Title: Aftermath
Author: Danielle
Summary: post 7:18, post accident
Disclaimer: only the story is mine the characters belong to Shonda and ABC.
Sorry it takes me so long to update the story, life is busy working a lot and just busy in general. I don't know how these writers pop out a chapter every two to three days, they have my respect.
On a different note, I don't know when I'll be able to update this again, I'm going to Alaska for two weeks and I don't know if I'll have internet while I am there. But I'll do my best to at least write while I'm there.
Moving along with the story…
10 weeks after the accident
Callie's POV
Sofia's doing great; she's eating well, sleeping through the night and is five pounds. She's the size of a 35 week pregnancy baby and I can't believe that just ten weeks ago she was one pound and now here she is fitting into newborn sized diapers, although they are a little big on her she is still fitting them. Arizona says she doing all the things that she should be able to do developmentally. Amazing, my daughter is amazing. Our daughter is amazing.
I'm still in my same room on the rehab floor and they still have me doing two PT sessions per day. It can be rough sometimes but it's worth it. I can now walk where I want to go in the hospital; I go the NICU, the cafeteria, to my ortho floor to see the nurses and doctors that I am missing, it's really nice to have that freedom.
Hopefully Arizona doesn't find out but I snuck into the gallery for one of her surgeries today, it was an ortho procedure so I was loving being in there watching her rock the surgery. I was in the back row so she couldn't see me and the gallery was almost empty. Thankfully none of the people there would rat on me; it was only Meredith, Lexie and a couple of the first year residents who for some reason are afraid of me. I just needed to get away from the monotony of PT, sitting in my room and wandering around the halls.
A couple of hours after Arizona's surgery I walked into my room after being with Sofia for a little while and found Arizona sitting in a chair next to my bed sound asleep. It was really cute, her just sitting there with her head cocked to one side and mouth agape. I moved in farther to my room and must have made some noise because she startled and woke up. Then I sat on the bed next to her chair.
"Hey, Calliope, you're here."
"Yeah, I am. I was just with Sofia but am getting a bit tired so I decided to come back here."
"Busy day?" She said as she was fixing her messed up hair.
"Not really I ate breakfast, but you were here for that, then watched some tv, went to PT, came back here ate lunch, back over to PT, and went up to see Sofia." Of course leaving out that I had watched her surgery.
"Anything else?"
Uh oh, I looked at her as innocently as I could.
"Perhaps you went somewhere where you shouldn't be and did something you shouldn't have."
Again I tried the innocent look but it clearly wasn't working.
"I had an interesting day too; I had breakfast with my wonderful fiancé, and then started my full day of surgeries. I started with three appendectomies, went to see Sofia, spent a half hour holding her, ate lunch with Teddy who says hello by the way, then went back into the OR for a hernia repair and a did a repair on this cute little boy who had shattered his femur falling out of a tree. It was a funny thing though I looked into my gallery, saw Meredith and Lexie and saw an interesting thing."
There was me sitting there trying to look innocent still but I knew that she had seen me.
"I saw my fiancé sitting in the back row watching me fix the boy's femur. Funny thing about that, she isn't allowed to be on the OR floor because she is a patient here."
Finally I looked away from her guiltily.
"Callie, what were you thinking, Bailey would kill you if she had caught you. I myself wasn't too happy to see you up there. You are still recovering from major surgery and need to rest as much as you can. You are supposed to be doing your PT, seeing Sofia and resting the rest of the time."
I grimaced at the sound of my nickname coming from her mouth, she only calls me 'Callie' when she's mad at me but then finally I spoke, "I just wanted to see you, I didn't think there would be any harm in me just sitting there watching. It was only a couple of hours then I did go up and see Sofia, who still smelled like you when I got there. And I have been there in the NICU since, and now I am here."
"Callie, you are ten weeks out from an accident, having had major three surgeries one of which was you giving birth and are supposed to be recovering not peering down into the OR watching surgeries."
"I know but I am going crazy, all I do is PT, visit Sofia, go to the cafeteria and walk around the hospital. Arizona I am going stir crazy. I can't handle too much more of this."
"I'm sure that you are going to be discharged in the next month or so Calliope, you are doing so good with your PT, Kelly gave me an update on your progress yesterday and says you are almost back to 100%. Just keep focusing on that and on us being at home with our little girl, just the three of us."
