Pay it Forward: Chapter 1

Callie Torres was gracing the halls of Seattle Grace Mercy West. Today had been a great, but long day for her. She was paged 911 about three hours before her shift started and lack of coffee was taking its toll on her. As she entered the elevator she saw probably the most gorgeous woman in the world she had ever laid eyes on. She was talking on the phone in what appeared to be a serious conversation. Her beautiful face seemed tired and stressed but nevertheless Callie couldn't look away from this gorgeous being in front of her. She had the most beautiful blonde hair, far nicer than Erica's. She also had the most piercing blue eyes she had ever seen, while Erica did in fact have pretty blue eyes, hers were cold and distant, while this blonde's eyes were friendlier and had a certain innocence to them. Callie was to busy admiring at the blonde to even pay attention to the words that were coming out of her mouth. Finally the blonde hung up. Just then Callie noticed she was in a wheelchair and was in a hospital gown. She was apparently too busy admiring this woman to even notice that she was in fact a patient here.

"How do I look?" the blonde asked suddenly.
"uhh…" Callie was too dumfounded to reply.

"I'm about to propose to my girlfriend, so beside the gown, the I.V and ghostly paler from being in the hospital for the past week, what do you think, do I have a shot?" She finished with a slight smile.

Did she just say girlfriend…wait propose? Callie thought, finally speaking up " Uhh, well she'd be a fool to say no," A total fool

The blonde grinned widely and Callie noticed two adorning dimples, as if she couldn't get any cuter. She was then wheeled out of the elevator, and as she was leaving Callie quickly added a good luck to the blonde.

Callie went about her day per usual, with the blonde in her mind more often than not. She had met Mark at lunch and he being his usual self didn't stop teasing her about it, though he truly was happy for his friend because this crush, no matter how small it may be, meant Callie was finally moving on from Erica, and this was a very good sign.

"Hey, Torres how about you and I go to Joe's tonight and we get you some lady friends to get your mind of the soon-to-be engaged hottie you met in the elevator" he said while winking to Callie.

"Not tonight Mark, I came in way early today, and I'm really tired," Callie faked an exaggerated yawn

"Come on Torres, you are turning into such a wimp, drink some coffee and get your ass to Joe's after your shift," Mark replied, leaving Callie before she could respond.

A little after lunch, Callie saw the woman that had never left her mind all day wheeled right next to the nurse's station she was at. Remembering what the blonde had told her earlier,
"How'd the proposal go?"

"Umm, not so well actually" she responded with a chuckle.

"Ohh, sorry," Callie responded not really knowing what to say.

"Oh don't be, I was proposing for all the wrong reasons, I mean I liked her, but what I liked most was her PPO,'' showing of her dimpled smile once again.

"You don't have insurance?" Callie caught on.

"Capped out about 3 operations ago, been charging it out on my credit cards now, and my best friend has been helping me out, but I can't take anymore from her. She's done more than enough already"

"Oh, do you mind if I look at your chart?"

Callie didn't know what was wrong with the blonde, but she could do her best to help, she was a doctor after all, and this need to help was purely from the fact that as a doctor it was her duty to help. The fact the blonde was drop dead gorgeous and Callie having a secret crush on her had nothing to do with it, nope, not at all.

"No, please go ahead," the blonde responded with a slight smirk

"Wow, Van Hippel –Lindau disease, and over 200 hospital visits in the last… 3 years?"

"Yeah, best days ever," she replied sarcastically.

"Dr. Webber is your surgeon?"

"Not for long, they're discharging me today,"

Callie couldn't believe what she was hearing, this woman has a dangerous tumor in her body and they're throwing her out on the streets. She had to see if she could help.

"Your case is pretty severe, I don't think they'll just leave you hanging like that, let me see what I can do."

"Thanks, I really appreciate that, but I don't think there's anything that could help," the blonde replied sadly.

"Well there's no harm in trying right?"

"I guess not," she replied showing Callie her dimples again

Callie quickly went to Dr. Webber,

"Arizona needs long term medical care, and the hospital just can't afford to take that on," Webber said

Arizona, what a unique name,

"So we do nothing, we let her die?"

"No, we'll treat her with drugs and she'll have regular follow ups in the clinic."

"Well, you might as well do nothing, that in no way will help her whatsoever," Callie exclaimed.

"I wish I could treat her, she is a wonderful young lady, but my hands are tied, there's nothing I can do."

Callie couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"That is a load of crap, I have seen you bend the rules before, if I was Bailey or Shepherd you would've actually done something, you're not even trying to help her!"

"Dr. Torres, that is enough!" Webber replied angrily.

