Title: Aftermath

Author: Danielle

Summary: post 7:18, post accident

Disclaimer: only the story is mine, the characters belong to Shonda and ABC.

1 month after the accident

Arizona's POV

It's been a life changing month, we had the accident, our daughter was born, we got engaged and so much more. Thankfully Callie has been regaining the function of her body slowly but its happening. She's been using a walker to walk from one end of the PT room to the other. Just a week ago she was only taking a few steps with the walker but since then she has made leaps and bounds with her mobility. I can tell that she is getting frustrated and I don't blame her at all. I am sure that not being able to walk without help or not being able to lift anything is incredibly frustrating.

Callie's POV

I've been going down to the NICU every day after breakfast and also before my afternoon PT session. Sofia is amazing, she's not having as many apnea spells and she's keeping her eyes open for longer periods of time. But I am so pissed because even though I am able to walk from one side of the PT room to the other side I am still not strong enough to hold my baby. Arizona's held her, Mark has held her and I can't even hold my own baby. There's nothing more frustrating then watching the other two parents of your baby holding her and loving her while all you can do is touch her, hold her hand and stroke her skin. I just want to hold my baby, is that not too much to ask?

5 weeks after the accident

Arizona's POV

Not a good day. Mark and I were talking in the NICU to Stark and were informed that Sofia needed surgery to close her PDA, because of her early delivery her ductus arteriosus never closed and it's now causing problems in her heart's functioning. She needed surgery sooner rather than later and none of the surgeons that I would have chosen to do her surgery were available. Stark had to do it.

We were discussing the surgery then I about killed the man while we were talking because he said "although you aren't technically related to the baby". My heart broke and I was incensed with anger and I almost went all playground Arizona on his ass, how dare he? Mark even looked like he was going to knock out the man; we've come a long way since the 'you are nothing' speech, but he too restrained himself. Then Stark surprised the hell out of me and said the hospital would have no ethical issue with me being in the OR while he performed the surgery. He was giving me permission to be in the room while my little Sofia was being operated on. I almost kissed the man. He was right though, I could only be in the room because biology says Sofia isn't mine but there that ass Stark was acknowledging Sofia was mine.

So then I had to go tell Calliope about the PDA surgery and I found her walking in the hall pushing Cristina and Meredith on a stretcher through the hall. I almost killed her, we had just had the conversation about PT not being boot camp and here she was pushing two adult women through the halls of Seattle Grace. The look on her face when I told her about the surgery was one that I couldn't distinguish, then she clutched her stomach and when she brought her hand away from her stomach it was covered in blood. I moved closer to her and thank God that I did because she passed out and I caught her, barely caught her but I did.

Now Sofia needed surgery and Calliope needed surgery. God I love that woman but she's been pushing herself so hard, so hard that she had caused an abdominal wound dehiscence with a small evisceration. A setback in her recovery that is going to really upset her once she wakes up from the anesthesia from the surgery.

Bailey allowed Mark in Calliope's surgery and at the same time I was in with Stark for Sofia's PDA ligation. It was not a good day for the Torres family.

Both Bailey and Stark allowed Mark and me to be on the phone with each other during the surgeries and we were keeping the other informed about what was going on in the other room. Mark was telling me that Callie was doing good with no leaks, no bleeders and no sepsis, then the unthinkable happened. Sofia's monitor started alarming; the PDA ripped. I hung up on Mark, ran out of the OR and ripped my mask off my face because I was hyperventilating. I couldn't be in the room when my daughter died and not be able to do anything about it. Mark came running up to me asking what happened and when I didn't answer he lifted his mask back up over his face and walked into the OR disregarding the rules about family members being in the OR. Less than a minute later he came out and said "You need to be in here". So I put my mask back over my face and went back into the OR afraid of what I was going to find once I walked in there. But she was fine, Stark fixed the ripped PDA and she was fine. Both of my girls were fine.

Callie's POV

I opened my eyes not too unlike when I did five weeks ago, I was in the ICU and Arizona was lying with her head resting on my bed. The last thing I remembered was Arizona telling me Sofia needed surgery but here I was with what appeared to be new dressings on my abdomen.

I brought my hand up and stroked my angel's hair; she looked up with sleep clouding her eyes and smiled at me, "Calliope you woke up."

I couldn't really talk because for some reason my throat was feeling weird.

"Here let me get you some water." She reached over to the bedside table and grabbed the cup of ice water that was sitting on it. "Drink this."

I drank a little of the water until my throat didn't feel so bad and spoke "what happened?"

"Calliope, you had an abdominal wound dehiscence with a small evisceration that Bailey and Cristina had to take you back into the OR for and fix."

"Oh"

"Yeah, oh. You really scared me Callie."

"I'm fine" at least I think that I am.

"You passed out on me, I almost dropped you by the way so next time you are going to pass out please warn me first," she said with a slight smile "and you really scared me, one minute I am telling you about Sofia and the next I am holding you up from falling on the ground."

Then it came back to me, Sofia had needed surgery to close her PDA. "How is she?"

"She's fine, fine." Something about the way she said that had me questioning her answer but I wasn't going to push it.

But I did need to know what was going on with my daughter so I did ask, "What happened?"

I could tell that Arizona didn't want to answer but she did anyway, "The surgery was doing well but then the PDA ripped."

"What!" I just about yelled.

"Calliope calm down, she's fine. I watched Stark and April repair it, they did and Sofia is now back in the NICU. I left there an hour ago and she was still vented but should be weaning off of that soon."

"What do you mean you watched Stark and April repair it?"

"Stark let me in the OR for the surgery and except for the PDA ripping it was flawless. He did a very good job."

"He let you in the OR? For your own daughter's surgery? I thought that that was against the rules."

"Apparently because I am not a biological parent the rule could be overlooked by the hospital."

"But you are Sofia's parent."

"But not biologically or legally." She said with a really sad face.

"Biologically or legally it doesn't matter, you are as much a parent of Sofia's as Mark or I am. Let no one tell you otherwise, okay Arizona."

"I know, I know and when Stark said "although you aren't technically related to the baby" I wanted to punch him in the face, but he still recognized my connection with Sofia and allowed me in the OR to watch. He didn't have to do that at all." It was at that point that Arizona's phone beeped. "I better check that, it might be Mark."

Arizona looked down at her phone that looked me in the face and smiled, "It's Mark, he just wanted to say she's off the vent now and back to breathing on her own."

"You should go there and check on her."

"No I'm fine here with you, Mark's there."

"Arizona, nothing against Mark but I'd rather have Sofia's pediatric surgeon mother up there so we can get an accurate assessment on how she really is doing."

"Okay, I'll go but I'll be right back."

She left and I closed my eyes and must have fallen asleep because when I opened my eyes again it was dark outside and Arizona was sleeping on the cot next to my bed. So I closed my eyes again and went back to sleep.