CHAPTER 7 – THE MIDDLE

Amelia loudly put her tray on the table next to Arizona's.

"You need to start cleaning up after yourself," the brunette stated, in an almost bored tone as she took a seat next to her friend.

The other woman's eyes strayed away from her phone to give Amelia a questioning look, her furrowed eyebrows clearly indicating she had no idea what she was talking about.

Amelia took a bite of her salad. "Carol? I had to kick her out for you this morning."

The blonde looked at her half-apologetically. "I'm really sorry?" she smiled awkwardly and shrugged it off. "I got paged early. I tried to shake her awake but she was dead asleep. I thought she would, you know, take a hint and go out when she would wake up."

"You should be sorry," Amelia said firmly with squinted eyes and pointed at her accusingly with her fork. "She hit on me. Do you know how awkward that was?" she faked a shudder.

The pediatric surgeon chuckled at her tone. Then curious, she asked, "Did you flirt back?"

"What? No!"

"You missed an opportunity there, my friend," Arizona shrugged nonchalantly. "She has a very talented mouth."

Amelia glared at her. "Yeah, so I heard," she said annoyed, referring to the nonstop moaning from the previous night and took another bite out of her lunch.

"I bought you new ear plugs last week," Arizona pointed out.

"I didn't really get the chance to try them out. I had to sacrifice one to craft Barbie some arm floats so she wouldn't potentially drown dramatically in the bathtub during Sof's bathtime," her face scrunched in a way that Arizona could only describe as adorable.

"Of course," she chuckled. "We wouldn't want to be held responsible for murdering her," she said in a duh-tone.

"Exactly. I'm not a savage."

"I'm glad Barbie found her knight in shining armor to rescue her," Arizona joked and winked playfully at Amelia.

"Oh yeah, you have no idea," the neurosurgeon had a serious face on, her eyebrows frowning in just the right way to intensify the authenticity of her speech. "It was a real horror show that day. Two of the floating boats crashed straight into each other and," she paused dramatically, "would I have not been there, Barbie's hair would have ended up all wet, ruining her beautiful straightened hair that had taken her over an hour to achieve."

The blonde frowned. "Wait, Barbie wasn't swimming in the water? Why did she need the arm floats for then?"

"Fashion, duh," Amelia said. "You need some couture education, girl."

A loud laugh escaped Arizona, earning her a few stares from a few people near them but she couldn't bring herself to care. Amelia was pleased to hear her roommate laugh so carefreely and genuinely, Arizona really had a beautiful laugh. The brunette made a mental note to try to make her laugh more.

"I think you're enjoying your time with Sofia waaaaaaaay too much," Arizona charmingly smiled at her and with joyfulness sparkling in her eyes.

"Have you met the kid? She's the definition of cuteness overload wrapped in terrible jokes. I wouldn't resist her two minutes if I tried to," Amelia said sincerely.

"Yeah, she's kind of cute." Arizona replied pensively. "Totally inherited that from me," she joked cheekily and Amelia laughed.

Arizona came home tired as hell after her last draining surgery of the evening. She opened her front door and was surprised to find Sofia and Amelia still up, sitting criss-cross in front of each other onto the carpet in the living room, an opened bag of skittles sitting in between them. She stayed where she was, too scared to move and make a noise that would alert the two brunettes and disturb whatever was happening. She watched the scene unfold in front of her eyes, curious and intrigued. Sofia was clad into her pajamas while Amelia was still wearing her clothes, both of them giggling.

"Huh-huh, you want to throw it less high. Hight will come with time. You want to train to catch it first. If you throw it too high and you're not ready, it'll probably land right on your front teeth or gum and let me tell you, it hurts," Amelia informed seriously the little girl and threw a candy up in the air, catching it in her mouth as to demonstrate. "You try it."

And Sofia sure did. She threw a round candy not too high and quickly moved her wide open mouth under it, effectively catching it. "I did it!" she high-fived Amelia.

"See? Less high, more catching!"

"When the new day-care nurse said you had already taken Sofia home, I wasn't expecting that," Arizona said with a bemused grin, interrupting them.

"Mommy!" her daughter got up and ran to her to hug her knees. "Amelia's teaching me how to catch candies with my boca."

"That I can see, honey," she gently pushed a few strand of brunette hair away and bent down to kiss her forehead. She looked at the other woman as she scooped her daughter into her arms not without some difficulty now that she was six, "And she's also giving you sugar just before your bedtime so I guess she's the one tucking you in tonight," she said mischievously.

