Hello my lovely readers! New update for you all cuz I finally finished writing this new chapter! In the immortal perkiness of old Arizona "YAY!"

Since we're all caught up, my updates will be a bit slower since all my future updates are still to be written. Right now, I'm maybe halfway through with chapter 9 but we'll see where the muse takes me!

Again, Grey's Anatomy is not mine and never will be mine even if I wish it to every star in the sky. It will always be property of ABC and Shondaland.

lonelykid293 - Thank you for continuing to read and review my story, all the reviews keep me going. I hope you enjoy this new chapter!

Beeex3 - Well... Death doesn't have to be literal, does it? That's as much as I'm willing to tell you haha you gotta read and find out! I can't promise they won't hurt but I can promise no "ugly custody battle" level of pain.

Tingtorn78 - This chapter is for you then! Thank you for continuing to follow my story, I really enjoy reading your reviews and everyone else's

Calzonafan123 - Unfortunately, we won't hear from Jerry the pilot in a while but he will come back!

bkworm22 - I always wondered why no one made them go to PTSD counseling/therapy. And you're right, this is very AU but our surgeons still have a long way to go before all of them are out of the hospital!

to my guest reviewers - Thank you for your reviews and Happy New Year!

Enjoy the new Chapter, everyone!

Chapter 8: The one where Callie finally wakes up

It's been almost two months since Callie and Mark were put under a medically induced coma, and they've both been slowly eased off of the drugs two weeks ago. Unfortunately, neither Callie nor Mark had shown any signs of consciousness or brain activity, much to the dismay of everyone in the hospital, both doctors have yet to wake up. The prospect of their fellow survivors possibly waking up was all the incentive Arizona, Cristina, and Meredith needed to come back to the hospital.

All three surgeons parked themselves beside a bed each, while Meredith spent her day flitting between Derek's room and the other two ICU rooms, where Lexie was still also staying with Mark. Since her amputation and the need for several spinal surgeries, Lexie was under heavy sedation most times but Meredith kept her company in the hours when she was awake.

When she was awake, the younger Grey would be in one of two states: bad days and good days. On her good days, Lexie would be talking to Meredith and always asked to see Sofia and Zola. During those days, a glimmer of the old optimistic Lexie would surface though the two sisters avoided the topic of the younger woman's amputated leg and her paralysis. On her bad days, Lexie would go into a depressive state. She would either be bawling in Meredith's arms or quiet and subdued, barely speaking a word and ignoring everyone but her sister. Those days were especially hard to see because, during their whole ordeal, Lexie had always been the optimist, even when they were facing worsening odds in the forest. It seemed that even their ray of hope was going down a dark and twisty path, and it hurt Meredith to see her sister during her bad days.

Cristina was getting better, finally talking to her housemates and Derek, but her inexplicable anger towards everything was still present. Wherever the Korean resident was, every staff member knew to steer clear. The only exceptions to her anger were her goddaughters, Bailey, and her fellow survivors. She still refused to talk to anyone other than them. Part of Cristina Yang never came back from the forest, just like everyone who had been there. No one had spoken about it yet but none of the surviving doctors were very happy with their hospital or their chief of surgery. Even though he was her husband, Cristina refused to even acknowledge Owen Hunt's existence whenever he was around.

The longer Callie stayed unconscious, the more unstable Arizona's mood seemed to get. The blonde spent the first four weeks of Callie in a coma to recover from her own injuries and spend time with her daughter, though she had immediately come back to the hospital on the day they eased the Latina off of the medication and never left since then. Arizona's fear and anxiety about Callie's condition worsened as the days passed by with no progress. Meredith would come in every day and bring her food, fresh clothes, and Sofia but never asked the blonde to go home because Meredith understood and would probably be in the same state if Derek was the one in Callie's position.

Unlike her other fellow survivors, though, Arizona still interacted with some of the staff whenever they came to update Callie's charts. There was one exception to the blonde's politeness, though, and it was one Alex Karev. The peds resident had once tried to approach Arizona to check up on her but got the cold shoulder, and every time he tried since then had come to the same results. A week into his efforts, the resident had tried one last time to talk to Arizona.

