This Woman's Work

Hi,

I know, I'm really bad at updating… And I'm really sorry for that…

Anyway, this is quite a long chapter, with quite a lot of flashbacks (in italics). I hope you like it.

DAY 3

JOANNE

She could see it.
She could see how Arizona tried to hide her feelings. Joanne looked at her, how restless her movements were, how forced her calmness was. Her eyes followed the blonde woman, who was preparing dinner.
"You should start talking," she said. From the look Arizona gave her, she knew she understood.
"Now," Joanne said.
She looked at her friend.

"There's nothing to say," Arizona answered.

"I think there is. And I think you don't want to talk about it because you are scared. I get it. I get that you are angry, or scared, but please, Arizona. Everything is better than this… this pretending to be okay, while you're clearly not… You should stop controlling your feelings in such a way…"

Arizona looked up and ignored her.

"Arizona…" Joanne stood up and moved closer. Arizona avoided her gaze and muttered: "Will you finish this? I'll go check Nick."

Joanne sighed when Arizona left the room, and walked towards the vegetables, thinking about what happened after Callie had left.

When Callie had disappeared, she turned over to Arizona, who was lying on the floor.
"You're bleeding," she said, not knowing what else to say.
Arizona looked at her hands and the red stain on the floor. "I know," she said softly, while trying to get up.
"Let me help you," Joanne said, seeing how much trouble the blonde had.
Arizona looked at her hand and ignored it.
The black-haired woman looked at her friend, who couldn't get on her feet, despite her various attempts. She carefully stretched her hand further out, but Arizona still ignored it. Joanne looked down. She could understand why Arizona tried to get up on her own, but looking at her, trying to get a grip on the walls while bleeding out of her nose, made Joanne feel really uncomfortable. Somehow it hurt.
"You're probably a bit dizzy because of the blow," she said, hoping Arizona would agree with that, even though they both knew it was a lie.
Instead she heard a bitter laugh: "Dizzy because of the blow… do you even believe yourself, Joanne?"
Joanne remained silent and looked at the attempts of her friend to get up. When Arizona fell for the fourth time, she said: "Let me help you, Arizona. If you fall on your wrist badly you could break them and you wouldn't…"
"I wouldn't be able to use my crutches and then I would be completely helpless," Arizona completed, "not that it would make any difference…"
Joanne sighed, seeing Arizona tried to get up for the fifth time.
"Let me at least take a look at your nose," she said, thinking she would quickly pull Arizona back on her feet after she had looked at her nose, "it looks pretty bad," she added, hoping that would somehow convince Arizona.
Arizona fell down again and Joanne managed to catch her. She helped Arizona to get up and carefully walked towards the wall, so that Arizona could lean against it.
"Does it hurt?" she asked.
The blonde didn't answer her question, so Joanne carefully touched her nose.
"Au!"
"It hurts," Joanne said quite matter-of-factly, "it isn't a shame to admit that," she said.
Still no answer. Joanne knew this sort of behaviour. She looked at the bruising and started to fear that Arizona's nose was broken. She moved her index finger in front of Arizona's eyes, who dryly said: "My brains are alright…"
"They are, but I had my reasons to worry about that," she said, while moving the few locks of hair that ware still lying on Arizona's nose.
There was still no reaction. Joanne sighed. This sort of behaviour remembered her of the time Arizona was grieving for Tim. How she had held her in her arms for hours, not knowing what to say, willing to find something comforting to say, but instead she remained silent for hours. It felt as though there were no words that could possibly comfort such an unbearable pain. So Joanne didn't say anything at all. Instead she brought Arizona doughnuts and watched her eating them, feeling guilty that she wasn't capable of finding any words that could bring her some comfort and she had to buy boxes of food. She wanted to do more than bring her boxes full of sugar, which Arizona ate with such a heart-breaking compulsiveness. Years later Joanne still anxiously watched Arizona eating doughnuts and although the circumstances were completely different, she somehow felt guilty. She still felt guilty now, when she thought of it. But the years had passed and Joanne wasn't the scared eighteen-year old like then. She could do better now than brining boxes full of doughnuts. 'At least a little bit', she said to herself, thinking she was really bad at comforting people and Arizona in particular. She tried to think of what Nick would do and couldn't come up with something better than: "There's still quite a lot of blood. I'll go search some tissues, unless you want me to handle like the last time you were bleeding… on a beach, when you tried to impress me by showing of and catch a way to big wave and then your board hit your head."
When she saw Arizona's mouth corner twitch, Joanne laughed: "Patient clearly hasn't got any loss of memory. But then again, who could ever forget such a magnificent view…"
Arizona's smile carefully broke through: "My emergency bag is in the bathroom."
Joanne looked at her: "Thank you, I already started to fear I would have to take my shirt off again."
Arizon, who was quite happy with the sudden change of subject, a rolled her eyes: "You had only just come out of the water. You weren't even wearing shoes."
"It still was my favourite shirt and I never got the blood stains out of it," Joanne said, before walking to the apartment.
When she closed the door behind her, Arizona stared at the end of the hallway and thought of Callie and Sofia. Her smile evaporated. She gave herself a couple of seconds to cry before Joanne would return. But her friend returned more quickly than she expected and she tried to wipe away her tears, asking if she could get a painkiller, because her nose was really aching.
Joanne looked at her friend, knowing she wasn't crying because of the physical pain. She must have been hurt, but this wasn't the way Arizona cried when having physical pain. "I'm really sorry, but that painkiller will have to wait. I want to go to the hospital first," she said, while wiping away the blood.
"The hospital? Why?" Arizona asked, still trying to stop crying.
Joanne looked at her friend. "Because it's broken…" she said, giving Arizona a bunch of paper tissues to stop her still bleeding nose.
"It can't be broken," Arizona said.
"It's not because I deliver babies that I don't know how a broken nose looks like. Get on your feet, Robbins…"
"Foot," both Nick, who had just appeared in the doorstep, and Arizona corrected simultaneously, before laughing.
Joanne looked at them, wondering why they both laughed with such a cruel joke.
"I really don't need to go to the hospital!" Arizona said, still standing against the wall.
"Yes you do, or your nose will swell and it'll grow all ugly and become the size of my tumour…" Nick said, before giving Arizona her prosthetic. She gave him a thankful smile.
Joanne looked at her brother. He raised his eyebrows: "If she can make jokes about the leg, I can make jokes about the tumour…"
Joanne didn't smile, even though the other two did. It didn't feel like she had the right to laugh. As though only Nick and Arizona had that right, because of what they had been through.

