief ride upstairs to her new room. "Ready to go?"
Arizona snapped out of her thoughts and blinked twice at Cristina before her eyes went to the wheelchair. "Um, yeah."
It took them a few minutes and the assistance of a nurse to get her transferred safely to the chair. Cristina went over and grabbed the duffel bag that Arizona indicated needed to go with her and then came back to take up position behind her. "I should warn you, I'm not the best driver in the world."
Arizona chuckled low at that. "Well you have to be a better driver than I am a pilot and we lived through that, so I think we'll be fine. Let's go."
Cristina smiled. "Let's go."
Arizona looked at the medal in her hand. She'd been playing with it ever since Yang had moved her into her own private room. Now that she was finally alone in what was likely to be her new home for days and probably weeks to come, she had time to really look at it. Just that morning Callie had recounted to her what had happened when her father left the medal. She'd had a hard time imagining her father opening up like that to Callie and an even harder time accepting that her father thought of her as brave or some kind of hero. Doesn't matter really. If my arm doesn't heal, my lifesaving days are over. She sighed as she thought about her earlier conversation with Cristina and shook her head. I know I should just find a way, but I'm not sure I can. Not much call for bravery in a pediatrician's office.
She looked down at her arm and felt all the frustration and anger at her situation wash over her. "Dammit, feel something," she ground out between clenched teeth as she reached over and hit her left arm with her right hand. But she didn't feel it. She pinched at the skin and still nothing. It was like it was someone else's arm lying there. In frustration she threw the medal across the room and screamed out, "Not fair!"
"Hey, hey," Mark's chiding voice came from the doorway to her room. "Take a deep breath, Robbins."
Arizona rolled her eyes. Perfect. Just who I did not want to see right now. Mr. Couldn't-Be-Serious-If-His-Life-Depended-On-It. "Unless you've got some miracle cure, just go away."
Mark walked in and picked up the medal from the floor. He pulled the rolling table over to her left side, placing both the medal and a kit of instruments on it. "I'm feeling like a broken record. You need to give it time."
"You know what, Mark? Screw time. Screw waiting for this inflammation to go down. Tell me whether my arm will heal or not. Tell me whether I'll ever operate again." She fixed him with a piercing gaze and watched as he averted his eyes. "Exactly. My arm isn't going to heal, is it? Quit beating around the bush and just tell me the fucking truth."
She watched as his eyes grew wide at her profanity and she knew that she'd gotten through to him how serious she was that he not sugarcoat this anymore. He looked at her for a moment and then nodded as he rolled the table closer to her bed. "You'll have to skewer Derek for the final word, but I can show you what you're facing at least."
It wasn't what she wanted to hear. She wanted answers and she wanted them yesterday. How many times had she told parents they'd have to wait to know for sure how their kids were going to do? There's that karma again, come to bite me in the ass. She sighed heavily and reached over to grab the medal off the table so she would have something to throw again if she needed it or maybe poke Mark with the pointy pin on its back if he continued to annoy her. "Okay, fine, if that's the best you can offer, then show me."
Mark nodded as he pulled a stool up to sit next to her bed. He pulled on a pair of gloves and then removed the bandaging over the wound in her arm. Arizona's eyes went wide when she saw what was beneath. A large chunk of flesh and muscle was simply missing from her upper arm, leaving a hole bigger than a golf ball in diameter. "The infection was pretty bad when they brought you in. I cleaned as much of it out as possible during the initial surgery and then I went back in a few times while you were still unconscious to keep up with it, but there was a lot of damage and necrotized flesh that I had to remove. We did our best to avoid the nerves, but we're going to probably need to do some grafting after we see where you are when the inflammation is down. And then there's the muscle damage. Torres wants to get a specialist in here to look at that. Once the internal damage is repaired we'll look into a skin graft to cover the hole." He looked up at her. "The infection is pretty much clear, but you can see how swollen everything still is."
Arizona kept staring at the injury, her mind seeming to grind to a halt as she struggled to comprehend what she was seeing. She had seen far worse, of course, but to have such a gaping wound in her own body just shocked her. She finally looked up at Mark and let out a big breath she didn't realize she had been holding. "Holy shit."