"This is crap, Robbins. You can't ignore me forever." Alex spoke up as soon as he entered Callie's room. Arizona was sitting up in her own bed that was pushed up next to her wife's.

"It's Dr. Robbins-Torres to you, Dr. Karev. And I can do whatever I damn well want because I have nothing to say to you, now leave before I find a brick." Arizona's voice was uncharacteristically cold, something she'd never used on others before.

Alex frowned but didn't move. He stubbornly stood just inside the door. "What the hell? Are you still mad at me because I wanted to go to Hopkins? You went to Hopkins!"

"I'm mad because your inconsiderate ass decides to accept a fellowship without talking to me or giving me a heads up first before you said yes! Do you know how much time and effort and patience I invested in you? And you throw all of that to my face by saying that you accepted the fellowship at Hopkins!" Arizona's voice increased in volume at the end of her rant, her face now full of anger as she stared down the stubborn resident.

"Hopkins is the best pediatric hospital in the nation! And they wanted me!" Alex retorted.

"I wanted you here! Seattle Grace Mercy West invested all their time and resources in you, and I took you in when no one wanted to work with you! I was the one who saw your potential for pediatric surgery! You didn't even think to at least tell me you were thinking about other fellowships!?" The bitterness and resentment were starting to seep into every word the blonde spit at her once mentee.

"You're being unreasonable, Robbins! How many freaking opportunities did you think I was gonna get at getting into a place like Hopkins? I'm nothing here, people here only see me as the selfish asshole…" Alex was rambling as well now, matching his mentor's raised volume as he tried to justify his choices.

"You're an ass who only takes care of himself and doesn't think about the people who care about him, and I'm done trying to turn you into an actual human being. Get out of my sight, Karev, and don't come back." Arizona cut off the resident. The hurt and resentment still ran deep for her, and she didn't feel like reasoning or discussing anything further with the man so she turned away from him.

"This is crap," Alex grumbled before he left the room. Since then, no one had seen Alex Karev even go up to the critical care floor. He had avoided Arizona as much as possible but he did spend his free time helping Meredith and Amelia take care of Sofia, after making them swear not to alert Arizona of this fact.

With Sofia's mother and father still unconscious in the ICU, and her other mother refusing to leave Callie's side, the young Latina found herself spending time either in daycare with Zola, in Derek's room during visiting hours with Arizona stopping by for a few hours every day to spend time with her, or spending the night in Meredith's house with Zola, under the watchful eyes of Amelia Shepherd and Alex Karev. Meredith, Cristina, and Arizona had refused to come home now, not wanting to miss even a second when or if their colleagues would wake up.

As the third week of Callie and Mark still unconscious came around, the four waiting surgeons, a mostly conscious Lexie, and other hospital staff were starting to feel discouraged. Every single night, Arizona would shed tears at her wife's bedside, clutching Callie's unresponsive hand as she prayed to a God she didn't even believe in for her wife to wake up. The more time passed with no improvement, the more the blonde peds surgeon felt a sense of hopelessness.

This wasn't supposed to be how it ended for them, did it? They had barely been married for a year before this tragedy struck them, and Sofia wasn't even old enough to retain memories of her other mother or her father. It felt entirely unfair as Arizona studied her wife's face. Absentmindedly, the blonde brushed her fingers lightly over her wife's relaxed brows, tracing her face, memorizing every contour, every line, every definition of Calliope Torres.

Feeling another fresh wave of tears spill forth from her already red and swollen eyes, Arizona stood up and brushed her lips against those of her wife's unresponsive ones before turning around and leaving. She couldn't look at the prone form of her wife anymore, not like this. Arizona still refused to accept the growing possibility that Callie might never wake up, refused to believe that this was it for them. That this is how their story ended but she also needed to get away, to find comfort and not look at Callie's still form. It was causing her even more pain that the person who Arizona had always gone to for comfort wasn't able to offer it to her because Callie was in a coma and it was possible that she might never wake up. Unconsciously, the blonde found herself standing outside Derek Shepherd's hospital room, the only room in the hospital where the blonde and her fellow survivors all felt any sort of comfort within the walls of a hospital they all used to love.

