You Make me Smile (MerZona)
A/N: I know it's been a while and I'm sorry, uni is trying to break me. So, this chapter has mix feelings so prepare yourself for a rollercoaster and buckle up. Thank you so much for reading and thank you for those who left reviews :)
As always, please stay safe (I know in some countries the situation is more controlled than others) and have an amazing day!
Happy pride month for those who celebrate and for those who are in the closet. (It's okay and hopefully one day you will celebrate as well, until then stay safe).
Chap 19
Meredith finds Bailey in the OR looking at her hands. "Grey, I'm not feeling well." The blonde takes her arm and takes them both to where they change and wash before surgeries.
"I will take your surgery and Wilson will take you to a room so you can rest. The cookie you ate had weed in it." Bailey's eyes go wide. Amelia comes in. Wilson starts laughing.
"What's so funny?" Amelia asks.
"Doctor Bailey ate a cookie." Bailey turns towards Wilson.
"This is not funny! This is very not funny" Wilson stops laughing but takes Bailey with her. Meredith prepares herself to go for surgery.
"Grey?" Bailey says on the door. Meredith turns and comes closer to her. "I love you" Meredith laughs ironically. Bailey pushes the door further and Meredith's left hand gets caught in between the wall and the door. The action gets a whimper out of the blonde and Amelia looks at her sister and then at her hand. "Ups..".
Amelia takes Meredith hand and puts some ointment to relieve the pain then she goes looking for a bandage to put on her sister hand. "You won't be able to perform surgery" Amelia gets a 'no shit' sarcastic look from the blonde. Amelia calls another doctor to replace Bailey's. The four women go to where Amelia had left Alex.
"Pierce. Pierce!" Maggie starts walking faster when Arizona spots her. "Maggie wait" Arizona finally takes a hold on the younger woman. "What's wrong?"
"I never experiment weed before so I don't know how I will behave around people." Maggie keeps walking fast. Arizona stops her.
"Really? That's exciting then. But you don't need to worry." Maggie looks at her funny. "What?"
"I don't think I need my neck anymore" Arizona stares at her.
"That's not how it works." Richard finds them both talking in the middle of the hallway.
"Come on you two" The male doctor takes them both to where Meredith had told him. He opens the door and Alex and April are inside both sitting on the couch. A surgery table to train and teach the students is in the middle. Maggie goes to a small room where you can control de surgery table and a holographic person can be shown if you press a button. Arizona lurks to see who's in the room. She sees her siblings. She starts to walk funny the drug finally taking her body, she starts to pretend that she's walking down the stairs. Both doctors look at her with the same attention that small kids give to their favorite show. She gets behind the table, neither of them can see her anymore. She lurks again in one of the sides of the table and scares them.
"You can see me?" The blonde asks surprise. She thought she was invisible.
"Of course!" Alex exclaims. Arizona stands up and sits next to him on the sofa. Maggie comes out of the room and starts talking about cheese. A hologram of a person comes to life on the table. She starts playing with it.
The other doctors, Meredith, Bailey, Amelia and Jo come in. Bailey sits on the sofa next to April. Meredith, Amelia and Jo sit on the other sofa. Richard comes in to see how everyone is doing before taking Katherine and Jackson home.
"Is everything okay here?"
"Yes."
"What are you three still doing here?"
"Bailey hurt my hand, can't do surgeries today." Meredith says.
"I'm off my shift." Amelia explains with a smile.
"I'm one of doctor Grey's attendants, she's not working so I can't participate in surgeries either." Jo says shrugging her shoulders.
Richard sighs. "Okay take care of them, I will be back soon".
Maggie is the one with enough energy to keep playing with the hologram. "I thought Marijuana was supposed to make people peaceful." Bailey says towards April. "But I don't think I ever hated you more" April looks hurt at her and leaves the couch she was sharing with Bailey and goes sit on the couch where both Alex and Arizona are. Maggie deletes the liver on the hologram without realizing and starts panicking.
