Sorry for the delay, I meant to say in my last chapter that I'd be moving house! It took a lot longer than I thought and sucked up most of my free-time, but here's chapter 7. I'm doing what I said I wouldn't with this story, I've not finished chapter 8, so y'all are very lucky that I'm being silly enough to post this now ;)
Previously:
Callie reached over the table and squeezed Arizona's hand before leaving. The blonde cursed their hectic and often clashing schedules. As soon as the brunette was out of sight, Joe arrived with their food.
"She got paged huh? All the more for you I guess."
Arizona chuckled softly, thanking Joe before taking a handful of fries. She decided to take the Grey sisters up on their offer of a relaxing night out, texting them the address of the bar and letting them know there was plenty of food available.
Maybe the night could be salvaged after all.
Callie threw her jacket to the ground and slammed the door of her apartment. She slumped onto the sofa as tears coursed down her cheeks. It was days like this, days where more people died than lived, that Callie Torres truly hated being a surgeon.
She was lucky; there wasn't as much death to be seen in Orthopedics as there was in Cardio, or Trauma, or a number of other specialties. Usually. Today, however, she had scrubbed in on two unsuccessful surgeries. A married couple, each with severe crush injuries inflicted by the car in front of them. They had six-year-old twin sons, who suffered only minor injuries. Physically. Their anguished wails still assaulted Callie's memory.
As Arizona arrived home, she sent a quick message to Meredith to alert her that she was home safely, and to thank both her and Lexie for turning her night around.
She tossed her purse onto her bed as she slipped out of her clothes. Tying her hair up in a messy bun and pulling on her favorite pair of pajamas, she climbed into bed. Moments later, her phone rang. Calliope.
"Hey, I was just about to text you." Arizona stated, frowning suddenly when she heard a choked sob on the other end of the phone.
"Calliope?"
Muffled sobs met her ear.
"Callie! Are you ok?"
"I…I'm sorry." Callie hiccupped, and Arizona could hear her take a few shuddering breaths.
"What's wrong?" Arizona soothed, suddenly very nervous.
"Are you hurt?"
Callie sobbed again; the sound more strained this time. It was obvious to the blonde that she was fighting back further tears.
"I shouldn't have called yo…you." She gasped. "I'm sorry."
Arizona frowned, readjusting the phone on her ear.
"Ssshh, you can always call me. Tell me what's wrong."
A beat of silence between the women was followed by muffled sniffles.
"I hate this. I hate doing this. I don't think I can anymore."
The blonde extricated herself from her sheets, quickly digging her Uggs from her closet.
"Callie, I'm coming over. Tell me your address."
"No…I…I'm fine. I just…" her sentence was punctuated by another sob. Arizona picked up the keys to her car and opened the her apartment door.
"Callie, I'm going to hang up now, and you are going to text me your address, got it?" Her tone left little room for argument.
As she dashed to her car, she received a text from Callie. Her limited knowledge of Seattle meant that she didn't know the exact street, but thankfully it wasn't far. Worry swelled in the pit of her stomach. She had only received a few calls from people as upset as Callie sounded, and the outcomes of those phone calls had never been good. She felt a strange sense of pride though, that Callie had chosen to call her instead of one of her other friends. Pulling up to the apartment building, Arizona jumped from the car and buzzed 502, waiting only seconds before she heard the release on the door.
Callie wiped at her eyes in a futile gesture, as tears pooled rapidly in her eyes again. She felt like an idiot for calling Arizona. Who calls someone sobbing down the phone after an interrupted first date?
A few minutes after she buzzed the blonde into the building, Callie heard footsteps fast approaching her door, followed by a loud and frantic series of knocks.
As she opened the door Arizona stepped in without invitation. She took Callie's hands in hers and led them to the couch. Concern clouded her features.
"Talk to me."
She spoke with such concern and conviction that the lump in Callie's throat only grew, momentarily swallowing her words. Looking down, she told Arizona about the accident on the freeway, about the number of casualties, and about her patients in particular. About their orphaned six year olds.
"I had…to…tell them." Callie explained, a sob catching in her throat as she finally looked at Arizona again. Watery blue eyes stared back, her hands still holding tightly to Callie's.
"I can't imagine."
Callie sighed tiredly, wiping at her eyes.
"I shouldn't have called you. Just…everyone else is still at the hospital."
Arizona shook her head.
"I mean it, you can always call me."
A silence fell over the women before the blonde spoke again.
"I had a passenger die on my flight once."
Callie's eyes snapped up to Arizona's in shock.
"No."
"He wasn't feeling well. Nauseous. We thought he was just a little air sick. It happens countless times a day. Then his wife started screaming that he wasn't breathing. We rushed him onto the aisle and began CPR, told the pilots to make an emergency landing…but he didn't make it." Arizona explained.
"Cardiac arrest?" The surgeon reasoned.
Arizona nodded, brushing a lose strand of hair from her face.
"I took it pretty badly. Like I should have realized sooner…"
The brunette frowned.
"If he wasn't showing other symptoms -"
"I know, I know. We're trained to assess a passenger given a certain set of symptoms. There's only so much we can do if the symptoms aren't typical."
Callie sniffed, shaking her head.
"I didn't even think about people getting sick or dying on a plane. I mean it happens everywhere, but up there you're kinda stuck dealing with it yourself. That's got to be scary."
The blonde nodded.
"Tell me about it. We thought we'd have to deliver a baby last year!"
"No way!"
"Yeah, Teddy got us landed quickly though. She's my roommate, and one of our captains."
Callie smiled, filing another nugget of information about the blonde away. She glanced sheepishly around her messy apartment.
"I live with another surgeon, Cristina. She's like a freaking hurricane, as you can see."
"Evidently." Arizona chuckled, suddenly blushing.
"I can't talk, I'm a mess!" She gestured towards her haphazardly tied up hair, her Uggs and her cupcake flannel pajamas.
A giggle burst from Callie's mouth.
"You look adorable. I adore the cupcakes. Besides, I guess if you'd not had some hysterical idiot sobbing down the phone to you you'd have put something else on." The brunette blushed.
She watched as dimples appeared on porcelain cheeks, and blue eyes sparkled with kindness.
"Very true." Arizona teased. "But I'm glad you called."
Callie looked at the blonde in disbelief.
"You're not going to file this away as your 'worst first date ever' and conveniently lose Crazy Lady's number?"
Arizona laughed, and the sound brought a smile to the surgeon's face.
"No way. Although I hope our second date doesn't involve so many false starts. Or so many tears. You're much prettier when you're smiling."
A blush colored Callie's cheeks.
"You're really sweet."
The flight attendant winked in reply.
"Nah, that's just the cupcakes."
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