"Yeah, I'd say that qualifies as holy shit. Obviously, pissing off a pine tree by crashing into it and having it impale you wasn't the best course of action. Not to mention the fact it took so long to get real medical care."
His slightly joking tone was just irritating. "Yeah, I'm sorry I dawdled out in the wilderness with a damned pine tree jabbed through my arm." She rolled her eyes and looked up at the ceiling, trying to force her temper to calm down. "Can you please just do what you need to do and bandage me back up? And be quick about it."
"How about you let me decide how long this is going to take? You can't rush perfection."
It was typical Mark. She knew he often played up the egotism as a joke, but it often seemed that just as often he really was that full of himself. Sure he was gifted, but his gift wasn't fixing her arm any faster right now. And what good were all his overblown opinions of himself if he couldn't fix the problem and fix it now? "Perfection? You call this perfection? What the hell is wrong with you? I swear, Mark, you better be glad my left hand isn't working, or I'd reach out with both hands and grab those supposedly oversized balls of yours and toss them across the room like I did the medal." All the tension in her body ended up in a tight fist that caused her nails to dig into the palm of her hand.
"You wou—" His voice trailed off quickly. "Um, Robbins?"
"What?" she called out, her anger still flaring at him. "What could it possibly be, oh god of plastics?"
"Um, your fingers just moved."
Her eyes popped open and she looked at him in complete disbelief. "What?"
He looked down at her left hand and pointed. "They moved. They just moved."
Her eyes shot down to her hand, which was lying in the same position it had been. "Very funny, Mark." She concentrated, trying to get the fingers to move, but nothing happened. "Nope, no movement. You are either a total ass to distract me with lies or you need glasses."
"No, I swear it." He sat back and crossed his hand over his heart. "Hope to die and all that stupid kiddie stuff your patients say all the time."
She looked from her hand to Mark and back. She concentrated, really concentrated, trying to get at least one finger to flinch, but still nothing. "Nada, Mark. I don't know what you saw, but it's not moving now."
He looked at her like the cat that ate the canary. "You're not boiling mad right now. I bet the adrenaline did it."
She started to argue with him, but it made some sort of sense. She had clenched her good hand into a fist and if her other hand had not been injured, it too would have balled up. Adrenaline certainly could be the cause of such a reaction. She looked up at Mark, a slight smile on her lips. "Adrenaline. Okay, then get me mad again. Let's see if that works."
"What? No!"
"Come on, Mark. If there's anyone in this hospital who can get me boiling mad, it's you." She needed to see if he was right, if a rush of adrenaline would be the catalyst to get her fingers to move. It would mean hope, it would mean a chance at the future, it would mean her sanity. That was a lot to place at the feet of Mark Sloan and his ability to rile her up. But as she had said, if there was anyone who knew the buttons to push, it was Mark. Even Callie couldn't quite get her so angry. No, Mark was just what the doctor ordered. "Do it, Mark. Piss me off."
"No," he said again, a look of horror coming across his face. "You and I have become friends and I'm not going to risk that. You know what I'd have to say to get you pissed. And I'm not risking that. Besides, it'd just get you mad at Callie, too." He stood up and crossed his arms across his chest. "No, no, no."
"Goddammit, Mark, would you just do what I ask you for once?" She watched him stare at her, constantly shaking his head and it was really starting to irritate her. "Come on, I know you want to. I'm giving you permission. Go on, rub it in. Remind me of your history with her. Just say it."
"No."
"Argh," she groaned as she clenched at the blanket in frustration. "You are infuriating, you know that? I mean I give you the chance to do something you would have done with glee just a year ago. What is wrong with you?"
He lifted an eyebrow and one corner of his lip turned up in just the hint of a smile. "Nope, can't make me." He was playing now, making fun of her inability to get him to do what she wanted.