"I'm sorry, it's… it's just that little girl died." Callie remembered Ruby, the girl that was with her when Gary Clarke came shooting around the hospital. Stark, the pediatric attending, wasn't on the floor, and there were only interns, and there was nothing Callie could do to save her from her exploding appendix. Callie just sat there holding the girl's hand and watched her die.

"I was with her and I couldn't do anything sir, Ruby didn't' have a chance because it was taken from her, I couldn't save Ruby, but we can save Arizona, she has a chance, and you're taking it away. She deserves the best help we can give her. I wanna do something good today, make it up, pay it forward or something, I just need to something good."

Struck by her passion, Richard knew that he couldn't just ignore her little speech and responded,

"Okay, I'll set up meeting with the review board."

Grateful, Callie thanked him and went to respond to a page she had just received. Later on Richard paged Callie informing her the board meeting was about to take place. As the meeting progressed, they had decided the best thing they could do was give Arizona a Medic Alert bracelet.

"That is your solution, are you kidding me?"

A member of the board began,

"If the patient has a hypertensive crisis-"

"When, when the patient has a hypertensive crisis," Richard cut in.

Correcting his statement, the member continued,

"When the patient has a hypertensive crisis, the paramedics will bring Miss. Robbins here to treat her emergent condition.

This is absolutely ridiculous, she won't even make it to the hospital alive if that happened. "But that'll be too late, she'll be dead, so you're basically sending her home to die, and you're okay with it because you're giving her a bracelet with her name on it!"

Callie left the room, exhausted from her long hours, and saddened because of Arizona's situation. She later met up with another good friend of hers, Teddy Altman.

Teddy noticed something was up with Callie,

"Hey Callie, what's up? Are you okay, you're seeming a little down?"

Teddy herself was a bit sad, her best friend was in the hospital, and couldn't pay her medical bills. Sure Teddy has been helping her out, but Arizona was very stubborn and proud, and wouldn't take anymore of her help. Teddy found out today that Arizona was being discharged and went to talk to the chief about it, but he was apparently in a board meeting, as she was waiting for him to finish, she was paged a 911 to the pit and right after that is when she met up with Callie.

"I'm fine, just a bit tired and feeling really bad for this patient, she has Van Hippel –Lindau disease, no insurance, and is being discharged today. I got the Webber to talk to the review board, but all they would do is give her a Medic Alert bracelet, can you believe it?!"

Teddy quickly realized Callie was talking about Arizona, I mean how many girls have Van Hippel –Lindau disease, and no insurance could there be in this hospital.

"Are you talking about Arizona?" Teddy asked

"Yeah, you know her?' Callie quickly responded

"Yeah, she's actually my best friend. I got her to come to Seattle Grace with me."

"So you must be the best friend that has been helping her with the money problems?" Callie said, connecting the dots of Arizona and Teddy's stories.

"Yep, that's me. She won't take anymore of it though, she's too stubborn for her own good."

Callie saw this as her opportunity to learn more about the blonde beauty she now knew as Arizona.

"What's she like? I mean uhh, how is she doing about this whole situation?"

Teddy noticed the expression on Callie's face and realized that she may be more invested in Arizona than any other doctor should. So realizing the true intention of the question, Teddy decided to give Callie what she wanted.

"Well Arizona is… well, Arizona is Arizona" Teddy laughed, "Arizona is honestly an amazing person, we served together, but she was discharged when we found out about her tumor. Each med unit was paired with an infantry unit, so we stuck together. We are very close. I mean, she practically took a bullet for me, that's how we found out about the tumor. It was lodged close to her adrenal gland, and they took x-rays and noticed the mass. So she actually thinks that I kinda saved her life."

Wow, brave, loyal, honorable, kind and beautiful. Was there anything bad about Arizona Robbins?

They were soon both paged to the pit and continued their day.

Later Webber went in to Arizona's room to discharge her.

"I've prescribed alpha-blockers and set you up in our free clinic. If you need anything at all, call me."

As Richard finished talking to Arizona, Callie walked in.

"Thank you," Arizona replied thankful for everything the two had done for her.

As Richard left, Callie noticed an almost heartbreaking expression dawn Arizona's face.

"Hey," Callie blurted. "I'm sorry, I tried, I uhh"

"Hey, don't worry, you didn't even have to try." Arizona replied meaningfully.

I can't believe this is it. I barely know this girl, but I just can't let her leave. They stayed silent for what felt like hours, but in reality was probably no more than a couple seconds.

"Well good luck," Callie said as she was exiting the room.

But before the fully left, she hesitated for a second, remembering all the good things Teddy had said to her about Arizona, she thought I can't just let her leave like that. She deserves to have someone fight for her, the way she fought for all of us, and returned to the room and said,

"I have great medical insurance."

A confused expression took over the blonde's face,

"Way to kick a girl while she's down," Arizona smiled.

"I'm… I'm saying that… I'm saying that I'll marry you!"