"Maternal-fetal is very competitive," Arizona gives the Langone resident she's talking to an indulgent, understanding half-smile. She pats the younger woman on the shoulder. "You probably wouldn't have gotten it anyways."
Then she turns around, winking discreetly at Callie who's listening from a couple feet away. Arizona steps away from the resident, reaching out her hand for the coffee Callie bought for her before they start to walk towards Ava's room.
Arizona's been using her time on Ava's case to try to woo over a few of Langone's top peds residents, but they've been getting a little antsy as their boards loom. She needs to send a message. Fast. Or else she'll lose the whole group.
"You're evil," Callie whispers, glancing behind them. Arizona doesn't. She knows better than to show her hand.
"I'm awesome." Arizona sips her coffee, looking unbothered. Gleeful, almost. "And I'm getting that resident."
"Dr. Robbins!" Calls a voice behind them. The resident in question jogs up to Callie and Arizona. "On second thought, I'll have my letters of rec to you by this afternoon."
Arizona smiles broadly, doing her best to seem pleasantly surprised. She can see Callie gaping at her in her peripheral vision. "Great! We look forward to reviewing your application."
She turns her back to the resident again, heading down the hallway again with only a sidelong glance in Callie's direction.
"Oh my God." Callie looks at Arizona, eyes wide, open-mouthed, shocked smile. "I can't believe that actually worked."
Arizona smirks. "It's all in the delivery."
"Can you teach me how to do that? Because I keep losing residents to general," Callie says, holding the door to Ava's room open for Arizona.
Arizona just laughs. Angles herself carefully so that no part of her body touches Callie's as she passes. For a second she thinks about letting her hand accidentally brush against Callie's stomach but she doesn't.
Somehow even the almost-touching still makes Arizona buzz.
It's been like that, lately. They don't talk about what happened, they don't touch, and they don't let themselves be alone together for too long. Or, Arizona doesn't. She doesn't know what Callie's doing, because they don't talk about it.
What happened last weekend was a mistake, a momentary lapse in judgment. Nothing more, nothing less.
Callie was drunk and Arizona is in love with her. She let it go too far. That doesn't mean she needs to start assigning meaning to it every time Callie is lonely and horny. It would be pathetic, honestly, to let herself get wrapped up in that after the last time Callie fucked her on a whim.
Arizona isn't a fan of replaying her greatest hits.
"Hello, Miss Ava," Arizona picks up Ava's chart. "How are you doing?"
"Good," Ava says. She smiles weakly, sort of hunched slightly in a way that means she's in pain. Arizona eyes her posture, handing the chart off to Callie absent-mindedly.
"Really?" Arizona pushes.
Ava curls her knees to her chest and slips one hand behind them to hold her stomach. "Mhmm. I'm doing really, really good. Ready to walk again soon."
"Ava… if something is wrong, you have to tell me," Arizona sits on the edge of the bed. She meets Ava's eyes seriously, tilting her head. "Even if it delays your slipped cap. You can't cheat something like this."
"It's nothing," Ava grimaces in pain, and Arizona gives her a pointed look. Ava's face closes off. "Fine, just, just do it. Just be gentle." Her eyes go blank, but they're glassy and wet. "Please."
Arizona guides Ava's legs flat, then feels along her stomach for signs of complications. Her abdomen is tender and distended, and her breath comes in tight stutters like she's holding back tears. Arizona studies Ava's face, the way she's doing her best to be even, steady. She stares right back at Arizona, and Arizona realizes that she already knows.
Of course she knows. She's a kid with internet access. She knew as soon as she woke up this morning.
Arizona closes her eyes. Takes a deep breath before looking over her shoulder at Callie, who seems braced for the worst. "She needs an appendectomy. Now."
"I don't want to do this," Callie murmurs, violently scrubbing under her nails. Her hair is tucked under her scrub cap, away from her face, and there's nothing to hide how exhausted she is.
"You don't have to," Arizona lowers her voice comfortingly. She turns her head to look at Callie from across the metal sink. "This is a routine appy, I don't need an orthopedic surgeon in there."
Callie scoffs at Arizona. She uses her back to push open the O.R. door, holding her hands loosely up to her chest. Raises an eyebrow at Arizona.
