Scar Tissue (Part Two) -- Chapter 30
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Scar Tissue (Part Two)
Chapter 30
Authors: kennedysbitch & livelovelearneg
Beta'd by englishstrawbie
Rating: NC-17 [Depictions of violence, PTSD, Language, Sexual Content]
Pairing: Callie/Arizona
Disclaimer
Scar Tissue [masterpost]
Summary: When Arizona Robbins’ brother dies in Iraq, her life takes off in a completely different direction. Now a highly-rated trauma surgeon with the United States Marine Corps, she spends the three years following his death serving their country overseas - until an insurgent attack leaves her with debilitating injuries. Traveling to Seattle at her father’s request, she falls under the care of orthopedic surgeon Dr. Calliope Torres. Damaged emotionally and physically, Arizona tries to start the healing process with the help of a headstrong woman she never saw coming.
Part Two: Now free from the confines of a hospital bed for the first time
in almost five months, Arizona begins her physical and emotional recovery while
navigating a budding yet rocky relationship with Callie Torres.
Warnings: Depictions of violence, PTSD, Language, Sexual Content
Trailer:
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Sleep eluded Callie that night. No matter how many times she tried pushing the argument to the back of her mind, every hurtful thing they said to each other came flying back with a vengeance. She was still mad at Arizona for being irrationally stubborn and kept trying to tell herself that she hadn’t been unnecessarily harsh.
It wasn’t entirely true, though. Callie had said a few things in the heat of the moment that she regretted, or at least things she wished she had worded differently. The hardest part was that she could see how much moving forward meant to Arizona and she understood why she had made the decisions she did. Callie just couldn’t bring herself to agree with them.
Whether Arizona would follow through on her threat to find another physician remained to be seen. That had stung more than Callie liked to admit, but she hadn’t really given her another choice. By now she knew that when Arizona Robbins put her mind to something, she made it happen. They would just have to wait and see if there were any repercussions.
By 3a.m., Callie was resigned to her fate. She threw off the covers and pulled on a pair of sweatpants from her early resident days, then stuffed her feet into a pair of Uggs. Their fridge was too empty to scrounge up a late night snack and there was an all-night Vietnamese place down the road. She wasn’t really hungry, with her stomach still churning from the fight, but it would provide an excuse to go for a walk and maybe clear her head.
Given the time of year and the city she lived in, Callie selected a rain-proof running jacket from her closet before stepping into the hall, peering around for signs of life. All of the lights were off and Arizona’s bedroom door was closed. Save for the distant sound of a siren, the night was as quiet as ever.
Well, at least one of them was getting some sleep tonight.
Zipping up her jacket, Callie grabbed a pair of gloves from the front closet and slipped out of the apartment. Nothing helped a girl process her feelings more than a plate full of spring rolls and a warm bowl of soup.
***
The walk did her some good. It was only about four blocks there and back, and the fall breeze was a nice change from the stifling walls of the apartment.
There was a small line waiting to order despite the hour, so Callie passed the time by reading a menu. She had memorized it four years ago, so the re-read was unnecessary, but it helped keep her mind off Arizona and their issues for a few minutes. Angry or not, she decided to order a container of her girlfriend’s favourite dish for lunch the next day. They were in desperate need of a grocery run, unless ketchup sandwiches or dunking pickles in mayonnaise counted as sustenance.
She skimmed through the appetizers, the soups, and finally the entrées, all in an effort to distract herself, until she came to a tiny Tic-Tac-Toe board drawn below number forty-seven. Callie’s heart sank - a few months ago, she had taken Arizona here for lunch and they had doodled on the menu while waiting for their order, chatting the whole time about a piggy-back transplant Teddy was planning through UNOS. It seemed like there would be no escaping the reminders of their fight. Callie set the paper aside and closed her eyes instead.
A huge part of her wanted to be happy for Arizona. She was happy for her, she just happened to be the more rational of the two this time around. Even if Arizona was fooling herself, Callie knew she would be back in the OR within a week, maybe less. The temptation would be way too strong. Arizona wanted her life back and she wanted it now, waiting be damned.
The emotional repercussions were what frightened her the most. The look of death on Arizona’s face during her flashback at the wharf would be forever burned into the forefront of Callie’s brain. Maybe she was over-thinking things, but the only way to find out for sure would be to throw Arizona into the fire and see what happened. Something about that just didn’t sit well with her. Still, she had been pretty harsh. Maybe a little too harsh.
The hostess waved the next person forward and Callie stepped in to order, throwing an extra dish of salad rolls in with the hopes they would appease some part of her guilty conscience. Maybe then she would finally be able to get some sleep.
***
There was light in the living room when Callie got back and, for a moment, she thought Cristina had come home. Instead, sitting on the couch, wrapped in a micro-fleece blanket and nursing a rum and coke, Arizona sat watching her with a guarded expression.
Callie paused midway through kicking off her boots. “Hey. I didn’t expect you to be up this late.”
Arizona smiled shyly, shrinking deeper into the blanket draped around her body. “I didn’t realize you’d left,” she said quietly.
Callie looked down at the plastic bag in her hand and lifted it higher. “Couldn’t sleep, so I went to Pho Palace.” She felt sheepish all of a sudden and shrugged half-heartedly. “Got you that soup you liked last time. And some salad rolls.”
Arizona wasn’t hungry until Callie mentioned the soup. Whatever food she had consumed earlier that night had been burned up during the argument and the hours of stressing that had come afterwards. “Thanks,” she said, “you really didn’t have to do that.” She started to get up only for Callie to wave her off.
“No, you stay, I’ll grab some plates.” Callie went into the kitchen and set the food on the counter while she washed up, keeping her eyes trained on the soap dish in front of her, too nervous to look across the living room. The walk had cleared her mind a little but not enough for her to feel ready for this conversation. She didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t end with them yelling at each other again.
Regardless, she grabbed the necessary plates and bowls, then brought the larger-than-average order over to the coffee table and set everything down. She hesitated on where to sit, eventually settling on a full cushion length away. That seemed safe without being too obvious.
The silence was awkward. Neither one of them wanted to be the first to speak, so Callie trained her eyes forward and stared at the television instead. It took a moment for the familiarity of the program to register, at which point she glanced at Arizona out of surprise.
“Hitchcock? Really?” she asked. “I thought you never watched scary stuff before bed.”
Arizona shrugged and pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “I wasn’t really planning on going back to sleep, so…I figured it wouldn’t matter.”
She looked so down and out that Callie instinctively wanted to reach out to her. She stopped herself from doing so and returned her gaze to the TV instead. “Me neither,” she said after a beat. “Hence the unnecessary calorie run in the middle of the night.”
Arizona showed the first hint of a smile. “Food is good. Food we can always agree on.” She finally unfurled herself from the cocoon and reached forward to set her drink on the table. As she moved, Callie’s brow lifted in question when she spotted one of her old teddy bears on Arizona’s lap, nestled comfortably against her side.
