Title: Extraordinary Measures
Author: J.M. Flowers
Rating: M
AN: Yea, yea, I suck. I've been so busy with ballet and preparing for our recital that I completely forgot that I hadn't posted a chapter in two weeks. Lame! I'll try to get another chapter up before our recital and all the summer craziness begins - but no promises.
Shout outs to that kid Kaitlyn, who helped me fix the un-Janelle-ness of this chapter and who puts up with my crazy more than the average person should. Most of our attention has been on her piece, The Marshal, over in Once Upon A Time. If you're into that, definitely check it out. I don't even watch the show and I'm obsessed with the story, so...
Minima maxima sunt
The smallest things are most important
I freeze at her words, my own breath catching in my throat, my hand stilling in her hair. I let go of her, stumbling backwards. Because Teddy is supposed to be here - Teddy survived the accident with minor injuries. Teddy was fine, she was always fine.
Only, here she isn't. Here, she's dead.
"Callie?" Arizona asks, brows furrowing as she looks up at me.
I shake my head, backing up until my heel hits a step and I collapse onto the stairs, pulling my knees close against my chest. This is the consequence, for my actions. This... reality where Arizona lives and instead Teddy dies.
Teddy, who cut open chests and fixed hearts. Who served in Afghanistan; who saw roadside bombs and assault rifles and instead lost her life in a car accident in Seattle, Washington.
"Callie?" Arizona says again, hands frozen at her sides.
This is all my fault. A person is dead - a person who shouldn't be dead. A doctor. A surgeon. Teddy. Beautiful, wonderful, supportive Teddy. Who cried with me over tequila and who blamed herself every single day for the loss of Arizona. The guilt isn't hers to carry anymore - it's mine.
This is the consequence Dr. Lewis spoke of, on the television. The fault in his machine. He said you could go back a thousand times, live a thousand things over, but something would change. Something always has to change. You can't fuck with fate and expect it to be roses and sunshine on the other side. The other side is death. It's always death.
A sob escapes, loud and startling. It echoes in the stairwell.
"It's okay," Arizona murmurs.
It's not okay. Nothing's okay anymore.
I may have her back, but everything else is wrong.
"How?" I choke out.
She looks away, turning back slowly. "How?" she repeats.
I nod, swiping at my cheeks. "How did she..."
She lowers herself onto the step, a few feet between us. "Callie," she says softly, "we've been over this. A thousand times. You and Mark have talked about this. Do you..." She sighs, pushing her hair back off her face. "Do you want to go back to the psychiatrist?"
She finally gives in and drops her head into her hands, covering her eyes. She seems... exhausted. Exasperated. "I can't keep doing this, Callie," she whispers. "I can't keep reminding you over and over again what happened. The dream isn't real." She looks up, gesturing between us. "This is real."
I shake my head, moving closer to her, grabbing hold of her hand tightly. "I know this is real, Arizona. I know you're here, and I'm here and that we're okay." I wipe stubbornly at my cheeks, trying to stave off the flow of tears, but to no avail. "I just... I have to tell you-"
The sound of a pager slices through the air, halting our conversation.
"I have surgery," she says.
I nod.
She leans forward, kissing me softly. "We'll talk more later," she promises as she stands.
And still, all I can do is nod as she walks away.
I have to find Mark.
#
"Mark!" I call after him, running down the hallway. I've already stopped into the Attending's lounge to wash my face and dry my tears, trying desperately to keep my crazy quotient at a minimum. Because, from what Arizona said, this conversation may not be pretty.
He turns on his heel, opening his arms as though he's presenting something. "Torres!" he answers, "There's that overzealous attitude I've been looking for. Teach that to my residents, would you? They're all dark and moody today."
I can't help but smile at the easy demeanor - one we'd been missing before. Three months of pizza boxes and used tissues seems to weigh on a friendship. But this Mark? This Mark is normal and outgoing and... eyeing up a nurse. I smack him in the arm, pulling his attention back.
"You busy?" I ask.
He shrugs, strolling down the hallway as I fall into step next to him. "I have no big butts, and I cannot lie."
I nudge him with my shoulder, watching as another smile fills his face.
"What can I help you with?"
I stop in front of an on-call room door, turning the handle and gesturing for him to step inside.
