Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from Grey's Anatomy. I just manipulate them to my will. Also, any line or phrase or setting that seems remotely familiar from any other show, movie or book, also not mine. I borrow…
Prompt: One-shot based in Arizona and Callie testimony at the trial (that probably gonna happen in 9.12). The description of those 4 days by both of them.
AN: I decided to alter the prompt a bit just to keep it from dragging on. But if there is enough demand, I'm open to writing a follow up. Enjoy!
One Side
The ticking of a clock.
The scratching of bugs.
The wailing of sirens.
The howling of wolves.
The darkness of the apartment.
The darkness of the wilderness.
In Arizona's mind it's all the same. She could just as easily be back sitting in the wrecked fuselage of the downed plane as opposed to sitting in eerily silent apartment she shares with her wife and daughter. Her heart beats so loud that it sounds like an African drum and a cool sweat breaks across her forehead. The smell of burnt chicken still hanging in the air tastes of jet fuel, and fringe of a pillow her fingers are playing with feels like human hair.
"Arizona, look at me. …Arizona, I need to see your leg. …Arizona, Mark is crashing again. You need to let him go."
"Arizona?"
Her mind snaps to the present and wide blue eyes flash to the woman standing ten feet in front of her. Even in the darkness she can see the look of unease in her wife's features, probably because she was standing there for a minute before Arizona even realized she wasn't alone anymore.
"Are you ok?" Callie asks softly.
"Yeah." Her wife replies, but her voice has that same emptiness Callie heard for months following the crash.
"It's two in the morning." The ortho surgeon says, "Why aren't you in bed?"
"Couldn't sleep." The blonde answers.
And her wife just nods. Sleep has been an elusive concept for the couple all week. The trial is underway and all week long they have had to sit in the courtroom and listen as expert after expert breaks down the crash. One side argues that it was the plane, its mechanical failures, that resulted in it being torn apart at 10,000 feet while the other blames the freak electrical storm. Pointing fingers and excuses. That's all it's been.
But today the victims take the stand. The survivors. …If they can be called that. Sure, they're breathing. But each and every one of them is scared in some way. Either physically, costing one a leg and another the chance of ever operating again, or emotionally, forcing grown adults to sleep with the light on and hyperventilate at the thought of ever getting on another plane again. And today they will be forced to bring it all back up, talk about those hellish four days that have changed their lives so permanently.
"You want to talk about it?" Callie asks. She wants to take the seat next to Arizona, place a hand on her wife's leg and provide her some sort of physical comfort, but she doesn't. Instead she sits in the arm chair next to her, facing the blonde, and seeks out clouded blue eyes.
"Talking is the last thing I want to do." Arizona answers in a ragged voice. How is she ever supposed to get over what happened when everyone is so intent on reliving it time after time after time. That's how Arizona deals with things. She locks it up in a tight little box then throws it into the deepest and darkest hole she can dig. The peds surgeon distances herself, pulls away, she bails when things get hard. But it's hard to run when the evidence of it all is strapped to the stump she now calls a leg.
They sit in silence, darkness consuming them until another flash of blue and red bounces around the apartment, the wail of an ambulance signaling another dying soul arriving at Seattle Grace Mercy West.
"I can't do this." The blonde finally says. "I can't. I can't get up there and talk about it, Callie. I can't, I won't. I won't do it."
"You have to, honey." Callie replies, taking a shaking hand in hers. "I'll be right there, Arizona. I know you're scared but you-"
"No, you don't know!" Arizona snaps. "You don't know what it was like. You don't know how Mark faded away in my lap. You don't know what it feels like for your bone to get slowly eaten away by bugs and bacteria. You don't know what it's like to think that you may never see your daughter again. You don't know."
Callie sits there and lets her wife rant, tears pooling in the corner of sad brown eyes. And when Arizona's words drift off into the night, she whispers, "Then tell me." Not once has her wife ever brought up those four days she spent out in the forest, fighting for her life. Their therapist said not to push it, so Callie hasn't. Their therapist said Arizona would open up to Callie when she felt comfortable enough to do so, but it hasn't happened. And she really doesn't want to hear the story for the first time while her wife is giving testimony, so now Callie is pushing.
"Tell me, Arizona. Talk to me. Tell me what it was like, let me understand." Callie pleads.
"You couldn't understand." The blonde sneers.
And then it clicks. Arizona doesn't believe Callie has the capacity to understand what she, what any of them went through out on that mountainside. And maybe she's right, maybe Callie can't imagine what it's like to hear the night's predators fight over the body of their dead friend, but she does know pain. And heart ached. She knows what it means to feel like all hope is lost.
"Our bench." Callie whispers, drawing blue eyes up to hers again.
"What?" Arizona asks in confusion.
"Our bench." Her wife says again, quickly flicking away an unshed tear. "That's where I was going to scatter your ashes. Our bench that looks over Seattle." She can tell this is not what Arizona was expecting, so Callie keeps going. "All those times we met for lunch there, all the talks we had. …All those times you stole a kiss from me. …It's where I fell in love you, Arizona. And that's the first place that came to mind when the police and rescue workers told us that we needed to prepare ourselves. That… even if they could find… the plane, that it was likely that you wouldn't be…"
She takes a second to wipe away the tears that are now falling, and then says, "You're right, Arizona. I don't know what it was like out there. …But you don't know what it was like here. Four days. …Four days, I thought you were gone. I didn't know if I still had a wife. I didn't know if Sofia still had her Mama, or her Dad. I didn't know. You knew that you were alive but I didn't!"
A sheen covers blue eyes as Arizona listens to her wife's pain and agony, pain Arizona never realized was still present. For months all they've focused on is her leg, the damn leg that nearly cost them their relationship. And Arizona never realized that something deeper was plaguing her wife all along.
"I didn't breathe for four days." Callie whispers. "I don't even remember day from night but I remember sitting with Owen at that conference table. Waiting. …Watching the phone. Just waiting for something. Anything. I sat there, praying to God, that you were alive because I couldn't lose you. Not yet, Arizona. I prayed that I wouldn't be the only one sending Sofia out on her first date, or watching her walk across the stage at graduation. And I prayed... Arizona, I prayed so hard that you would come home to me."
"And you did…" Callie sighs, reaching across and cupping a tear stained cheek of her wife's. "And I know you're hurt, honey. I know that, but you're not alone. I told you that I'm not going anywhere, no matter how hard you kick and scream, Arizona, I'm not leaving you. Not ever." Arizona's lips begin to quiver as Callie's words finally sink in, and the blonde can feel all her layers of protection being stripped away under her wife's touch.
"So whether you talk to me right now or I have to hear it all for the first time today in court, I'm here. I'm always going to be here. For you." Callie adds, her voice thick with tears and emotion. "Because I love you."
And that's when the dam break and tears fall unabashed from blue eyes. All her fears and locked away pains are brought to a head and Arizona lets it all go. She's pulled into the warm body of her wife as Callie comes to her side, wrapping strong, loving, protecting arms around the weeping woman. They've come so far since that moment when Alex Karev burst into the OR and told Callie that her wife was crashing. Months and months she spent torturing herself because of those three little words.
Cut if off.
It's still so fresh in her memory, but they've moved past it. Sometimes together, sometimes not. But they are working through the tragedy of that fateful flight, even if it means taking solace in the arms of each other.
"We'll make it through this, Arizona." Callie whispers. "I promise." And that's one promise she will keep.