Disclaimer: I don't own Grey's Anatomy, I just borrowed the name of the characters for entertaining, no intention to violate any copyrights.
A/N : Whoa, thank you all. I had fun writing the previous chapter, and I am glad that you like it as well.
Okay, what's going to happen next you're asking? Shooting? I have already written something like that in another story. Callie sleeping with Mark? Nah, I will never forgive Callie for sleeping with Mark when she was the one to break things off. Arizona had a drunken hookup and got pregnant? Ewww…!
You're not gonna believe where I'm going ;-) Drama, guys.
calzonaforever35 darling, thank you for your work. You are the best.
Chapter 65
"Who sent you? Mark?" Callie brought her hand above her eyes shielding the sunshine. A small smile on her face seeing the big man get out of the car, trying to balance all the bags in one hand while the other holding a paper tray with 2 cups on it.
"And Maddy. She heard that you're camping in the woods, she wants to come along, but you know, school day. She insisted that I had to bring you some food." Carefully placing the bags on the ground, Joe replaced the beer can in the brunette's hand with a cup of coffee. "A little too early for that, don't you think?"
"We're bartenders, since when are you against people drinking beer?" Callie teased the man, who gave her a glance in return.
"Since it's 10 in the morning. Pubs open in the late afternoons for a reason, you know? Besides, I am a bartender, you're a doctor."
"Didn't Mark tell you that I quit?" The brunette took a sip of the coffee. It was good to have something other than alcohol in her system for a change.
"Yeah." Joe answered casually. He passed a sandwich wrapper to his friend then looked around the empty bottles and cans around the deck. "Jeez, you drank all these?"
"Cristina and Meredith stopped by last night." Callie peeked inside the sandwich then put it down. She had no appetite at all.
"The twisted sisters were here? No wonder." The man went into the trailer looking for a garbage bag.
Yep, the twisted sisters were there, as well as their other halves, but not at the same time. Apparently, Mark used his strings to get his guy friends to stop by the trailer on different shifts to keep the distressed woman company. Owen came by talking about the tragic lost of lives under his watch in Iraq, and Derek shared the heart wrenching stories of the death of his terminally ill patients. Callie just nodded, listened, and drank. The men meant well but to the brunette, hearing the experienced surgeons talking about their losses didn't do anything to ease her guilt of taking someone's life.
The women were more practical. They arrived with a taxi. Each of them holding a handful of supplies and without any words, they started to toast to the genius who discovered alcohol until Owen came by in the middle of the night, hauled the two barely conscious drunken women into his pickup truck back to the city.
"You really should eat something." Joe sat down by the table after cleaning up the deck. According to the empty bottles, it seems you drank quite a lot. You're a doctor. You know it's not good for your stomach."
"I didn't drink that much. It was Cristina." Callie picked up the sandwich loathly, and took a bite making a face. "Besides, stop calling me a doctor."
"Callie..." Joe opened his mouth, but a look from the pleading brown eyes, he swallowed the words that Callie might have heard a hundreds times in the last 2 days. Instead, he asked, "So, where to this time?"
"Where to... what?" Callie looked at him confused.
"Your escape place. Which city are you planning to flee to this time? Maybe another continent?" Joe jokingly shrugged a shoulder, brought a knowing smile on the tanned face.
"Sounds good." The brunette took a sip of coffee, considering it for a moment. "Maybe Russia. I heard they have vodka for breakfast."
"Yeah, they do. Just tell me when, give me a week to pack up everything." The man smiled when his friend looked back even more confused. "You don't think I'll let you go without me, do you? But Russia? Gays are not welcome there, remember? We may go to jail. Walter won't survive in there."
Joe broke out to a belly laugh, thinking about his almost effeminate lover in jail with a bunch of mountainous figure Russian criminals.
"He won't." Callie laughed along, but in the meantime, she gazed into her brotherly friend seriously. "But hey, even if I'm leaving, I wouldn't ask you to go with me. You have a daughter, she needs stability."
The big man placed his hand on the table with palm up, and Callie grasped it tightly. They remained silent, and Joe pondered her words.
"You said if. You haven't thought about leaving yet, have you?" He asked, and Callie shook her head slowly. "Because of Arizona?"