Arizona followed her gaze and blushed profusely. “You, uh, left him in my bed the other morning when you had to work,” she explained. They had laughed about the goofy gesture at the time. “He kinda came to hang out with me.”
It was so endearing that Callie couldn’t help but break out into a grin, despite her girlfriend’s embarrassment. “He’s yours,” she mused. “He kept me company through a lot of drama as a teenager. He’ll be happy to be of assistance again.”
Arizona shook her head at herself, feeling silly for getting caught. “Thanks. He is snuggly, just…not as snuggly as you.” She took in a shallow breath and finally held Callie’s eyes for longer than a second. “I couldn’t sleep without you.”
A big chunk of apprehension melted away at those softly spoken words. “Me neither,” Callie admitted, reaching out to brush an errant strand of hair away from Arizona’s face. As mad as she had been before, every time she looked at Arizona, her heart ached with love. It was sickeningly cheesy but she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Arizona leaned into the touch. It was impossible to know what to say after the day they’d had, so for the time being she simply enjoyed the fact that they weren’t at each other’s throats. Callie finally broke the stalemate and scooted to her left, while Arizona dropped her head onto Callie’s shoulder as soon as she was within reach.
Callie’s arm slid protectively around her and Arizona closed her eyes, taking solace in the gentle kiss pressed to her hair. She pulled her feet up on the couch and curled up against her partner’s side. For a while, they just sat together.
“I’m sorry,” Arizona eventually whispered.
Callie sighed. “I’m sorry, too.”
Arizona turned her nose into Callie’s collarbone. “Fighting sucks.”
Smiling, Callie nodded her agreement. “Yeah, it totally does.” She dropped her free hand to rest on top of the blonde’s. She could tell Arizona was wrestling with her words, so she waited, taking the opportunity to organize her own thoughts. Maybe this time they could have an actual discussion without all the yelling.
It took a while before Arizona lifted her head again. “You were right, I should have told you before I spoke with the Chief. I owed you that much after everything you’ve done for me.” She turned Callie’s hand over in their laps and gently twisted one of her rings around the digit. “I guess I just wanted everything to be complication-free.”
“And I represented complications,” Callie added, smiling ruefully.
Arizona shook her head. “I knew you’d be concerned. It is fast, I’ll admit that. I’ve spent a lot of time convincing myself I could make it work if I manage my schedule properly.”
Callie did indeed have a lot of concerns and they weren’t going to go away just because they had made amends for the worst of it. Still, she wished that she hadn’t been so blunt and in Arizona’s face about it before.
“I love you,” she said earnestly, “and I never wanted you to doubt how much I believe in you.”
“I know,” Arizona replied, “I know you do. I’m sorry I said otherwise.”
Callie released a ragged sigh and intertwined their fingers. “And I’m sorry that I threatened to tattle on you. That really wasn’t fair of me.”
Arizona half shrugged, knowing they could go on all night about the things they regretted. “Do you think we can just…”
“Start this conversation over from the beginning?”
Arizona nodded, visibly relieved. “Yes please.”
Callie smiled softly and gave her hand a firm squeeze, then shifted on the couch to face her directly. “I’m worried that you’re going to push yourself too hard and too fast,” she began. “You’re an extremely passionate, determined person and I can see you going overboard before your stamina is back.”
Arizona dropped her eyes. “I get that, but the last thing I want is a physical set back. I really do need time in the skills lab for my own piece of mind, and there’s a lot of reading and catching up I have to do. Some of it I can manage from home, but I would really like to be in an actual work environment again. I think it’ll be good for me.”
Even Callie could see how stir-crazy Arizona had become. She didn’t blame her; if she had been housebound for this long, she would have gone AWOL a long time ago.
“Okay,” she relented. “If you say that you’re committed to taking it slow, then I believe you. I’ll still worry, but I do believe you.”
The tiny smile Arizona gave her carried such hope that Callie realized she hadn’t given her enough credit. She didn’t have the heart to crush the blonde’s dreams, not after how much work she had put into getting them back.
“I will be careful, I promise you that.” Arizona lifted their clasped hands to her lips, pressing a gentle kiss to Callie’s knuckles. “You can even keep tabs on me if you’d like.”
“You mean I can stalk you at work?”
“Maybe.” Arizona’s mouth twitched.
Eventually Callie’s teasing faltered. “Even if you manage the physical stuff okay, there’s still all the rest you’d have to contend with.” Arizona’s smile dropped and Callie immediately reached up to touch her face again. “But I am so sorry that I threw it in your face earlier. That was so out of line. I was just scared.”
“It’s okay,” Arizona murmured. She squeezed Callie’s arm. “You weren’t wrong. I’ve thought a lot about it and I’ve never had any problems imagining being in the OR again, or in the emergency room. None of my dreams seem to revolve around what my job entailed and I’ve seen a lot of crazy injuries in my time. I don’t think it would be triggering.”
Callie released a deep breath and folded her legs underneath her, sitting upright. “There’s just this part of me that can’t let go of the notion you might get blindsided by something. I mean, I know there aren’t exactly blast injuries on even a semi-regular basis in Seattle, but something could happen. Maybe it would remind you of what you went through.”
“It might,” Arizona said delicately, “but that doesn’t mean it’ll shut me down like before. I honestly feel energized at the idea of helping people again. It’s like I’ve been so useless since December that putting myself back where I belong is the right thing to do.”
“You’re not worried that you’ll...” Callie trailed off, concerned with whether she was pushing too hard again. Arizona nodded encouragingly, so she continued. “The wharf, what happened to you there. It caught you off guard and you just looked so…that terrified me.” Callie felt a wave of anxiety at the memory of that day and she blinked hard a few times to keep herself steady. “I just can’t stand the idea of you going through that again. Especially at work.”
Arizona’s heart ached at the fear in her girlfriend’s voice. She leaned forward and pressed their lips firmly together. Sometimes she needed a reminder that Callie had seen some things that were pretty awful in the last few months, too.
“I don’t want that either,” she said assuredly, resting their foreheads together. “I’ll admit, there’s a small part of me that wonders what it’ll be like to go back after everything. But I think I’ve become pretty self-aware, especially since I met Dan. I know to listen to my gut when it’s telling me that I’m not okay and that sometimes I have to correct it when it reacts to something that only happened in the past.”
Hearing Arizona talk about the things she had been working on gave Callie some confidence. Part of the reason she was so worked up had a lot to do with not knowing where Arizona was at. “So if something makes you uncomfortable…?”
“Then I’ll take a step back,” Arizona agreed. “I really don’t think that the ER job will do that, at least not in the general sense. On a case by case basis, it might be different, but I feel confident. You know what it’s like when you’re in the moment, nothing else matters but the person you’re trying to help.” She started to smile again and the sparkle in her eyes returned. “I set foot in there today and it was like an adrenaline boost. I am really, really excited about this, Calliope - even the studying and the lab work and the really boring stuff that’s not inside an OR. I haven’t felt that way in forever, except for when I met you. And look how well that turned out.”