Arizona follows behind, trying to take this for what it is— a confirmation that she's not in this alone— instead of Callie not trusting her enough to do an appy on her own.
She takes her position as the primary surgeon and Callie steps into hers as the assist, standing opposite Arizona at the table. Callie flexes her fingers, elbows bent and arms rigid. She looks at Arizona for the go-ahead.
"Ten-blade," Arizona says, holding her hand out to the scrub nurse. "Alright, people, let's get this little girl home to her mother."
Callie nods slightly, taking her cue from Arizona.
Arizona makes a small incision for the port before handing off her scalpel. Callie steps in immediately to deepen the cut while Arizona takes the laparoscope. She doesn't even ask. She just knows.
Callie remembers that Arizona will want a deeper port site, but needs to see the scope first. Callie can tell just by the way Arizona holds the scope how much deeper she'll want it to be. Or, maybe, she's just memorized Arizona's habits well enough to know what she likes for each type of scope. It doesn't really matter either way.
Nothing matters but the way their hands move.
They very rarely have to discuss things before they do them, and Arizona knows they're being bad teachers right now but she can't help but revel in the way they can have a whole conversation with just their eyes. Selfishly. Nobody else in the room knows what's going on, but they don't need to. They're background noise, side-acts.
It could be her and Callie and this room, and nothing would change.
God, she knows Callie in her bones. In the lining of her stomach, too, where all the pain lives. And as she navigates the scope through Ava's, she's suddenly grateful that Ava's face is draped. Where the pain lives. She feels ridiculous for even thinking that while digging around in a child's abdomen.
Callie seems to be thinking the same thing, or— something. Arizona keeps telling herself that she can't read Callie well enough to guess, but the look in her eyes is painfully familiar as she swallows hard, says:
"This is awful." Callie shakes her head. "She just, she can't catch a break. And, sure, maybe it'll be fine someday but it doesn't feel like that to her. This is her whole life," she pauses, gathering herself. "Her whole life."
Arizona is so glad Ava won't remember this. "I know the feeling."
"But it got better for you, right? Afterwards?" Callie asks hopefully. Arizona can't look her in the eyes right now. "I mean, you got, you got over it, and you got through it, and you have your new leg now. She just needs to make it through."
"A prosthetic is not a leg," Arizona responds honestly. "It'll never be a leg. I lost that. I've had to accept it." She keeps herself focused on trying to find Ava's appendix with the camera. "Ava will have to accept it too. She's lost something, and she'll probably lose a hell of a lot more before this is all over. It doesn't just get better.
"But you live. You live, and that's worth something," Arizona lilts her voice up optimistically. "It's worth everything, honestly."
She can feel Callie watching her, and she can't stand it. The vulnerability of the moment makes Arizona feel like she's just climbed onto the O.R. table herself and asked Callie to cut her open. Arizona can't remember the last time she told Callie anything that real about losing her leg; there's a chance that maybe she never has.
From what Arizona can see, Callie's hands have gone completely still. "Arizona, I… look, I just wanted to say, about the other night, it wasn't—"
"Laproscope's in," Arizona cuts her off. "Do you think you could take the cannula, Dr. Torres?"
Callie stutters, "Uh, sure. Right, yeah."
"Thanks."
Stepping out into the hallway, Arizona immediately sees Gloria there. She's pacing back and forth in front of the door wearing a trauma gown. She must've heard while she was working in the E.R. and immediately rushed over.
Gloria's head snaps to Arizona. She's holding a knuckle to her lips anxiously, eyes sharp and searching Arizona's face for news. "Is she okay? Can I see her?"
Arizona looks to Callie automatically for help, then back at Gloria. "She's fine, they're taking her up to her room now but she should be—"
Gloria takes off down the hallway without another word. Arizona doesn't blame her.
Arizona deflates, sitting down onto the bench. She puts her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands, pulling off her scrub cap in a weary motion. It's just all so heavy.
She's tired. It's been so long that she had forgotten what peds is like. How it takes, what it takes. It's different when it's kids, it's always different when it's kids. And this kid… this kid is different, too.
Arizona wraps her scrub cap around her fist and glances up at Callie, blowing a piece of hair out of her face.
"Do you want to get out of here?" Arizona asks without thinking.