She looked at the empty kitchen and thought that somehow she wasn't supposed to be here. It was strange to be here, while Callie wasn't.
She felt like an intruder and somehow she felt guilty for what happened. She thought that her presence was one of the reasons why Callie left.
She looked at the vegetables and sighed.

ARIZONA

She found distraction from the moment they had walked into hospital.
He had seen her first. She had been caught up in thoughts she tried to ignore, but eventually she noticed the doctor who had been standing at the other side of the room. He froze and looked at her.
She got up and walked towards him, ignoring the pain caused by the prosthetic. Neither Nick or Joanne saw her walking towards him. Joanne was too busy inspecting the hospital and Nick was staring in silence, thinking how much he hated hospitals.
Arizona could see Alex Karev trying to find something to say. But he struggled with the chaotic thoughts that shot through his mind.
"Your nose…" he blurted, frowning at his own words.
And while a couple of seconds ago Arizona knew exactly what to say, her mind was completely blank now.
She looked at the person whom she had learned so much the past few years. Even how he should amputate a leg.
"I… eh…" he looked at the other people in the room and had no idea to behave in front of Arizona. He tried to keep his eyes focussed on her face, but every time they flickered towards the leg. "Let me take care of your nose…" he said.
And she followed him into one of the exam rooms.
She couldn't even jump on the exam table with the prosthetic on.
"I looks broken to me," he said, "have you been to radiology yet?" he asked.
Arizona shook her head and followed him towards radiology. She tried to keep up with him, walking through the familiar hospital hallways. She kept standing at the hallway that led to PEDS for a couple of seconds, but continued to follow Karev, who was walking a couple of metres in front of her, clearly avoiding a conversation and the sight of her prosthetic.

