This Morning Sky [3/?]
Title: This Morning Sky [3/?]
Author: abandonedmem
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Callie/Arizona
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Set around 7x10. Arizona is presumed dead after an accident in Africa, but Derek finds himself with an amnesiac patient that bears a striking resemblance to Seattle Grace's favorite Peds attending. Now Callie has to remind Arizona who she is.
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners.
February 6, 2011
Teddy couldn’t take her eyes off Arizona’s heart monitor. The steady beep, beep, beep, was the only thing tethering her to reality. After leaving Joe’s she came straight back, knowing she couldn’t just sit around at home waiting to see her friend again. Bailey had been relieved to have someone take over her watch and left to get some much needed sleep in the
on-call room down the hall.
Overwhelmed with emotion at seeing Arizona again, Teddy sat in the chair next to her bed and silently cried. She wanted to get it all out now so she could stay composed when the blonde woke up. She remembers going to the clinic in Malawi and being met by the devastated faces of the doctors and nurses who had worked with Arizona for six months. The Peds surgeon never knew how big of a mark she made in people’s lives. If Arizona hadn’t taken her under her wing when she first arrived in Seattle, Teddy had no idea where she’d be. She vowed to do whatever she had to to repay the favor and help Arizona get her memory back.
The blonde’s chest rose and fell in rhythm with the beeps while Teddy’s thoughts drifted to Callie. They had to tell her. After coming down from the initial shock, she knew Derek was trying to do what was in the patient’s best interest, but Callie deserved to know. If anyone would be able to help Arizona remember who she was, it would be her.
An hour later when Teddy was fighting sleep, Arizona woke up. The blonde looked disoriented and a little scared until her eyes fell on Teddy.
“Hey, there,” Teddy said softly. “I’m Dr. Altman, but call me Teddy.”
Arizona nodded as she tried to break through her drug-induced haze. “I can’t believe you married a patient.”
Teddy froze. Everything about that statement was so Arizona that she had to fight the rising hope that her best friend knew who she was.
“Excuse me?”
“Bailey told me about you and your insurance husband. She said he’s hot, but I’m reserving judgment until I see him for myself.”
“Bailey told you that?”
“Yeah. Every day she gives me an update on all the gossip at the hospital.”
“Bailey doesn’t gossip.”
“You wouldn’t think so,” she said her brow furrowing. “I mean, I don’t even know her that well, but I can tell she’s not the gossip type. Yet, every time she comes in here she has a new juicy tidbit for me.”
“Huh.”
“Don’t blame her though. I don’t have much to offer in the way of conversation and hospital gossip is the easiest thing to bond over.”
Teddy smiled and stood, grabbing the stethoscope from around her neck. “I’ll remember that. If you don’t mind I’d like to check your vitals.”
“How’d the surgery go?”
“There were a few complications, but it went well. Dr. Shepherd found a contusion that he thinks may be a factor in your amnesia, but he fixed it along with the first bleed. You coded on the table, but he called me in and I was able to stabilize you.”
“Should I be worried?”
“No. I think it was a result of all the stress your body has been under. To be on the safe side I’d like you to take it easy the next few days.”
“No marathons. Got it.”
Arizona liked Teddy. She had a warm quality about her, a comforting smile and seemed like good friend material. If there was something Arizona needed right now, it was a friend. Dr. Shepherd, Meredith, and Bailey were all nice, and she was thankful that they took the extra time to hang out with her, but they were still her doctors. They were more concerned with her vitals and brain bleeds than they were about her as a person. She didn’t blame them, they were trying to help her find herself again, but this person she was now, Sarah, was stuck in a lonely limbo. She tried to her best to put on a brave face and a smile, but the constant solitude in this tiny room was getting to her.
“Teddy,” she said tentatively. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Am I some big secret or something?”
Teddy’s face was panicked as she searched for the right answer. Arizona had asked the question as an ice breaker to find why she wasn’t really allowed to leave the room, but she hadn’t actually believed that she was a secret.
“Oh my God, I’m a secret. Why am I a secret?”
