"You had a baby with H.L.H.S., right?"

"I did," Arizona nodded.

She could no longer keep that part of her personal life a secret, even if she wanted to. The success of her trial all of those years ago - and the publicity it had received - had made Faith's condition common knowledge to anyone who researched Dr. Robbins' motivation for the better treatment plan. Part of her resented how something so personal had become exposed, but Faith herself had never seemed to mind it.

Arizona used to be hesitant when telling other parents about Faith's history because she didn't want them to think that Faith's story was the norm for people with hypoplastic left heart syndrome. The F.E.T. and Robbins procedures had certainly done so much for many patients, but Faith's case was different. She was doing as well as she was now because of her transplant, not because of her mother's work. The two were not really comparable.

"If this was your child, would you have…?" Mona Westfall, a mother who was thirty-four weeks pregnant with a baby who had the condition, started to ask.

Now that Arizona and her team had been successfully performing both of the procedures for as long as they had, she found that she was not always as nervous to talk about Faith, though. Most of the time, the parents who were considering these procedures for their own children wanted to know whether or not Dr. Robbins would have put her own daughter through them if she would have been given the choice at that time. When the procedure was still new, she hated that question. These days she was able to discuss her answer with ease.

"I absolutely would have decided on these procedures for her if I could have," she told her. "We can never guarantee success, but the quality of life that these procedures can give is usually better."

"We read that the first patient to ever survive both procedures died," Mona's husband, Donovan, said. "He was only in his twenties. I know you obviously can't say for sure because he was your oldest patient, but do you think that'll be the typical lifespan for the babies that have these surgeries?"

Dr. Brady decided to take over. They all hated the fact that news of Adler's death had also become public news. Sure, parents who were making these decisions absolutely deserved to know all of the facts. Still, they wanted to do everything that they could to protect Adler's memory and his family. These questions were difficult because they wanted to be honest, yet sensitive.

"As we've discussed before, neither approach is a cure," he explained. "Unless your child was to receive a heart transplant, they would still have a heart defect. What we try to do is to correct as much of the defect as we can. It doesn't change the fact that the child still has this condition, though. Like Dr. Robbins said before, the advantage to this particular approach is that it tends to give our patients a better quality of life since less time is spent in the hospital."

"We know that," Mona said. "I'm sorry. We're just nervous. We literally moved across the country for this. We had doctors back home, but we heard that you were the best. We need the best. And it all comes down to tomorrow. In less than a day, this'll be happening."

"We know," Nerissa replied. "Don't apologize. All of the parents who consider this have a lot of questions for us. Even questions that they know the answers to. It's normal to need to hear everything again. That's why we asked you to come in the day before. We needed to do some pre-op testing, but we also wanted to let you ask any questions you had. If you have questions tomorrow morning, that's fine, too."

"I feel like we have more questions, but I don't know what they are," Donovan told them. "We wrote them all down, but it feels like something's missing."

"Go home and think about it," Arizona suggested. "We'll see you bright and early tomorrow morning. If you think of your other questions, feel free to let us know."

"On a Sunday afternoon?" he asked.

"Yes," Cristina nodded. "This is what we do."

"Okay."

"Are you going to make it to Declan's party?" Sofia asked her sister.

Her shift had just ended and she was headed to the birthday celebration now, but she wasn't sure what her sister was doing. She knew full well that sometimes surgeons couldn't stick to their plans when it came to life outside of the hospital.

"I should," she said from her seat at the nurse's station. "I'm done here. I'm just waiting for Mom."

"Why?"

"She has an H.L.H.S. case. They're doing the F.E.T. tomorrow morning."

"And you want in on it?"

"Don't I always?" she questioned. "I know that I can't always be on every H.L.H.S. case, but I haven't been on the last two. We don't really get that many anymore since this isn't the only hospital doing them these days, so…"

"I know," she said.

Arizona could tell exactly what her daughter wanted as soon as she and the other doctors came out of the room that they had been in. While she was very careful not to favour either of her children over their peers, she didn't really want to deny the request either. Faith deserved it.

"You can scrub in," she agreed. "Fine."

"Thank you," she smiled. "It'll keep me from thinking about whether or not I should call the adoption agency. I know Brie said that we could call her whenever we needed to, but she also said that she'd call us as soon as she knew what they thought of our health histories. It's been over a week, and I'm getting nervous."

"We know," Sofia said.

"I'm sorry," she replied. "Is it annoying?"

"No," she answered. "I would be nervous if I were you, too."

"You'll get a call soon," Arizona told her. "You'll see."

"I hope so. I know that waiting to be matched is going to be even harder than this, but adoption isn't easy."

"Come to Declan's party," Sofia suggested. "Hanging out with him always cheers me up."