In that moment she wanted nothing more than to rub that pretentious smirk off his face. She watched his grin grow and her anger flared up suddenly into a rage of frustration and desperation. "Fuck you, Mark. Just fuck you!" Her whole body tensed up as she fought the urge to jump off the bed and do him bodily harm.
"Ha!" He pointed at her left arm, a huge grin on his face as he literally jumped up and down. "A fist! You're making a fist!"
"What?" For a moment her frustration clouded her understanding of what he was talking about until it sunk in and her eyes shot down to her left hand. Her thumb and first two fingers were curled in to what could be considered a loose fist if the other two fingers had joined them. But even so, they were certainly not extended as they had been just a moment before. "They moved!" She looked up at Mark, who was literally beaming at her. "They moved!"
"They moved!" He started to move toward her, like he was going to hug her, and then he stopped and gave her a quizzical look before just nodding and looking down at her hand. "They really moved."
As the instant euphoria over the movement dissipated, Arizona looked down at her hand and tried to move her fingers consciously. First her thumb twitched and then her pointer and middle finger moved slightly, starting to straighten out again as she attempted to flex them all out straight. It took a few moments, as if her hand were trying to remember how to respond to her brain, and then suddenly all three fingers moved in a jerk back to their earlier extended position. "I did it. I just moved them." She continued to move the three fingers slightly, watching the herky-jerky movement as she bent and then flexed them. She finally looked up at Mark, who was watching her with the same expression he had when Sofia did something for the first time, and smiled. "It's not all five of them, but it's something."
"It is. It's something." His smile grew even broader. "Hot damn, you can move your fingers, Robbins. That's huge."
"I know, right?" She still could barely believe it. And while she still saw no intentional movement from her ring or pinkie fingers, it filled her with so much hope that she would regain the use of her hand. The light at the end of her tunnel was so much closer now. She looked up at Mark again. "Call Callie. No, wait, I want it to be a surprise. Okay, can you call her and ask her how long she'll be? Her lunch with her mom should be over soon, but I just want to know when she'll be here." She looked back down at her hand and smiled. "She'll be so excited."
He pulled out his phone and quickly dialed it, waiting for a moment before saying into it, "Hey, you going to be back here anytime soon? They got your wife moved into her new room and she's getting on everyone's nerves because she's bored." He winked at Arizona.
He listened for a moment before nodding. "Okay, I'll tell her. See you in a bit." His smile broadened as he turned off his phone and returned it to the pocket of his scrubs. "She and her parents will be here in about fifteen minutes."
"Parents plural?" I guess lunch went reasonably well then.
"Yes, plural. So, why don't you rest for the next few minutes and give your hand a break. You don't want it to be all tuckered out before she gets here." He pulled the stool back over to the bedside and sat down. "You rest and I'll finish changing your dressing. Your father-in-law does not like the sight of blood and gore and an inch-wide hole in your arm is both those things. I want to be done before he gets back here. To be honest, he kind of scares me."
Arizona could only laugh at Mark and at how good she finally felt. She was going to get better. She just knew it. And she couldn't wait to tell Callie.
Callie poked her head into the room and smiled brightly when Arizona's eyes looked up to meet hers. "You up for a few visitors?"
Arizona broke out in a smile that really warmed Callie's heart. "I am, but can I see you alone for a minute first?"
Callie's brow furrowed at the possibility that there was something wrong that would require them to talk privately, although there was nothing in Arizona's demeanor to cause alarm. "Is everything okay?"
"Oh, no, everything's fine. I just want to talk to you alone, that's all. Just a minute or two, I promise."
The rush of worry that had caused her pulse to speed up now dissipated and Callie nodded before ducking back out of the door. She turned to her parents. "Can you guys give us one minute? Just wait here and I'll come and get you. Arizona wants to talk to me about something." She saw the instant worry on both of their faces and she shook her head. "I don't think anything's wrong."
"Sure, we can wait," her father answered for both of them.
"Thanks." She gave them one last smile before slipping into Arizona's room and shutting the door behind her. "Okay, what gives?"
Arizona definitely was trying to contain a large smile. "Come here," she said with a curl of her finger toward her.