Amelia faked to be hurt, "I'm actually teaching impressive live-saving skills to your daughter, you should be thanking me."

"Can you y 'Melia read my story, mommy?" the brunette asked and let her head fall onto her shoulder, melting into her mother's caring hug.

"Sure baby," she dropped another kiss on the top of her head just because she could. "Go brush your teeth first sweetie and then we'll pick a book, okay?"

"Si."

The blonde lowered her back onto the ground and the little girl headed straight to the bathroom.

"Thank you for picking her up," she said to the neurosurgeon. "You didn't have to."

"Are you kidding? No sense into letting her in daycare while I'm over here. I can just pick her up and give you a hand. She spends less time in day care, I'm happy to have her here with me and you get to relax a little. Everybody wins, right?" The next few seconds of silence made her awfully nervous, her fingers started to play with the hem of her pullover. "Unless you didn't want me to? I'm sorry. I should have asked you first. I shouldn't have assumed, how stupid-"

She was stopped when Arizona took her hands to stop her from fidgeting. "Thank you," she said and the brunette heard the gratitude into her tone. "It was a very nice gesture of you. I appreciate it a lot."

Amelia gave her a small, tentative grin. "You're welcome then. I'm kinda in love with this rugrat."

"It goes both ways. She loves you too."

"Of course she does, roomie Amelia is a lot more fun to hang out with than arguing, making-me-eat-broccoli and waking-me-up-for-school mommy," she said playfully.

"Books!" Sofia walked up to them with about six books into her little arms, breaking their little bubble.

Amelia chuckled while the pediatrician's eyes almost popped out of her head.

"We're not going to read all of them baby," she knelt in front of her, eyeing her daughter's choices.

"Porque ?" Sofia frowned.

"Because it's supposed to be a bedtime story, not a read-until-the-sun-is-rising story. And Amelia and mommy are working tomorrow so they need to sleep too."

"Porque?"

"So we feel fine tomorrow."

"Porque?"

"So we can help our patients at the hospitals."

"Porque?"

Arizona knew that Sofia was trying to buy more time up by asking why constantly and after her day, the blonde didn't want to snap at her daughter. She was tired and Sofia was being irritating, but she knew her anger would be misplaced. So instead of letting her nerves win, she let out a slow breath. "Because they're sick."

Amelia could see the change of demeanor into the blonde: her shoulders tensing, her tired features, her controlled voice… Not really knowing how to help, she knelt next to her and placed a hand onto her shoulder, squeezing it in comfort.

"Porque?"

"Because they have a disease."

"Porque?"

"A lot of different reasons."

"Porque?" Sofia knew she was pushing it but she really didn't to go to sleep. She wasn't that tired yet.

"That's just the way it is, Sof. Sometimes people have or catch diseases and we make them feel better."

"Porque?"

Arizona could feel herself withering.

"It's what we like to do. Just like you like to dance," Amelia said. "Now, it's time to go to bed otherwise we're all going to be tired and grumpy tomorrow morning. Mommy and I aren't going to be much fun to be around if we're grumpy, are we?"

"No," Sofia conceded.

"Then you gotta store the questions you have in mind for tomorrow mornin' 'kay? It's bedtime right now. Think you can do that?" Amelia asked.

The little girl nodded. "Si."

Arizona murmured her a thank you.

"Bedtime it is then."

"Alright," Sofia said clearly upset, her foot digging into the floor and her eyes looking down, but stopping her little game of incessant why nontheless.

Arizona was thankful for the brunette's intervention because she could feel her patience grow thinner and thinner with each new why. They followed her into her bedroom and made sure she was tucked in, her cuddle toy into her arms and her pacifier close just in case. She was using it less and less, not needing it anymore during daytime but on some nights, she simply couldn't go to sleep without it.

"Okay, which book munchkin?" the neurosurgeon asked as she laid down next to the little girl and the blonde sat onto the other side, her back resting against the headboard.

"Okay, I'm never giving Sof any sugar again. Like ever. We had to read 3 stories. Three! She's usually asleep half-trough the first one."

Arizona smiled. "Serves you right."

"You're the devil Robbins, you should have stopped me when it was still time."

"What happened to teaching her 'impressive live-saving skills'?" Arizona replied teasingly.

Amelia silenced her by showing her her index. She took a skittle and threw the candy up high, catching it straight into her mouth. She then smiled way too proudly at Arizona.

"Okay, it's impressive," Amelia made her I-told-you-so face but the pediatric surgeon kept on. "Doesn't serve any purpose, but still impressive."