"I... I don't know. I just... I don't know." The brunette sighed, looked into the open space before them. "Mark told you I threw the ring into the woods?"
"It's Mark, of course he did." The strong man squeezed the hand of his friend's. "Do you mean it? Breaking up with her? You two love each other so..."
"Sometimes love just isn't enough, Joe. I don't think I can forgive her breaking the promises over and over again." Callie rose up from the chair, stepped out on the deck and took a deep breath of fresh air. "And I don't think she'll forgive me for throwing away the ring."
"So that is? A little hiccup in your relationship and you're ready to give it up?" Frowning shaggy eyebrows followeded the brunette. "Who are you?"
"I am the one who would leave everything behind and disappear overnight, twice, remember?" The brunette threw a bitter smile over her shoulder. She bent down to pick up a beer can that was tossed there during the drinking party with the twisted sisters.
"Yeah, you went away from your parents and George, but not the woman you loved." Joe shook his head. "You didn't walk away from Malena, she left you and you were devastated."
Mentioning the deceased woman got him a startled look from Callie.
"We're not talking about her." Callie bit her lips to a tight frown, walking back to the deck and dropping the can in the garbage bag.
"Yes, we are." Joe tugged the hem of Callie's shirt and gestured her to sit down again. "You told me, if you could, you would never let her go. You didn't know why Malena left you, but you said you'd give everything you have for her to come back to you because the pain of losing the love of your life was just... unbearable."
"I was drunk." The brunette wriggled her well shaped eyebrows sarcastically, fidgeting with the lid of the coffee cup trying to down play her emotions. But Joe knew her too well.
"Drunken mind speaks a sober heart, Callie." Joe pulled his chair to sit closer the brunette, took the cup from her and grasped the empty hands tightly. "The talk with you made me and Walter get back together because you were right. I don't want to regret it in a month, or a year that I didn't fight for him."
"You guys figured it out." Brown eyes dropped to the linked hands. There was a tremble in her voice. "How to make the peace of it."
"Why can't you?" Joe ducked his head to look into the moisten eyes. "You know how it feels losing the person you loved. And I know that you love Arizona not any less than you loved Malena, maybe even more. You are ready to spend the rest of you life with her, and now you're going to let her go?"
"Joe, you don't get it. It's not me letting her go. She was gone." Callie tried her best to smile, but it didn't match her watery eyes. "Do you know how it felt to wait in a room hoping she'd be there for me? Hoping she'd know I matter too?"
"People make mistakes, Callie. Forgiveness is important, everyone deserves a second chance. And a third. And a forth. Chances to make things right. Love is an act of endless forgiveness. You need to forgive her, Callie." The man pulled the brunette in his arms, wrapped around the quivering body tightly when Callie broke down, sobbing in his embrace. "Forgive her for choosing the sick old lady over you. Forgive her for not knowing you needed her. And most importantly, you need to forgive yourself. It's not entirely your fault that a patient died. It's your second year of residency. It's not solely your responsibility."
"Joe... I just... I don't think I'm ready to forgive..." Callie said between whimpers. Joe held her even tighter and placed a kiss on top of her head.
"I know, I know." The man sighed.
"You were unfocused in there. That was a procedure you had preformed twice, Robbins." Herman turned to scold at her fellow as soon as the door of the attending's lounge closed behind them. "I know you are worried about your aunt. But when you were in the OR, when you had the body opened before you, you should not let your personal problem affect your work!"
Arizona stood before the tall surgeon, head down and hands behind her back, unable to come up with any words to defend herself. How could she? She hesitated while inserting a needle into the patient's belly during the percutaneous procedure, which to Dr. Herman, it was a sign of unfocused and unconfident and unacceptable.
"You embarrassed me today. I handpicked you. I thought you had something. I thought you were special. But all in a sudden you're like... back to the beginning, unprepared!" Herman was on fire, but her reprimand stopped to a halt when the door opened, Bailey appeared on the other side of the room.
The short surgeon looked between the two curiously but said nothing. She entered the room and walked straight to the fridge for her lunch.
"I don't know what kind of demons you have, but I'm telling you, the board exam is close. If you don't catch up, if you don't pull your head out of it, you're out." Herman threw down the last few words and then headed out of the door, leaving the fellow in the lounge contemplating her action.