It was getting harder and harder to be totally against this crazy plan. Callie was starting to realize that it wasn’t fair to rub her own insecurities off on Arizona. She was an adult and seemed to have a fairly good handle on how things could go. Callie would just have to work through her own feelings as everything progressed.
“And the dreams?” she asked. She couldn’t let that one slide, even if Arizona wouldn’t be sleeping much at work.
Arizona thought carefully about how she wanted to do this. “The dreams come and go, and I have hopes that a regular schedule might help me sleep better at night. Having something else to focus on outside of my recovery could really help.” Callie didn’t look convinced, so Arizona pushed on. “At the same time, I know they’re a huge problem for both of us, so I’m willing to speak to the staff counsellor about it at some point.”
“At some point?” Callie echoed.
Arizona nodded slowly. “I want to get my feet under me first. There are a lot of things I have to do when I start and I think having my bearings will give me a better idea of where I’m at.”
Callie chewed on her bottom lip and reflexively wiggled her toes, a habit she had formed when she was anxious. “Before you step into the OR? You’ll talk to someone first?”
Arizona was really hesitant to promise a definitive date, but she knew Callie deserved an answer if she was to agree to any of this. Compromising was hard for them both. “Okay. I’ll speak to them before I officially start my OR rotation again.”
For the first time all evening, Callie heaved a genuine sigh of relief. It had been a months-long fight to get Arizona to agree to anything of the sort. “Thank you. I mean, this is for you, not for me, but…thank you.”
With those words, it felt like a deal had been struck. Silence stretched on between them while Arizona gave Callie the time to think. Finally, she lifted both hands to gently take the brunette’s face between them. She needed final clarification. “So, do you think you can support this decision?”
Not all of her reservations were gone, but Callie knew she had to put her faith in Arizona. “I support you,” she agreed, “one-hundred percent and then some.”
Arizona dipped her head forward and stole another kiss. Callie threaded a fist into her hair and they stayed locked together for a while, wiping away the aftertaste of their fight and choosing to celebrate something good instead.
Callie knew she would worry right up until Arizona’s first day - and likely beyond - but Arizona’s happiness made all the difference to her. She pulled away from the kiss and squeezed her shoulders. “I want you to know something.” Arizona waited patiently while Callie looked apprehensive. “I was hurt earlier, when you said that you wanted to go to someone else as your doctor, only-”
“Callie, no,” Arizona interrupted. “I was just shooting my mouth off. I didn’t really mean it.”
Callie held up a hand. “No, you weren’t entirely wrong. It’s hard for me to think of someone else getting to finish what we started together, but you have every right to separate the two areas of your life.” She quirked a tiny smile and cocked her head to the side. “I would rather be your girlfriend than your doctor if I had to choose, so if you want, I can recommend some great orthopedic surgeons for follow-up appointments and to keep an eye on things as they progress from here on out.”
Arizona was already shaking her head. “Thank you for saying that, but the only surgeon I want on my team is you. I don’t have any interest in going to someone less amazing.”
Callie didn’t seem entirely convinced. “Are you sure? Because I don’t want that getting in the way again like it did last night. I’m always going to have thoughts as your surgeon when something like this comes along.”
“And those thoughts are good thoughts,” Arizona reiterated, twirling a lock of dark hair around her index finger. “I promise to do my best to separate my reactions between girlfriend Arizona and patient Arizona from now on.”
“Me too,” Callie agreed. “And down the road, if we need to reconsider the arrangement, we can talk about it again without anyone taking offense, okay?”
Arizona didn’t foresee that happening, as she likely would never need surgery again, but she nodded anyway. If Callie ever really wanted to step away in that capacity, she would understand.
Now that that was settled, Callie had one more thing to add. “So, if you’re really okay with this, I’d like to get one final assessment in before you go back in the OR,” she said, then quickly held up a hand before Arizona could interrupt. “It’s not to shoot down your plans or to change my mind. It’s not for my benefit. You said I could hover, remember?”
“I think I said ‘keep tabs’, but I’ll allow it,” Arizona teased. “And when the time for that comes, you’ll help me figure out how to manage my OR time? Without being too extra cautious?”
That last part would be hard, Callie wasn’t delusional enough to think otherwise. She would just have to suck it up and stop trying to bubble-wrap Arizona every time she got nervous. “Deal.”
“Deal.”
They stared at each other and shook hands with the most serious of expressions, eventually breaking into a smile at the absurdity. Without warning, Callie hauled Arizona forward and engulfed her in a tight embrace, using all of her upper body strength to lift and twist her until they both collapsed horizontally on the couch.
Arizona was grinning as she wedged herself between the cushions and half draped over Callie. “Does this mean I can come back to the good bedroom tonight?”
“Oh no, you’re sleeping in the doghouse,” Callie said adamantly, cocking an eyebrow in challenge.
Snickering, Arizona nipped at her mouth before ducking down to suck on her earlobe. “You sure about that, Doctor Torres?”
Callie groaned loudly and arched her back. “Okay, you can come back to bed,” she relented, landing both hands in a tight grip on Arizona’s ass.
Arizona chuckled into her ear. “You’re easy.”
Callie gave one cheek a firm smack and let Arizona jerk away with a yelp. “Serves you right,” she smirked, wiggling out from underneath so she could sit up and reach for the cartons of food.
Arizona struggled into a sitting position and wiped hair out of her face. She scanned the stacks of containers littering the table and suddenly realized how hungry she was. “We’re gonna destroy this buffet, aren’t we?”
“Oh yeah,” Callie said emphatically, handing over a pair of chop sticks and clinking them together. “If we finish before sunrise, it’ll be nothing short of a miracle.”
***
Late September, 2009
The first day on the job felt a lot like the first day of school. Coincidentally, Arizona had always loved school, so for her, the nerves came with a boatload of giddiness. There was a little bit of apprehension mixed in there somewhere, but for the most part she was elated.
Callie watched her as they came through the lobby, amused at the sunshine practically radiating from Arizona’s forehead. “Careful, you’ll vibrate right out of your shoes.”
Arizona cracked a grin and twirled her fancy new cane in a small arc. “I don’t need shoes. Right now it feels like I could fly upstairs if I tried hard enough.”
Callie just shook her head and adjusted the large duffel bag in her left hand. “Then by all means, feel free to carry your own crap when you take off, Dr. Twinkletoes.”
Arizona made a face and stuck her tongue out, ducking through a throng of visitors to get to the elevators. “You’re spoiling my fun.”
“You’re just so easy to make fun of,” Callie teased, slipping an arm around her waist and planting a kiss on her temple.