Arizona found Meredith and Cristina already there, sitting quietly around Derek's bed. All three surgeons mirrored the grief and hopelessness that was reflected in Arizona's face. Wordlessly, Meredith got up and sat on the edge of her husband's bed, leaving the chair open right next to Cristina. The blonde peds surgeon fell heavily onto the chair, dropping her crutches to the floor. A pale hand took Arizona's beside her, squeezing, and that was all it took for the dam to break. The blonde let out heart-wrenching sobs as the three surgeons around her also let themselves shed tears for the two people they all loved who were still fighting for their lives. As much hope as they could carry, each day that there had been no improvements slowly chipped away at everyone's resolve. Right now, all four of them were hoping for miracles.

The miracles came in the form of two out of breath interns rushing into Derek's room, where the three women had once again decided to hang out, though Arizona had initially been reluctant when Cristina had picked her up from Callie's room, the next day. Both interns were breathless, stuttering out the news that had all four surgeons rushing out.

"They're waking up."

Arizona spent no time hopping as fast as she could in her crutches towards the nearest elevator, followed closely by Cristina and Meredith, who was pushing Derek in a wheelchair. Once on their desired floor, the four surgeons separated. Meredith and Derek went straight to Mark's room, while Arizona and Cristina went to Callie's.

Inside Callie's room, Amelia was excitedly watching the brain activity monitor as it spiked to indicate that the orthopedic surgeon was indeed showing signs of waking up. There were also visible signs with her facial features shifting, her brow creasing, eyelids fluttering, and her fingers twitching on the bed.

Parking herself on the chair next to Callie's bed, while Cristina stayed at the foot, Arizona immediately grasped Callie's hand. "Calliope. I'm here, baby. Open those beautiful brown eyes for me, Calliope." The peds surgeon kept her tone soft as she coaxed her wife, smiling brightly when she felt Callie squeezing her hand.

"That's it, honey. I'm right here, listen to my voice. I love you so much, Calliope. You have to wake up for me now." Arizona continued coaxing her wife to consciousness with the silent encouragement of Amelia and Cristina. The more Arizona talked, the more Callie seemed to be able to pull herself out of her long sleep.

Slowly, Callie's eyes opened and brown eyes met blue for what felt like the first time in years. Arizona couldn't help the choked sob she let out as she finally gazed upon the eyes of her wife, those deep brown eyes that she had been praying to see for almost two months now.

Except something was wrong. Instead of warmth or recognition, Callie's eyes were filled with fear and confusion. The Latina jerked her hand away from Arizona, her head turning slowly to look around her. Brown eyes could recognize that she was in a hospital, could identify that she had probably had major surgery or had been in a bad accident but she could not recognize the two people around her hospital bed. The only one she actually did recognize was Cristina Yang, who looked haggard and tired at the foot of her bed.

Callie wanted to speak, wanted to ask, wanted to voice out her questions but the soft plastic tube that was probably helping her breathe for the past however many days was preventing that. Putting her good but bandaged hand up, the confused Latina pointed to her breathing tube, coughing as her body had now caught up and tried to breathe through the tube.

Immediately, Amelia sprung into action. "Calm down, Callie. We'll take your breathing tube out, okay? Give me a good cough in 3...2...1!" With a quick practiced movement, the neurosurgeon took out the breathing tube, replacing it with a nasal cannula to help deliver much-needed oxygen to the newly woken surgeon.

Still coughing, Callie was finally able to voice her questions. "Who are you? Cristina? Who…are...they? What…happened? Erica?" The Latina's final question was directed at the door, where the blonde female cardiothoracic surgeon stood, wanting to check on Callie and catching the tail end of the Latina's confused questioning.

Everyone in the room stood frozen for a good few seconds until the younger Shepherd snapped herself out of it to examine and treat Callie like any patient with a traumatic brain injury. "Hi, I'm Dr. Amelia Shepherd. I'm your neurosurgeon. Do you remember your name?"

Callie turned away from staring at Erica to focus on the doctor. Shepherd? "Like Derek Shepherd? I'm Dr. Callie Torres of Seattle Grace hospital, a fifth-year surgical resident specializing in Orthopedic Surgery. Where are we?" The Latina answered the question matter of factly.