Amelia looked at the bag of skittles with an intense and quizzical look, "How many skittles do you think I can take fit into my mouth?"

Arizona laughed, "Until it gets absolutely disgusting or like, in general?"

But the brunette chose to ignore her sarcasm, instead her brows furrowed further in seriousness. "In general. I'd like to think I could do forty."

Arizona raised an eyebrow. "That doesn't seem like a lot. I think you could fit more."

"Wanna bet?" Amelia wiggled her eyebrows playfully.

Arizona rolled her eyes. "How come we always end up doing the dorkiest things all the time?"

"I am dorky, that's just me as a person. But I'm also extremely awesome and charming, so you can't resist me," Amelia teased.

"True," Arizona giggled.

"So, I say forty. How much do you say?"

"I can't believe we're doing this."

"Come on Robbins, where's your childish sense of competition?"

Arizona grabbed the bag of skittles and after examining the size, she said solemnly, "Fifty-three."

"That's… precise."

"I play to win, ma'am."

"Closest one wins?"

"Wins what exactly?" the blonde asked.

"If you win, I'll do the ironing for two weeks. However, if I win, I want to see those pictures of young punk rock Arizona."

"Oh god, I knew I should have never brought it up. Remind me to never share anything personal with you anymore."

"Well, you did and I really want to see them now."

"Of course you do," Arizona sneered.

"Come on, two weeks without any ironing waiting when you get back from work. Think about that," the neurosurgeon taunted.

Arizona chuckled and let her head fall onto the back of the couch, letting it fall to the side to look at the brunette who was smirking at her. "You're the devil, Sheperd."

"What are a few pictures against two weeks of tranquility?"

"Fine, I give in," Arizona huffed. "Fifty three is my final answer."

"Forty two for me. Ready for it to get ugly?"

"As long as you promise not to puke afterwards, I'm ready."

Amelia started to put some into her mouth, Arizona counting aloud. At thirty, Arizona started to laugh because Amelia looked more and more like a squirrel with each passing candy.

"What'chu laufin' 'bout?" Amelia asked, her dark eyebrows knitted together and half of the syllables not making it out of her mouth.

"I'm sorry, you're trying to say something?" Arizona giggled. She only laughed harder when her friend pouted but ended up looking even more ridiculous. "You look like a baby squirrel, you're stocking nuts for the winter into your cheeks."

"I'ch not!"

"Let's keep going, you're at thirty four."

They kept on and on, and eventually, it appeared that Amelia could fit sixty one skittles into her mouth. And it did end up looking disgusting, she could barely close her mouth anymore. Even though she had just lost, Amelia fist pumped the air proudly. That horrible skittle game was just a pretext for her roommate to relax and it had worked, Arizona was laughing and her frowning eyebrows were long gone.

However, when the blonde took her phone out to snap a few pictures, she quickly got up and ran away from the camera. No physical evidence of her looking like this would ever exist. No way.

"I did not anticipate for it to take this much drool," Amelia announced as she came back from the kitchen with a big glass of water.

"Thank you for this piece of information I didn't want to know."

"My mouth and cheeks feel so weird," the neurosurgeon said as she moved her jaw and mouth to gain some sensations back into her cheeks and mandibles.

"I have to say, winning feels great."

"You do know I'm just going to wait until I meet your parents to ask them for those pictures, right? It's just delayed."

"You wouldn't!"

"Try me," the neurosurgeon dared and wiggled her eyebrows.

"You're never meeting my parents. Ever," she yawned. "I'm going to shower."

"British bake off is supposed to be on," Amelia motioned her head towards the television.

Truthfully, the neurosurgeon didn't really want the night to end. She was having the most fun she had in a while and she wasn't ready for it to stop. She liked passing time with her roommate and her daughter.

"I'll be quick then."

"Ice cream?" Amelia asked knowingly.

"You bet!"

Fifteen minutes later, Amelia heard crutches coming down the corridor so she got up and grabbed the frozen vanilla scattered with chocolate and cookie bits from the freezer along two spoons. She also took two glasses, one of white wine for the blonde and an orange juice for herself.

When she came back, Arizona was sitting onto the couch, a warm blanket wrapped around her. She laid everything onto the coffee table except for the ice cream that she put onto her knees, the spoons stuck upwards into it.

"Ready?" the blonde asked.

"Hell yeah! Put the goods on, Robbins. Time to unleash the pound of sugar and British accent."