"Okay," Callie said, drawing out the word as she started to walk over to Arizona's right side.
"No, other side," Arizona said quickly.
Callie's eyes widened slightly in anticipation. Can she move it? That must be it, but I don't want to ask in case I'm wrong. Callie moved over to the other side of the bed and crossed her arms, letting a slightly playful grin come to her lips. "Okay, I'm here."
Arizona pointed down at her left hand. "Voila!"
Callie looked down and watched as Arizona moved her thumb and first two fingers. They twitched, more than moved, but it was movement nonetheless. Her eyes grew even wider and a bright smile sprang to her lips. "Arizona, that's great. They're moving!" She didn't even pause as she quickly leaned down to pull her wife into a tight hug. "This is progress, real amazing progress."
"I know, right?" Arizona laughed loudly as she pulled back out of the hug only to crush her lips against Callie's. The kiss was celebratory and not long, but it still left them both breathing a little heavier when they parted. "I just feel so much better now. Like there's hope."
"There's nothing but hope," Callie said quietly as her hand reached up to cup Arizona's cheek. "It's still going to be a long, hard road, but we're going to walk that together, right?"
"Right. Now take my hand," Arizona said quietly. When Callie reached for her right hand, she shook her head. "No my other hand."
Callie did as she was asked and gave Arizona a look of uncertainty. "Okay."
Arizona smiled and closed her eyes as if in a sense of relief. "I can feel that," she whispered quietly before her eyes fluttered open and she looked straight at Callie. There were tears glistening in her eyes. "I never told you this, but when you were hurt, right before you started crashing that last time, I sat by your bed and I begged you to live. Because in that moment, right then as I watched you lying there with the intubation tube sticking out of your mouth and the sounds of the respirator and the heart monitor going, I knew. I just knew that I could never live without you."
Callie felt tears welling up in her own eyes. "Arizona—"
"No, let me finish," she said with a slightly sad smile. "I'm not saying I literally wouldn't have been able to live. My heart would have continued beating, but it would have been in a million pieces. What I'm saying is that with you, I'm alive, truly alive. And I know you feel it, too."
Callie reached up with her free hand to wipe away the tears on her cheeks as she smiled. "Of course I do."
Arizona's smile was sweet, even as she blinked against her own tears. "I was just lying here thinking before you came in that it all really doesn't matter. If all I ever have is three fingers that can kind of move and have some sensation, then I'm okay with that. I'm really okay with that. Because I made it home to you, even when there were times out there when I thought I'd die and the last person I'd ever speak to would be Cristina."
Callie couldn't help but laugh at that. "I love Yang, but that's not who I'd want my last day spent with either."
"No," Arizona said around a quiet laugh of her own. "But I fought and I got lucky. We got lucky. And I realized while I was lying here waiting for you to come back that if I never hold another scalpel or retractor that's okay. Because you make me feel more alive than any surgery ever could. And that's the most important thing."
Callie felt so many emotions swirling in her, but she tempered them with a deep breath. And then she decided on the course of levity. "While I love you for that, don't think this means you can get out of all that physical therapy hell I went through."
Arizona played along and broke out in a huge laugh. "Damn, you found me out."
They both laughed for a moment and then Callie looked toward the door. "My parents are probably wondering what's taking so long."
"Hey," Arizona said as Callie started to walk away. "How did it go with your mom? I mean, she's here, so I'm guessing not so bad, right?"
Callie turned back toward Arizona and shrugged. "I'd give her a B+. Long story short, she's decided she's not God and therefore doesn't get to condemn me to Hell. And, really, she just wants me to be happy, so she'll support our relationship. But of course there's a 'but'."
"There always is."
Callie rolled her eyes at the truth of that. "She's got this whole warped Catholic sense of marriage going. To her it's a sacrament and if you're Catholic and don't have that sacrament, she figures you aren't really married. So, basically, she's got issues with saying we're married or that you're my wife. But she did mention she never even thought George and I were married, so really she's being equal opportunity in her judgments."
"Are you okay with that?"