"Callie," he murmurs, dropping his eyes and shaking his head. "We -"
"We're just talking," I interrupt, pulling him in behind me.
He sighs as the door clicks shut, leaning against it. "What's up, Cal?" he asks, crossing his arms over his chest.
And suddenly I'm horribly, terribly nervous. Like, pace the floor nervous because I have no idea how to say this. How do you tell someone that you kind of sort of used a time slash memory machine thing to go back to the night of a fatal accident and save the life of the woman you're quite certain is your soul mate, only to discover that said accident would then kill your wife's best work buddy and possibly the greatest cardiothoracic surgeon you've ever seen save for your old roommate? And how do you tell someone information like that without getting tossed on the crazy train?
I let my feet run just as fast as my thoughts, back and forth across the tiled floor, wondering if maybe I should say everything in Spanish so at least he won't understand. Except, I need answers. I need a lot of information that I'm pretty sure Arizona won't give me.
I chance a look at him, his expression only making me even more nervous. Because if I truly grasped all that Arizona was implying in the stairwell, about the three months of this reality being chock full of crazy Callie, I may very well find myself in the psych ward in the next ten minutes. And as much as I respect the field of psychology, it's not exactly a concept I feel like exploring right now.
"Callie," he begins, "Did you talk to Arizona? We discussed this happening, that -"
"I did something," I say, talking over him, "Maybe a bad something, I'm not sure. And I don't think you'll believe me, but I really need you to, without thinking I'm crazy or losing it."
He uncrosses his arms, stepping forward to grab onto my shoulders. "Cal, you can tell me anything," he swears. "Always. That hasn't changed."
I nod slowly, looking up at him and then taking a deep breath. "Promise you won't try to lock me up?" I whisper, pleading.
His mouth stretches into a straight line, his lips disappearing before he nods. "I promise."
I take another deep, shuddering breath. "I'm not the Callie you've known for the last three months," I start, holding up a hand when he opens his mouth to say something. "Let me just say this all. I'm from a different... reality, I guess. See, where I'm from, Arizona didn't survive the car accident in March. She, uh... she bled out, in surgery. Her liver had ruptured and by the time they opened up her abdomen she'd lost too much blood."
"Like in your dream," he whispers softly, letting go of my shoulders. He backs away to sit on a bed, keeping his eyes on me despite the defeated hunch of his body.
"I don't know what dream you're talking about, because I'm from somewhere else. In my reality, it was Teddy who survived the accident. But I was so... destroyed, living without Arizona. I didn't know how to be without her.
"There's this doctor - an inventor or a scientist or something - and he created this machine. It's called The Memory Machine: it was all over the news. I went to this machine and it let me go back and relive my time with Arizona. But then, I figured out I could change things. I could change what happened to Arizona, what went on in her surgery.
"And I did it, Mark. I ran in and cut her open and they managed to stop the bleeding and she lived, but that's the last thing I remember before waking up in an on-call room last night."
He finally looks away, dropping his head into his hands. "This sounds an awful lot like your dream, Callie." He breathes loudly, looking back up at me. "Did Arizona talk to you?"
I shake my head. "She had to go to surgery. Listen, Mark, you have to believe me. I don't remember anything. I didn't know Teddy was dead until about ten minutes ago."
"Callie," he sighs.
I huff, collapsing onto the bed next to him. "Can you just humour me for like, ten minutes?" I beg, "Just tell me what I'm missing?"
After a moment of silence, he nods. "Fine. But... this is the last time, Callie. You can't keep doing this to yourself or to Arizona. She wasn't kidding, Cal. She's going to leave you."
For what seems like the millionth time today, I freeze. All of me except my heart, which suddenly feels like it's trying to rip its way out of my chest it's beating so fast. She's going to leave me?
Mark looks over at me, realization dawning on his face. "You didn't know?" he whispers. "She told you a week ago, Callie." He runs his fingers through his hair, jumping to his feet to retrace the path I paced earlier. "It's all we've talked about for a week, Cal, you've been torn apart about it. We talked about it yesterday, before you crashed in an on-call room. You didn't want to go home, you said, because you thought she'd be gone, you..." He trails off, pausing to look at me. "You're not lying," he whispers. Within a second, he's next to me, tugging at my hands.
I wipe at a stray tear that's leaked down my face. "Tell me everything. Please."
