A/N: I was initially going to post this after new years but, I changed my mind.
Chapter 32: Callie
Present Day
Progress, it was a word I truly hated.
I was a person who wanted all or nothing, I didn't want to get better at something, I wanted to be the best and that too from the very beginning. I knew it was bad and it had already cost me a lot. I had no patience. I knew that. But when I was in med school, I learnt that things needed time. Recovery didn't happen in a matter of seconds, it took time. It was not a sprint but a marathon, a process with the goal of becoming better at the end of the race.
I still don't have a lot of patience but I think I'm getting there, slowly and steadily I'm making progress. I just hope I'm heading in the right direction.
Arizona and I are finally in a place where we are talking! We are actually talking about the right things.
I'm so happy that she was the one who took initiative. She told me exactly what she was feeling, why she was mad and even though it was something really minor at the time, I really appreciated it that she took the first step. If she hadn't… I probably wouldn't have been able to tell her no when she pushed me against the door in an on-call room.
Sure, we could have had sex and it would have been great but then I definetly wouldn't have been happy afterwords and I would have sulked. Usually, I would have told everything to Mark and he would have said 'just talk to blondie', but I couldn't do that anymore. I would have been frustrated, which in turn would have caused Arizona to get frustrated and then we would have been right back where we started with both of us unhappy, wanting to make sure that we caused each other the same pain.
I'm glad I told Arizona about my thing with on-call rooms. I just… sometimes I find myself looking at the scrub tops of random women hoping I don't find her ring hanging on it. I know, she doesn't wear her ring anymore, neither do I, but I guess it's another one of fears that looks like it isn't going to go away anytime soon.
I looked at my phone one more time before I opened the webpage that was tracking my dad's flight. He was supposed to come last night, but his flight got cancelled so he took the flight for this morning instead.
Two more hours before he lands. Okay, I just need to find a way to calm myself. It's just that flights make me nervous, especially when I'm waiting on someone to land.
I had called my dad to Seattle so he could spend some time with Finn and Sofia, I hadn't asked Arizona about this but I will and I will respect her wishes if she says no. I have to do that. I was a lousy mother to Sofia for the past five years.
I want to be with Arizona, I want to be a great mother to Sofia, but I need to be patient, I need to put in the work.
I need to get this out of my head, I was Dr. Torres at the moment, I need to focus on my patient not my patience. Even though I was a couple of minutes early, I figured I could just wait around till my patient showed up. Technically, he was not my patient, he was Link's patient, but his baby had developed an ear infection and he needed to be with the little guy.
I totally understood that. When Sofia was young, her every cry had me on high alert. She had already had two surgeries before she was even a month old. With Finn, it was even more intense. I… I don't think I let go of him for a solid week. I refused to put him down scared that the moment I let him go… he'd…
My dad had to literally pry him out of my hands as he forced me to sleep while he looked after Finn. I literally passed out and slept for like sixteen hours.
It's nice that Link is an attentive father, Amelia deserves nothing less.
I reached the prosthetics labs and pushed the door.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, I was expecting a patient" I said as I watched Arizona sitting on one of the tables.
I turned away and looked at the ceiling. She had her prosthesis out and I know she hated it whenever anyone saw her without it.
"It's okay Callie, I'm just about done" she said as she pulled a blanket over her lap.
"I can… go"
"Or you can stay"
"Or I can stay," I said as I turned around and stood by a wall.
"You can come closer you know" she said as she moved aside and made space for me to sit beside her.
"Umm… sure" I said as I hung up my coat before I took a seat beside her "What are you doing here? If you don't mind me asking?"
"You can ask me questions… about my leg. If I'm uncomfortable with it I'll let you know, but yeah. You can"
I nodded.
Why was it taking so long for my dad to call me? He promised me he'd call me the moment the flight touched the ground. How long had it been since I last checked on his flight?
Twelve minutes.
Well that answers my question.
"Are you expecting a call?" Arizona asked.
"Umm, kind of. My dad is supposed to come by the hospital"
"Oh he's in town already?"
"No, his flight should land in about…" I unlocked my phone and refreshed the webpage on my phone "one hour and forty-seven minutes"
"Hmm… you seem a little on edge, are you okay?" Arizona asks as she rubs my back.
Of course I was on edge. I was anxious as hell. What if my dad's flight doesn't land. What if he got stranded in the middle of nowhere or worse died because I asked him to fly here. I just… I need to see the flight land, I needed to hear his voice telling me it was okay, that he was okay.
He was used to this. He tried to reassure me last night, but it's going to take some time before I'm over this irrational fear.
"Umm, yeah… but I really don't want to talk about it," I said. I know I could have lied, I could have told her that I'm a little nervous because I was waiting on Link's patient and I felt a little under prepared but then she would have offered to help me out and then that would have led to more lies. I guess the truth was the safe bet here. I just hope she doesn't take it the wrong way.
"That's okay" she said before she smiled at me. She didn't look offended.
"I'll tell you when I can… when I'm done processing it, but…yeah"
"I know you will, I just… I'm here if you need me, okay?"
I nodded.
"Oh! You asked me about my leg right? My prosthesis felt kind of funny and it was hurting like a lot, so I thought I would get myself checked out"
"Do you mind if I look?" I said as I took her blanket off.
No, if she was fine with me not telling her what was bothering me, I had no right to simply take off her blanket. I think I somewhat get it now. She doesn't look at me as an Orthopedic surgeon, she looked at me as her wife, as her lover, that I would cringe and look away from her stump and be repelled by it. Even though it was my job to look after amputees and help them out, that's not what she saw.
I placed the blanket back on her leg before I stood up.
"I'm so sorry Arizona I didn't mean to… I-I'm going to leave" I said as I took off towards the doors.
