"So you're just not going to tell us where you were last night," Amelia says as she sits down at the lunch table with Maggie and Meredith.
"I appreciate your help with the kids, but that doesn't mean I have to tell you everything," Meredith argues.
"You could have at least told us that you were seeing someone," Amelia retorts.
"She's not," Maggie jumps in, but then unsure she looks over at her sister, "Wait, are you?" She blurts out.
"If I were, it still wouldn't be any of your business," Meredith protests.
"Oh, yeah. She is definitely seeing someone," Amelia quips knowing it will piss off her former sister-in-law.
Meredith groans at them both as she tries not to watch Arizona making her way through the cafeteria.
"Hey Robbins!" Amelia calls out flagging down the Fetal Surgeon. "Join us," she offers.
"I would love to, but I have a consult in half an hour, rain check?" She asks smiling brightly at the three surgeons.
Amelia and Maggie return the smile and nod, but Meredith barely looks up and then back to her salad.
"I can't believe that she is still single, especially now that Callie's left," Amelia says watching the blonde walk away.
"You have a girlcrush on Robbins?" Meredith asks amused and slightly curious.
"Who doesn't?" Maggie gushes, earning her a shocked glance from her sister and an amused one from Amelia.
"Ha! All of us have a girlcrush on Robbins," Amelia replies laughing.
"Speak for yourselves. I don't have girl crushes," Meredith retorts.
"Then what do you call it, a friend crush?" Maggie questions.
Meredith groans again before picking up her phone and her tray. "I have a surgery to prep for," she says taking her stuff and leaving the table.
The brunette laughs watching Meredith flee from the conversation, then she turns to Maggie. "I didn't know that you had girl crushes, so tell me have you ever kissed a woman?" Amelia asks scooting over into Meredith's seat to be closer so they can talk quietly.
"H-having a girlcrush and kissing one are two different things," Maggie stammers nervously.
"O-ooh, you have though. Because you didn't deny it," Amelia challenges, her eyes twinkling with mischief.
"Maybe I have, but what about you? Have you kissed a girl?" Maggie pushes back, trying to match Amelia's teasing.
"I did. I did kiss a girl and I liked it," Amelia says laughing hard.
"Me too," Maggie confesses nervously laughing along with her.
Meredith is heading into the scrub room when she spots Arizona standing before the surgical board. Noticing that the surgeon has three procedures on the board, she stops. "How are you feeling?" She asks.
"Fine, it's just that I had two surgeries scheduled and now I have an emergency peds case that Bailey just added in, so I'm trying to prioritize the three of them," Arizona says with a frown.
"What's the peds case? Is it something that I could handle for you?" Meredith asks.
Arizona stops frowning at the board and turns to look at her, "You have a procedure in fifteen minutes," she reminds her.
"Yes, but it's not emergent, I could postpone it and take the peds case for you," she points out.
"It's a splenectomy, but it could get complicated, the patient was injured in a fall this morning and is being transferred in, I haven't even examined him yet," the blonde admits.
"I'm sure that I can handle it and if I need assistance, I'll page Owen," Meredith says confidently.
"If you're sure, that would be amazing. I really don't want to delay this fetal surgery again, it's getting to a critical point," the blonde replies.
"Then it's settled," Meredith says wiping the board and writing her name in as surgeon. "I'll notify the Chief and have it reassigned to me," she adds giving the blonde's arm a light squeeze.
Several hours later and Arizona is walking out of the recovery room after checking on both of her patients when she spots Meredith heading into the attendings lounge.
"Hey, how did it go?" She asks following her into the room.
"The splenectomy went fine, but his liver was damaged pretty badly. I'm hoping that it will look better in the morning, but he could lose it," Meredith replies frowning. "How did yours go?"
"Great, thanks to you," Arizona says brightly.
"I'm sure that it was all you," Meredith teases.
"Hey, since it looks like we are both working late tonight, do you want to go grab some dinner? I think I owe you for last night," Arizona suggests lightly.
