I finished this one relatively quickly after a burst of inspiration, so here we are with a new update!
So you all probably hate me right now for the dark and twisty scenes for several chapters now but I swear, things will start looking up soon(ish)! Be patient please! Trust in the journey and trust in Calzona
Disclaimer: Shonda Rhimes and ABC own all the rights to Grey's Anatomy. This is a work of fanfiction, so I do not own anything, unfortunately. I'm merely borrowing and playing in Shondaland
Beeex3 - hahaha I hate me too for putting so much drama and dark and twisty scenes for several consecutive chapters but trust me on this, the dark and twisty will be worth it! Hope this chapter makes up for the several that I made them all suffer.
Calzonafan123 - I'm a big believer of the love and support of your people being able to get you through anything, so believe in Callie!
Tingtorn78 - Callie wants to get better too, believe me because I want it too but we gotta trust in Calzona and their tendency to get through the worst things and still come out okay in the end. Its just gonna be dark and twisty before they become happy shiny people again, if they will...
lonelykid293 - Thank you as always for your reviews! We just gotta trust in Calzona and how they eventually get through this huge trauma that have gone through and are still going through.
DtownGurl4488 - Oh trust me, Arizona and Callie and everyone are making weird decisions and have weird thought processes right now in their current traumatized states. I have a ton of ideas where this can go through but for now, we have a rough direction and the ending will definitely always be Calzona.
lacyc11 - Here's a new update for you! Thank you for reading!
EstradaKathlene - I had to reply to this. You made a one word comment and for some reason it made me laugh. Thank you for reading!
FFChik - None of them are being mature or adults about dealing with their trauma at all... I'd hate to be the chief of surgery in this hospital right now!
Guest - Thank you! Yes, Arizona needs to channel her Good man in a storm energy and get it together for Callie! Erica looks refreshing as an adult, doesn't she? Trust in Calzona and the journey through trauma and healing that they will go through together!
I hope you all enjoy this new update!
Chapter 10: The one where Arizona tells Callie a story
Note: italics mean visions/memories/dreams
General POV
Callie's room was a frenzy of activity as the newly woken orthopedic surgeon suddenly went into a seizure. Erica pushed the call button while Amelia bustled around the bed. The nurses ran in, ushering the three non-practicing doctors out as they all worked to stabilize Callie.
In the other room, Arizona, Lexie, and Mark looked out at the glass door with alarm when they saw nurses rushing into the next room. The next thing they knew, three worried individuals came into their room. Arizona immediately stood up.
"What happened?" She demanded as the three other survivors piled into the room. Everyone looked grave.
It was Meredith who answered, "we were talking to Callie, answering her questions and… when she got to you, Cristina explained who you were and she started seizing after she mentioned your name."
Arizona gasped and hopped up, using her crutches to walk as fast she could to the other room, only to be stopped by Erica Hahn at the door. The taller blonde was surprisingly strong, and Arizona found herself unable to get by.
"You need to calm down. You can't help Callie if you just barge in there, you'll just be in the way. Shepherd and Koracick can handle this. You know this is a side effect of her TBI." The other blonde was calm but Arizona was far from it.
Arizona once again tried to get past Erica. "That's my wife in there, and I need to be in there! Move!" The two blondes continued to struggle until Amelia came out and put a stop to it.
"It's okay, Dr. Hahn, Arizona. Callie's stable now but we had to sedate her again, you can come in now." With that, Erica stepped aside but not before Arizona roughly pushed her aside and hobbled over to Callie's bedside. Parking herself on the empty chair close to her wife's bed, cursing herself for leaving in the first place.
It took another day before Callie finally woke up, and Arizona stayed by her bedside the whole time. Anyone who tried to get the peds surgeon to go somewhere else to sleep got their heads bitten off. After the third crying intern, Chief Hunt just ordered another hospital bed wheeled into the room. The man could understand trauma, having his own experiences with it, but the way these survivors were treating their own colleagues was putting more grey hairs on Owen Hunt than his entire tenure as Chief of Surgery.
The next day, Arizona was woken up by a noise on the bed next to her. Realizing that it was her wife waking up, the blonde was up and out of bed in a flash. Unlike last time, though, she refrained from touching the Latina.
Callie POV
Callie groaned softly as she woke up. Once again her whole body felt sore and she felt completely tired even though she was just waking up. Slowly, the Latina opened her eyes and squinted at the bright lights of the hospital room. Her memory felt fuzzy for a few seconds as she tried to remember why she was in a hospital bed, and then the events of yesterday came back to her as well as some sort of memory.
Deep dimples, ocean blue eyes, and a flash of curly blonde hair against Joe's dirty bar bathroom as she dried her eyes in front of the mirror...
