Chapter 9
Callie woke to low voices next to her. She sluggishly opened her eyes to find Amelia and Richard standing next to her.
"Sorry" Amelia promised, "we just landed here, and I wanted to check on her".
"We both did" Richard added. Callie yawned, not angry, just exhausted. It was good to see familiar faces. Not that Tom didn't seem good but Amelia was amazing.
"It's okay. Did you see the scans?" Callie asked.
"I did, Tom did a good job," Amelia confirmed,
"I know I did" Tom joined in; Callie noticed for the first time he was leaning against the door.
"What time is it?" she asked, the room had no windows, so her sense of day and night had totally left her.
"8am, we thought you were going to sleep all day" Tom mocked her.
"When are you waking her up?" Callie asked, her mind was focused.
"We need to take her to CT, check the bleeding, if we are happy then I see no reason not to wake her" Tom suggested, Amelia nodded her agreement. "Great let's go" he ordered, Callie stood to follow
"Not you, Dr Webber is going to take you for breakfast, I'm not having you collapse on me." Tom ordered gently. Callie sighed but allowed Richard to led her away to the canteen.
New York Pres might be one of the best hospitals in the country, but that rating was not based on the food. It was cold and lumpy and typical of hospitals. She poked at the burnt but cold toast and inhaled the coffee.
Richard however seemed to be savoring his breakfast. Callie waited impatiently for him to finish, while waiting she finished her toast and a muffin, which was exactly what he wanted. The moment his plate emptied Callie was on her feet. Arizona should be back from scan by now and Callie wanted to see the images,
Richard humored her and instead of letting his breakfast rest he followed her back to the ICU complete with coffee and muffin for Amelia.
Callie checked Arizona was back in her room before going to the Doctor's office. As predicted Tom and Amelia were comparing the scans, from after the first surgery and before this one to the current scans.
Although she wasn't a neurosurgeon Callie could see the changes. On the latest scan there was much less bright white in her head, the white representing fresh blood. It was the best scan since the initial accident. The concern was how much damage had been done by the bleed.
"So?" Callie asked nervously.
"We wake her up" Amelia suggested, deferring to Tom, after all this was his hospital and technically, she was his patient.
"We wake her up" Tom agreed, "check her neuro status, then sedate her let everything rest".
"For the record that's what I would do" Amelia said, after Callie shot her a pointed look, she didn't trust Tom, she trusted Amelia.
"Well of course you learned from the best" Tom gave a slight bow, while Amelia rolled her eyes. Dramatics over Tom stopped the sedation. "We need to keep it quiet" he ordered glaring at Callie. She nodded seated next to Arizona squeezing her hand.
It didn't take long for the blonde to groan.
"Arizona" Callie called worriedly. Blue eyes opened fixing on Callie instantly, Callie could see confusion.
"Arizona do you know where you are?" Tom asked,
"Ssssatleee" Arizona slurred, her eyes focusing on Callie, "I kisssssssssedddddd yooooooou Jooooooooe's" she said,
"Yes" Callie agreed slightly worried, why was Arizona bringing that up.
"What's the last thing you remember?" Tom questioned checking her pupilar response with his pen torch.
Arizona's brow furrowed as she tried to remember, she recognized Callie from the bar, Dr Webber from the interview from chief of Peds and Amelia and Tom from her time at Hopkins, why they were all in the room made no sense.
"Ccccaallllliiiieeee, bbbbbaaaatttthhhhrrrrooooooommmm kkkkissssssssss" she slurred getting more frustrated.
"That was nearly 10 years ago" Callie explained, her heart breaking, did Arizona really not remember anything else. Did she not remember anything of their relationship or their daughter?
"Okay," Tom increased the sedation, they'd let her brain rest for the next 48 hours then try again.
"That was a disaster" Callie moaned, how could Arizona forget 10 years, forget her daughter even existed.
"Actually, I think it was positive, she was able to recognise you, able to speak" Tom pointed out, "We can work on the slurred words, and the memory loss may not be permanent. She has been through a lot of trauma, worst case scenario though her brain is permanently damaged, and she can never make new memories" Amelia elbowed him noticing Callie had gone white, "but that's very unlikely" he finished.
There was a moment of silence as they all processed what this meant,
"Can we take her back to Seattle?" Amelia asked, while she didn't mind flying out, she did have more patients to review, and Seattle was home.
"Ideally, she'd stay for a few days but as she is flying with 3 doctors, I see no reason she can't fly back on a properly equipped flight tonight." Tom said,
"It's up to you Callie, I know you're not technically her next of kin, but I know she came here for you" Amelia said, Richard nodding his agreement.
"I'll call her parents" Callie decided, "I mean I think she'd be better in Seattle; everyone knows her there but it's their choice".
She stepped out the room calling the home line, Daniel answered.
"This is the Robbins residence, Colonel Robbins speaking" he said.
"It's Callie, Arizona woke up," Callie explained nervously, she hadn't really spoken to Arizona's parents since the divorce.
"That's great, was she okay?" Daniel asked, there was a pause, as Callie tried to form the words
"Her memory, she has amnesia, and her speech has been affected."
"Is that permanent?" Daniel questioned,
"We don't know, they have put her back into a coma for now they'll try to wake her again in 48 hours" Callie explained.