"I'm leaving now, too," Arizona said. "As soon as I can go get changed."

"Alright."

"But Faith –"

"You want me to look over the patient's chart by tomorrow morning," she predicted. "I know. I'll come in even earlier tomorrow. It's really the middle of the night, but it's worth it."

"Good," Nerissa smiled.

Sofia arrived to her brother's house just a few minutes before Faith and Arizona did. Her nephew was already trying to convince her to let him open his gift when there was another knock at the door. The now two-year-old knew that someone else was here to see him, so that temporarily distracted him.

"Should we go see who else is here?" Sofia asked him.

"C'mon, Sof," he smiled as he got up and made his way to the door.

"I'm coming," she replied as she – and Nellie who Sebastian had already brought to the party – followed behind the birthday boy. "Who do you think it is?"

"Umm…Gampa," he giggled.

"Grandpa's already here, Silly," she laughed.

"Nana?"

"You're a goofball," she told him as she opened the door. "It's Faith and Arizona!"

"Happy birthday," Arizona smiled as she came in.

"Hi," he said. "Callie here."

"I know Callie's already here. She told me she was coming, but I had to work."

"I didn't know Nellie came, though," Faith said as her dog excitedly made her way past Declan and Sofia to get to her. "Seb brought her to your party, huh?"

"Yeah," he said. "Open stuff?"

Chelsea had already promised him that he could begin opening his presents as soon as everyone had arrived to the party. Now that they had, he wasn't about to wait any longer. Even at his young age, he knew that presents were pretty awesome.

"Everyone's here now," Sofia nodded. "Let's go open them."

"Yay!"

"Which one are you going to open first?" Callie, who happened to be sitting closest to the gifts, asked when they all came back into the living room. "Which one looks the most fun?"

He tried to pick one up, but the box was too big for his little arms to carry anywhere. Instead, he put it back down and began ripping off the wrapping paper that way. He didn't really care how he got into it, as long as he could discover what it was.

"How was work?" Callie asked, giving her wife a kiss while Declan worked on the wrapping paper.

"H.L.H.S. cases will always stress me out so much more than any other," she said.

"Why do you think I asked?"

"This one's even more stressful because we don't have Teddy. Not that Cristina's any less talented. She's beyond capable, but it's just that the group that we've become so, so used to is changing. Cristina's done these procedures, and I know she'll be amazing, but not having Teddy there is still different."

"But you'll have me," Faith smiled.

"You're scrubbing in on an H.L.H.S. case?" Sebastian asked as his wife joined him on the couch.

"Tomorrow morning."

"So I shouldn't count on seeing you very much tomorrow?"

"Not really."

"Okay."

"You've been doing this for years," Callie reminded her wife. "You could probably do it in your sleep."

"I don't know about that," she said. "These procedures are different for me. They're more personal. Not that all of my patients aren't important to me. They are, but there's something about the procedures that I helped develop that just..."

"That makes sense," Lexie said.

"Colours, Dada!" Declan smiled as he realized that the gift – this one from his Auntie Sofia – was a set of art supplies.

"Did you get paint?" Maxwell asked. "Which colours?"

"Wellow…"

"Yellow?" Mark corrected.

"Wellow, red, blue…lots!"

"Can you paint Nana a picture?" Lexie wondered.

"Yep," he agreed before he began trying to open the packaging.

"Later," Lexie added. "You have more gifts to open still!"

"Okay, we need to turn the D.V.D. off, please," Maxwell told his son a few hours later.

One of his gifts – a D.V.D. movie based on one of his favourite television shows – had already been put to good use. They had decided to let him watch it during the party just because he was so excited about it, but then he had replayed it. His dad wanted to make sure that they wouldn't have to view it for a third time.

"No, Dada," he refused.

"Yes," he said as he turned the television off. "You're too little for that much T.V. If you ask me, you're too little for any T.V., but we let you watch just a little bit."

"Do you want cake now?" Chelsea asked the two-year-old.

"Yeah," he nodded.

"Yes, please," she replied.

"Yeah, pwease."

"Come sit," she chuckled, since her son now pronounced the "L" sound in many words except for that one most of the time.

While everyone ate Declan's birthday cake – and a few other desserts that Chelsea couldn't resist making – the conversation drifted to other things once again. The little man didn't care. He was content to eat his treat regardless of what the adults were talking about. He also found it pretty funny to tease Nellie with it. Luckily, she eventually gave up on trying to get a taste, but still laid at his feet just in case there was some hope left.

"Oh!" Chelsea smiled, realizing no one else knew yet. "We set a wedding date."

"When?"

"October seventh," Maxwell said. "Not this October coming up, but the next one."

"Sounds good," Faith replied.