"Wanna give me some names?"
Pink lips that feel so soft against hers...
"I think you'll know"
The Latina frowned as she tried to remember more of that short flash of memory. When did that happen? The memory evoked a nice warmth in her chest, and it made her smile as she recalled the feel of soft pink lips against hers and the deep dimpled smile coupled by those eyes framed by delicate blonde curls. She didn't know everything about that memory but it made her so happy.
Still smiling, Callie turned to her right where brown eyes met ocean blue and something clicked. "You kissed me in Joe's bathroom." It wasn't a question, just a statement.
The smile that met her was soft but her eyes conveyed nothing but love and hope. "Yes, Calliope. That was the first time we officially met. I've only been in Seattle for a couple of months at that time." Arizona explained.
"So it wasn't a crazy dream. Wow. You kiss strangers in dirty bar bathrooms often?" Callie couldn't help but give the blonde a teasing smile.
Arizona laughed, her first real laugh since the plane crash, not that Callie knew that. "No. Just the woman who would become my wife."
The two of them shared soft smiles before Callie leaned back on her pillows again. The Latina was quiet for a while, just staring at the white hospital ceiling. "So we're really married huh?" she finally asked, turning her head to look at the blonde sitting on the chair beside her with a contemplative look on her face. Arizona nodded, still smiling supportively for her wife.
A pale hand reached over but stopped just before they reached a tan hand, resting on top of the sheets just a few inches shy of Callie's hand. The orthopod studied the delicate hand next to hers, noting the light tan line on her ring finger but no ring. "Where's your ring? Come to think of it, where's my ring?" Callie looked up at Arizona's face.
"I have them both right here, and your necklace too." Arizona pulled on the two chains around her neck, pulling two heart necklaces with two rings each on the chain. "The silver one is yours, and the gold is mine. I wore them both around my neck this whole time so we don't lose them and…" the blonde hesitated for a moment before she spoke again, "and because while you were unconscious or in surgery, having them close to my heart, it felt like you were still with me. You always made me feel safe and loved, and having these necklaces and our rings close to my heart at least gave me some of that."
Callie could see Arizona's eyes start to water and her bottom lip had started trembling as well but the blonde was trying to keep herself from crying. It broke the Latina's heart to see how much this trauma had affected her, and even if she didn't remember her, Callie hoped she was doing the right thing by reaching over and cupping the woman's cheek. "I'm sorry for what this has done to you, and I'm also sorry that I don't remember you."
Arizona shook her head briefly before leaning into the soft touch on her cheek. "I was so scared that I would lose you, Calliope, and I'm so glad that you're alive and awake. You don't have to apologize for suffering amnesia, I'm just so happy that you're here and talking to me. I love you so much, and I know you don't remember me but I will never leave your side. I will be here for you until you remember, and even if you don't I would never leave your side. You're stuck with me forever, Calliope."
Callie smiled at the sincerity and conviction she heard from the woman's voice. This woman named Arizona who was apparently her wife, a practical stranger who just vowed to not leave her side. It made Callie happy and sad at the same time because she couldn't remember any of this. All she could recall were the tragic relationships she had, the mistakes and the fights, and the people who chipped away at her self-esteem. Callie slowly dropped her hand, already missing the warmth of the pale flesh that she had just been caressing. "I know I have amnesia and you can't give me a lot of details but can you tell me if I was able to walk tall when we met? Were we happy? How did I not fuck up this marriage?" There was a hint of shyness, a vulnerability in Callie that few people had been privy to see as she asked these questions.
This time, Arizona did grasp Callie's hand and the Latina didn't pull away. The touch felt familiar and new at the same time, and that simple gesture also served to comfort her. "I came to Seattle a month after Erica Hahn left, and we never really crossed paths because peds and ortho rarely did but I had been hearing all about you from our coworkers." Arizona kept her eyes on their joined hands, her thumb gently stroking tan skin.
"I kept hearing about the legend of this amazing orthopedic goddess who basically ran the whole ortho wing as a resident. Apparently, if you wanted the best in ortho, you went to dr. Torres, a senior resident, instead of the attendings, and we were advised to never let the head of ortho on a case. Nurses would be fawning over you, saying how beautiful and confident you were in the OR. And they were worried about you because Erica Hahn had basically left without a word, and then there were some who were planning to ask you out. I didn't know who you were or what you looked like yet but the way everyone talked about you intrigued me, and I found myself listening in every time someone mentioned your name." The blonde chuckled as she remembered her first few months in Seattle.