"Where did it go? Did you see it? I can't find it!" Arizona stands up and comes closer to Maggie. "It's- It's red and … and produces metabolism and…" Arizona simple stares at her and shakes her head. After keeping the hologram rotating trying to find the missing liver the brunette gives up.
"Time of death…" Maggie looks at the clock on the wall. "14:30". The other doctors look at her incredulous at the scene.
"So young" Arizona says although the hologram was showing a man on his 50's.
"Death do to liver disappearance." Maggie writes on her paper. The three sober doctors look astonished at both of them.
"They know it's not a real person, right?" Amelia whispers.
"I'm not sure" Her sister replies.
"A person so young shouldn't have to die so soon" April starts to make a funeral sound with her windpipe and Bailey joins in. Arizona puts her hand on top of her chest where her heart is placed. Alex put his head down in form of respect. Richard comes in at that exact moment and looks at the scene in front of him.
"What's happening?"
After a few hours later, all doctors start to become tired and some fall asleep. Meredith, Amelia, Arizona and April were the ones still up. "I'm gonna miss you" April says breaking the silence. Arizona looks at her sister seeing her already looking at her. Her hazel eyes full of sadness.
"I'm gonna miss you too. But your leaving too." April nods.
"But you may stay there." It's true they both know and that's why none of them says a thing after. They cuddle on the couch. Amelia gives a look at Meredith but the blonde ignores. Neither Meredith nor Amelia knew April was leaving, now Alex bad mood was more understandable.
Richard decided to take 'The Robbins' home. Warren took Bailey. And the sisters made their way home as well with the kids.
After a good week but some gossip on the hospital due to April's departure as well, a bad day for all doctors comes in when a big accident happens. Four cars were involved, adults and children are hurt. A teenager girl with a broken leg is taken to the OR right away. A young pregnant woman is taken by Arizona to the OR, the woman was bleeding but she was only five months pregnant which means the blonde has to operate her but needs to leave the child inside the mother, the child cannot survive otherwise. An older man with a concussion on his head is unconscious while Meredith takes him to take a CT before operating him. The other people involved on the accident are not severe injured so the other doctors take them to ER.
Everyone survives, some families are allowed to go home and rest while others have to stay with their love ones. Arizona is exhausted she was in surgery for six hours trying to save that baby. Her migraine was already starting to get worse and she hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. The elevator was taking forever to arrive at her floor, she had already thought twice about taking the stairs but fortunately the 'Bing' sounded before she turned towards the stairs.
She steps in and can only pray that no one interrupts her ride to the main floor, she doesn't want to talk with anyone, she needs to take something to stop her head from spinning and she needs to go home and rest and avoid all people in the hospital. Avoiding Meredith has been easy this last weeks, both of them have been quite busy, Richard had asked her to consult her on a case of a small child but fortunately for Arizona and unfortunately for Richard, Alex had step in.
The elevator stops and Arizona groans frustrated. Meredith is the one on the other side of it when the doors open, both women froze on spot. Arizona doesn't make eye contact with the blonde as she steps in.
"You been avoiding me" Meredith affirms as soon as the doors close. Arizona chooses to play dumb, maybe that will give her enough time to avoid this awkward ride.
"No, I haven't" She lies. They both know, the older blonde isn't ready for this conversation but the younger woman is tired of pretending. She misses her friend. Meredith presses the stop button on the elevator and turns her body towards the blonde.
"Can you stop that please? We both know that's a lie".
"I have been busy, that's all". It's not a completely lie but they both know better. Arizona still hasn't turned towards the other woman. Meredith shifts closer.
"Busy for weeks on end?" It's a rhetorical question they both know that.
"Yes" It's a whisper but Meredith hears it.