Arizona’s first day was an early one, so they had left the house shortly after 7a.m. Callie insisted on carrying the bag of her supplies, which contained items like a few changes of clothes, some shoes, towels, and other random things to put in her locker. Most of her personal effects were still in storage down in California, something they had agreed would need to be rectified now that she was staying permanently.
The first thing on their agenda was attending the staff meeting that morning. There, Chief Webber would introduce Arizona to the rest of the attendings and she would get a list of the residents assigned to the ER for the week. According to Callie, there had been a lot of rumblings about the new and mysterious trauma surgeon from the military and how things were going to be run differently once she started. Arizona kind of liked the idea of being revered before she even got there. It would give her an edge in intimidation, something Callie had informed her she would need if she kept grinning like an idiot.
They were early enough that the change room was empty. Callie looked around and found her girlfriend’s locker across the row from her own and down two numbers. She dropped the duffel on the bench and watched Arizona stare at the nametag adorning the front of it.
“Pretty cool, huh?” Arizona asked, tracing her fingers along the edges of the plaque.
“Very cool.” Callie smiled and looked away, giving Arizona a moment to let everything sink in. She dumped her jacket and purse into her own locker and busied herself with grabbing fresh scrubs from the laundry.
A quick glance around the room didn’t reveal too much. Arizona saw a door in the far wall that led to the showers and counted three rows of half-length lockers. She didn’t know the size of the staff but assumed not all of them were taken. The room was for surgical attendings only, so at least she wouldn’t have to deal with too many extra stares every time she went to change. While she was completely fine with Callie seeing her body, she had no desire to explain her battle wounds to anyone else.
The nervous flutter in her belly threatened to ruin the mood, so Arizona sat on the bench and dug through her things. She put away the clothing and toiletries she’d brought to keep at work, then leaned down to untie her shoes. Even though she wasn’t technically going to set foot in an OR for a couple more weeks, she had plans to visit the galleries shortly after meeting with IT to set up her office equipment. There were so many things happening in one day that she found herself too distracted to talk.
Callie didn’t push for conversation and changed into her scrubs in the meantime, taking a bit longer than usual so Arizona didn’t feel rushed. When she did look over her shoulder, she saw that Arizona had a scrub top on but not the pants, and she was making some adjustments to the brace with her leg stretched out in front of her on the bench.
Arizona was frowning in concentration when she felt a hand touch her shoulder. She glanced up and smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, I’m slow as an old lady these days. You can go ahead without me if you need to, I can find the boardroom on my own.”
Callie stepped around and sat on the bench by the heel of her girlfriend’s foot. She met the curious blue eyes staring back at her before wordlessly handing over a package wrapped in tissue paper.
Surprised, Arizona forgot about the brace and looked down at the object. “What’s this?”
Callie fidgeted. “I wanted you to have something special on your first day.”
Fingering the delicate wrapping, Arizona didn’t quite know what to say. “You didn’t have to get me anything. God knows you’ve already done more than enough for one lifetime.”
Callie rolled her eyes dramatically. “Would you just open it, please? I’m not taking it back.” She nudged the outstretched foot before continuing to make brace adjustments where Arizona had left off. She snuck a few peeks to watch her girlfriend’s face as she unwrapped the gift.
Folding back the torn edges, Arizona quickly realized she was holding a brand new lab coat. Curious, she took it out of the tissue paper and held it up, letting it unfurl in her lap. On one side of the chest was the official Seattle Grace Hospital name and logo, and on the other read ‘Dr. Arizona Robbins M.D., FACS’ with ‘Chief of Trauma Surgery and Emergency Medicine’ embroidered right below.
Arizona’s grin threatened to split her face. Just when she thought today couldn’t get any better, Callie went and did it again.
“I thought you deserved more than just a generic lab coat after everything you’ve been through,” Callie explained. “I special ordered it last week so it would get here in time for your start. Welcome aboard, Dr. Robbins.”
“Callie,” Arizona murmured, unable to peel her eyes away from the writing. “Thank you. I love it.” She dropped her hands and stared helplessly back at the brunette. She couldn’t remember a time when she had been this happy.
Callie gave Arizona’s thighs a firm squeeze before heaving herself up from the bench. “There’s technically a second part of the surprise, but you’ll have to see Teddy for it.”
Now Arizona just looked nervous. “Uh-oh.”
“Don’t worry, I think you’ll like it,” Callie chuckled. She closed her locker and shrugged on her own lab coat, rolling up the sleeves. “Ready for your first big meeting?”
Arizona inhaled a deep breath and released it in a steady wave. “Yeah, I think I’m ready to go,” she confirmed, closing her locker, stuffing her brother’s dog tags into her neckline, and moving to stand up.
Callie’s brow lifted. “Um, honey? Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Arizona looked down at herself. “Right, pants. Wow, that would’ve been awkward.” With the frazzled state her mind was in, walking out that door without pants on wasn’t entirely out of the question.
Laughing, Callie tossed a clean pair of scrub bottoms at Arizona’s face and waited for her to put them on. When she was settled and finally on her feet, it was Callie who couldn’t stop grinning. “Ready?”
Equal parts excited and wanting to hide in the corner, Arizona nodded. “Lead the way.”
***
They took up spots along the back of the room, opting to stand against the window rather than sit down. “I think I need more coffee,” Arizona said, practically vibrating across the floor on the balls of her feet. She didn’t know why she felt so nervous all of a sudden. “I need to be able to focus.”
“Then I think you should keep the caffeine intake to a minimum,” Callie suggested. She leaned against the window frame behind them and casually crossed her arms. “I love you when you’re excitable but you’ve got a lot of hands to shake in the next few hours. Any more coffee and you’ll be too worked up to remember anyone’s name.”
“This is assuming I don’t already have the brain of a goldfish,” Arizona mused, sharing a knowing smile with the other doctor. She was trying not to feel like the new kid at a strange school, doing her best to look friendly while the others around them shot her curious glances. So far the only one she recognized was Derek Shepherd, whom she had met briefly a few months ago, while the rest were all new faces.
A few stragglers trickled into the room and finally the Chief stood up at the head of the table. “As most of you already know, today we welcome Dr. Arizona Robbins to our staff,” he announced, extending a hand in her direction.
At least thirteen heads swivelled her way and she forced out the least-nervous looking smile she could manage. Next to her, Callie couldn’t seem to wipe the grin off her face.
“Dr. Robbins joins us after a lustrous career with the United States Marine Corps,” the Chief continued. “She first came here as a patient of Dr. Torres’. Thanks to her brilliance and dedication, Dr. Robbins decided to stick around. She’ll be running the trauma department and ER from now on. Welcome to Seattle Grace.”
From her place three chairs to Webber’s right, Teddy swivelled in Callie and Arizona’s direction. She hid a smirk behind her hand as the two subtly leaned an inch or so further apart and tried not to look extremely guilty. Whether or not anyone other than Yang and the two Greys knew the whole story of their relationship was beyond her, but it was worth seeing the looks on their faces.
