Arizona waking up after the amputation (9x02)

After Derek's surgery, Callie raced to go check on Alex. Clutching a mask over her face, she walked into the OR.

"Alex," she began, "How's it going?"

"Good," Alex replied, not looking up from his handiwork. "Her vitals are holding steady now."

Callie sighed. "It was the leg."

"Yeah," Alex agreed. "It was the leg."

"Can I help with anything?" Callie could barely breathe. This was not supposed to happen. She had promised Arizona that it wouldn't happen. They were happy! They were in love! This wasn't supposed to happen!

Finally, Alex looked up at the attending. He took in Callie's pale face and crazed eyes. Allowing Callie to help him would not be in Arizona's best interest right now.

So, finally, he replied, "I'm almost done. You can stay here and watch, though. If it makes you feel any better."

Callie just nodded, never tearing her eyes away from Arizona's sedated face. "Okay."

Alex continued operating, being more careful and precise than he ever had before. This woman was his mentor, after all. And she was in this situation because of him.

Eventually he looked up at Callie and nodded. To his team, he said: "That's it, people. Let's get her into recovery." Then, he walked towards the scrub room, guiding Callie along with him.

"It'll be okay," he reassured Callie. "She's good now, Torres; she'll wake up."

Callie barely whispered, "I promised her."

"What?" Alex was confused.

"Alex. I promised her we wouldn't amputate. I promised her that she'd keep her leg."

Alex's stomach dipped. Shit.

Finally, Callie made eye contact with her friend. "What do I do?!" Her eyes were darting around psychotically.

Alex just looked at her. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to answer her. "Come on," he squeezed her arm. "Let's go wait for her to wake up."

Alex led the fear-stricken Callie towards Arizona's room. When they reached the doorway, he left. He couldn't be there when Arizona woke up. He couldn't. She already hated him enough.

Callie sat down in the chair beside Arizona's bed. She grabbed her wife's cool hand and traced soothing circles on it with her thumb.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to the still-sedated blonde. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Then, she waited. She waited for her wife to wake up and realize what Callie had done. She bounced her knees anxiously, waiting, waiting, waiting. She thought: Arizona had already been through so much this week. How could this happen to her, too? How was this fair? The woman Callie loved was hurting, and she was about to hurt even more. The fact that Callie would be the root of some of that pain had enough weight on her heart to bury her alive.

Minutes later, Arizona stirred. The anesthesia was wearing off. She was waking up.

Callie's eyes bulged. This was it. She would have to tell Arizona what had happened and hope that it would be okay, hope that she would see reason.

Arizona inhaled deeply. "Hey," she croaked.

"Hey," Callie tried to smile back. Her heart was racing.

"Here," Callie released the blonde's hand to grab the cup of water from the bedside table. She angled the straw towards her mouth. "Drink."

Arizona eagerly took several gulps of the cold water before she lied back on the pillow, exhausted. She was trying to make sense of what was going on. What had happened? She couldn't remember anything.

As she felt the water flow through her throat and chest, she looked at Callie and smiled. "You are so, so beautiful."

Callie balked. No. She. No. She. She. couldn't. She couldn't be saying that. Not now, when her whole world was about to fall apart. Her wife's biggest nightmare was about to be realized, and it was Callie's fault.

Arizona couldn't understand her wife's expression. She looked so wound up. "What happened, anyway? Why am I..."

Callie grabbed her hand and squeezed. This was it. "Well, Alex checked in on you and you started crashing...and...nothing we did worked, so we had to operate. We—"

Before she could explain further, Arizona hastily extracted her hand from Callie's and attempted to sit up, throwing her blankets to the side to reveal her legs.

Except, instead of seeing the two toned legs she'd come to recognize as her own, she was greeted with just one...along with a pink, swollen, bandaged stump.

She let out a mangled cry. She sounded like a dying animal or like a wailing mother whose child had just died. It was a cry so agonizing that it haunted Callie for weeks, replaying in her head constantly.