The brunette quickly offered to wash the dishes before going to bed since there wasn't a lot. By the time she turned the kitchen lights off, she had expected Arizona to already be asleep. So she was surprised to find her still up, standing into the corridor.

She spied the blonde for a few moments. She was standing in front of her daughter's room, staring at her with what the neurosurgeon identified as deep reflection and a hint of sadness. She placed a hand on her shoulder to not scare Arizona.

"You alright?" she asked with kind eyes and an openness into her voice that let Arizona know she could tell her anything and Amelia would still listen without any judgment.

"Maria died today. I had been following her since she was three years old. She has- had cystic fibrosis. She had big browns eyes and lashes for days just like Sof. She wanted to be a doctor when she would be a grown up so she could cure people with cystic fib. She was probably the happiest kid to be stuck into a hospital so regularly, even though it was only because she was getting worse. She was on the lung transplant list for eight months but she didn't get them, so today she died. I get to come home to my child and hold her and kiss her and then I get to goof my day off with my roommate. Meanwhile, Maria's parents are crying and can't sleep because their mind can't stop thinking about which coffin they're going to get for their nine years old daughter. So no, I'm not exactly alright tonight."

"Some cases get to us more than others," she gently squeezed her friend's arm.

"Every time it happens, you swear to yourself that it's the last time. That you won't allow other cases to get this personal again. But then a new case comes in and you just can't help yourself."

"You have to get personal, Arizona. They are the cases that make you grow. Your passion, your methods, your talent, your time… you give those cases everything you have and yet you get nothing back in return. They just leave you into broken pieces and no one can help you because no one really understands how much you gave of yourself, emotionally and professionally," Amelia confessed softly, all too familiar with this feeling of helplessness Arizona was experiencing. "So you heal slowly. You cry, you stare at your kid, you goof off with your roommate, you eat way more ice cream than you should… And when you're all patched up, another case comes in and takes you by the guts just like the last. We're surgeons, it's what we do Arizona. We see pain and we help, no matter what it cost us physically or emotionally. Because we don't matter, the patient and their family do. And we'll be damned if we don't try our best to help them."

Arizona's hand strolled on top of hers and gave it a tentative squeeze, to which Amelia replied by simply grabbing it confidently.

"Thank you Amelia. I needed it," the blonde said and Amelia could hear the sadness lingering into her tone.

"You're welcome."

"Is it weird if I ask for a hug?" Arizona asked with a small smile.

"Of course not, come here."

The brunette could feel Arizona relax into her arms. It had been a long time since she had been hugged like this. The only arms she allowed herself to sink in lately were April's. So it was nice to have someone else. Someone who understood what was happening and was ready to just hold her when she needed without questioning it.

She missed that.

She missed having someone to come home to and kiss and hug and love. Of course, she had her daughter and Sofia was more than enough to fill her with joy. But it would be nice to have a partner too instead of a string of one night stands. One night stands were fun and all but when the morning came, though they left her sated, they also left her alone.

So it was good to have a roommate. She didn't feel so alone anymore into her house. She didn't have to call April at two AM anymore because she felt down, she had someone she could talk to just across the hall. Someone patient and caring and open.

Amelia probably had no idea how easy she was to talk to and simply how… respectful she was. The brunette never pushed her to voice out loud her issues and feelings if she didn't wished to, instead offering comfort and her shoulder to cry on without any questions.

Amelia Sheperd probably was the best roommate Arizona could have ever wished for.

Arizona groaned unhappily as she heard a pager making itself known. She glanced at her alarm clock as she patted around to find the annoying device. Five fucking AM. It was too early to be working, she thought for a second. She groaned even harder when her hand came up empty and she was hit by the fact she had left her pager into the living room. She sat up, still half asleep and grabbed her crutches to carefully make her way to the coffee table into the darkness. She wasn't ready to turn on the lights just yet.

She let out a sigh of relief when it turned out to be Amelia's pager making all that noise. She swiftly turned the sound off before it could get even more offensive. Knowing her roommate wasn't going to hear it all the way from here, the pediatric surgeon went to her bedroom to wake her up, knocking softly onto the wooden door.

"The hospital needs you Sheperd," she said, not quite yelling but louder than usual.

She heard nothing, not even the slightest movement so she decided to enter.

"Amelia, wake up," she said, barely louder than a whisper as she felt around for the light switch.

A debutante mistake truly. She should have never done that, she should have known better.

Lights on, her eyes landed onto the sleeping brunette. Naked sleeping brunette. Covered-by-only-down-mid-butt-sheets naked sleeping brunette.