"Can you stop with the bullshit" Being caught off guard at the hard tone of the blonde, Arizona finally turns towards her. Baby blue eyes meet dark grey stormy blue, so many feelings inside both of those eyes. So many things to say. Meredith wants to explain, wants to take the hurt she sees on Arizona's eyes away, wants to hug her and never let her go, cuddle in her warm body and smell the body lotion and the shampoo that the older woman uses. She wants to put her hands and interlock them on the blonde's hair and kiss her senseless until she can't breathe, she wants to taste the older woman find how to make her moan and groan from pleasure.
"Please talk to me, say something" Meredith says in a desperate voice. Arizona keeps her mouth shut not knowing what to say to the blonde. Meredith desperate state grows. "I'm sorry but please talk to me, say something, scream, shout, be mad but please talk".
"I'm not mad" Arizona says in a small voice. By this point Meredith doesn't know what to do to make the other woman see her point. "I'm not mad, I guess I was disappointed when I saw you in court but I don't blame you and I'm not mad at you because I know that you and Callie were great friends before me and you. So, I understand why u were there defending her". Meredith's chest tightens as Arizona's voice cracks at the end, tears starts to roll down the older woman cheeks as she finishes.
"I didn't know that the lawyer was going to say those things about you, I swear if I knew I would never be there on her side. I wanted to be neutral in this situation but Callie asked me to be there for her and she was there for me when I needed so I wanted to pay it back. I never thought she would attack you like that and I thought that by saying good things about both of you, that things in court wouldn't been so bad but her lawyer didn't give much space to say my answers most of them were yes or no questions and I couldn't lie. I was so glad when I saw that Bailey was on your side in court and Richard as well".
"I didn't asked Bailey to testify for me, when I received the news that Callie would have people to testify for her, Alex was with me and got pissed and said he would be there for me. Bailey entered at that time in my office and heard about what we were talking about. I said I didn't want anyone because I still had hope that Callie would come to her senses and we could do this in a better way but I was wrong, my lawyer advised me to take someone and since I wasn't going to be at hospital Alex would have to cover for me so Bailey volunteered to be my witness and I accepted but only if it was really needed. I didn't know until I saw you that you were Callie witness so yes, I was shocked and a little hurt but I understand why you did it".
"Please forgive me" says Meredith. Now with both crying inside the elevator both women feel so much better after saying what they wanted to say for so long. "Ari, please forgive me, it was never my intention to hurt you and break our friendship." Arizona opens her mouth a few times but still doesn't know what to say. "Please" Meredith begs.
Arizona nods and gives a small smile while Meredith pulls the other woman for a hug that she has been starving for. The younger woman tightens the embrace as more tears keep spilling from her eyes, she hadn't even notice she was crying until she felt her wet cheeks contact with Arizona's dry neck. Despite forgiving Meredith for what she did which in her opinion she didn't have too since there was nothing to forgive, anyway Arizona though it would be best if they stood as colleagues only. "I think we should just stay as colleagues, acquaintances perhaps but maybe a friendship between you and I was a mistake". She knew she was being unfair but she had to protect herself, she already got hurt more times in the last year than in 5 years of her life.
Meredith tenses, her eyes wide in shock as she breaks the embrace with the other woman, her throat tightens and more tears start to gather in the curve of her eyes. Arizona avoids the younger woman's eyes and pushes the button of the elevator. A few seconds later Arizona's pager shakes and makes *bips* noises. Glassy grey blue-ish eyes wander over the other woman figure before the older woman gets out.
A small crowd was gathered on the lobby divided in small groups around the nearest nurse station waiting for the ambulances, including Bailey and Amelia, when they saw the elevator doors open with two blonde women inside. The doctors notice the tears on Meredith eyes - she didn't wipe it away in time like Arizona did but her blue eyes were still very glassy and shiny - which was not a normal thing, actually was very rare, so rare that it was the first time most of them saw and when the attention was shifted towards the other woman they saw Arizona with a blank face running towards the emergency room.