"And then the first time I actually saw you, you were performing what felt like a miracle in the OR. A young man came into the hospital from a motorcycle accident. His legs and his arm were so badly broken, any other orthopedic surgeon wouldn't have been able to save it. You did it, though. You spent hours carefully putting that young man back together, and what you couldn't salvage, you carved out of titanium. I spent the rest of my shift and the hours after that in the gallery, watching you do what you do best, and then understood why people respected and loved you in our hospital. I think I subconsciously started falling for you after that." Another chuckle but this time, there was also an accompanying blush. Callie found this adorable, though she was also surprised to hear about her surgeries and skills from other people's perspectives.
-four years ago(Arizona POV)-
The blonde peds surgeon couldn't tear her eyes away from the ortho resident that she had been hearing about for months now. Arizona always thought that the gossip was just exaggerated because no one was that talented or perfect, she was glad to be proven wrong in this instance though.
The confidence, determination, and finesse of this woman in a branch of medicine that people, including herself, have looked down upon were breathtaking. In the past, Arizona wouldn't even watch an orthopedic surgery but she found herself unable to leave or even tear her eyes away from the orthopedic goddess working her magic down below.
She didn't know how long she stayed in the gallery just watching the surgery or the surgeon herself but before she knew it, several hours had gone by without her pager sounding. The next thing Arizona knew, the ortho resident was backing away from the table and glancing up at the gallery. The blonde's breath hitched as the richest pools of brown, almost like melted chocolate, met hers for what felt like forever but was really only a few seconds, and then she was gone and a part of Arizona went with her.
From that day forward, the blonde peds surgeon found herself interested in ortho and the resident who apparently ran it herself. And with her interest peaked, Arizona found herself listening to everything related to Callie Torres, eventually finding out that her full name was Calliope Torres, and what a perfectly fitting name it was when she'd finally seen her first real glimpse of the orthopedic goddess herself one day when they've both walked out of an OR across from each other and an intern had called Callie's name.
After that, Arizona couldn't get the Latina out of her head anymore. She resolved to find a way to meet her, and it annoyed the blonde how little ortho cases her department actually had though she only half meant that because who wishes to see little kids with broken bones?
Her opportunity to finally talk to Callie came in the form of one fateful night at Joe's. She had been on a date at that time. One of her many conquests before Calliope Torres, though she considered making that one her last when she'd instinctively followed the upset Latina into the bathroom and kissed her.
-End of Flashback-
Callie laughed when Arizona finished her recollection. "Seriously? Wow, I must have had some sort of great impression on you if me in a surgical gown, a scrub cap, and a mask with only my eyes visible could have that effect on you."
Arizona smiled at her wife softly. "You were everything. Even before I knew it, you were everything. When we finally got together, everything just clicked. You are everything, and you're it for me, Calliope." Callie stopped laughing and her expression turned shy. No one ever spoke to her with the level of fondness and love that the woman beside her did, it made the Latina happy and shy at the same time.
This level of love and devotion that Arizona was showing her was something she'd never actually thought she would have in life. No one had spoken to her like this, no one had spoken about her like Arizona did. Not George, not Erica. This woman beside her obviously loved her so much, yet she couldn't remember how it all started, couldn't remember any of it save for that one sliver of a broken memory. The thought wiped the smile off of Callie's face, and Arizona was quick to notice the change in her wife.
"Hey. It's okay. So you don't remember, it's alright. I'll remember for both of us, and if it doesn't work," a pale hand lifted Callie's chin until brown met blue. "If you still don't remember our love, then I'll start at the beginning and woo you until you fall in love with me again and agree to marry me, again."
Tears welled up in Callie's eyes at Arizona's words. This woman loved her so much, and she could see it, she could hear it, she could feel it with every touch and it frustrated her that her brain had gone through such a trauma that she couldn't remember loving this woman back. "It's not fair to you. I don't remember you, and I am supposed to be in love with you. I'm supposed to be your wife, and I'm supposed to be loving you, caring for you, supporting you, and protecting you. Why did I have to forget you?" When the tears finally spilled over, the Latina averted her eyes, unable to stand to see pain or heartbreak in those blue eyes.
To her surprise, she heard the bed rail that was between them get lowered and petite arms wrapped around her as Arizona had scooted closer to her. As warm arms enveloped her in a loving embrace, Callie broke down and cried against the shoulder of the woman she couldn't remember but desperately wanted to. Because even when her brain couldn't remember, her heart and her body did, and she could feel herself relax into the embrace and let go. The small arms and the warm body next to her felt safe, she felt protected in them. Being in Arizona's arms felt like home.
A/N: So Arizona is finally channeling her speechy powers! I wanted to give them a more detailed past than what the show originally aired. I wanted to show how Callie first came into Arizona's radar during her time in Seattle Grace, and I believe this would be a good way to show it.
But also... Aren't they cute?
Tell me what you think everyone!
-Banewrites