AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Hi everybody! I'm so sorry for the delay in getting this chapter to you all and to leave you on a cliffhanger like that for so long! I've been so busy lately, but I finally got the chance to write this chapter for you all today, so I hope you enjoy! Please leave reviews!
Chapter 2
Callie's heart raced as she sprinted from the OR floor towards radiology. Her page only said ROBBINS- 911 and she had no idea what she should be expecting. Knowing that Arizona wasn't actually on-call today, she was completely in the dark as to what this urgent page was suggesting. Though Arizona was known to page Callie 911 for a quickie in the on-call room, Callie knew that Arizona was aware of how busy her schedule was today.
As she reached closer to the MRI room, her steps slowed down and she caught her breath before entering the scan viewing room where she found Arizona sitting by herself looking at a full body image on the computer screen.
When she felt Callie's presence in the doorway, Arizona glanced up. Her tear filled eyes met the confused and concerned look on Callie's face. She sniffled as she wiped her eyes and sat up straighter in the rolling chair she was sitting in.
"Tell me this isn't what it looks like," were the only words that escaped her mouth.
Callie shifted her gaze to the screen in front of them. She audibly swallowed and squinted her eyes at the image.
"Tumors. Definitely tumors. Metastasized, since they're on both the tibia and the femur," Callie analyzed the scan, pointing at the bright white spots. A sob escaped Arizona's mouth from beside her. Callie began to panic and her mind went straight for the worst possible scenario. "Are these Sofia's?!"
"No, no," Arizona was quick to assure her wife, even through the tears streaming down her face. "They're Briley's."
Callie was only relieved for a moment before her heart stopped. While she was obviously happy that this set of scans didn't belong to her daughter, she felt crushed for the girl she considered her second child.
Sofia and Briley met on the first day of preschool and had been practically inseparable ever since. The girls had played numerous sports together over the years, and they've been in classes together almost every year. Briley was as much a constant in the Robbins-Torres household as their own family. Sofia and Briley's friendship had brought Callie and Arizona extremely close to Briley's parents, Chandler and Nicole, as well. Sofia was always welcomed at the Locke house whenever both of her moms were paged in to the hospital, even on minutes notice. The thought of having to sit Chandler and Nicole down to tell them this news about Briley felt unbearable.
"What are we gonna do?" Arizona asked her wife. Her heart felt like it was being ripped in two for this little girl she loved so deeply. She hadn't felt this kind of emotional pain since she had experienced her own medical trauma- the amputation of her leg- when Sofia was only a baby.
"We're gonna fight like hell for her," Callie said simply, taking Arizona's hand in her own. "For the first decade of your career, you were the best pediatric surgeon on this side of the Mississippi. I'm a freakin' ortho goddess. Her best chances are with us, and we're gonna fight like hell."
Taking Arizona's other hand, she helped her up from her chair and hugged her in close. She could feel Arizona's quick, shallow breaths, and could feel her on the verge of having some sort of panic attack. Callie squeezed her tighter until she loosened into her embrace. They were in this together.
"Where are the girls now?" Callie asked.
"I sent them to the caf to get a snack," Arizona explained. "I sensed something was wrong when the interns called me in to get a professional opinion, and I didn't want them to be scared or worried."
Callie nodded.
"You did the right thing. Do you want to go find them while I call her parents? I can meet you in a peds room in fifteen," Callie offered.
Arizona sniffled again before nodding.
The two women headed separate ways once they left the scan room, but both of their hearts felt heavier than they had when they entered.
…
"Hey girls!" Arizona greeted Sofia and Briley, who were accompanied by Zola. The girls were eating bowls of soft-serve ice cream. "I hate to break up the party, but I've gotta steal Miss Sofi and Miss Bri. Zo, do you know where your mom is?" Arizona hoped that the girls couldn't hear the quiver in her voice.
Zola nodded.
"She got pulled into surgery. Aunt Maggie's rounding though, I can go hang in her office!" Zola replied, waving bye to the other girls.
