Being Arizona chapter nine

Hey guys, so I was really excited to write this one! I love 6x08, I just feel like we get to see a different side of Arizona and what a great surgeon she really is. Because to be honest, her first few episodes on the show made her look like a complete bitch.

And I also decided to put this chapter into two parts, since part one already took me ages to write and I didn't want to not update any longer.

Anywhooo, happy reading!

I loved this bubble Callie and I were in. It was the first time in my life when I completely didn't care what anybody thought, and it felt amazing not to. We were progressing with this relationship nicely, and I'd even confirmed the 'girlfriend' title when she'd been contemplating moving to Portland. Crazy, right? I missed her when she was at Mercy West, never mind all the way in Portland. I wasn't a big believer in long distance relationships.

Anyway, that's not relevant now. The merger took place a few weeks ago and I can't say I love it. The new residents were good, but they seemed way to confident and full of themselves considering it was only, like, the second week they were here. Our residents were also going nuts, and I could understand. The battle for surgeries was intense nowadays, and I'd had several of them come up to me and beg to scrub in. And if that wasn't intense then I don't know what was, because everyone thought peds was babysitting and fluff. Yeah right.

Wallace Anderson was a perfectly good example of why peds wasn't always babysitting and fluff. We'd been doubtful that he'd make it to his 9th birthday, considering he had a disease with no cure. I say that now, and he's turning 11 on Friday. I'd been with him since day one, and now I was working with him and his parents and had become good friends with them all. They all had hearts full of hope that this disease might be cured, but as of lately his scans and lab results were concerning me. Things were starting to deteriorate.

"Arizona! How ya doing?" Bethany, his mother, greeted me when I walked into the room. Parents of patients and patients themselves were becoming my only kind of real friends nowadays. I mean, yeah, I had acquaintances and what not, but I couldn't really call them friends. I also had Mark, but to be honest he just got on my nerves. And he stared at my boobs when I was talking to him and it made me really uncomfortable.

"I'm great! You?" I asked as I began a quick check up on Wallace, who wasn't paying attention and was drawing what appeared to be a human heart on a drawing pad. It was actually pretty decent.

"Good, good. You excited for your birthday?" She asked, and my heart sank a little.

Ah, my birthday. I remember every year when we were kids; Tim would always be more excited than anyone for my birthday. He would take on the role of the parents and wake up early to help decorate, he would make sure he found the perfect present and he did everything he could to make it the best day ever, because he knew I got a hard time for being gay at school, and this was a day where I could ignore all that.

However, when he joined the Marines, it kinda stopped. There wasn't time for big celebrations and I found myself not enjoying my birthday anymore. Over the last few years I didn't actually even celebrate it, because without Timothy they just weren't something I like or enjoyed any more.

"It's just a day, like every other day." I laughed, just as I had done with every other person who had asked me that question. Well, those of whom who knew about my birthday, and that was only really the people back home. Nobody here knew, not even Callie. I knew that if I told her she would make a big deal and that really wasn't what I wanted. Because I was telling the truth- it was just a day like any other day, only that I happened to be born on that day too. It was probably a lot of other people's birthday too, like Wallace's.

"Oh, come on! You're not even gonna celebrate it?"

"Celebrate what?" I smiled as I reviewed Wallace's charts. Bethany then decided to give up and change the subject.

"So, any updates?" She asked, and I contemplated whether to tell her about this morning's results. To be fair, it was the first time results like these had come in and it could just be a onetime thing, a bad day. I decided to play it down.

"His stats were a little low last night, but I don't think it's anything to be concerned about." I admitted and her face dropped, making it clear that she was concerned anyway. "Just a bad night." I said again, mostly to convince her but partially to assure myself. This boy had had fifteen plus surgeries in his nearly eleven years of life and I'd be damned if I lost him.

Oh and also, Bethany and Paul were donating 25 million dollars. They just randomly called in for a meeting, and offered the money. Half for research, half for the peds department. I mean, I knew Wallace's parents were rich, or well off, however you wanted to put it, but not 25 million dollars wealthy! It was so crazy. Who just offers people that? It also put a lot of pressure on me, because that money towards research for short gut syndrome wasn't for some other kid, it was for Wallace. And as I said, things were deteriorating.

"Hey, what's going on?" Callie asked as she entered the empty room where I was staring at Wallace's scans. Today, on one of the most hectic days ever, just as I was trying to save an already critical baby, Charles Percy had approached me with the news that Wallace's labs were bad. And they were.