JOANNE

She was still cutting vegetables, thinking about Callie and Arizona. She had to admit that she was somehow intrigued by them. They seemed a very solid couple, even during these turbulent days.
She was still focussing on the vegetables, thinking it was strange that she felt that way, because she didn't know Callie at all. But somehow she could understand the Latina. She spent the past few minutes thinking about the strange bond she felt with Callie, before it hit her.

ARIZONA

She and Karev watched the pictures.
"It's broken."
A cold shiver ran over her spine.
"We have to operate," he said, pointing at certain points on the picture.
She could see that too, but somehow she wanted to protest. Say that they had to take a new picture. That it couldn't be true.
"You're okay?" he asked.
Arizona blinked. Only now she noticed how heavily she was breathing. She looked at the pictures of her bones in front of them. She had seen too much of these pictures the past few months.
"Operate?"
He looked at her and then back to the pictures: "Yes."
She wanted to say she wanted another opinion, but seeing the pictures, she knew he was right. But she wanted somebody to tell her the impossible. Tell her that everything wasn't that bad. She wanted somebody to do the impossible. She wanted Callie. And suddenly the words passed her lips: "You won't operate on me."
He dropped the X-rays he was putting back in the big brown envelope. "I…" he looked up, "I wasn't… I was thinking of Avery..."
"Nobody will operate on me…"
She knew it made no sense, but she couldn't control this fear that was slowly growing inside her.
"But you have to…" he said, opening the envelope to show her the X-rays again.
"I won't go into surgery again…"
His eyes flashed towards the leg: "You have to, Arizona. I get that it's scary, but you have to trust me when I say you need surgery…"
Arizona looked at the room. At the medical posters on the wall. At the door behind Alex Karev. She felt caught and scared. "How do you want me to trust you again?"
He dropped the envelope and when the X-rays hit the floor they made a sharp noise.
"If you keep lying to me. And I thought I made a better person of you… Is that why I trained you all those years? Why I invested so much time in you, even though everybody told me you were rude and arrogant? So you could chop my leg of in the end?" she paused for a second and looked at Karev, who lost all colour, " You even used my stitching method… what was that about? Was that some sort of cruel joke?"
She looked at him. He stared at the pictures and then back to Arizona.
"You never asked about the surgery," he said calmly before picking up the X-rays.
"Because I trusted you! I trusted Callie! But you turned out to be the exact same arrogant liar you were when I first met you…" she opened her mouth to continue, but Alex, who had gathered all the X-rays, yelled: "I won't let you treat me like crap!" he said, "Maybe Callie allowed that, but I don't! She asked me to operate on you, because you were dying and she was in the middle of a surgery. And she felt so guilty for that, that she lied to you and said she did the surgery, because she knew that when you knew the truth you would say she hadn't tried everything to save the leg, while there was no saving at it and if you would have looked at your leg for two seconds, you would know that too! You didn't want us to operate, so we had to wait, until everything got even worse. You could have had your knee, but you wanted us to wait. Callie felt guilty and you made it only worse, because the only thing you could think about was the freaking leg! You were so angry at her because she took your leg, but instead you should be thankful, because she gave you back your life. You were killing yourself and you asked her to let her do that. So just get over it already, it's just a leg…"
Even though the last words made Arizona angry, she remained silent.
Alex stared at her, "I'll search Avery for you," he said and left.
She stared at the opposite wall for a couple of seconds and left the room.

JOANNE

She dropped the knife when it struck her: she had been in almost the exact same situation a long time ago.
That's why this all felt so very familiar and why she felt the urge to defend Callie in front of Arizona. Although she knew Arizona a lot better than Callie.