"Where are we going now, Mom?" Sofia asked, curious about what else the day had in store.
Arizona's heart sped up and she tried to act natural.
"Uhh… We're gonna go to the peds floor for a bit. See what's going on up there."
Arizona pushed the call button for the elevator and put her hands in the pockets of her lab coat. She nervously chewed on her bottom lip. The elevator couldn't get here fast enough.
…
Callie entered her office and locked the door behind her. Her palms sweat as she paced back and forth within the small shoebox of a room. Taking out her phone, the anxiously clicked on Nicole Locke's contact name and lifted her phone to her ear.
She heard a familiar voice pick up on the last ring.
"Hey, Callie!" Nicole chirped from the other end of the line. "How are you?"
"Hi. I'm pretty good, you?" Callie forced herself to lie, trying not to worry her friend.
"Great! Thank you and Arizona again for taking Briley to Grey + Sloan today. I know she was really looking forward to it."
"Oh, yeah. No problem at all. Briley's a great kid," Callie replied.
"So what's up?" Nicole asked, looking for a reason why Callie would be calling her in the middle of the day.
Callie had a quick two-second internal debate with herself- whether to dance around the point, or get straight to it.
She opted for dancing.
"So, um, Arizona took the girls to be used as radiology models for the surgical interns today. The interns got to practice using a scan machine on the girls," Callie began.
"Oh, how fun! I bet they loved that!" Nicole exclaimed.
"Yeah… So when the interns were studying the scans, they found something… unusual with Briley's," Callie winced as the words came out of her mouth.
"Unusual? What does that mean? Unusual how?" Nicole asked, panic arising in her voice.
"There were some spots on her leg in the scan. After assessing it, Arizona and I both believe them to be tumors," Callie informed her.
"Tumors? As in cancer?!" Nicole's voice cracked, and a piece of Callie's heart broke.
"It's not confirmed cancer, but it's… likely. I called you immediately to tell you and Chandler to get here as quickly as you can. We need your consent to admit her and begin further testing," Callie said.
"We'll be right there," Nicole said before Callie heard the phone call end. She let out a sigh before leaving her office and heading towards peds. It had already been such a long day and it wasn't even lunchtime yet.
…
"Hey, look! There's Mama!" Sofia pointed towards the elevator as Callie stepped off onto the pediatric floor. Unbeknownst to the girls, they had been waiting at the nurses' station for Callie's arrival.
"Awesome. Let's go in here really quick, girls. We've got something we want to talk about with you both," Arizona said, guiding the girls towards an empty patient room.
Sofia and Briley obliged, and the girls both took seats on the bed upon entering the room. Callie and Arizona followed, shutting the door behind them. Callie took a seat on the edge of the bookcase in the room, as Arizona leaned up against the door.
"Have you girls had fun so far today?" Callie asked, trying to make small talk with the girls before dropping the awful, life-altering news on the teenagers in front of her.
Both girls nodded. Callie looked over at Arizona, who stood up straight and moved closer to where the girls were seated.
"Briley, has your leg been bothering you?" Arizona asked the blonde girl.
Briley thought for a moment, then shrugged.
"I mean, kind of… I guess so, yeah. I think I hurt it in soccer or something," she replied, rolling up her pant leg all the way up to her hip.
Callie sucked in her breath, and the doctors exchanged a glance as they both saw the same things: two large and visible bumps protruding from her leg, right where the scan predicted they'd be.
Callie moved closer to study the lumps, running her fingers over Briley's smooth skin.
"Does that hurt?" Callie asked, applying a small amount of pressure to the lumps with the pads of her fingertips.
Briley's brows furrowed together and she bit down on her lip as she nodded.
Callie and Arizona exchanged another look, this time it was noticed by the confused teens.
"Is something going on?" Briley asked, looking back and forth between Callie and Arizona. "What's wrong?"
Arizona crossed her arms and cleared her throat before answering Briley.
"We saw something off with your leg on your scan that the interns took, and now seeing how painful the bumps are to you, we just wanna run some quick tests to see if everything's running smoothly."