A round of welcomes and hellos floated Arizona’s way and she nodded politely at the crowd, wishing the Chief would move on to other things. She had never been comfortable as the center of attention, or at least not in recent years.
“She won’t be stepping into the OR just yet, but she will be prepping plans for a shift in how we run our Emergency Medicine department. If you or your residents have any questions, her office will be 1101.” Webber looked at Arizona, waiting to see if there was anything he had missed, but she shook her head and he shifted topics.
Once the Chief started on the OR-2 maintenance schedule for next week, Callie leaned closer to Arizona. “See? That wasn’t so bad.”
“Except for the terribly obvious fact that you’re sleeping with a former patient,” Arizona smirked, keeping her eyes trained forward.
“Not obvious to him,” Callie murmured. She was happy to let Webber think that things with Arizona developed much later than in actuality. Technically, nothing had happened before Arizona was discharged, so it wasn’t like she would get into a lot of trouble. He just didn’t need to know that it only took an hour after she left the building before they made out in front of her hotel room.
Lost in the memory of her first kiss with Arizona, Callie was too busy to notice that the meeting had adjourned after only fifteen minutes. Arizona elbowed her in the side and she started. “What?”
Amused, Arizona quirked an eyebrow. “You were smirking the entire time. What is going on in that dirty little brain of yours?”
“Stuff,” Callie shrugged, figuring that now wasn’t the time to detail just how naked Arizona had been at a few points. She pushed off the wall and strolled towards the coffee machine across the room. There wasn’t a lot left now that the meeting was over, so she set about making a new batch.
Someone tapped Arizona on the shoulder and she turned to find Teddy smiling widely. “Hey!”
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Teddy gushed, immediately pulling her into a giant hug. “You must feel like a million bucks.”
Arizona laughed and squeezed her back. “Mm, pretty close. I need to get my bearings first.”
“Better hope you find them soon,” another voice said from behind her. “The ER is falling apart and the residents are running around like a pack of wild, stupid puppies.” Arizona pivoted towards the source.
“Things aren’t that bad,” Callie scolded, frowning when Dr. Bailey butted in line and stole what little coffee had already hit the pot.
Bailey remained nonplussed as she then fixed her gaze on Arizona, sizing her up without much of an attempt to be subtle. “Sure they are. We’re stuck as a Level Two trauma centre for the first time ever, we’ve dropped ten spots on the top teaching list in the last eleven months, and we’re running short on beds. What I want to know is what you’re gonna do about it.” She cocked an eyebrow and waited for an answer.
Arizona wondered how one person could go for so long without blinking. “Chief Webber and I have already had a few conversations about the kinds of changes that need to be made. Bringing a certified trauma surgeon on board is the first step in getting Level One status back, but we’re going to have to rework the way things are run and bring in some new equipment if we want to turn heads. It’ll be tough but doable.”
Bailey snorted. “Day one and you’re already delusional. Asking them to spend more money is like asking Santa Clause to give you a polar bear for Christmas. All they see are the sharp teeth and scary claws that’ll rip a hole in their wallets, not the fuzzy, top-of-the-line DaVinci arm that will stop people from bleeding to death.”
That was a hard mental image to form. “I have my ways,” Arizona said, offering the abrasive woman a small smile. “It’s nice to meet you, by the way. Arizona Robbins.” She stuck out her hand and hoped she wouldn’t get bitten.
Bailey’s brow went up again and she stared blankly at the offending arm. Callie shot her a sharp glare and the shorter woman finally relented. “Miranda Bailey, general surgery,” she said, shaking hands with Arizona, albeit somewhat stiffly. “I’ll be spending my day in the Pit, corralling the stupid puppies and making sure they don’t go around peeing on things and making it all worse. Most of our good residents have already jumped ship for bloodier ERs, which means we’re short staffed and I get stuck doing all the damn dirty work.” That infamous glower was starting to return. “When can I expect you down there for support?”
Arizona glanced at the cane she was carrying and lifted it a couple of inches, almost like a feeble excuse. “I won’t be back in the OR just yet but I’ll make my way down to the ER this afternoon. If you need me before then, feel free to page me or try my office?”
Callie cleared her throat.
“I’ll be taking it easy,” Arizona reiterated for her girlfriend’s benefit. “I promise. Skills lab and office set up only for now.”
Bailey snorted. “Mm-hm.” Unimpressed, she pivoted on her heels and made an abrupt exit from the conversation.
Arizona deflated. “That went about as well expected. It wouldn’t be a day in the life of Arizona if someone didn’t think I was useless.”
“She’s just being Bailey,” Callie said, smiling apologetically. “She’ll warm up to you. I don’t think she likes new people very much.”
“She still doesn’t like me,” Teddy chimed in, pausing mid-sip when Callie shot her a deadpan glare. “But I’m sure you’ll be fine,” she added quickly for Arizona’s benefit.
Shaking her head, bemused, Arizona saw Derek Shepherd break away from the Chief and head in their direction. “Dr. Shepherd, it’s good to see you again.”
Derek shook Arizona’s hand with much more ease than Bailey had. “Glad to see you’re finally joining us. Welcome aboard.”
“You two know each other?” Callie asked, wondering when that had happened.
“Teddy introduced us a couple of weeks ago,” Arizona explained. “Besides, everyone with a brain knows the best neurosurgeon in North America. I’m looking forward to working together.”
He flashed one of his classic Derek smiles and Callie barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
“It turns out you also know my sister,” he added. “I hear you went to Hopkins together back in the day.”
Callie watched the wheels turn in Arizona’s head until a funny look came over her face. “You knew his sister?” she echoed.
“Amelia Shepherd, of course,” Arizona said with an awkward laugh, scratching at the side of her neck. “I don’t know why I didn’t put two and two together the first time.” She glanced at Callie, who was fixing her with a curious stare. “We, er, were in residency together. She was two years under me - below me - so I was her Chief Resident.”
“Oh,” Callie shrugged. “Cool.” She didn’t get why that was such a big deal. Arizona looked really uncomfortable all of a sudden.
Derek seemed oblivious. “Anyway, I know you’ll be busy for quite a while, but if you have the chance to talk later, I’d love to pick your brain about a few things.”
The offer was friendly enough, though Callie knew multiple people would be talking Arizona’s ear off over the coming weeks, trying to get what they wanted from her. Everyone had an idea of how their department could benefit from an Emergency Medicine overhaul. Thankfully, she knew Arizona was not easily manipulated.
“Yeah, of course. Look me up in my office and we can talk sometime.” Arizona smiled politely and waited until he left the room before it dropped away and she cleared her throat. “Oh boy.”
Callie slowly began to clue in and she tilted her head to one side. “So, you slept with his sister, huh?”
Arizona looked over sharply. “What? No, that’s not even…” She trailed off when Callie only looked more amused than before. Deflated again, her shoulders sagged. “Shut up, that’s not first-day-on-the-job talk.”