ARIZONA

"Arizona?"
She looked up and saw the silhouette of Derek Shepherd standing in the doorpost. She looked at him. Her nose hurt like hell.
"Karev told me about your nose…" he paused for a couple of seconds before he continued: "I understand why you're hiding…"
She gave him a doubtful look.
"I do. I used to hide in my trailer…" he said, carefully looking at her.
He didn't stare at her nose, but she guessed it was looking really ugly, so they both stared at the inside of the supplies closet.
"Karev told me you don't want surgery."
She let her head rest against the wall. Her nose was still aching and she knew she couldn't just keep sitting here forever, in one of the pantries of the ortho-wing. She had been staring at the inside of the pantry for a while. She had some good memories at this one and somehow she kept sitting here, hoping that if she closed her eyes long enough, she could go back in time.
"After the crash, I was scared to go into surgery, but…"
She sighed: "Don't… don't start talking to me about the plane crash, Derek. Just… don't…"
He looked at the floor: "Just have the surgery, Arizona."
She sighed and waited until he would leave. Eventually he did get up on his feet and said: "I called Callie… she wants you to have the surgery…"
It was as though lightning had struck her, when she heard her name. She hit the back of her head against the wall and the pain echoed through her nose.
"She asked me to convince you to have it. She…"
"Of course she wants me to have the damn surgery… She's the one who caused this…"
Derek looked at her. He hadn't recognised the Callie he had heard on the phone. She sounded cold, much like the days Arizona had been in Malawi.
"She feels really guilty about it, so please Arizona, just have the surgery" he said eventually.
Arizona smiled bitterly. Derek recognised the laugh from the time they were stuck in the woods.
"You won't leave until I have the surgery, right?"
Derek, who thought he had convinced her, said yes.
"Because you feel guilty too," she said, trying to get up, which didn't work with the prosthetic.
He wanted to help her, but Arizona threw off her shoes and was busy removing her pants.
He took a couple of steps backwards and asked her what she was doing, when she removed the prosthetic
He stared at it and when he looked up, she said: " She was operating on you when Karev amputated my leg and it's bothering you ever since…" He looked down and stared at his hand.
She pointed at her prosthetic and then at his hand: "You got eighty per cent while I got a prosthetic and it felt so… so unfair that Callie could make you better… but I want you to know I don't blame you Derek, I never did. Even though I want someone to blame, because it is so much easier to be angry than it is to accept that there's no one to blame and things sometimes happen without any reason," she paused and looked at him. He was still standing at the door, staring at her.
"You get used to it," she said, "if you look at it long enough you no longer see a missing limb. You stop feeling sorry for yourself, you stop feeling angry, you stop seeing your bones sticking out of your leg, you stop thinking of what used to be and you start to accept that it's just an empty space. You no longer feel the urge to look at it… Eventually I got used to it, even though I didn't want to get used of it."
Derek smiled faintly, thinking of how he had been looking at his hand the past few months. He stretched out his bad hand, to help Arizona get up on her feel. When she felt his unsteady grip, he said: "It's true. You get used to it."

She looked at Derek from the OR table. He smiled at her and held up the thumb of his bad hand. Her gaze flickered towards her prosthetic.
She tried to control her breathing, while she saw Avery scrubbing in. She thought of how Derek had told her to think of all her victories she had known in the OR. Before the surgery he had walked her through the whole procedure, while she was sitting on the OR table. Every time she felt the urge to run, Derek asked her questions about her former surgeries. How she had saved patients. And when that didn't help, he made her repeat the steps of the surgeries. Until they didn't sound threatening at all.
The door opened and Avery walked in. Arizona looked at him. It was strange to see him without Mark around. Her eyes flashed towards Derek, who was still giving her a comfortable smile.
Avery said something to the anaesthetist. She did her best to ignore it, but knew they would soon start operating. When the anaesthetist placed the mask on her face, she saw Alex Karev in the OR gallery and then fell asleep.

JOANNE

Joanne was still busy cutting vegetables when Arizona walked back in.

"He was asleep, but I woke him up for dinner," Arizona said walking towards the refrigerator. She looked at the metallic reflection and smiled when she saw her nose was healing well.