Callie's eyebrows shoot up, and she gets this tiny little smile that makes Arizona slightly less miserable. "God, yes."
Callie takes her to a new place, somewhere neither of them have been. It's a cozy, family-run lunch place with dark-wood floors and indoor plants everywhere. Arizona brushes her fingertips along a standing vine while Callie orders for them at the front.
Callie comes back holding a table number and a metal stand, looking a little more alive than she did before.
They find a tiny table in the back corner, private and quiet where they sit close but not too close.
"So, tell me something good. Anything. Tell me about Gloria," Arizona prompts. "How did you become friends?"
Callie laughs, fidgeting with the metal stand. "Well, I was with Penny at the time and things were… bad. Really, really bad. Everyone at the hospital avoided me like the plague, and, frankly, I get it. I wasn't— doing well." Callie frowns self-deprecatingly. She twists the number holder between her fingers. "I guess I was miserable and she saw me. That's it. And I've been trying to pay her back for it ever since."
"Why did you even ask me to do this case?" Arizona asks, watching Callie's hands and how they give her away. "Knowing how big it was, knowing how—" she doesn't know how to put this nicely "—hard things are with us, sometimes."
Callie huffs because she knows exactly what Arizona means by hard. "I don't know. A part of me still trusted you first, most, even then. And now, now I know that part of me was right."
Arizona toys with the side of her top lip with her teeth. "What if I mess it all up?"
"You won't," Callie says without hesitating.
"But…"
Callie reaches across the table to hold Arizona's fingers loosely, giving her plenty of space to pull back if she wants to. She tilts her chin down, meets Arizona's eyes.
"You won't."
A waiter comes by with their lunches balanced on both palms, and they spring apart like they've been caught doing something wrong.
He sets one sandwich down in front of Callie and the other in front of Arizona. Arizona scrunches her nose at hers after the waiter leaves, eyeing the bologna. Ew.
Callie switches the meals in front of them smoothly. She shakes her head at Arizona. "So predictable," she mutters. "I know better than to order that for you."
Arizona blinks at her, then at her new sandwich. She vaguely remembers resenting it the last time Callie did this, but right now she doesn't have the energy to dig up that emotion.
Instead she just watches the way Callie bites into her bologna and cheese happily, swiping the back of her arm against her mouth as she chews. Which should be gross, but isn't because it's Callie.
Her hair is still fully pulled back from her face even though they're out of surgery. Not quite severe but… restrained. Controlled. At some point, Callie had become the kind of person who could be described as controlled.
"I miss when you wore your hair loose. Sometimes it was like you hadn't even brushed it," Arizona can't help saying, eyes running up and down Callie's face like she hasn't allowed herself to in years.
Callie scoffs. "Arizona, I looked terrible back then."
"I remember." Arizona picks at her fries noncommittally. "But I miss it anyways."
Callie sucks in a sharp breath. She leans into the table, face set very seriously, drawing herself close to Arizona's space. The moment changes, hardens somehow. Arizona knows that Callie is about to make things difficult again.
"I want to talk to you. Please," Callie begs.
"Not about that."
Callie's eyes turn up to the ceiling in annoyance and Arizona bristles. "You don't even know what I'm going to say."
"I don't need to!" Arizona can't do this, she won't do this. "We've been just fine not talking about it, Callie, I don't see why that needs to change now."
"So your plan is to never talk to me again?" Callie asks. Arizona raises her eyebrows stubbornly, like she's saying if that's what it takes. "Fine, whatever. Get dinner with me."
Arizona laughs. "What?"
"We won't talk, we'll just sit across from each other glaring for an hour and then I'll pay." Callie leans back in her chair. She stares Arizona down.
"Why the hell would we do that?" Arizona holds her mouth half-open in a sort of exasperated grimace, lips drawn low and tight against her bottom teeth.
Callie cocks her head at Arizona, looking both self-satisfied and sarcastic. "Because we're friends now. Friends get dinner."
"I—" Arizona starts. She should say no, she almost wants to say no. She's getting the sinking suspicion that Callie wants more from her than she has left to give. But she's so painfully bad at not giving in to Callie, and the day has been hard, and gut-wrenching, and she's already feeling like an exposed nerve. So instead of saying no, she says, "I'll pay half."