"Oh, so there is no rush" Daniel said, Callie sighed, they'd been like this last time with the leg amputation. As long as Arizona was breathing, they were happy to settle for phone calls. Arizona had explained they weren't good with hospitals or seeing her injured not since Tim. Callie had thought it was a pretty crappy cop out, but Arizona hadn't wanted to push it and Callie hadn't wanted to push her. Especially when Arizona actually spoke to both of her parents while Callie hadn't spoken to her mother since coming out bisexual.
"It would be good to have you here, you may be able to jog some memories" Callie explained patiently.
"You said she was sedated for the next 48 hours" Daniel pointed out. Callie sighed knowing she wasn't going to win this fight.
"We were wondering if we could fly her to Seattle?" Callie asked, "She is more familiar with the hospital and the doctors, it might help her remember."
"Whatever you think is best" Daniel said non-committal.
"Okay, I'll tell her to her doctors see when we can move her, hopefully she'll be in Seattle tonight," Callie suggested.
"Just let us know".
Callie hung up frustrated, before focusing on the positive, Arizona could go home. They both could. With the green light Callie began making plans to fly both Arizona, Sofia, and herself back to Seattle as well as all her belongings. It was made easier by Carlos being in town, he agreed to allow them to use the private jet and keep Sofia occupied on the journey while Callie, Amelia and Richard focused on Arizona.
It didn't take long to arrange the transfer the ambulance collecting Arizona taking her to the jet. Carlos and Sofia had gone ahead, Carlos had warned Sofia that mommy was going to be sleeping with tubes all over her.
When Sofia arrived at the airport Arizona was already on the plane.
"Mommy, I got a story book and I'm going to read it okay?" Sofia instructed sitting on the seat next to Arizona. After finishing the story Carlos pressed play on Tangled, Sofia insisted it was Mommy's favorite. Everyone suspected it was her favorite rather than Arizona's but allowed her to watch it anyway.
Once tangled was finished Carlos put in frozen, this according to Sofia's was Arizona's second favorite movie.
Frozen finished just as they were landing. Callie could see out the window blue flashing lights and knew Bailey had come through with the ambulance. The plane dropped its door. Bailey was on with Alex and Meredith,
"Did you leave anyone in the hospital?" Richard joked; Bailey glared at him.
"Arizona is one of ours" she said by way of defense.
"Plus, Bailey wanted to make sure she didn't escape again" Meredith joked; Bailey's glare only made it truer.
"That's if she remembers enough to want to escape" Callie said sadly. Would Arizona run across country for the girl she had just kissed.
"She'll get her memories back. If not, she'll fall in love with you all over again" Alex promised, squeezing Callie's hand. Callie nodded hopefully.
The EMT's entered carefully transferring Arizona onto the stretcher carrying her off the plane.
Amelia and Bailey rode with her in the ambulance Callie reluctantly going with Sofia in the car behind. Sofia needed her just as much as Arizona. Plus, Bailey had glared at her telling her there was no point arguing, there was only room in the ambulance for 2.
They arrived at Seattle Grace settling Arizona back into neuro ICU. Callie and Sofia just second behind her waiting outside until they'd settled her. Then became the long process of putting up Sofia's drawings so she could see when she woke up and arranging the get-well cards and flowers.
With the room set up Callie and Sofia sat talking to Arizona's unconscious body hoping somehow their words would help to jog her memory. That she would wake up with her memories intact that this was just a bad dream.
A knock at the door made them both jump, it was Meredith,
"Hey, I was wondering if I could take Sofia for the night, Zola is desperate for a play date. We have popcorn, indoor forts, sleepovers, ice cream and frozen 2" Meredith explained, Sofia looked pleading at Callie, she wanted to go and play with Zola and make indoor forts,
"Of course," Callie agreed easily. She was planning to stay overnight so was extremely grateful Meredith had volunteered to take her. Watching her daughter skip out the room she texted Carlos letting him know he didn't need to collect Sofia.
30 minutes later he appeared at the door, Alex in tow.
"Daddy?" Callie questioned,
"Calliope, you are going to eat with Alex and I'm going to sit here with my daughter in law" he ordered, Alex shrugged,
"I met him in the lifts I said I was hungry, he said I was taken you to dinner. He offered to pay" Alex explained.
"And he promised to be the perfect gentleman" Carlos said mostly to remind Alex. The problem with having a bisexual daughter was you couldn't trust either gender not to try sleep with her or her to respond. In the past he had only had to worried about gentlemen visiting but since Arizona he'd had to worry about both genders around his daughter, not that he thought currently his daughter would be doing anything he wouldn't approve of. She was too worried about Arizona.
Alex nodded slightly intimidated by Carlos, not that he was going to admit it. As he took Callie out of the ICU,
"Where do you fancy going?" he asked, Carlos had handed him a $100 bill when ordering him to take Callie out.
"Joe's?" Callie suggested. It was across the road so wouldn't take long to get to and the food was speedy. Alex shrugged, he didn't care, free food was free food.
They left, Carlos looked at the sleeping Arizona,
"it's just you and me kiddo, I know i'll let you about Calliope when she was young. She has always been stubborn and spirited, why one time ..." Carlos began.
Arizona is home, as is Callie,
Let me know what you think, permanent memory loss or not?