Chapter 25:

A/N: This is a pretty short chapter, but like several others in this story, it acts as a filler and a staging point for larger themes later on. I tried to work this bit in with the last chapter and then again with the chapter I'm working on next. I couldn't seem to get the pace and flow of the piece to come together and so I decided to post it as a stand alone chapter.

Darkness.

Shadow.

A weight.

Haze.

"CC, whose room is this?"

Voices.

Whispers in the night.

Words, without form.

"This is Daniella's room. Her nursery."

Movement.

Sounds, unknown.

"This is your hope?"

Questions, forged in rhyme.

Bathed in uncertainty.

"Callie, what is hope the opposite of?"

Answers, so close.

Shrouded in confusion.

"Fear, Hannah. Hope is the opposite of fear."

Two children.

Both innocent.

Forever marking two sides of the same coin.

For what beauty could be borne on the back of such sorrow?

-Present Day-

"She's gorgeous. I mean, most babies are cute, but she is perfect."

Teddy Altman smiled as she leaned down and looked into Daniella's eyes. Nurses went about their daily tasks around her, giving no pause to her words. Since the birth of her best friend's daughter, Teddy had been unable to find any large amounts of spare time to check in on her. Surgeries, interns, residents, and the normal goings-on of the hospital's day to day life had kept her from being as involved as she would have liked.

Over the past week, the slender woman had checked in on Arizona as often as she could. She'd ensured that her best friend ate regularly and that she always had a fresh supply of clean clothes. Apart from those duties, Teddy had had very little interaction with Arizona, let alone Daniella.

Mark nodded his head from the opposite side of the bassinet and said, in his usual dry tone, "Yeah, I gotta give it to Robbins. She makes pretty babies."

The words, meant to lighten the mood, caused Teddy's stomach to sink. She was still trying to process the revelation Mark had dropped in her lap the day Daniella had been born.

Arizona had lost a child. A little girl. How had Mark known and she had not? Why had Arizona not confided in her? Did their friendship hold so little weight in the other woman's life? Teddy had wanted to question Arizona about the issue, but with Callie's condition, she had decided to hold matters a while longer.

Standing back up and looking across at Mark, Teddy bit back a laugh and replied, "Yeah, she does. Daniella is beautiful. Makes me want a baby."

Mark raised his eyebrow at her and grinned devilishly.

"Wanna go to an on-call room and do the nasty?"

Scrunching her face into a look of disgust, Teddy held back the urge to slap the man and instead said, "You're disgusting, Mark. The world could do with less men like you. Let's not allow your genes into the general population."

Glancing back at the tiny infant below her, she softened her features and ran her hand gently across a small chest. "Learn to ignore, Mark. In fact, take after your mothers and just ignore men all together."

Before another word could be spoken by either doctor, Deidre appeared at the window outside of the room and caught their attention. Teddy noticed Arizona's mother appeared less worn than the last time she'd seen her. Walking to the door and exiting into the hallway, she smiled at the older woman and asked, "Everything okay, Mrs. Robbins?"

Deidre smiled, the gesture drawing attention to the worry lines around her eyes. Reaching for Teddy's arm, she opened her mouth and spoke in a raspy, though overjoyed, whisper.

"She's awake. Callie's awake."

After Callie had slipped back into unconsciousness, Arizona's body, tired, stressed, and overloaded, had finally given out on her and she'd fallen into the chair that had kept her at Callie's bedside for so long. Sleep had attempted to calm and soothe her worried and frantic mind and dreams of a happier time visited her upone the shores of her slumber. Derek had come back in to check on Callie and found the two of them silent and lost to their own mind's visions. Performing a quick examination on his patient, Derek had been pleased to note that Callie responded to painful stimulus. The tiny prick he'd applied under her nail had been met with a jerk of her hand and a twitch of her eyes-both good signs.

Not long after he'd left, Teddy and Mark entered the room. Deidre had wanted to follow them, but she knew Derek had ordered everyone, doctors excluded, to give Callie space and time. She'd opted to stay with Daniella, a decision she was happy to live with.

"She must have lost consciousness again." Teddy said as she entered the room.

Arizona was slumped in her chair, chin resting on her chest. She made no indication that she was aware of anyone else being present in the room with her. Her right hand was stretched towards Callie's bed and was propped at an uncomfortable angle under the guard rail. Teddy's heart fluttered when she realized that her friend had been attempting to maintain contact with her partner.

Mark walked past her and headed straight for Arizona.

"Mark! Don't wake her up! She's barely been sleeping as it is."

The tall, broad shouldered man paid no attention to her words. Bending down in front of Arizona, he effortlessly picked her up from the chair and turned back towards Teddy. The hazel eyed surgeon gawked at him and looked confused.

"She's not gonna wake up. Just help me here so I can get her next to Callie. That chair's not her friend and she'll thank me later." Mark said, earnestly.

Arizona's head fell against his chest and shoulder and her blonde hair spread out across his white lab coat.

Understanding dawned on Teddy's face and she couldn't help but smile. Just a short time ago, she'd been telling Mark he was disgusting and now the very same man was warming her heart with his thoughtful ways.

She hated him sometimes.

It took but a moment to ensure that Arizona's body was placed next to Callie's in a way that would do neither of them any harm. Mark walked around the bed to Callie's side while Teddy sat herself down in the chair Arizona had been sleeping in.

No words were spoken. Two sets of friends, four individual people, allowed silence and reflection to grace their minds and settle over them. Mark reached for Callie's right hand and grasped it lightly. He felt his chest constrict but refrained from allowing any other signs of his emotions from making themselves visible. Teddy ran her fingers through Arizona's hair and tried to imagine what the woman's lost child must have looked like. She recalled past conversations and interactions and attempted to make a connection, any connection, with the information she now possessed.

Begrudging herself, folly as it was, for not connecting the dots where Arizona's past were concerned, Teddy swallowed her self loathing and blinked at the tears forming in her eyes. She hoped, prayed, with everything that was positive in the world that Callie would make a full recovery. She couldn't imagine Arizona without Callie. Teddy had watched them grow together. She'd seen them fight and argue, joke and jest, love and marry. They had a child together now.

A child Callie had yet to even meet.

As she stared at the back of her best friend's head, Teddy found herself pleading with every known god in the universe for her friend's returned happiness. Arizona needed Callie. Callie needed Arizona.

Daniella needed them both.

Things had to work out. They had to.

The alternative was too unimaginable to fathom.