"Only if we can leave the hospital, I hate eating two meals here," Meredith jokes.
"Joe's or the Thai place down the street?" Arizona asks.
"Thai place," Meredith answers quickly earning a smile from the blonde.
"I guess that we should get back and let our residents go home," Meredith sighs watching Arizona handing her card to the server.
"Yes, and remember that I'm buying next time," Meredith reminds the blonde, which earns her a flash of those dimples.
"Who says that there will be a next time?" The blonde teases.
"There will be," Meredith replies confidently, her blue eyes twinkling happily.
Arizona chuckles at that before asking, "How late are you staying tonight?"
"Just until midnight, I have Warren coming back in to do the overnight," Meredith admits with a yawn. "How about you?"
"I could have Wilson come back in, but I need her fresh tomorrow to help cover peds, so I think that I'm just going to stay," Arizona answers.
"You're too nice to your residents, you know that right?" Meredith teases.
"Hey, Wilson is doing an amazing job, she's covering two specialities," Arizona points out. "In fact, I'm thinking of asking her to apply for the Fetal Medicine fellowship."
"Wilson? You really think she's cut out for Fetal Medicine?" Meredith questions.
"I do and I am an excellent judge of residents," Arizona counters.
"True, you turned Alex into a Pediatric Surgeon and none of us could have predicted that," Meredith replies as the server returns with the tab and Arizona's card.
Returning to the hospital, they head upstairs to check on their patients. Arizona accompanies Meredith to the peds floor, since she's the Chief of Peds and she's staying the night, she wants to make sure that she's up to speed on the patient. Afterward, Meredith heads down to check on her other patients leaving Arizona to do the same.
Arizona is sitting on her small sofa still charting a few hours later when there's a soft knock at her door.
"Come in," she calls out.
"Hey, shouldn't you be sleeping now," Meredith chides her lightly as she enters the office.
"Almost done, just finishing up with the surgical plans for tomorrow. Wilson had some questions and they were good ones, so I modified the plans," Arizona admits before yawning and making room for the other woman to sit beside her.
Meredith lays her lab coat over the chair before she moves to sit down.
"I thought that you would be heading home by now," Arizona says curiously.
Meredith pauses slightly and Arizona looks over at her questioningly.
"I-I wanted to talk," Meredith suggests anxiously.
"Okay, about what?" Arizona asks closing her laptop and setting it on the table beside her.
"About us, the kiss and last night," Meredith confesses rapidly.
"Last night?" Arizona questions because she doesn't remember much after they ate and she took the pain pill.
"Yeah, when we were sleeping, you sort of rolled over and cuddled up to me and I..." Meredith gulps now, trying to think of how to describe it.
"Oh," Arizona says unsure of what to do or say. "Well, I'm sorry."
"No, I-I didn't mind and it's not your fault," Meredith replies hesitantly.
Arizona closes her eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath.
Fearing the worst response, Meredith begins to worry and stands up abruptly. "Uh Arizona," she says anxiously, "I'm going to... I should probably go," she stammers quickly before heading towards the door.
The blonde's eye shoot open and she calls out. "Meredith, how can we talk about this, if you leave?"
"I-I wasn't sure that you wanted to talk about it," Meredith replies turning around with one hand on the door.
"Look, I just, sometimes, I just need a moment to think. And this is one of those times," Arizona exclaims softly punctuating her words with a small smile.
"Oh," Meredith says relaxing a little and coming back over to the couch to sit down. Taking a few breaths to calm herself down.
"I guess that I need to understand what you're feeling, because, and don't take this the wrong way, straight women do this all the time to lesbians. They have these crushes but they're not really crushes, they're just curious," Arizona explains carefully turning to face her.
"I'm not straight," Meredith scoffs angrily before turning to face the blonde. "And this isn't a crush," she adds leaning in.
"Y-you're not?" Arizona stammers nervously licking her lips.
"No," Meredith says, "And I don't think that I am alone in this," she adds, biting her lip anxiously.