To her utter confusion, this seemed to cause an extreme reaction to those around her. The pretty blonde who had been holding her hand gasped loudly, and her surgeon, this female Dr. Shepherd, cringed. Cristina had emitted a loud sigh, while the only one who seemed to stay quiet was Erica, who had moved into the room. "What's going on?" Callie asked, looking around at them.

Instead of female Dr. Shepherd answering her question, it was Erica who spoke first. "What do you remember last, Cal?"

Callie frowned and stared at Erica. "You and I had a fight in front of the hospital about the LVAD rumors, and and…" tears sprung from the Latina's eyes as she recalled the only thing she could remember as her most recent memory.

"You left. That's all I remember. I remember watching you walk away. I remember feeling like every step you took farther away from me felt like a stab to my chest and…" Callie was full-on sobbing now as she remembered, the pain once again fresh in her memory. Unknown to her, this had been a memory years in the past, but her injured mind could not recall anything further than that.

Without hesitation, Erica Hahn strode over to Callie's bedside and sat down at the edge of her bed, pulling the sobbing woman into a gentle hug, mindful of her many tubes, wires, and her injuries. "It's alright, Cal. Please calm down. You'll aggravate your injuries. Come on now, Cal. Deep breaths. That's it, breath slowly." The blonde cardio surgeon coached the Latina and eventually helped her calm down.

From her position in the chair, Arizona watched Callie turn her body towards the other blonde. She watched her wife bury her face into a neck that wasn't hers, grasping the shirt of another woman like her life depended on it. It pained Arizona so much that her wife, her wonderful but broken wife didn't remember her at all and sought comfort in another woman's arms, the only woman she probably remembered at all right now. The blonde peds surgeon knew about their history, knew that Erica Hahn was Callie's first girlfriend, her first female lover. The doctor in her already knows that Callie was suffering retrograde amnesia as a result of her traumatic brain injury, but the distraught wife in her wanted to cry out in pain at seeing her wife seek comfort in someone else who was not her. Unable to take any more of it, Arizona wordlessly got up with her crutches and hobbled out of the room, heading to the next door ICU room to escape from the scene before her. Maybe once she remembered again, Callie would forgive Arizona for running away this time.

The blonde found herself standing outside of the ICU room next door, where another survivor had also woken up. Arizona watched through the glass doors with a twinge of jealousy as Lexie held Mark's hand, both smiling and talking to the other couple in the room. This room was positive, no complications arose from the critical patient in this room. In the room right in front of Arizona, people were happy and relieved to see Mark Sloan awake, and Mark remembered every single one of them.

Sighing, Arizona turned her sad gaze to the closed door of her wife's room. Her wife, her world, her rock, the mother of her child. Calliope Iphegenia Robbins-Torres, Arizona's miracle and the love of her life, didn't know who she was, and it broke her heart into a million pieces all over again. Callie Torres woke up but Arizona still felt like her wife was still gone.

With another sigh, the blonde opened the door to Mark's room, catching everyone's attention. She tried to muster a happy face but her eyes were still sad and her smile wasn't convincing either. Lexie spoke up first.

"Did Callie…?"

Arizona shook her head, "she's awake."

"Then what's wrong?" Derek questioned.

At this, the blonde sighed heavily. "Calliope woke up but she doesn't remember anything from the past four years. Her last memory is watching Erica Hahn walking away." Repeating the news to the worried looks from the boys and the gasps from the girls just made Arizona's heart ache even more.

Her voice and her whole body shook while tears blurred her vision. "My wife woke up and she doesn't know who I am or that we have a daughter or that we're married and she… she was there, clinging onto someone else and… she recoiled from me when she woke up and… she woke up but she isn't my Calliope." Arizona was vaguely aware of someone's hands leading her down onto a chair, and the same arms enveloped her in a hug as the peds surgeon broke down. Around her, Meredith shared sad glances with everyone as she hugged the distraught blonde close. It seemed that when things were starting to look up, something still went wrong.

Okay... So... The trials and problems and issues and all the dark and twisty stuff isn't over but can you blame them? The plane crash is a major traumatic event, and it's not easy to get over something like that. Also, please don't stone me for Callie's condition. It's a real risk of her head injury, now it's up to Arizona to be Callie's good man in a storm and her protector this time.

What do you think? Thoughts? Do you hate me right now?

Thanks for reading!

-Banewrites