Briley's eyes widened as she looked at Sofia for support. Sofia was equally as shocked, but she slid her hand in Briley's anyway and squeezed it, letting her know that she was there.
"I called your parents and they'll be here soon," Callie told her.
Tears filled Briley's eyes and she nodded, fixing her gaze down at the floor.
"I'm gonna go get Alex and fill him in, as well as get the admission paperwork," Arizona said, opening the door.
Sure, Callie and Arizona were easily the most qualified for this case, but they were also incredibly biased. They needed a third party to keep them grounded and to help suggest treatment options, and as the current Chief of Pediatric Surgery, Alex Karev was the man for the job.
A half hour later, Arizona returned with Karev and some forms for the Lockes to sign. She had taken the time to brief Alex on the situation and he was more than willing to help out. While she was gone, Chandler and Nicole had arrived at the hospital and entered the now-crowded hospital room.
Arizona noticed the very familiar look of worry on her friends' faces. She had seen the same look from a million sets of parents before. They had no idea what was about to happen, and they were scared and confused about why this had to happen to their family. Their day had started off so normal.
Arizona greeted the Lockes before introducing Alex.
"This is my colleague, Dr. Alex Karev. He's the current Chief of Peds Surgery here. He's the best, and he's agreed to help Callie and I with Briley's case."
Alex shook hands with Briley's concerned mom and dad. Hearing how highly Arizona had spoken about Alex was comforting, but they were still quite stressed and anxious.
"Here are some forms we need you both to sign before we get started with the testing," Arizona said, handing each of them a clipboard. "As soon as you've finished signing those forms, we can admit her and bring her down for a biopsy."
"Will that hurt?" Briley asked with the presence of fear in her voice.
"You'll be asleep, so it'll be a little sore after you wake up, but it shouldn't be too bad," Callie assured her.
Minutes later, Chandler and Nicole had handed the forms back to Callie and Arizona, giving them a green light to begin the biopsy process.
…
"Biopsy needle," Arizona requested, as she held out her hand for the tool. Alex placed it in her hand as she began to take a sample of the first tumor in Briley's tibia.
There was no need for three doctors to be performing the minor diagnostic surgery, so Callie, who had sat this one out, had positioned herself by the head of the table. Though Briley was asleep, Callie held the girl's hand as her wife and friend operated.
About a half hour later, Arizona handed the two tumor samples off to a scrub nurse.
"Rush those results and bring them straight back," Arizona ordered as she nurse nodded.
Another team of nurses moved Briley to recovery, while the three doctors stripped off their gowns and gloves. Discarding their surgical masks as they began to scrub out, Callie and Arizona's minds began to wander elsewhere.
When they finished scrubbing, the surgeons waited in the scrub room for the nurse to return with the results. Arizona zoned out, as Callie mindlessly played with the silver heart pendant that constantly hung around her neck. Alex studied the two women, and he could clearly see that they seemed out of it and distracted. And from what Arizona had told him about their relationship with the girl, he could see why.
Moments later, the scrub room door opened and the nurse returned holding an envelope that contained the lab results from the biopsy. She handed she small envelope to Arizona before exiting the room.
"I can't read it. Alex, you do it," Arizona said, handing the paper to him.
Callie rested her hand on the small of Arizona's back, knowing that she needed support right now. Both women held their breath as Alex opened the envelope and read it's contents. His face remained stoic as he read, but he then glanced up at the two women waiting for the answer he held in his hands.
"It's Ewing Sarcoma," he sighed, revealing the extremely rare and invasive bone cancer that had invaded Briley's left leg.
"Damn it, damn it!" Callie closed her eyes and hung her head down.
Arizona began to cry again, unable to conceal her emotions. Callie hugged her closer.
So, we have a diagnosis. Poor Briley. :(
I hope you all liked this new chapter. I'm hoping I'll get the chance to update again before the holidays!
Please don't forget to leave me any and all thoughts you had on this chapter! I love to read them.
xoxo Arizona Robbins MD