Callie let out a deep breath. "She's made a lot of progress and she's promised to keep working on it, so I can be understanding of it. I don't have to approve of it or like it, but I'm asking her to be understanding of me, of us, when she doesn't necessarily approve or like it, so it's only fair."
Arizona's smile was proud now. "That's very wise of you. What about Sofia?"
"Same thing. She can't condemn me for Sofia and it's not Sofia's fault how she came to be. And I think my mom just got worn down by my father talking about his adorable granddaughter, too." She took another step toward the door but stopped before reaching out to the door handle. "So, after she comes in here and apologizes to you for being an ass at our wedding, we're going down to spring the little munchkin from daycare for a little bonding time."
"Munchkin. I miss her." Arizona pouted almost comically. She then nodded, her face getting a little more serious. "Okay, I can live with your mother's partial acceptance of us if you can. And we'll just keep working on her. By the time it's our fifth anniversary, I bet she'll at least be sending us a card."
"Because you and I are awesome and we can do anything together."
Arizona winked at her. "Anything."
Callie chuckled quietly as she opened the door and poked her head outside. Her parents were standing over by the nurse's station talking with Mark. She cleared her throat so they would all realize she was there and said, "Sorry that took so long."
"No, it's no problem, Mija," her father said.
Both her parents said a quick goodbye to Mark, who gave her a big goofy grin as soon as their backs were to him as they turned to walk over to the door. Her mother said quietly to her, "He's actually quite nice."
"Yes, he is." Fearing that her mother was going to try to suggest that she suddenly jump ship and go to Mark, she quickly added. "He's just a friend and Sofia's father. He'll never be any more."
"I wasn't suggesting that, Calliope," her mother answered with a slightly hurt look on her face.
"Sorry, Mom, old habits die hard, I guess." She held the door open widely and motioned for her parents to enter Arizona's room. "She's excited to see you both."
And Callie was right. As she led her parents into Arizona's room, her wife smiled brightly at the two of them, showing off her notorious 'super magic smile'. "Thank you both for coming when Callie called. I know it was a big comfort to her."
"We'll always be there for her," her father said as he moved over next to Arizona's bed. "How are you feeling?"
"Much better, thank you." Arizona's smile widened. "I'm stronger and I just was able to move a few fingers on my left hand." She demonstrated by moving the three fingers.
"That was the biggest worry," Callie interjected.
"That's wonderful," Carlos said. "I'm just so happy for both of you that this is having a happy ending. You deserve that." He turned to his wife. "Don't they?"
"Yes. Yes of course they do," Lucia said, but her eyes were lowered. The room fell silent for a few long moments before she looked up at Arizona. "I am very happy that you are okay."
"Thank you, Mrs. Torres," Arizona answered, her voice steady but without any noticeable emotion.
Lucia cleared her throat, an obvious sign she was a little uncomfortable or nervous, but she held Arizona's gaze. "Arizona…" She took a deep breath. "Please, call me Lucia. You're family now."
Arizona's smile grew and Callie could see how genuine it was. "Thank you, Lucia. I appreciate that."
Lucia walked over to stand next to Arizona's bed. "I'm not sure if Callie just told you what we talked about at lunch."
"I gave her a quick summary," Callie said so that Arizona would not have to decide whether to reveal that or not.
"Good," Lucia said as she shifted her weight a little nervously. "But I wanted to tell you that I am truly sorry for leaving like I did the last time I was here. I was wrong about so many things."
Callie could see the emotions play in Arizona's eyes. "It's okay. I understand how hard it was for you. Your religion and beliefs are a big part of who you are. We don't expect you to ignore that. As long as you accept us, that's the important thing."
Lucia seemed to deflate in relief at Arizona's words. "Thank you. I know I still have a long way to go and I'm sorry if I have trouble with considering you married. It's a sacrament to me. That's how I was raised. But I just want my little girl to be happy and she obviously is." She smiled at Callie and there was nothing but love in her eyes. She turned back to Arizona. "You've made her very happy, Arizona. Anyone can see that. You two have formed a wonderful family and I hope you'll let us share in that."