Callie shrugs, pressing her lips together to hold back a smile. "Works for me."
Later, Arizona forces herself to go back to the hospital. She needs to talk to Gloria, needs to finish what she started in the hallway.
But the heaviness of earlier rushes back the second Arizona steps into the building.
She checks Ava's room first and finds Gloria there. The other woman is cramped onto Ava's tiny bed, curled around her daughter protectively. Gloria has positioned them so that Ava's port-site is angled up and away from her body, so there's no chance of her hitting it accidentally. Her eyes are closed but Arizona knows she's not asleep.
Arizona knocks softly on the doorframe. "Hey," she whispers. Gloria's eyes crack open, still cradling the back of Ava's head.
"Hey yourself," Gloria smiles. "Sorry about earlier, I wasn't…"
"I understand," Arizona reassures her. She indicates to the binder tucked against her body, then steps into the room. "I figured you might want to go over Ava's surgery real quick. Debrief, a little."
"Yeah, I'd like that."
Arizona plunks down on the chair closest to the door, pulling Ava's chart out from under her arm. She flips through to the right page. Traces the lines with the tip of her finger.
Gloria stays lying down, shifting so that she can rest her head up and onto the flat of her palm to look at Arizona more fully.
"Thank you," she keeps her voice soft because of Ava, who still grumbles irritably in her sleep. "I see you, you know. I see what you're doing with Callie, and I get it. I love her, but I get it. I wouldn't just fall back into James' arms either."
"James?"
Gloria motions her chin at Ava. "Her father."
"Ah," Arizona hums. She'd always wondered about that, secretly.
Arizona sits back in her chair. Considers Gloria for a long moment before saying anything else. "I'm not doing anything, honestly, I'm not. Whatever Callie's going through, I'm staying the hell out of it. Callie's not my business anymore," she says, and Gloria's eyebrows tick up just barely. Arizona ignores that. "It doesn't mean anything, anyways."
"And what if it does? Hypothetically," Gloria hedges carefully.
Arizona schools her face into something passive and bright. "It doesn't. Maybe she thinks it does, but it doesn't. Not really, not the way that it would need to."
"It must be hell for you," Gloria says. Arizona squints at her, confused, and Gloria explains. "Believing that."
"I wouldn't, I don't think of it that way," she sighs. "It's just life."
Gloria settles back into the bed fully, dropping her head back onto the single pillow. Ava's face burrows into her mother's chest and Gloria starts stroking her hair. She watches Arizona, and Arizona lets her. After a while, she seems to come to a conclusion that Arizona knows she won't share.
"Tell me about my daughter, Arizona," Gloria says quietly.
Arizona relaxes, glances down at her case notes and takes a deep breath. "Ava Gale, 12, presented with signs of an inflamed appendix at 8:53 this morning. Patient had likely been experiencing symptoms for a few hours…"
At some point, Arizona must have dozed off because she wakes up hours later still in that chair. Her neck is aching, Gloria and Ava are both snoring loudly in the hospital bed. The sun is going down.
Arizona startles up, looks at her watch to figure out what time it is. A white lab coat that she realizes had been draped over her in her sleep falls to the ground. Arizona freezes.
She bends down to pick it up, turning it in her hands so that she can see the embroidery. Torres, M.D.
She was really hoping it would be Gloria's.
Arizona isn't ready to deal with any of… well, any of it. She just isn't ready. She's been walking around haphazardly sewn closed for half a decade at this point, and she's gotten used to that. And now Callie's come along to tug at the seams for no reason, because she's— Arizona doesn't know what Callie is. Lonely, probably. Bored, maybe. But then that feels too cruel. Callie wouldn't do this to her just because she's bored. She's Callie. She's not like that.
Her fingers curl around the collar of Callie's coat, gently smoothing out the lines. Callie never irons this thing. Arizona doesn't want it to get more wrinkled.
So she folds the lab coat neatly before she goes, leaving it on the chair for Callie to find whenever she comes back for it, and tries not to think about the situation.
But she will, anyway. She can't help herself.
Notes: Reviews not only welcome but encouraged :) I love talking to people, come find me at pearlcages on Tumblr and Twitter!