"Oh fuck," the words escaped her mouth before her brain could even filter them. Arizona turned around immediately to advert her eyes, her face flushed and her brain not coping. Since she wasn't wearing her prosthetic and was obviously distracted, she turned too fast and she fell down. "Ouch, fucking shit," she cursed to herself as she crashed loudly onto the floor.

On the plus side, the loud noise woke Amelia up. The brunette looked around, not really understanding why she was up at first until her squinted eyes landed onto the blonde form down on the floor cursing, her crutches lying down next to her.

On the bad side, Amelia didn't really think, she had just woken up after all. Seeing her friend hurting, she jumped into action, totally forgetting she was in her birthday suit.

"Arizona?" she ran up to the blonde and crouched down to her level. "Are you alright? Are you hurt? What happened? Did you bang your head?" she asked at light speed as she inspected the other woman all over, scanning her from head to toe for injuries.

"It's okay. I think I'm alright," she replied, her eyes looking everywhere but at the brunette.

The neurosurgeon tried to understand why she wasn't looking at her and that was when it hit her. "Oh, shit," an arm crossed against her chest while her other hand covered her genitals modestly, not with as much success as she would have liked. "Let me put something on and we'll check you out okay?" she grabbed a sleeping tee-shirt and put it on quickly.

"No, I'm okay. I'm good," Arizona said, clearly a little disturbed. "I just came here because the hospital's beeping you. I tried knocking but you didn't wake up and-"

"It's alright, Arizona," the neurosurgeon giggled. "Guess we passed a new step in our friendship, didn't we? Do you want help getting up?"

"If you don't mind," she replied, still embarrassed by the whole thing.

The brunette put the crutches against the wall before wrapping her arms around her to help her up.

"Are you sure you're alright?" she examined Arizona one last time, just to be sure.

"I'm sure. I just forgot that I didn't have my leg on and turned around too quickly."

"Are you saying I'm so ugly to look at that you had to turn around and protect your eyes?" Amelia teased playfully.

"What? No! Of course not! You're not ugly. You're far from ugly. You're hot, really hot. Like, if-you-weren't-my-friend-and-I-saw-you-at-a-bar-I-would-hit-on-you-hot. Except I wouldn't 'cause you're my friend," she added, confused by her own logic, her eyebrows frowning deeply. "Wait, I'm phrasing it wrong. I-"

The pager beeped again and Arizona handed it to her roommate.

"911."

"You better hurry then."

"Thank you for waking me up, blondie."

"You're welcome," she said with a small smile, still feeling a little mortified by what had just happened.

"Arizona?"

"Mmmh-mmmh?" the blonde looked at the other woman.

"I kind of need to dress?" Amelia said half-apologetically, half trying to hold back a laugh.

Arizona realized she was still standing into the middle of her roommate's bedroom. "Right, sorry. Sorry, still not fully waken up," she offered lamely and headed to the door.

"Zona?"

"Yes?"

"Sweet dreams," she winked at the blonde before closing her door behind her to get dressed.

Arizona headed back to her room slowly. She definitely deserved a good night of sleep after this.

"So, you think I'm hot?"

Arizona was scribbling in her patient's chart at the nurses' station when a cup of coffee appeared next to her. She looked up and saw Amelia smirking at her.

"Please, I'm already embarrassed enough as it is," Arizona blushed ever so lightly and the neurosurgeon could tell she was still somehow flustered in spite of her usual cheerful behavior, "Can we just forget about it already?"

"A lesbian complimented me, I'm not forgetting that," she said pointedly and then added smugly, "Plus you're right, I'm hot. Can't blame you for having good taste, can I?"

"Gosh, this situation is getting weirder by the minute," Arizona cringed.

"Arizona, you're the one making it weird! We're both two grown ass adults with functioning retinas. You think I'm hot, I think you're hot too. We're friends, it doesn't have to mean anything, okay?"

"Wait, you think I'm hot?" her eyebrows raised up almost comically high in surprised and her heart started to pound faster into her chest.

"Duh! I think the number of women passing through the house is a pretty good indicator that I'm right."

"See, now you're just making me sound slutty," she grimaced.

"Please, you're anything but. You're just enjoying yourself. Before I went to rehab, I used to sleep around with so many guys many guys that I couldn't remember their names half of the time. Now, that was slutty," she then frowned and said pensively. "God, it's been so long since I had sex."