“You’re not a secret, per se,” Teddy said trying to recover from the shock of Arizona’s question. She was adding this to the list of reasons why she was going to kill Derek Shepherd. She didn’t know if they had a contingency plan for this, but Teddy knew it was best to tell her as much truth as possible. She didn’t like lying to her best friend.
“The thing is, Sarah, one of our surgeons . . . died not too long ago and you remind us a bit of her. I think Dr. Shepherd is trying to shield you from becoming part of the Seattle Grace Mercy West gossip mill you love so much.”
“Ah, so that explains the crying.” Arizona had noticed the strange looks and wet eyes from the nurses in the OR and the CT technician on her first night. Teddy gave her a questioning look so she elaborated. “People tend to cry around me. They try to hide it, like you’re doing right now. Don’t think I didn’t notice those puffy red eyes of yours. Bailey hid it better.”
“Sorry about that,” Teddy said amazed at the blonde’s deductive skills. “I’m going to talk to Dr. Shepherd though to see if we can’t take you on a few field trips.”
“I’d like that. Also, Teddy, you’re going to be friends with me.”
“I am?” Teddy asked flashing back to the same conversation she had with Arizona last year.
“Oh yeah, I’m an awesome friend. Plus, you like you need someone to talk to and I’ve got plenty of time to listen.” Arizona flashed her a genuine smile and Teddy couldn’t help but feel relieved. It was good to know that some traits were inherently Arizona and that she hadn’t completely lost her friend.
/ / /
“Derek, we have got to tell Callie.”
Derek sighed, knowing this conversation was inevitable.
“I agree,” Bailey said while Meredith nodded next to her. Teddy was grateful for the support.
“I know,” Derek said. “I know we can’t keep this from her any longer. I don’t want to keep Arizona a secret; I’m just trying to do the right thing for my patient.”
“Her shift ends in a couple of hours,” Teddy said. “You know she’s going to kill you Derek.”
“Oh, I know.”
“What about the rest of the hospital,” Bailey asked. “We can’t keep Arizona locked in her room.”
“Let’s let Callie get adjusted first, then we’ll make an announcement.”
While Teddy was relieved they were finally going to tell Callie, she dreaded the moment when they actually would. It was going to be rough. This was her aspirational couple they were talking about after all. Seeing Callie so hurt after Arizona left was hard, but reading that last email from her best friend was brutal. Arizona had no one to share her pain with. No one that would understand anyway. Then on the day she’s supposed to fly back to the woman she loved, she loses her memory. Nothing about this situation was easy.
/ / /
“You paged me, Shepherd?”
“I did. Come sit, Torres.”
“What is this? Some sort of intervention?” Callie joked. The faces of Shepherd, Altman, and Bailey stared back at her mirthlessly. She racked her brain for something she did that would warrant this or a patient they had in common, but came up empty. The tension in the room was thick.
“I want to talk to you about the VIP patient we’re treating. The patient is female, mid-thirties, who is suffering from amnesia after being in an accident. We’re working on her brain bleeds and I hope she’ll regain her memory after those are healed.”
Callie nodded. She started to calm down a bit after thinking they needed her for some sort of consult. The brunette was glad because after Joe’s last night and her hangover this morning, she did not need any bad news.
“The woman was flown in from Vancouver General. Before that, she was treated in Africa . . . in Malawi.” Malawi. Africa. Callie shuddered every time she heard those words. It was bad enough having Arizona’s ghost haunt her everywhere she went, now she was going to have some African patient to remind her of what she lost.
“It’s Arizona, Callie. The patient is Arizona.”
The world stilled and Callie was pretty sure she stopped breathing. People didn’t normally do this, talk so freely about her. After she got over the shock of hearing her name, Callie began to process what Derek had said. Arizona was the patient. What?
“I don’t know if you think this is funny, but it’s a pretty sick joke.” Callie felt her cheeks redden and tied to control the burning sensation in her body.
“It’s really her, Callie,” Teddy said a little taken aback by the brunette’s response. “I’ve talked to her.”