"Are you alright?" Bailey asked with concern, pulling the blonde out of her haze.
"I'm... fine." Arizona smiled reluctantly, flopping down on the couch joining the other surgeon.
"How is your aunt?" Bailey said between chewing her salad.
"She... uh... still hasn't woken up yet." Fair hands rubbed her face with frustration. Ruthie's surgery was 2 days ago. According to Amelia, it went well and they were able to resect the whole tumor successfully. They had run every test but the old woman was still in a coma.
"And Torres?" Bailey asked again, watching her colleague quietly.
"I don't know." Arizona sighed in her hands.
"That poor girl, she took it pretty hard, huh?" The general surgeon shook her head, saying the obviousness.
"Yeah." The blonde dropped her hands and leaned back against the couch irritatingly. She liked Bailey, but she just didn't have the energy to talk about the woman who just broke off their engagement. But the general surgeon didn't take the hint.
"Her first lost. But it wasn't her fault, you know?" Bailey said casually while taking another bite of her lunch.
"I kept telling her it was a mistake, a mistake that would happen to..." Arizona rolled her eyes to the ceiling. Of course she knew and of course she had tried to tell Callie that, but nothing could pass through that thick, drunken head...
"No, I mean, it really wasn't her fault." Bailey cut her off quickly. Putting the salad aside, she continued. "The chief checked the log. The patient arrived in the ER after falling down the stairs. They had an X-ray in there found out that the patient burst his hip so Chang arranged the surgery. Before they sent the man to the OR, an intern took the patient for a scan and forgot to pick up the result. Turned out the man had a tear in the pancreas but the ortho team didn't know it. Not until the patient bled to death in the room."
"Oh my god! How could that happen?" Arizona gasped. Not because it caused the melt down of her fiancée... Former fiancée, it was a mistake that shouldn't be happening in a hospital.
"Well, some people just aren't cut out to be a surgeon. You'd have thought that after failing the first time, people would learn from it." The short surgeon shrugged a shoulder. "It was that repeater, Murphy who forgot to pick up the scan for Chang. Not that I'm against the board giving her another try, just... it seems that girl doesn't have her heart in the right place."
"What is the chief going to do now? Is he going to sack her?" The blonde's eyes followed her colleague as the short woman stood up and walked toward the coffee pot.
"I don't know. We're facing a law suit so the chief is dealing with it." Bailey said over her shoulder while pouring the hot beverage into two cups. "And he hasn't sent the letter to the American board of surgery declaring Torres' resignation yet. He's hoping she'll come back."
"I really don't know if she'll come back. For all I know, she's probably half way across the country by now." Arizona laughed out dryly.
"Well, according to Grey, she's still at the trailer." Bailey handed over one of the cups, and the blonde accepted it with a surprised smile.
"Yeah?"
"Grey and Yang were there last night. I heard that the bartender... Joe is with her this morning." Of course she knew. Dr. Bailey knew everything. "And Sloan asked me to stop by the trailer tonight. You're really not going to talk to her?"
"She doesn't want to see me." Arizona clenched her jaws, avoiding the questioning gaze coming from Bailey.
"Seriously? You're just gonna give up?"
"It's not up to me, Bailey. She's the one who shut the door in my face. What am I gonna do?" Throwing a glance to her colleague, Arizona put down the cup with a bitter smile. "I can't keep apologizing for wanting to take care of Ruthie. And it was not my fault that I was in a surgery and didn't know she needed me."
"Robbins..."
"Really, I just... Ugh! And now she's quitting. After all the trouble we went through, she got into the residency program and then after one mistake, she's just going to walk away." Running her hands through the golden locks, Arizona shot up from the couch about to leave the room. "I have nothing to say to her."
"Do you know Torres locked more ER hours than any other residents?" Bailey's words made the blonde stop in her tracks. "Probably because you had your hands full that she had time to spare, but also, probably because she cares about this job. She was always there in the gallery observing surgeries even though she wasn't on-call. She's mad at herself for working so hard, yet a patient died under her watch."
"And she's taking this out on me." Arizona threw a hand in the air furiously.
"Relationships are hard, Robbins. And you're lousy with relationships." Bailey said with a smirk that made the blonde frown.