"I still can't believe we've been married for almost a year," Sebastian told her. "It feels like it went by so fast, and like so much has happened since then."

"Because so much has," she agreed. "Adler died, we started the adoption process… it's been a crazy year."

"What are you two doing for your anniversary?" Sofia asked.

"We don't really have plans," Sebastian replied. "We'll probably have a nice dinner or something if she's not working."

"I'll try not to be," Faith promised. "But you married a resident. This is what we do."

"I know," he said. "And it's not so bad."

Declan didn't mean to, but he dropped his fork to the floor and watched as Nellie began to lick it clean. He wanted it back, so he wasn't too pleased about the actions of his furry friend.

"No! Stop!" he ordered.

"We'll get you a new one," Chelsea said. "It's okay. Please don't use your hands, though. Wait for a minute."

Of course, Declan decided to dig right in with his hands. It wasn't that he really wanted to disobey, but just that he so badly wanted to finish the rest of his cake. By the time his mom returned with a new fork, he was covered in icing. She just laughed.

"You're going to need a long bath after today, huh?"

"Yep," he agreed.

"Are you having so much fun?" Sebastian asked him.

He nodded.

"Did you like all of your gifts?" Faith wondered.

"Good stuff," he answered.

"What was your favourite?" Sofia questioned.

"Ummm…lots, Sof."

"All of them?" Arizona asked.

"Yeah," he nodded.

"You're such a sweet kid," Faith told him. "When I have a kid, I hope they're as awesome as you are."

"Will you teach them how to be so fun?" Sebastian requested.

He nodded.

"Sounds like a plan. We should have just told the adoption agency that you want a friend. I'm sure that would have sped them up some," Faith joked.

"I wish," Sebastian replied.

Just as the party was ending, Arizona received a phone call from Dr. Brady telling her that Mona and Donovan Westfall were back at the hospital because she was nervous since she hadn't felt the baby kick in a few hours. It turned out that everything was the same as it had always been, and she was just very worried now that tomorrow was the day of her surgery. However, it did give Arizona another chance to see Faith in action.

"Faith's so good with patients," she was telling Callie that night as they ate dinner. "I know that she should be at this point, but she always has been. Sometimes residents can make patients nervous because they're not as qualified as Fellows or Attendings, but she puts them at ease. Nerissa did another ultrasound and she was talking about the heart, thinking that that would obviously be their main focus. And it was, but Faith started pointing out the baby's features and getting the parents to think about those, too. Mom's blood pressure went down right away."

Callie smiled.

"She understands," she said. "Not that she remembers any of it, but she has heard about how we felt. She knows what helped us."

"Yes," she agreed. "I feel better about working with her tomorrow. I don't know why, but doing these procedures with her almost seems like more pressure. I'm the Attending. It's strange. But she is really good on these cases. She's just good in general."

"Definitely."

Arizona's phone went off as she received a text from Dr. Brady. She knew that it was him based on the sound, and she wasn't sure if it had to do with hypoplastic left heart syndrome or not.

"Do you mind if I –?"

"Check it," Callie nodded.

Arizona got up and went to get her phone.

"Oh," she said as she read the message that Austin had just typed out.

"What? Do you have to go again?"

"No," she explained. "He was talking to Teddy and she suggested that maybe we should start having residents and Fellows shadow us. As in making sure that they see the whole process. We have them scrub in on one procedure, but there's still another. They rarely get to do both. And then they don't get to see the process of figuring out which meds. are best for each patient even after surgery. That's half of the challenge."

"True," she said. "But why is this coming up now?"

"According to Brady, it's because we'll all retire at some point. Teddy already has. We need to start making sure that anyone who does this in the future is ready."

"He has a point. It would just be shadowing you. It doesn't mean that they have to take over now."

"I know. But he wants Faith to do it."

"And you don't?"

"That seems wrong for so many reasons," she replied. "For one, she's my kid. Everyone is going to think we're playing favourites. Two, she's only a third year. What about the fourth and fifth years? And the Fellows? And I know that Faith wants to work on this with us, but I still don't want to define her career for her at this point."

"It wouldn't, though. Arizona, you don't only do H.L.H.S. cases. Especially now that other hospitals do them, too. I know that patients still do come to you to do them, but you don't do all of them like you did when this was new. Shadowing you will still only be one part of what Faith does. And if she wants to stop, she stops. Right?"

"You have a point. But I don't know."

She thought about it for the night and talked it over with the rest of her team in the morning after they had successfully performed the F.E.T. together. Everyone else sided fully with Dr. Brady. Faith was perfect for something like that even if she was Arizona's child, and even if she was a third year. Arizona was still hesitant, so they agreed only to let her shadow one patient – Baby Westfall – and to give someone else a chance to follow the next one. They also agreed that anyone who was given the chance could back out at any time. Hopefully these children would live into adulthood. Odds were that most of the residents would choose different paths at some point. Arizona was satisfied. Everything was fair all the way around.