"And Mark." I probably shouldn't have said that because Arizona made a face to that statement so I added on to that statement with what I feel is the truth. "You and I and Sofia, that's our family, Mark is just on the periphery. It's you, me and our baby. Mark is involved and Mark will never be out of the picture but you and I have primary custody."
Arizona looks at me, "Is Mark going to be okay with that?"
"He really doesn't have a choice, I am her mother, we are her mothers and,"
"But he is her father, he has rights and I don't see him giving up his rights."
"I am not saying that Mark gives up his rights, I am saying that he gets her a couple times a week for a while and every other weekend."
"He's never going to agree to that."
"He already did,"
"What! When?"
"Yesterday during lunch, you were in surgery so Mark and I had lunch together here and discussed a custody agreement for Sofia. We decided that for now that he gets her two evenings a week, and every other weekend. Once I start back to work we can all come to an agreement what to do while we are at work, you know if she stays with whoever is off and that kind of thing."
"Callie," oh no not the 'Callie' again, "I am more than a little upset that you and Mark made a custody agreement without me. I understand that I was in surgery at the time but I am her mother too and you doing this makes me feel less of her mother."
"Zona, I'm sorry, that's not what we meant to happen and it wasn't a planned conversation. Mark and I were just talking about once I get out of the hospital and the conversation evolved into the custody conversation. I'm sorry, really I am."
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"Yeah, okay."
Arizona's POV
I have to admit I am very upset that Calliope and Mark came up with a custody agreement without me. It makes me feel like less of a parent to Sofia and I really feel like I am just as much of a parent to that little angel as Calliope and Mark are. It hurts.
Calliope has said that I am as much of a mother to Sofia that she is but this makes me feel like I am just another person in Sofia's life. So I tell her, "Callie, I am more than a little upset that you and Mark made a custody agreement without me. I understand that I was in surgery at the time but I am her mother too and you doing this makes me feel less of her mother."
"Zona, I'm sorry, that's not what we meant to happen and it wasn't a planned conversation. Mark and I were just talking about once I get out of the hospital and the conversation evolved into the custody conversation. I'm sorry, really I am."
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"Yeah, okay."
"Really?"
"Yes really, I am hurt by the decision that you and Mark came up without me but the plan sounds like a good one."
"I didn't mean to make you feel this was Arizona, the conversation really did just come up."
"I know that you wouldn't purposely set out to hurt me but it doesn't negate the fact that it does hurt. But, tell me about the plan."
"Well, you and I will have primary custody of Sofia. Mark will get her two nights a week that he is not on call and for at least the first few months he will bring her back home overnight. He will also have her two weekends a month also depending on what his schedule is. The rest of the time she will be with us."
"What about when we are working? Did you discuss that?"
"We did, the idea is that whoever is off gets her for the day. If it's Mark he'll have her until bedtime as one of his days during the week. We both thought that the hospital daycare would work best for Sofia, she would be close to us and we could go there during breaks."
"So if I'm off I'd get her the whole day?" I really liked the idea of having my daughter to myself for a whole day.
"Yeah, by the smile on your face I guess that you like the idea."
"I love the idea and I will admit that as much as I don't like that you and Mark came up with the plan without me it seems like a good solid plan."
"All we need now is a lawyer to firm up the plan."
"A lawyer isn't that a bit extreme?" I never thought that a lawyer would need to be involved.
"It was Mark's idea actually. We would make a legal agreement as to Sofia's custody and also make sure you have legal rights over Sofia."
"Me, uh legal rights?" Seriously, had she just said that?
"Of course, also Mark's idea by the way. He brought up the point that we were getting married, as married as Washington will let us, since we are already filing domestic partnership papers that there should be papers saying you have legal rights to Sofia. That way if she needs to go to the doctor, get picked up from daycare or school that you can do it without written permission from Mark or myself."
I don't know when it happened but I had started crying. It was just so overwhelming to think that Sofia would legally be recognized as my daughter. Adoption wasn't possible because both biological parents were involved but papers filed to include me, wow. I can't even tell you how good it feels to know that both Calliope and Mark are going to make my relationship with our daughter legal. Calliope I am not surprised by but the fact it was Mark's idea I am stunned. We have come a long way in the last ten weeks since the 'you are nothing' conversation.
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