"Excuse me?"
"Remember years ago, we had that talk about you and those nameless nurses you went out with?" The general surgeon patted the couch gesturing for her colleague to sit down, but the blonde just folded her arms as a closed defensive shield and leaned against the wall. Bailey continued with a small smile. "You hooked up with them, had your fun and then when they got too clingy or demanded too much, you dropped them like yesterdays newspaper."
"Your point being?" Arizona chewed her lips annoyingly. Those were a lifetime ago and she didn't want to be reminded.
"You avoided trouble because you didn't like to deal with it. But with Torres, you never flinch. She has the most complicated life as far as I know. Ex-husband came to town; all the troubles with her parents... you never left her, not once because you know she's worth it." Bailey's tone softened, and she could see the blonde's posture soften as well. "You love that woman, Robbins. You know you two are meant for each other."
"Maybe we aren't." Arizona dropped her gaze and sighed heavily. Not that she didn't think they were meant to be together, but after that fight, she just didn't know if things would go back to the way they were.
"Don't say that." Bailey said firmly. "Just tell me, if you knew Torres was waiting for you in that on-call room, would you have put the scalpel down and run to her?"
"I... I don't know." Once again, Arizona threw her hands in the air. Frustration seemed to be her emotion of the day today. "You know what? If she really wanted me there, she should have sent someone looking for me if I didn't answer her page."
"Actually, she did. Yang sent Murphy to find you." The short surgeon lowered her voice. "You know me, I'd care less about the drama running in the hospital. Just, Edwards told me that they went to the waiting room but she didn't know what that was about. Anyway, they looked and couldn't find you there, then Murphy just turned around."
"She didn't check..." The blonde trailed off.
"She just turned around." Bailey shook her head. "Robbins, everyone knows that girl has been jealous of Torres since day one. She thinks Torres got all the good cases because of you. And she thinks Torres passed the intern test with flying colors because she's friends with everyone in this hospital."
"That is... not true." Arizona stared at her colleague with wide eyes. And Bailey added.
"Don't tell anyone yet. The chief is investing the incident, questioning the interns and residents about that. There's a chance that Murphy didn't pick up the scan on purpose because Torres was on that case."
"Jesus..." The blonde flopped down on the couch again, not knowing what else to say.
"So tell me, would you just drop everything and run to her side?" The general surgeon turned to her friend.
"I... I don't know." Rubbing her temples with a hand, Arizona answered honestly.
"Yes, you know, Robbins." Bailey leaned closer to her friend, saying from her heart. "We are surgeons. We are trained to deal with the immediate damages first. In the mist of craziness, we control the source of hemorrhage but we never ignore the heart. We stop everything else when the heart is in jeopardy. Torres is your heart."
"And she crushed it." Arizona snorted bitterly.
"Because she doesn't get it yet." The short woman said without missing a beat. "And you don't get it yet."
"Get what?"
"The deeper you love, the harder it is going to hurt. She is angry, and hurt. And so are you." Bailey said with tenderness in her voice. "As I said, relationships are hard. But if it's worth it, you work harder. You don't just throw away the love you have with each other just because your feelings are hurt."
"But... I don't know what to do, Bailey." Arizona dropped her head in her hands, saying desperately. "You weren't there, she was... she wouldn't listen to anything I said."
"You keep talking to her until she listens. Eventually, she will listen to you because you are her heart too. A blind person can see how much you two love each other. Don't just..." Bailey was interrupted when the blonde's phone going off suddenly.
"I am sorry, I have to take this..." Arizona looked at her phone. It was an unknown number from LA. Putting the phone to her ear uncertainly, she answered it. "Hello...? Addison?"
A series of loud banging on the door startled Callie from her alcohol induced slumber. Fumbling to the door, she thought there must be another one that Mark sent to keep her company. But instead, there was that pair of blue eyes that she loved and missed. A small smile crept on her face but quickly, she pulled her lips to a frown suppressing it.
"What are you doing here?"
"You need to go to the hospital." Arizona said sternly.
"No Arizona, I told you that I am not..." The brunette answered as sternly. Arizona cut her off.
"It's Ana. She's on her way to Seattle Grace."
A/N 2 : Yea, remember Ana?