"And I know this is because we're going to need to be replaced eventually, but if you ever retire, I'll have to kill you," she told Dr. Brady. "Losing your wife was one thing, but you've been with me from the very start. With Faith, I mean. I've never had to face anything H.L.H.S. related without knowing that you had my back."

"I will tell my wife that I'm more important than her," he joked.

"No," she disagreed. "But it's just that our history of conquering this thing goes way, way, way back. Other than Calliope, you were the person to always keep me sane during all of it. Teddy was there and she was great, but I think back to that first fetal echo I had with you and that's when Calliope and I started to feel like we had some hope. I can't forget that day. And now that we get to give that hope to other parents..."

"Can we stop with the sentiment?" Cristina requested.

"I can't help it."

"Get used to it," Nerissa told her. "This is what she's like on these cases."

"Fine," Cristina said.

Faith walked in. Her mother had paged her to the same conference room that the team had always used to work on hypoplastic left heart syndrome related matters. She had no idea why. She had been sitting with Mona and Donovan in the hospital room and everything was just fine.

"What happened?" she asked.

"We have a question for you," Dr. Brady told her.

"Okay…?" she replied as she took a seat. "What's going on?"

"We want you to shadow us," Arizona explained. "Through Mona's recovery, the baby's birth, the Robbins procedure, afterwards…"

"Follow-ups and everything?"

"Yes," Nerissa nodded.

"Anytime that we see that baby, we want you there," Dr. Brady added. "Obviously you already have some idea of the ups and downs of H.L.H.S., but still. You've never done this before. It's one of the most important parts, too."

"You're not on the team," Arizona clarified. "You're shadowing us. But what do you think? They've promised me that it won't necessarily define your career or eat up all of your time. You're hopefully going to be a mom soon. I didn't want you having to commit to anything too time-consuming. But we all do more than this. It's not as demanding as it was when it was in the trial stages. You would still have a personal li-"

"Stop talking like my mom," she smiled. "Of course I'm in! I don't need to think about it. I'm in."

"Are you sure?"

"She's sure," Dr. Brady laughed.

"Other people will get chances to do this, too," Arizona said. "But still. Don't go shouting it from the rooftops. I'm a little –"

"It's not favouritism if you were the only one not so sure," Cristina assured her. "Relax about that."

"I won't rub it in," Faith promised. "Well, except to maybe Sofia. But I'm her sister. That's my job. Plus, she doesn't really want to do H.L.H.S. stuff. Being in Peds. is enough like you for her."

"I know."

"Guess what?" Sebastian smiled as his wife appeared in his office doorway just minutes later.

She was there to share her good news, but he seemed equally thrilled by some news of his own. She wasn't expecting that. They were both way too happy for a Monday morning, they realized at the same time.

"Why are you saying 'guess what?'" she questioned. "I should be the one saying 'guess what.'"

"Brie just called."

"And they're not rejecting us because we have donor hearts?" she guessed.

"She didn't go into detail about that. But we have an appointment for our first interview, and we can sign up for the adoption classes. They start in two weeks and there's still room for us."

"Finally!" she exclaimed. "Yay! Do you realize that if everything goes well, we could be approved in what? A month or so?"

"Well, let's say two. The course is six weeks long, and scheduling the interviews might get tricky with your work schedule. But still. We're moving forward. This is happening, Faith!"

He may have had fears about parenthood at first, but those seemed like distant memories now. Completing all of that paperwork and having to wait over a week to find out if their medical histories would disqualify them had made him really, really want to be a father.

"Yay!" she cheered. "When is our interview?"

"Well…"

"What?"

"It's on our anniversary," he said. "But it was the first date she asked about and I wasn't about to say no. It's in the afternoon, so we'll still have the night to ourselves, but…"

"That's okay," she smiled. "So what if it's our first one and we're spending some of it answering questions about parenting or whatever the questions are about? We'll have plenty more anniversaries and it makes a good story to tell the grandkids one day."

He smiled.

"Can we focus on a kid first, please?"

"Sure."

"What's your news?"

"Compared to that, it's nothing," she laughed. "But I get to follow this H.L.H.S. patient through everything. There are so many exciting new developments today. I love it."

He smiled. He knew that both of these opportunities would be great for them. Shadowing the hypoplastic left heart syndrome team was a dream come true for his wife, and they were past a hurdle in their adoption journey.

"I would say we should celebrate, but you'll be here."

"Watching fetal monitors like a hawk," she nodded as she kissed him. "I'm sorry."

"I'll sleep in the on-call room."

"You're the best husband ever."