After the numbness wore off, the first thing Callie registered was relief. Complete earth-shattering relief. Arizona was alive. Arizona was alive. Something in her chest broke. She figured it was the wall that had built itself around her heart since the blonde left all those months ago. Then the confusion hit. How was this possible? They found her ID next to a burned body in a taxi. The African authorities said they were positive it was Arizona. Did she remember anything? Could she go see her? Could she handle it? Then the anger hit. Arizona was the VIP patient. The VIP patient had been here for a week and they were just telling her now. What gave them the right to keep something this big from her, especially since they all knew how much pain she was in?
“Derek Shepherd, I would kill you right now if you weren’t Arizona’s best shot at getting her memory back. After that though, I’d watch your back.” Though the hostile intent was clear the words sounded hollow in Callie’s hears because mostly, all she felt was joy. The woman she loved, the woman she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, the woman she had mourned for months, was alive. There were no words to express the joy she felt.
/ / /
Callie found herself standing outside Arizona’s room after Teddy and Bailey filled her in on the rest of the details. They told her she went by Sarah, which Callie thought was absurd because Arizona looked nothing like a Sarah, that she was mostly her same perky self and that she retained her fondness for the word “awesome.”
It was strange seeing the blonde sleeping peacefully, close enough to touch, after dreaming about it for so long. Her hair was a bit darker, she was paler, but Callie imagined if she could see her eyes they’d be the same bright blue. Part of her expected to cry with relief upon seeing her again, but Callie had no more tears to give. Her crying episode last night had left her drained and exhausted beyond words and besides, she didn’t want to cry anymore, she was so over crying.
Meredith came to check on Arizona while Callie took the time to gather her thoughts outside her room. Should she go in and introduce herself? The romantic in her wished that Arizona would magically remember after seeing Callie again, but the surgeon in her knew that was just a fantasy. What would she say to her? Somehow, “Hi, I’m Callie and we’re kind of in love,” didn’t seem to be the right thing, but it was only thing she could think of. Meredith left a few minutes later giving her a nod indicating it was okay to go in. Instead, Callie just continued to sit outside her room. She wasn’t ready to go in yet. She sat there thinking about the past eight months and how mad she had been at Arizona when she left. She thought about those times she was this close to buying a one way ticket to Malawi just to be close to Arizona again.
Callie figured she was sitting there for at least twenty minutes when the heart monitor inside Arizona’s room blared. Teddy had said there had been some complications in the surgery and a thousand scenarios rushed through Callie’s head as she shot up and ran into the room. She expected to see Arizona flat lining or seizing, but did not expect her to be straining to reach the water on the far end of her bedside table.
“Are you okay?” she asked rushing over to pick the pulse oximeter off the ground and canceled the code alert.
“Yeah, sorry. I was just thirsty and when I reached over to get water the little finger thingie fell off.”
“The finger thingie?” Callie chuckled pouring Arizona a glass of water. “Here you go.”
“Thanks . . . Dr. Torres,” Arizona said craning her neck to see the name written across Callie’s coat. “Oh, you must be Callie!”
The brunette’s heart skipped a beat. Hearing Arizona say her name again was the greatest feeling and she fought the urge to wrap her arms around the blonde. “What’s Bailey told you about me?” she asked knowing that Arizona probably already had the full rundown. Well, at least the parts she wasn’t in.
“Not much. You are one of the mysterious ones.” Bailey told her she was an orthopedic surgeon and that she was one of the best, but that was about it. Arizona could think of a thousand other things that Bailey should have told her. Like Callie was beautiful, and sexy, and had a smile that lit up the room. Best of all, something about the other woman made her heart flutter. It was something she had never felt before, not that she could remember anyway.
“Well, what do you want to know?” Callie asked pulling a chair next to Arizona’s bed.
Everything. Arizona wanted to know everything. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”
And Callie did. She told Arizona about growing up in Miami, going to med school, and ending up at Seattle Grace. They talked until Arizona couldn’t fight sleep anymore. Callie told her to rest and that she’d come back with lunch tomorrow. It was the first night in months Callie left the hospital happy.
