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…
AN: This is a follow up to 'One Side'. Read that one before reading this one. Enjoy!
The Other Side
It's raining again. It always rains in Seattle. Arizona used to think it was calming, soothing. That it brought the greenest of green grass and the brightest of bright flowers to life. The sound of it plinking against the windows of their apartment was often the only thing heard besides the deep breathing of her and her girlfriend, her fiancé, her wife sleeping peacefully. But now all Arizona can hear is laughing when the gentle drops smack against their car's windshield.
"We're here." Callie announces as she shifts the car into park just outside the courthouse. It feels like there is a vice around her chest at the thought of what she will be hearing today. Testimony from not only her friends, but the woman who slipped the silver band onto her finger years ago, detailing the horror of those four lost days up in the mountains of the great North West.
She unbuckles her seatbelt and reaches for the door handle, but stops when Arizona whispers, "It never rained up there."
The ortho surgeon freezes, her eyes darting back to her still unmoving wife, and waits. Just this morning it seemed like they made some progress, but even though Callie finally told Arizona what it was like for her during those days when she didn't know whether the blonde was alive or dead, Arizona never opened up in return. They cried, and they hugged. And then, when the hours seemed to slip away from them, they spent the morning with their beautiful daughter, but they never talked again.
"You'd think that it'd rain on a mountain but it didn't." Arizona says, laughing to herself at the absurdity of it. "It didn't rain." Callie remains frozen, afraid that just the slightest of moves would somehow jolt her wife from this little rift that seems to have appeared, so she just sits and listens.
"Cristina… she was supposed to find the water but all she could talk about was finding her damn shoe. And Meredith was… All I could do was sit there." A voice, seemingly a thousand miles away, spills from parted pink lips and Arizona barely recognizes as her own. "Tim used to be a boy scout, he knew how to build fires and find water. …But all I could do was sit there with my bone sticking out of my leg." Her hand drifts to her leg and the feeling of cold, hard plastic beneath her pants does little to block the memory of that pain.
"And at night, it got so dark. …I've never experienced darkness like that. When you were little, would you lie awake at night, scared because your eyes would play tricks on you?" She asks, her gaze never leaving the windshield where drop after drop of rain beads down the glass.
"Yeah." Callie whispers.
"That's what it was like." Arizona says. "Only… it wasn't my imagination. Because there really were monsters out there. I kept telling Mark that it was going to be ok, that we'd make it but I knew that he knew I was just saying it for me. I was scared… but he wasn't. He was ready to go but I just… I couldn't let him. I pleaded with him to hang on because I couldn't go home and tell our daughter that her daddy wasn't here anymore."
A tear leaks for sad brown eyes as Callie listens to her wife describe her best friend's struggle. When that phone finally rang and Callie received word that both of her loved one's had survived, she dropped to her knees and thanked God. Prepare yourself, the man said. Prepare for the worst. For days and days that's all Callie could hear. Her mind brought up memories of that day when the plane crashed in Seattle and the hospital cleared its emergency room. …They waited. For hours. And hours. Each second ticking by meant less hope that anyone had survived. Hundreds of lives were lost from that plane crash, save for one. So what were the chances of Arizona and Mark walking out of their plane crash alive?
But then it happened. She got that phone call that told her that her wife was alive, and her best friend was barely hanging on. She spent four days trying to figure out how to make it without them and now they were back. Arizona was alive, her wife, the woman she loved. And Mark, her best friend, her daughter's father. They were alive. …For now.
"I thought about you, you know." Arizona whispers, pulling Callie back to the present. "When I got so cold it felt like my bones were made of ice… I thought about you. About us. I thought about all the things I never got to tell you, all the trips I ever wanted to take with you and how I dreamed of our life together in the future. …And I thought about Sofia." A strangled cry rattles around her throat and Arizona tries to swallow the emotions that seem to be overtaking her.
"When Cristina had to tend to my leg, flush the bugs and the dirt from it… I thought about her to try and forget the pain." The blonde continues, her voice thick and rough. "I remembered all those nights I spent watching her in the NICU, telling her how strong she was. …How brave. I tried to be half as brave as her, because I wanted to see her grow up. I told Mark that when we got out of there that we'd take her to Disney World, get her a pair of those mouse ears, you know? And I think we should do that."
"Yeah, yeah we can do that." Callie says with a small smile.
"Do you… do you ever wish that…" Arizona starts, her eyes slowly closing as her hand clenches the flesh just above her prosthesis.
"Wish what?" Her wife asks softly.
Blue eyes finally look away from the windshield and find brown staring back at her. "That it was the other way around? …That it was Mark here and I-"
"Don't." Callie cuts her off, her voice sharp as steel which makes the blonde flinch. "Arizona, don't you even think that. I know you feel guilty but don't you dare ask me that. Yes, I loved Mark. He was my best friend. …But you are my wife. You're the one who I want to spend my life with. You're the one that I go to sleep dreaming about and wake up thinking about. You're the one Sofia calls out for in the middle of the night."
She reaches across the council and finds a death grip on her wife's hand, and she says, "I don't know what all happened out on that mountain, and I probably never will know. And I know that you still harbor some anger towards me because of your leg. And I know that you feel guilty that you're still here when Mark isn't. But I want you to listen to me, and listen real good. …There is no one, no one, that I need in my life more than you. You and Sofia, that's it. So, no. I don't wish it was the other way around, I don't wish that I had let Karev try to save your leg, and I don't wish that Owen would have given me the go ahead sooner because any one of those things could have meant that I'd lost the love of my life. …And I couldn't survive that." She takes the hand held between her own and places it against her chest, letting her wife feel how strongly her heart is beating.
"You're right here, honey. Right there, in my heart. Somehow, when I swore I was done with men and women… somehow you burrowed your way in. And you never left." They share a smile, and when a tear cascades from Arizona's eye Callie wipes it away before pulling her wife in for an awkward hug across the center console. It's not what she thought she'd hear, and Callie is sure she will hear many more details in court today, but Arizona finally opened up about her struggle out in the wild for those four days.
They part when they hear the sound of another car's doors closing, and both women look over to find the sullen looking couple of Meredith and Derek. No one is looking forward to today, and the expression on their friend's faces mirrors the agony churning within both Callie's and Arizona's. Cristina and Owen show up not too long after and only exchange a small wave before marching through the rain and into the stone walled building before them.
Placing the softest of kisses on Arizona's cheek, Callie pulls away and asks, "Are you ready to go?"
Blue eyes fall back to the windshield, looking past the racing drops of rain, and stares up at the imposing structure. In there is where everything will be forced out of them, in there is when no secrets will be kept. In there her darkest nightmares and most private thoughts will be said for a jury of her peers to hear. In there is where someone will weigh the price of life, and pain, and injury, and scarring. And in there, Arizona will be forced to relive it all over again.
"Not yet." Arizona replies in a whisper. "Just give me a few more minutes." She pleads.
And Callie takes her wife's hand, giving it a comforting squeeze, and says, "As long as you need, sweetie."