Arizona was a little taken aback, not by the admission but by the fact that Amelia rarely talked about her past as an addict. The blonde was respectful and didn't pry, simply happy to listen to whatever her friend wanted to share on the subject. So she was glad that Amelia seemed to open up about it a little bit more, even if it was just to tell her about her terrible sex life at the time.

"Well, if you need someone to help you scratch your itch, I'm sure Nurse Thomas wouldn't mind giving you a hand. He couldn't stop making heart eyes at you during Misty's surgery last Tuesday."

"No, I'm not really looking for casual sex. I mean, it's nice and fun and I enjoyed it for a long time but I think I'm finally ready for something a little more serious. I'm emotionally and mentally stable now, I've been sober almost two years and I'm doing amazing career wise, I think it's time for me to get back out in the dating pool. You know, getting to know each other, sharing things together and eventually having sex. Not the other way around. God, do I sound lame?"

Arizona softly placed her hand onto her forearm and gave her a comforting squeeze. "No, you don't. It just makes you sound like you know what you want and that's good. You're allowed to want things for yourself, Amelia. You've worked very hard to get where you are today and you're allowed to want to share your happiness with someone who values you and loves you for who you are."

The neurosurgeon was astonished by the blonde's little speech. It held so much respect and care, Amelia couldn't even began to describe how accepted and esteemed it made her feel. She didn't really know how to express those feelings so she pulled the blonde in a hug, long enough to let her know how thankful she was but not long enough to make it awkward.

"I- thanks. You don't know how much this means to me."

"I'm just glad I could help," Arizona smiled widely.

"You're a really great mood upper and confidence builder. I can see why women want to go home with you," she said lightheartedly to diffuse her own inner tension.

"Fuck off, Sheperd," Arizona chuckled and bumped their shoulders together. "Can I make a totally unrelated suggestion?"

"Is it "wear pajamas"?"

"Wear pajamas, please."

Arizona and Alex were both sitting in the gallery, enjoying a few minutes break in between surgeries and sharing a bag of chips. They were watching their colleague Stark remove a benign tumor with Wilson's assistance.

Stark was dissecting the tumor wrapped around the inferior vena cava and abdominal aorta when Amelia whisked by. Intrigued by the two alone people laughing and gossiping loudly in the gallery, she popped her head in. She quickly recognized Karev and Robbins, probably on a break from the look of it and decided to join them. She could use five minutes of sitting down. She sat behind them with a loud huff, making both their heads turn around to look at the intruder.

"Sheperd," Alex acknowledged her with a mouthful in lieu of greetings.

"Hello Amelia," the attending greeted her much more cheerfully with a beaming smile.

Since they were both distracted, the neurosurgeon's hand sneakily stole their bag of chips and took a fistful of them before inelegantly dumping them in her mouth, not really caring about her grace at this very moment.

"Hey!" Arizona protested.

"Dude, I paid money for that," Alex said, being more disgruntled than truly angry and made no move to snatch his bag back.

He figured she probably needed it more than he did anyway, Jo had bought him a doughnut earlier.

"Tell Sex Machine over here that that's what she gets for keeping me up until the wee hours of the morning doing Maria," she said tiredly and accusingly, leaning back into the back of the chair. "Some of us had an early shift."

"Maria? Blonde, almost 5 feet 8, nurse's aid in pediatric oncology, Maria?" Alex asked with an eyebrow raised.

"That would be the one."

"Nice Robbins!" Alex exclaimed proudly and held his hand high for a high five, which Arizona was happy to provide. "She's really kind. Always taking her time with the parents to calm them down and make sure they understand what's happening to their kids. And she's smoking hot. That tongue piercing must fe-"

"Gosh, you guys are a couple of horn dogs," Amelia interrupted with a theatrical roll of eyes before he could finish.

She really didn't care to know the end of that sentence. Lately, she felt more and more bothered by this kind of discussion, the kind about her roommate's conquests. Moreover, she didn't know why she was feeling like this, which only added to her irritation.

"She is. I'm in a serious relationship," Alex defended himself and shrugged casually.

"Poor Wilson," Amelia commented and the blonde giggled. "So what are we watching exactly?" the brunette asked as she finally took in the operating room below them.

"Benign tumor excision," Alex and Arizona said at the same time.

They were all debating Stark's choice of scalpel blade when Dr. Bailey passed by. Alerted by the ruckus they were making, she leaned against the doorway to see what was happening in there.

"Don't you people have work to do?" she said flatly.

All three doctors suddenly got up, their conversation falling short and scattered away quickly.

"And please, wash those greasy hands of yours Dr. Sheperd before touching any of my patients!"