Callie felt herself choke up. It was difficult to believe this was the same woman who had been so cold and distant just a year ago. And now here she was trying hard to make things right, or at least as right as she could at this point. But it was Arizona's reaction that brought the tears to Callie's eyes.
Arizona reached out to Lucia and motioned for her to come closer. She took the older woman's hand in her own and smiled gently. "I know it's not easy to compromise your beliefs. And it's just evidence of how much you love your daughter. She's lucky to have parents who love her unconditionally. And I know that it was that love that had you concerned last year and I see that love today. Of course you're part of our family and I'm so happy to be part of yours." She pulled Lucia in to a hug, smiling over her shoulder to both Carlos and Callie as she wrapped her good arm around her mother-in-law.
Everyone was silent as the emotion of the moment clearly rang through each of them. Even after Arizona let Lucia escape her embrace, the four of them just looked at each other, tears welling in eyes and smiles on their faces. Callie finally had to laugh in order to break the emotion. "So, one big happy family, huh?"
"Well, we are missing a rather important part of our family," Arizona offered, with just a hint of sadness in her voice.
Callie came over and leaned down to place a gentle kiss on Arizona's forehead. "I know. As soon as Bailey says I can put you in a wheelchair and we can hotrod around the hospital, we're heading down to daycare, but until then…" She knew it was hard on Arizona not seeing their daughter and she was hopeful that she would get the okay to reunite mother and daughter as soon as possible.
"I'm just going to have to focus on feeling well enough so that Bailey springs me from this bed, then, I guess," Arizona said with what Callie knew was slightly forced optimism. "But speaking of Sofia, aren't you going to go down to see her?"
"Yeah, we were going to go down there next," Callie answered her.
Arizona looked over at Carlos. "Would you mind staying behind for a few minutes? I wanted to talk to you about something."
Callie's eyebrow raised in questioning as she looked between her father and Arizona. What is that about? She thought about asking, but figured she'd hear more later about whatever Arizona wanted to talk to her father about. Or maybe she wouldn't, if Arizona was up to something.
"Sure," Carlos answered as she looked over at Callie. "You and your mother head downstairs. I know where it is."
Callie nodded to her father and then leaned down to Arizona. "Everything okay?" she whispered.
"It's great. I'll tell you later, okay?" Arizona answered just as quietly.
"Okay," Callie said as she leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on Arizona's lips. "I'll see you a little later. Love you."
"I love you, too," Arizona said, her eyes twinkling gently before she gave Callie one last quick kiss. "Give that last kiss to our little bug, okay?"
Callie stood up, a bright smile coming to her lips. "Will do." She then turned to her father. "Don't let her get in any trouble, okay?"
Her father chuckled quickly. "Never."
"Oh, fine, spoil all my fun," Arizona injected before laughing quietly.
Callie just shook her head in amusement as she went over and took her mother by the elbow. "Let's get out of here before things get crazy. Bye, Arizona," she called over her shoulder as she opened the door for her mother.
"Bye, Calliope," her wife called out in answer as they left the room.
Once outside she took a moment to smile at her mother. "I'm really proud of you, Mom." She reached out and pulled her mother into a tight hug. "I love you."
"I love you, too, Mija. I never stopped love you, but I'm glad we can get back to showing that to each other."
"Me, too. Now how about we go see your granddaughter?" Callie smiled as she pulled out of the embrace.
"Please," her mother said with a bright smile. "But wait a second." Her eyes tracked back to the door of Arizona's room. "I have an idea."
"Oh?" Callie couldn't help but smile at the bit of mischief in her mother's eyes.
"Yeah. I'll tell you on the way downstairs," her mother said as she threaded her arm through Callie's and started pulling her down the hall toward the elevators. "Come on, I don't want to wait another second to see my granddaughter. I've missed enough time already."
Callie found her feet following even as she looked at her mother with a hint of interest mixed with trepidation at this mystery idea of her mother's. But she played along as she fell into an easy step with her mother. "Okay, let's. And do tell about this idea…"
TBC