Author: abandonedmem
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Callie/Arizona
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Set around 7x10. Arizona is presumed dead after an accident in Africa, but Derek finds himself with an amnesiac patient that bears a striking resemblance to Seattle Grace's favorite Peds attending. Now Callie has to remind Arizona who she is.
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners.
February 6, 2011
Teddy couldn’t take her eyes off Arizona’s heart monitor. The steady beep, beep, beep, was the only thing tethering her to reality. After leaving Joe’s she came straight back, knowing she couldn’t just sit around at home waiting to see her friend again. Bailey had been relieved to have someone take over her watch and left to get some much needed sleep in the
on-call room down the hall.
Overwhelmed with emotion at seeing Arizona again, Teddy sat in the chair next to her bed and silently cried. She wanted to get it all out now so she could stay composed when the blonde woke up. She remembers going to the clinic in Malawi and being met by the devastated faces of the doctors and nurses who had worked with Arizona for six months. The Peds surgeon never knew how big of a mark she made in people’s lives. If Arizona hadn’t taken her under her wing when she first arrived in Seattle, Teddy had no idea where she’d be. She vowed to do whatever she had to to repay the favor and help Arizona get her memory back.
The blonde’s chest rose and fell in rhythm with the beeps while Teddy’s thoughts drifted to Callie. They had to tell her. After coming down from the initial shock, she knew Derek was trying to do what was in the patient’s best interest, but Callie deserved to know. If anyone would be able to help Arizona remember who she was, it would be her.
An hour later when Teddy was fighting sleep, Arizona woke up. The blonde looked disoriented and a little scared until her eyes fell on Teddy.
“Hey, there,” Teddy said softly. “I’m Dr. Altman, but call me Teddy.”
Arizona nodded as she tried to break through her drug-induced haze. “I can’t believe you married a patient.”
Teddy froze. Everything about that statement was so Arizona that she had to fight the rising hope that her best friend knew who she was.
“Excuse me?”
“Bailey told me about you and your insurance husband. She said he’s hot, but I’m reserving judgment until I see him for myself.”
“Bailey told you that?”
“Yeah. Every day she gives me an update on all the gossip at the hospital.”
“Bailey doesn’t gossip.”
“You wouldn’t think so,” she said her brow furrowing. “I mean, I don’t even know her that well, but I can tell she’s not the gossip type. Yet, every time she comes in here she has a new juicy tidbit for me.”
“Huh.”
“Don’t blame her though. I don’t have much to offer in the way of conversation and hospital gossip is the easiest thing to bond over.”
Teddy smiled and stood, grabbing the stethoscope from around her neck. “I’ll remember that. If you don’t mind I’d like to check your vitals.”
“How’d the surgery go?”
“There were a few complications, but it went well. Dr. Shepherd found a contusion that he thinks may be a factor in your amnesia, but he fixed it along with the first bleed. You coded on the table, but he called me in and I was able to stabilize you.”
“Should I be worried?”
“No. I think it was a result of all the stress your body has been under. To be on the safe side I’d like you to take it easy the next few days.”
“No marathons. Got it.”
Arizona liked Teddy. She had a warm quality about her, a comforting smile and seemed like good friend material. If there was something Arizona needed right now, it was a friend. Dr. Shepherd, Meredith, and Bailey were all nice, and she was thankful that they took the extra time to hang out with her, but they were still her doctors. They were more concerned with her vitals and brain bleeds than they were about her as a person. She didn’t blame them, they were trying to help her find herself again, but this person she was now, Sarah, was stuck in a lonely limbo. She tried to her best to put on a brave face and a smile, but the constant solitude in this tiny room was getting to her.
“Teddy,” she said tentatively. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Am I some big secret or something?”
Teddy’s face was panicked as she searched for the right answer. Arizona had asked the question as an ice breaker to find why she wasn’t really allowed to leave the room, but she hadn’t actually believed that she was a secret.
“Oh my God, I’m a secret. Why am I a secret?”