Callie dropped her head back and cackled as she followed Arizona from the boardroom. Teddy jogged to keep up with them after securing the coffee that Callie had left behind.
“Forgot something,” the cardiovascular surgeon spoke up, pressing a bundle of fabric into Arizona’s hands as they walked.
Arizona stopped in place when she realized it was a pair of her old scrub caps. “Where on earth did you get these?” she asked, holding them up. They were a mixture of dark, deep blues that blended together to look like light shining on the surface of water. She had been wearing the same kind for years but had left them all behind when she was medically evacuated from Iraq, or so she had thought.
“I took the only one that was left in your bag and found where to order them online,” Teddy explained. “For when you got back on your feet. Figured you could use some familiarity on your first day. There’s four all together.”
The scrub cap alone brought back a ton of memories, a lot of them with mixed emotions. Arizona fingered the material in her hands. “Thanks, Teddy. This is great.”
“I think this completes the set,” Teddy added, sweeping her eyes over her friend’s newly minted form. “New coat, favourite scrub caps, kickass leg brace that basically makes you The Terminator. I’d say you’re set for a day in the OR.” Her eyes flickered over to Callie’s. “Metaphorically speaking, of course.”
“Yeah, if only today would be that interesting,” Arizona laughed. “Right now I’m going to go park myself in the skills lab for a few hours and work with some of those digital animation segments you’ve told me about.”
“Those are fun,” Callie said. “You’ll probably cream the interns’ time records and make them all feel really bad about themselves.”
“That’s the plan,” Arizona teased. “That, and the IT guy is setting up my office in a little while. Then I’ve got to prep for a meeting tomorrow morning with Chief Webber and the Board to talk about some new equipment options while I convince them to spend the money. I’ll be lucky if I even see a single patient this week.”
Secretly, a part of Callie was happy to hear that, although she felt selfish for it immediately. It was exciting having Arizona at work, really. Seeing how well she was already fitting in made her happy. It would just take some time for Callie to stop the constant worrying she had become accustomed to.
Teddy’s pager went off and she checked it before backtracking in the direction they had just come from. “That’s my cue. Call if you need anything today, okay?” Arizona nodded and Teddy took off, leaving them alone.
The two of them continued on and Callie checked her watch on reflex, pursing her lips at the time crunch of a schedule she had today. “I’ve got to check in on some post-ops and meet with a patient about a hip replacement. You’re okay to go from here?”
Pausing at a junction in the hallway, Arizona faced her girlfriend and tugged on the lapels of her lab coat. “I think I can find my way.” She glanced up under her lashes and met the concerned eyes staring back at her. “Try not to worry too much, okay? I promise I’ll be fine. Lots of sitting and minimal stress.”
By this point, Callie was probably feeling more nervous than Arizona. “Okay,” she relented, not wanting to rain on her girlfriend’s parade. “I’ll look for you at lunch.”
“I would like that.” Arizona took a quick peek around them before pushing up on her toes and planting a quick peck on Callie’s cheek.
Callie melted, leaning forward on instinct. “I love you, you know that, right?” she asked quietly, not caring about their rules for workplace conduct.
Arizona gave her a funny look. “Of course I do, you goof,” she replied, nudging her in the hip. “Now go, do your thing and stop worrying so much. I’ll try to watch from the gallery later when you’re in the OR.”
Knowing she could look up mid-surgery and see Arizona smiling back at her made Callie break out into a huge grin. “Okay. That would be cool.”
“Then I’ll make it happen.” Arizona playfully wiggled her eyebrows before breaking away and strutting down the hall in the same direction they had been heading. She didn’t look back, though she knew very well that a set of eyes would be watching her every move.
Callie did watch her go, amazed that there was barely a hitch in her step. Her instincts were still screaming at her to follow and spend the day playing ‘invisible ninja’, peeking out from around random objects when Arizona wasn’t looking, but she knew Arizona wouldn’t appreciate the over-protective gesture now that she was actually here.
Stuffing her hands in her pockets and inhaling deeply, Callie peeled off in the opposite direction. With any luck, her day would be busy enough that she could think about something other than how Arizona was holding up for more than five minutes.
On the way to the surgical post-op wing, she spotted a familiar scowl when passing one of the filing rooms. Callie backtracked and poked her head in. “Karev, you’re in the ER today working with the new trauma doctor, right?”
He barely glanced at her while rummaging through a draw full of old patient files. “Yeah, what of it?”
Callie pursed her lips. “Try not to be a total ass, okay? I know you’re not exactly a ray of sunshine, but she’s here to help and you could learn a lot from her.”
Alex rolled his eyes and finally looked up. “Yeah, yeah, I got it. It’s not like I have anything better to do.”
“That’s the spirit,” Callie muttered under her breath before leaving him to his own devices and continuing on her way. She checked her watch three times in the short walk to the elevator and came to the conclusion that lunch time couldn’t come fast enough.
---
Note: Picture of Arizona's scrub cap:
Scar Tissue (Part Two)
Chapter 30
Authors: kennedysbitch & livelovelearneg
Beta'd by englishstrawbie
Rating: NC-17 [Depictions of violence, PTSD, Language, Sexual Content]
Pairing: Callie/Arizona
Disclaimer
Scar Tissue [masterpost]
Summary: When Arizona Robbins’ brother dies in Iraq, her life takes off in a completely different direction. Now a highly-rated trauma surgeon with the United States Marine Corps, she spends the three years following his death serving their country overseas - until an insurgent attack leaves her with debilitating injuries. Traveling to Seattle at her father’s request, she falls under the care of orthopedic surgeon Dr. Calliope Torres. Damaged emotionally and physically, Arizona tries to start the healing process with the help of a headstrong woman she never saw coming.
Part Two: Now free from the confines of a hospital bed for the first time
in almost five months, Arizona begins her physical and emotional recovery while
navigating a budding yet rocky relationship with Callie Torres.
Warnings: Depictions of violence, PTSD, Language, Sexual Content
Trailer:
Click to view---
Sleep eluded Callie that night. No matter how many times she tried pushing the argument to the back of her mind, every hurtful thing they said to each other came flying back with a vengeance. She was still mad at Arizona for being irrationally stubborn and kept trying to tell herself that she hadn’t been unnecessarily harsh.
It wasn’t entirely true, though. Callie had said a few things in the heat of the moment that she regretted, or at least things she wished she had worded differently. The hardest part was that she could see how much moving forward meant to Arizona and she understood why she had made the decisions she did. Callie just couldn’t bring herself to agree with them.
Whether Arizona would follow through on her threat to find another physician remained to be seen. That had stung more than Callie liked to admit, but she hadn’t really given her another choice. By now she knew that when Arizona Robbins put her mind to something, she made it happen. They would just have to wait and see if there were any repercussions.