Joanne looked at her when she grabbed the meat. She was going back to work since yesterday and she seemed okay. A little bit too okay to be credible. She knew Arizona and she knew this was her, faking to be okay. She thought of the last time Arizona pretended to be okay and decided she didn't want that to happen again.
"Please, start talking" she said, knowing that Callie must have asked her this a million times.

The blonde woman ignored her and grabbed a saucepan.

Joanne looked at the vegetables that were lying in front of her and added: "This is the last time that I will ask you in a polite way."

After a whole minute of silence, with still no reaction from Arizona, Joanne put away the chopping board and started to speak, feeling as though she had to do this for Callie. She wished somebody had said it to Arizona earlier: "You are an awful person when it comes to handling your own emotions. You pretend to be okay, while you're not and although I get the fact that you're mad about her lying to you and pushing you, you have to ask yourself if it really is worth all that. Do you really want to throw away your marriage because of who performed a surgery?"
It was silent for a couple of seconds, before Joanne continued: "Listen to me Arizona, please. Callie loves you and you love her. She loves you so badly she has put herself through hell. But you are far more worse than hell, sometimes. I loved you. I really loved you once and I have never loved anybody else as much as I loved you when we first got together. But then Tim died and you turned into a monster. You refused to move on for ten months. You didn't even try. You broke my heart by not even trying. Those ten months were torture and even though I loved you so badly, I couldn't do it any longer. I gave you all and you never gave back. And if you wondered why I still got into a relationship three years after that, I hoped I would fall back in love with you just like those days. But I couldn't fall in love with you like the first time. So you will stop pretending to be fine and you will apologise to Callie for the hell you have put her through the past few months and hope with all of your heart that she'll accept your apologies, because I think you will never meet anybody who will love you that much, Arizona."

Arizona looked at her.

"I'm sorry, but somebody had to say that…" Joanne said when Arizona didn't seem to respond, "I just wanted you to know what's at stake…"

Arizona looked at her and even though she didn't want to admit it, she knew Joanne was right: "I already started talking… to Derek Shepherd and Alex Karev," she said.

Joanne gave her a puzzled look and then said: "That's good…"

"Derek is very supportive. He was there when the plane crashed… He's taking me to the wreck tomorrow and Karev and I go through Callie's notes over the past few months," she swallowed, "she has written almost everything down, even the slightest change of my blood pressure…"

Joanne watched Arizona walking to her purse and Arizona put a pile of sheets on the table. She went closer and looked at the chaotic handwriting.

"It helps me to accept that there's no one to blame…"

Joanne looked up from the sheets. Her eyes fell upon the X-ray of Arizona's leg, she turned back to Arizona, about to say that there was no saving at it, but Arizona was first: "I know there was no way to save my leg, but… somehow there is this voice telling me that it could be saved… and reading this really helps to realise my leg was lost."

Joanne looked back at the sheets: "Arizona… these… everything is in these…" she said, turning the pages, "she must have been so scared…"

When she spoke the last words, Arizona looked at the floor.

ARIZONA

Joanne was reading the sheets when she and Nick were doing dishes. Arizona looked at her.

"You shouldn't feel guilty or so, letting two cripples do the dishes," Nick said loud enough so that his sister would hear it.

Joanne didn't look up from the notes: "You never liked doing the dishes, Nick, even when you had full use of your both legs…"

Arizona smiled: "She's right, Nick…"

He splashed some water on her: "On who's side are you?"

Arizona smiled: "Team cripple all the way…"

He concentrated back on the plates and laughed: "Good one, Phoenix…"

Arizona smiled and Joanne got up from the couch.

Nick looked at her: "Oh, now that we're almost finished you decide to help…"

Joanne raised her eyebrows: "Don't want my help?"

Nick quickly threw a towel towards her.

The black-haired woman came standing next to Arizona, who gave her a questioning look.
"I read most of it," Joanne said.

Arizona looked at her, waiting for more.
"You can't let her go," was her answer to Arizona's questioning gaze.