“You’re not a secret, per se,” Teddy said trying to recover from the shock of Arizona’s question. She was adding this to the list of reasons why she was going to kill Derek Shepherd. She didn’t know if they had a contingency plan for this, but Teddy knew it was best to tell her as much truth as possible. She didn’t like lying to her best friend.
“The thing is, Sarah, one of our surgeons . . . died not too long ago and you remind us a bit of her. I think Dr. Shepherd is trying to shield you from becoming part of the Seattle Grace Mercy West gossip mill you love so much.”
“Ah, so that explains the crying.” Arizona had noticed the strange looks and wet eyes from the nurses in the OR and the CT technician on her first night. Teddy gave her a questioning look so she elaborated. “People tend to cry around me. They try to hide it, like you’re doing right now. Don’t think I didn’t notice those puffy red eyes of yours. Bailey hid it better.”
“Sorry about that,” Teddy said amazed at the blonde’s deductive skills. “I’m going to talk to Dr. Shepherd though to see if we can’t take you on a few field trips.”
“I’d like that. Also, Teddy, you’re going to be friends with me.”
“I am?” Teddy asked flashing back to the same conversation she had with Arizona last year.
“Oh yeah, I’m an awesome friend. Plus, you like you need someone to talk to and I’ve got plenty of time to listen.” Arizona flashed her a genuine smile and Teddy couldn’t help but feel relieved. It was good to know that some traits were inherently Arizona and that she hadn’t completely lost her friend.
/ / /
“Derek, we have got to tell Callie.”
Derek sighed, knowing this conversation was inevitable.
“I agree,” Bailey said while Meredith nodded next to her. Teddy was grateful for the support.
“I know,” Derek said. “I know we can’t keep this from her any longer. I don’t want to keep Arizona a secret; I’m just trying to do the right thing for my patient.”
“Her shift ends in a couple of hours,” Teddy said. “You know she’s going to kill you Derek.”
“Oh, I know.”
“What about the rest of the hospital,” Bailey asked. “We can’t keep Arizona locked in her room.”
“Let’s let Callie get adjusted first, then we’ll make an announcement.”
While Teddy was relieved they were finally going to tell Callie, she dreaded the moment when they actually would. It was going to be rough. This was her aspirational couple they were talking about after all. Seeing Callie so hurt after Arizona left was hard, but reading that last email from her best friend was brutal. Arizona had no one to share her pain with. No one that would understand anyway. Then on the day she’s supposed to fly back to the woman she loved, she loses her memory. Nothing about this situation was easy.
/ / /
“You paged me, Shepherd?”
“I did. Come sit, Torres.”
“What is this? Some sort of intervention?” Callie joked. The faces of Shepherd, Altman, and Bailey stared back at her mirthlessly. She racked her brain for something she did that would warrant this or a patient they had in common, but came up empty. The tension in the room was thick.
“I want to talk to you about the VIP patient we’re treating. The patient is female, mid-thirties, who is suffering from amnesia after being in an accident. We’re working on her brain bleeds and I hope she’ll regain her memory after those are healed.”
Callie nodded. She started to calm down a bit after thinking they needed her for some sort of consult. The brunette was glad because after Joe’s last night and her hangover this morning, she did not need any bad news.
“The woman was flown in from Vancouver General. Before that, she was treated in Africa . . . in Malawi.” Malawi. Africa. Callie shuddered every time she heard those words. It was bad enough having Arizona’s ghost haunt her everywhere she went, now she was going to have some African patient to remind her of what she lost.
“It’s Arizona, Callie. The patient is Arizona.”
The world stilled and Callie was pretty sure she stopped breathing. People didn’t normally do this, talk so freely about her. After she got over the shock of hearing her name, Callie began to process what Derek had said. Arizona was the patient. What?
“I don’t know if you think this is funny, but it’s a pretty sick joke.” Callie felt her cheeks redden and tied to control the burning sensation in her body.
“It’s really her, Callie,” Teddy said a little taken aback by the brunette’s response. “I’ve talked to her.”