By 3a.m., Callie was resigned to her fate. She threw off the covers and pulled on a pair of sweatpants from her early resident days, then stuffed her feet into a pair of Uggs. Their fridge was too empty to scrounge up a late night snack and there was an all-night Vietnamese place down the road. She wasn’t really hungry, with her stomach still churning from the fight, but it would provide an excuse to go for a walk and maybe clear her head.
Given the time of year and the city she lived in, Callie selected a rain-proof running jacket from her closet before stepping into the hall, peering around for signs of life. All of the lights were off and Arizona’s bedroom door was closed. Save for the distant sound of a siren, the night was as quiet as ever.
Well, at least one of them was getting some sleep tonight.
Zipping up her jacket, Callie grabbed a pair of gloves from the front closet and slipped out of the apartment. Nothing helped a girl process her feelings more than a plate full of spring rolls and a warm bowl of soup.
***
The walk did her some good. It was only about four blocks there and back, and the fall breeze was a nice change from the stifling walls of the apartment.
There was a small line waiting to order despite the hour, so Callie passed the time by reading a menu. She had memorized it four years ago, so the re-read was unnecessary, but it helped keep her mind off Arizona and their issues for a few minutes. Angry or not, she decided to order a container of her girlfriend’s favourite dish for lunch the next day. They were in desperate need of a grocery run, unless ketchup sandwiches or dunking pickles in mayonnaise counted as sustenance.
She skimmed through the appetizers, the soups, and finally the entrées, all in an effort to distract herself, until she came to a tiny Tic-Tac-Toe board drawn below number forty-seven. Callie’s heart sank - a few months ago, she had taken Arizona here for lunch and they had doodled on the menu while waiting for their order, chatting the whole time about a piggy-back transplant Teddy was planning through UNOS. It seemed like there would be no escaping the reminders of their fight. Callie set the paper aside and closed her eyes instead.
A huge part of her wanted to be happy for Arizona. She was happy for her, she just happened to be the more rational of the two this time around. Even if Arizona was fooling herself, Callie knew she would be back in the OR within a week, maybe less. The temptation would be way too strong. Arizona wanted her life back and she wanted it now, waiting be damned.
The emotional repercussions were what frightened her the most. The look of death on Arizona’s face during her flashback at the wharf would be forever burned into the forefront of Callie’s brain. Maybe she was over-thinking things, but the only way to find out for sure would be to throw Arizona into the fire and see what happened. Something about that just didn’t sit well with her. Still, she had been pretty harsh. Maybe a little too harsh.
The hostess waved the next person forward and Callie stepped in to order, throwing an extra dish of salad rolls in with the hopes they would appease some part of her guilty conscience. Maybe then she would finally be able to get some sleep.
***
There was light in the living room when Callie got back and, for a moment, she thought Cristina had come home. Instead, sitting on the couch, wrapped in a micro-fleece blanket and nursing a rum and coke, Arizona sat watching her with a guarded expression.
Callie paused midway through kicking off her boots. “Hey. I didn’t expect you to be up this late.”
Arizona smiled shyly, shrinking deeper into the blanket draped around her body. “I didn’t realize you’d left,” she said quietly.
Callie looked down at the plastic bag in her hand and lifted it higher. “Couldn’t sleep, so I went to Pho Palace.” She felt sheepish all of a sudden and shrugged half-heartedly. “Got you that soup you liked last time. And some salad rolls.”
Arizona wasn’t hungry until Callie mentioned the soup. Whatever food she had consumed earlier that night had been burned up during the argument and the hours of stressing that had come afterwards. “Thanks,” she said, “you really didn’t have to do that.” She started to get up only for Callie to wave her off.
“No, you stay, I’ll grab some plates.” Callie went into the kitchen and set the food on the counter while she washed up, keeping her eyes trained on the soap dish in front of her, too nervous to look across the living room. The walk had cleared her mind a little but not enough for her to feel ready for this conversation. She didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t end with them yelling at each other again.
Regardless, she grabbed the necessary plates and bowls, then brought the larger-than-average order over to the coffee table and set everything down. She hesitated on where to sit, eventually settling on a full cushion length away. That seemed safe without being too obvious.
The silence was awkward. Neither one of them wanted to be the first to speak, so Callie trained her eyes forward and stared at the television instead. It took a moment for the familiarity of the program to register, at which point she glanced at Arizona out of surprise.
“Hitchcock? Really?” she asked. “I thought you never watched scary stuff before bed.”
Arizona shrugged and pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “I wasn’t really planning on going back to sleep, so…I figured it wouldn’t matter.”
She looked so down and out that Callie instinctively wanted to reach out to her. She stopped herself from doing so and returned her gaze to the TV instead. “Me neither,” she said after a beat. “Hence the unnecessary calorie run in the middle of the night.”
Arizona showed the first hint of a smile. “Food is good. Food we can always agree on.” She finally unfurled herself from the cocoon and reached forward to set her drink on the table. As she moved, Callie’s brow lifted in question when she spotted one of her old teddy bears on Arizona’s lap, nestled comfortably against her side.
Arizona followed her gaze and blushed profusely. “You, uh, left him in my bed the other morning when you had to work,” she explained. They had laughed about the goofy gesture at the time. “He kinda came to hang out with me.”
It was so endearing that Callie couldn’t help but break out into a grin, despite her girlfriend’s embarrassment. “He’s yours,” she mused. “He kept me company through a lot of drama as a teenager. He’ll be happy to be of assistance again.”
Arizona shook her head at herself, feeling silly for getting caught. “Thanks. He is snuggly, just…not as snuggly as you.” She took in a shallow breath and finally held Callie’s eyes for longer than a second. “I couldn’t sleep without you.”
A big chunk of apprehension melted away at those softly spoken words. “Me neither,” Callie admitted, reaching out to brush an errant strand of hair away from Arizona’s face. As mad as she had been before, every time she looked at Arizona, her heart ached with love. It was sickeningly cheesy but she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Arizona leaned into the touch. It was impossible to know what to say after the day they’d had, so for the time being she simply enjoyed the fact that they weren’t at each other’s throats. Callie finally broke the stalemate and scooted to her left, while Arizona dropped her head onto Callie’s shoulder as soon as she was within reach.
Callie’s arm slid protectively around her and Arizona closed her eyes, taking solace in the gentle kiss pressed to her hair. She pulled her feet up on the couch and curled up against her partner’s side. For a while, they just sat together.
“I’m sorry,” Arizona eventually whispered.
Callie sighed. “I’m sorry, too.”
Arizona turned her nose into Callie’s collarbone. “Fighting sucks.”
Smiling, Callie nodded her agreement. “Yeah, it totally does.” She dropped her free hand to rest on top of the blonde’s. She could tell Arizona was wrestling with her words, so she waited, taking the opportunity to organize her own thoughts. Maybe this time they could have an actual discussion without all the yelling.