"You— You—," Arizona cried, "You—," she couldn't even finish her sentence. She couldn't even breathe. She felt herself having a panic attack, too overcome with shock and grief and pain to even breathe. "You—," she tried again.

Quickly, Callie's arms were around her. She climbed into the hospital bed behind Arizona and pulled her into her arms.

"I'm so sorry, Arizona," she held her sobbing wife as tightly as she could. "I tried everything. I— I did everything I could. You were crashing. You were dying! I had no other choice." She felt tears fall from her own eyes. She would do anything. Anything. To take away Arizona's pain. She wished this could have been her instead. But, as much as she wanted to, she couldn't give Arizona her leg. All she could do was hold her and hope that she'd understand.

Arizona continued crying, and Callie realized how small her wife was. She was...little. She had never seemed like that way before, always bossing Callie around and being badass and strong. But now, she was emaciated from barely having eaten in days, she was cut up and scabbed due to plane shrapnel, one of her limbs was gone, and she was collapsing—imploding entirely— in Callie's arms. She was so...breakable.

All Callie could do was wait for Arizona's tears to subside and deal with what came next. She could only hope that her wife could grow strong again, now that the infection wasn't killing her.

"Dr. Torres," a nurse paused at the room's door, scared to go any further. "Dr. Shepherd is awake. He's asking for you."

Callie nodded in acknowledgement. "Thank you," she mouthed. Taking his cue, the nurse hurried away from the room towards the nurse's station. Slowly, Callie detached herself from Arizona. "Arizona, sweetie, I'll be right back, okay?" She tried to make reassuring eye contact with her wife.

Arizona couldn't look at her.

"I'm giving you more painkillers," she began, messing with the wires and electrical contraptions beside her bed. "You're overdue for some morphine."

Arizona didn't respond. She didn't even acknowledge Callie.

Hesitantly, Callie concluded, "Okay. I just have to make sure that Derek's okay. I'll be right back." She slowly backed towards the door, scared for what she'd be met with when she got back.

She ran toward Derek's room, which was down the hallway. She wanted to get back to her wife as soon as possible.

"Derek!" she beamed as she walked into the room. "How was your nap?"

Derek grunted. "I've had better. How'd the surgery go?"

"Great," Callie tried to smile. "You were a real trooper. Now we just wait to see if the nerve takes. I'm optimistic, though."

From beside Derek's bed, Meredith piped up, "How's Arizona?"

Derek looked between his wife and Callie. "What happened?!" He had seen Arizona during those four days in the forest. She had barely made it. And now...Had she died?

"Um," Callie began, before crumpling, folding in on herself. She couldn't be strong anymore.

"Callie..." Derek consoled, wanting to reach out to the woman. "Is she...?"

"No," Meredith answered, looking at Callie worriedly. "She's alive. Alex had to amputate, though."

"What?!" Derek looked at Callie, who nodded, confirming Meredith's statement. "Torres, go be with her! I'm fine. Go!"

Callie nodded, backing towards the door. "Your surgery went great, Derek," she assured him. "I'll come back as soon as I can go check on you."

Derek and Meredith nodded gratefully. "Go," Derek urged again. "Be with your wife."

And with that, Callie finally hurried back towards Arizona, not thinking of anything but of how much better everything would be once she was in her arms. Callie wanted to protect her forever. She wanted to make sure that nothing bad ever happened to her again.

Unthinkingly, Callie stepped through the door to Arizona's room. She could only think of holding her wife and talking to her; that was what she needed. "Hey, sorry about that, I just—" she began. She looked up at Arizona. The color drained from Callie's face. The look in Arizona's eyes was not what she had been expecting. It scared her.

Arizona's mouth was a hard, metal knife. Her eyes were still. Focused. Her face was rigid.

She was angry.

Callie stopped short. She couldn't finish her sentence, and she couldn't walk any closer. She could feel that an invisible wall had gone up. She didn't have to power to break it down. It was made of clear steel.

Coldly, Arizona declared, "You broke your promise."