After the numbness wore off, the first thing Callie registered was relief. Complete earth-shattering relief. Arizona was alive. Arizona was alive. Something in her chest broke. She figured it was the wall that had built itself around her heart since the blonde left all those months ago. Then the confusion hit. How was this possible? They found her ID next to a burned body in a taxi. The African authorities said they were positive it was Arizona. Did she remember anything? Could she go see her? Could she handle it? Then the anger hit. Arizona was the VIP patient. The VIP patient had been here for a week and they were just telling her now. What gave them the right to keep something this big from her, especially since they all knew how much pain she was in?
“Derek Shepherd, I would kill you right now if you weren’t Arizona’s best shot at getting her memory back. After that though, I’d watch your back.” Though the hostile intent was clear the words sounded hollow in Callie’s hears because mostly, all she felt was joy. The woman she loved, the woman she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, the woman she had mourned for months, was alive. There were no words to express the joy she felt.
/ / /
Callie found herself standing outside Arizona’s room after Teddy and Bailey filled her in on the rest of the details. They told her she went by Sarah, which Callie thought was absurd because Arizona looked nothing like a Sarah, that she was mostly her same perky self and that she retained her fondness for the word “awesome.”
It was strange seeing the blonde sleeping peacefully, close enough to touch, after dreaming about it for so long. Her hair was a bit darker, she was paler, but Callie imagined if she could see her eyes they’d be the same bright blue. Part of her expected to cry with relief upon seeing her again, but Callie had no more tears to give. Her crying episode last night had left her drained and exhausted beyond words and besides, she didn’t want to cry anymore, she was so over crying.
Meredith came to check on Arizona while Callie took the time to gather her thoughts outside her room. Should she go in and introduce herself? The romantic in her wished that Arizona would magically remember after seeing Callie again, but the surgeon in her knew that was just a fantasy. What would she say to her? Somehow, “Hi, I’m Callie and we’re kind of in love,” didn’t seem to be the right thing, but it was only thing she could think of. Meredith left a few minutes later giving her a nod indicating it was okay to go in. Instead, Callie just continued to sit outside her room. She wasn’t ready to go in yet. She sat there thinking about the past eight months and how mad she had been at Arizona when she left. She thought about those times she was this close to buying a one way ticket to Malawi just to be close to Arizona again.
Callie figured she was sitting there for at least twenty minutes when the heart monitor inside Arizona’s room blared. Teddy had said there had been some complications in the surgery and a thousand scenarios rushed through Callie’s head as she shot up and ran into the room. She expected to see Arizona flat lining or seizing, but did not expect her to be straining to reach the water on the far end of her bedside table.
“Are you okay?” she asked rushing over to pick the pulse oximeter off the ground and canceled the code alert.
“Yeah, sorry. I was just thirsty and when I reached over to get water the little finger thingie fell off.”
“The finger thingie?” Callie chuckled pouring Arizona a glass of water. “Here you go.”
“Thanks . . . Dr. Torres,” Arizona said craning her neck to see the name written across Callie’s coat. “Oh, you must be Callie!”
The brunette’s heart skipped a beat. Hearing Arizona say her name again was the greatest feeling and she fought the urge to wrap her arms around the blonde. “What’s Bailey told you about me?” she asked knowing that Arizona probably already had the full rundown. Well, at least the parts she wasn’t in.
“Not much. You are one of the mysterious ones.” Bailey told her she was an orthopedic surgeon and that she was one of the best, but that was about it. Arizona could think of a thousand other things that Bailey should have told her. Like Callie was beautiful, and sexy, and had a smile that lit up the room. Best of all, something about the other woman made her heart flutter. It was something she had never felt before, not that she could remember anyway.
“Well, what do you want to know?” Callie asked pulling a chair next to Arizona’s bed.
Everything. Arizona wanted to know everything. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”
And Callie did. She told Arizona about growing up in Miami, going to med school, and ending up at Seattle Grace. They talked until Arizona couldn’t fight sleep anymore. Callie told her to rest and that she’d come back with lunch tomorrow. It was the first night in months Callie left the hospital happy.