"Calliope wait"
I turned around to look at her. I'm really great at sabotaging all of my relationships aren't I?
"You're an Orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Kim said that he didn't see anything wrong with my leg but I wouldn't mind a second opinion"
"Are you sure?" I asked.
She nodded as she took the blanket off.
I took a pair of surgical gloves before I pulled up a chair and took a seat beside her. This was personal. Even though I might have seen about a million amputees or even more, this was personal, she was my ex-wife. It wasn't that she didn't trust my judgement, she was scared of me judging her.
"Okay, so I'm going to place my hand on your leg" I said as I looked up at her.
As soon as Arizona nodded I placed my hand on her leg. But before I could touch her, something caught my eye. That scar didn't look like it was old, sure it was old but it looked maybe six to eight months old.
"Did you get operated on again?" I asked.
"Yeah, it was hurting a couple of months ago and I got myself checkout, they said that there was some internal scarring that was causing all the pain so they had to take out the scar tissue"
"What? That's rare, any decent Orthopedic surgeon would make sure they got clean cuts"
"Yeah well Karev was a resident then and he's a Peds surgeon so..."
I was going to ask why she didn't call me about her surgery, but she had no reason to. I probably wouldn't have picked up her call anyway. So, I decided not to think about it too much, it was a minor surgery anyway.
It always got awkward when we spoke about her leg, in fact this was the most decent conversation we had about her leg. I touched her leg cautiously expecting her to back off at the last second and ask me to leave, but she did no such thing.
"Is this how you are with all of your patients Dr. Torres?"
I looked up as I heard my name. I don't think I caught anything she said other than my name.
"Huh?"
"Are you always this… um timid with all of your patients?"
"Umm… you have always… I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable"
"I told you Calliope, I'll tell you if I start feeling uneasy. Go ahead, give me a proper exam" she said before she smiled at me.
So that's exactly what I did. I checked on her incision, it looked clean and had healed well. I touched her on a couple of places but she didn't really show much signs of pain, that meant it was the prosthesis not her leg that was causing her pain. So I took off my gloves before pulling her blanket on her legs and threw away my gloves.
"So, what's the verdict?"
"I agree with Dr. Kim, it's the prosthesis"
"Well, that's great right?"
"Yeah, you may need some time to start running or even jogging with the new prosthetic leg but yeah, you don't need any surgery, so yeah that's great"
"You can breathe, you know?" Arizona said as she placed her hands on my shoulder. I was still sitting in front of her on the doctor's chair.
"What?"
"You seem really nervous and I know you are not ready to tell me, but you seem more nervous than you did before"
"I… It's your leg Arizona, it was always a sore spot for you and I… I just"
"Don't want to make me feel uncomfortable? It's been years Callie, years! I can't say that I'm totally over it, like I have my days when I'm all grumpy about my leg and hate everything and everyone around me, but most of the time I'm fine, great actually. I have made my peace with it"
I nodded. I was happy that she accepted her reality and now she was on the other side of it, but that doesn't mean that I wasn't going to be cautious about topics that revolved around her leg.
We were finally talking about real things and that too without fighting. We are making progress, even though it was at a cruciating slow process but it was progress. I need to be patient.
If she could finally talk about her leg openly I guess I could talk to her too right?
So I rolled the chair closer to her bed.
"Arizona… the reason that I'm so… I'm a little out of it's because" Arizona leaned into me and took a hold of my hand and interlaced our fingers. "My dad is on a plane right now and… there's nothing I can do till it lands… if-if it lands"
I can feel the tears pooling at my eyes but I blink them away. She wasn't nearly this emotional when she told me about her leg, why was I getting so worked up.
"After… after your flight to Boise, I just can't shake off this feeling that whenever someone's on the plane, it's going to… umm go down"
Arizona took my face in her hands before she leaned in closer and hugged me as she rubbed my back.
"It's okay to feel a little freaked out. I know you like to call yourself a goddess, but it's okay to be feel… to be human sometimes"
I nodded. I appreciated her little joke, in fact it made me feel a whole lot better.
"Calliope, can I see your phone?"
"Umm, yeah sure" I said as I handed her my phone. I was about to tell her the password, but she simply typed away and the phone unlocked. I didn't realize that I hadn't changed my password in so many years.
I saw Arizona's face break out into a smile. I guess she noticed it too. It was our wedding date. In fact we shared that password on our phones. Maybe she too hadn't changed her password, but I… I'm not sure. It could have just been a fluke.
I saw her opening the flight webpage just before I got a text message.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to read your message but it says that your patient got rescheduled for tomorrow"
"That's alright, it was right there," I replied.
"So… this is what we are going to do. I have the rest of the day off, you have no more cases. So, we are going to sit here and watch this phone and refresh it every thirty seconds if you need to, till the plane lands and your dad calls okay?"
I raised my hand and brushed the hair that was covering her eyes and leaned in and kissed her on her lips.
"Umpf" Arizona said right before she pulled me closer.
I could get lost in her kisses, in her. But… I can't let this escalate further. So I pulled away before I placed a couple of kisses on her lips.
"That sounds great actually, thanks" I replied before I straightened myself a little and made myself comfortable.
"Or, we could watch something on my phone to help kill the time while we check yours for flight updates"
"That sounds even better" I said as I grabbed a couple of pillows and placed them on the wall behind us before I removed my shoes and leaned back.
Arizona put the blanket over my legs before pulling out her earphones and handing one to me and snuggled in. I put my arm around her as she rested her head against my shoulder.
If this is what patience got me, I didn't mind being a little patient.
A/N: I loved this chapter, I liked the minimal drama they had and I like how it sets up the talk that they'll have.