"What am I supposed to do?" I barely whispered. Bethany and Paul both wanted me to operate on him, and I wanted to be able to, but his body couldn't take it, especially after fifteen surgeries and a bowel lengthening procedure. I did not think that it was at all a good idea to operate, but I found myself facing no other choice. Even though it would only give Wallace a few more months, Bethany and Paul wanted the surgery, and you couldn't exactly say no to people who held so much power.

"Listen to me." Callie said. I'd already told her about the situation with Wallace over text message, so apparently she felt the need to come see me in person. I was grateful for that. I needed her now. Everything was going crazy around me and I needed, as what I'd said was, the spark of sanity she brought to me.

"You can do this. I told you before, you are great. You are outstanding. You are ranked as one of the best paediatric surgeons in the country. You will do this." She said, and that was all she needed to before leaving. I smiled slightly for a second as I watched her go but frowned as I turned back to the charts. I guess it was now or never.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The waiting room was deadly quiet. I never normally noticed this, but today I did. I also noticed the way every single person looked up as we entered, obviously hopeful that it was news for them, and looking disappointed when our news wasn't relevant to them or their families.

"Arizona." A quiet voice said from behind me and I turned round to see Bethany and Paul standing there. Bethany had a look of half hope and half fear on her face, and I decided to break the tension by smiling. Once Bethany saw my smile she enveloped me in a tight hug.

"He's weak just now, but he pulled through. You want to see him?" I offered and they both nodded eagerly, clearly bursting to see their little boy who had just had a life threatening surgery.

Over the last few days it had gotten so crazy to a point where I hadn't noticed that it was Thursday evening, and that Wallace would be turning eleven tomorrow. I just wished he could pull through the night so that he could see it and I could celebrate with him like I promised.

It was an extreme understatement to say that today had been a long day, and I was glad when I could finally go home, well, to Callie's, at the end of it. I was disappointed, however, when she was nowhere to be found. It pissed me off slightly, because she told me she'd be home and she knew how big of a deal this surgery was, and yet she wasn't here. On one of my biggest crisis's she wasn't here, after everything I'd helped her through.

So I decided to wait for her. I sat down on the couch, called her a few times and left voicemails each time, then gave up and let my thoughts drift towards Wallace's surgery, retracing every step and every cut I'd made, wondering I there was anything I could do better. I believed that I'd put everything I knew and had into that surgery, and all I could do was pray that it Wallace could hold on.

It wasn't long before she finally came through the door, her mind clearly on something else.

"I left you messages." I said quietly, and she sighed.

"I'm sorry; I was in surgery that caught up…" She trailed off and I stood up.

"I don't care okay? I operated on Wallace tonight even when I knew better. I keep retracing every step, every suture, I keep going over it and over it-"

"He didn't make it?" Callie asked sadly, a look of worry on her face.

"He did. He's in recovery. That's not the point- what I needed from you tonight was a little bit of support, for once, and you weren't here and-"

She cut me off again, which ticked me off. "Okay, you're scared. So you're picking a fight. You get that, yeah?" She asked me as if I were a two year old.

"Yeah, yeah, fine whatever." I said dismissively. "But I have helped you through crisis after crisis, and once I thought I could come here and get something-"

And I sighed as I was cut off again, only not this time by Callie, but by Cristina who stormed into the apartment closely followed by Owen who seemed to be having an argument of their own.

So what I gathered from the next few minutes was that Yang had gone rogue in a resident and Callie hadn't told me, and then she tried to tell me that I'd distracted her my telling her to tell me I was great. Hunt was going nuts at her and Callie and I were arguing and it was too much for me to handle, which made me relieved when my pager went off, giving me an excuse to leave.

Turns out it was a trauma, an eleven year old girl who had fallen while at gymnastics and hit her head pretty hard. Shepherd told me that he wouldn't have paged me if it wasn't for the fact that she had passed out for quite a while and he suspected a brain bleed, and turns out he was right. I spent a few hours in the OR with him operating on her and didn't even notice when Thursday turned into Friday.

"Hey." Callie greeted me as I entered my office to find that she'd been waiting for me there. I took one look at her and engulfed her in a hug.

"I'm sorry for picking a fight. You were right, I'm terrified." I admitted through watery eyes. "It's his eleventh birthday today and I just want him to make it through the day."

"Hey, it's okay." She soothed me, rubbing slow circles in my back as I cried. Just then my pager went off, and my heart sank horrible when it was Charles Percy paging me, 911 for Wallace. I looked up at Callie and ran out of the room, sprinting towards Wallace's room which was a source of pure chaos right then.

"What the hell happened?"