Arizona stares at her for a solid minute trying to process what is happening, just as she's about to respond, their phones come to life.
Meredith jumps up and grabs her lab coat and pulls her phone out of the pocket. "This is Dr Grey," she says reaching over and grabbing Arizona's phone off her desk and handing it to her.
"Dr Robbins," she says answering her own phone.
Ending the call, Meredith turns around to see the blonde looking over the labs on her laptop.
"How bad are they?" She asks leaning in to look at the reports.
"Not good, his liver functions are deteriorating, if we can't stabilize them, he is going to lose that liver and possibly go into multiple organ failure," Arizona points out.
"Dr Grey, respectfully, I can handle this. You scheduled me in tonight because you know that," Warren argues carefully, frustrated that he came in for this exact reason and now Grey isn't going to leave, so he could still be home in bed with his wife, but he can't say that to her.
"Dr Grey, may I have a word with you?" Arizona says motioning for Warren to leave the room.
"Arizona, I'm here and he's my patient," Meredith states strongly.
"Yes, but you have a full board tomorrow and you need to get some sleep tonight. Now you scheduled Dr Warren to cover your patients tonight, so he and I will handle this; there is no reason for all of us to monitor this one case." Arizona counters sweetly but firmly.
"I'm not leaving the hospital," Meredith replies crossing her arms.
"Fine, but get some sleep because no one is going to page you tonight," Arizona says mimicking her by crossing her own arms.
"Fine," Meredith says with an annoyed and slightly angry, even though she knows that the blonde is right.
Dr Warren watches her leave before heading back into talk to Robbins. "Wow," he mutters, surprised that Grey gave up that easily.
"Let's go over these labs, Dr Warren. I need to make sure that you know what to watch for," Arizona says setting the tablet on the table between them.
An hour later and she has rounded on all of her patients again, instructing the staff to page her and letting them know that she'll be in her office resting for a few hours.
Yawning, she opens the door and then jumps when she realizes that Meredith is sleeping on her office couch.
Arizona closes the office door carefully, quietly making her way over to her ensuite slipping in quietly she closes the door. As she brushes her teeth, she tries not to think about her earlier conversation with Meredith. It will only keep her awake and she desperately needs sleep right now. Slipping her scrub top off and replacing it with a long sleeve t-shirt, before slipping off the bottoms and removing her prosthetic. She hates sleeping with the socket on, but it's necessary since she could get paged at any moment and she can't perform surgery on crutches. Laying down, she closes her eyes and focuses on her breathing until she finally drifts off.
A phone ringing in the distance wakes up the surgeon on the couch. She reaches for her phone to check it. It's 4:45 am and she has no messages. She hears a soft voice talking from somewhere nearby, she sits up and immediately regrets sleeping on this couch as she's hit with a small back spasm. Closing her eyes, she begins to stretch her arms and loll her neck to get the kinks out, when she realizes that she can hear water running in the ensuite.
A few minutes later and Arizona emerges from the ensuite, freshly scrubbed face, still adjusting her ponytail.
"Hey," she says realizing that Meredith is awake. "Sorry, I forgot to put my phone on vibrate, I'm not used to anyone sleeping out here."
"I bet, this couch is not comfortable," Meredith replies.
"You should have gone to an on-call room," Arizona points out.
"All the on-call rooms on this floor have parents in them," Meredith counters.
"Yeah, well you didn't have to stay on this floor and don't you have a couch in your office?" Arizona reminds her.
"It's as bad as this one," Meredith confesses. "I should have negotiated for a private suite like yours," she laments as she stands up and reaches for her lab coat. "Was that about James?" She asks nodding towards the phone in the blonde's hand.
"No, it's another case. James is stable, his labs haven't changed," she informs her.
"Oh," Meredith says disappointed. "I could go get coffee for us," she adds.
"Look, I know that we still need to talk, but not here. Not at the hospital, maybe we can figure out something later this week," Arizona suggests as she switches out the battery in her phone with the spare from the charger on her desk. "I need to go," she adds apologetically.