It took a while before Arizona lifted her head again. “You were right, I should have told you before I spoke with the Chief. I owed you that much after everything you’ve done for me.” She turned Callie’s hand over in their laps and gently twisted one of her rings around the digit. “I guess I just wanted everything to be complication-free.”
“And I represented complications,” Callie added, smiling ruefully.
Arizona shook her head. “I knew you’d be concerned. It is fast, I’ll admit that. I’ve spent a lot of time convincing myself I could make it work if I manage my schedule properly.”
Callie did indeed have a lot of concerns and they weren’t going to go away just because they had made amends for the worst of it. Still, she wished that she hadn’t been so blunt and in Arizona’s face about it before.
“I love you,” she said earnestly, “and I never wanted you to doubt how much I believe in you.”
“I know,” Arizona replied, “I know you do. I’m sorry I said otherwise.”
Callie released a ragged sigh and intertwined their fingers. “And I’m sorry that I threatened to tattle on you. That really wasn’t fair of me.”
Arizona half shrugged, knowing they could go on all night about the things they regretted. “Do you think we can just…”
“Start this conversation over from the beginning?”
Arizona nodded, visibly relieved. “Yes please.”
Callie smiled softly and gave her hand a firm squeeze, then shifted on the couch to face her directly. “I’m worried that you’re going to push yourself too hard and too fast,” she began. “You’re an extremely passionate, determined person and I can see you going overboard before your stamina is back.”
Arizona dropped her eyes. “I get that, but the last thing I want is a physical set back. I really do need time in the skills lab for my own piece of mind, and there’s a lot of reading and catching up I have to do. Some of it I can manage from home, but I would really like to be in an actual work environment again. I think it’ll be good for me.”
Even Callie could see how stir-crazy Arizona had become. She didn’t blame her; if she had been housebound for this long, she would have gone AWOL a long time ago.
“Okay,” she relented. “If you say that you’re committed to taking it slow, then I believe you. I’ll still worry, but I do believe you.”
The tiny smile Arizona gave her carried such hope that Callie realized she hadn’t given her enough credit. She didn’t have the heart to crush the blonde’s dreams, not after how much work she had put into getting them back.
“I will be careful, I promise you that.” Arizona lifted their clasped hands to her lips, pressing a gentle kiss to Callie’s knuckles. “You can even keep tabs on me if you’d like.”
“You mean I can stalk you at work?”
“Maybe.” Arizona’s mouth twitched.
Eventually Callie’s teasing faltered. “Even if you manage the physical stuff okay, there’s still all the rest you’d have to contend with.” Arizona’s smile dropped and Callie immediately reached up to touch her face again. “But I am so sorry that I threw it in your face earlier. That was so out of line. I was just scared.”
“It’s okay,” Arizona murmured. She squeezed Callie’s arm. “You weren’t wrong. I’ve thought a lot about it and I’ve never had any problems imagining being in the OR again, or in the emergency room. None of my dreams seem to revolve around what my job entailed and I’ve seen a lot of crazy injuries in my time. I don’t think it would be triggering.”
Callie released a deep breath and folded her legs underneath her, sitting upright. “There’s just this part of me that can’t let go of the notion you might get blindsided by something. I mean, I know there aren’t exactly blast injuries on even a semi-regular basis in Seattle, but something could happen. Maybe it would remind you of what you went through.”
“It might,” Arizona said delicately, “but that doesn’t mean it’ll shut me down like before. I honestly feel energized at the idea of helping people again. It’s like I’ve been so useless since December that putting myself back where I belong is the right thing to do.”
“You’re not worried that you’ll...” Callie trailed off, concerned with whether she was pushing too hard again. Arizona nodded encouragingly, so she continued. “The wharf, what happened to you there. It caught you off guard and you just looked so…that terrified me.” Callie felt a wave of anxiety at the memory of that day and she blinked hard a few times to keep herself steady. “I just can’t stand the idea of you going through that again. Especially at work.”
Arizona’s heart ached at the fear in her girlfriend’s voice. She leaned forward and pressed their lips firmly together. Sometimes she needed a reminder that Callie had seen some things that were pretty awful in the last few months, too.
“I don’t want that either,” she said assuredly, resting their foreheads together. “I’ll admit, there’s a small part of me that wonders what it’ll be like to go back after everything. But I think I’ve become pretty self-aware, especially since I met Dan. I know to listen to my gut when it’s telling me that I’m not okay and that sometimes I have to correct it when it reacts to something that only happened in the past.”
Hearing Arizona talk about the things she had been working on gave Callie some confidence. Part of the reason she was so worked up had a lot to do with not knowing where Arizona was at. “So if something makes you uncomfortable…?”
“Then I’ll take a step back,” Arizona agreed. “I really don’t think that the ER job will do that, at least not in the general sense. On a case by case basis, it might be different, but I feel confident. You know what it’s like when you’re in the moment, nothing else matters but the person you’re trying to help.” She started to smile again and the sparkle in her eyes returned. “I set foot in there today and it was like an adrenaline boost. I am really, really excited about this, Calliope - even the studying and the lab work and the really boring stuff that’s not inside an OR. I haven’t felt that way in forever, except for when I met you. And look how well that turned out.”
It was getting harder and harder to be totally against this crazy plan. Callie was starting to realize that it wasn’t fair to rub her own insecurities off on Arizona. She was an adult and seemed to have a fairly good handle on how things could go. Callie would just have to work through her own feelings as everything progressed.
“And the dreams?” she asked. She couldn’t let that one slide, even if Arizona wouldn’t be sleeping much at work.
Arizona thought carefully about how she wanted to do this. “The dreams come and go, and I have hopes that a regular schedule might help me sleep better at night. Having something else to focus on outside of my recovery could really help.” Callie didn’t look convinced, so Arizona pushed on. “At the same time, I know they’re a huge problem for both of us, so I’m willing to speak to the staff counsellor about it at some point.”
“At some point?” Callie echoed.
Arizona nodded slowly. “I want to get my feet under me first. There are a lot of things I have to do when I start and I think having my bearings will give me a better idea of where I’m at.”
Callie chewed on her bottom lip and reflexively wiggled her toes, a habit she had formed when she was anxious. “Before you step into the OR? You’ll talk to someone first?”
Arizona was really hesitant to promise a definitive date, but she knew Callie deserved an answer if she was to agree to any of this. Compromising was hard for them both. “Okay. I’ll speak to them before I officially start my OR rotation again.”
For the first time all evening, Callie heaved a genuine sigh of relief. It had been a months-long fight to get Arizona to agree to anything of the sort. “Thank you. I mean, this is for you, not for me, but…thank you.”
With those words, it felt like a deal had been struck. Silence stretched on between them while Arizona gave Callie the time to think. Finally, she lifted both hands to gently take the brunette’s face between them. She needed final clarification. “So, do you think you can support this decision?”
Not all of her reservations were gone, but Callie knew she had to put her faith in Arizona. “I support you,” she agreed, “one-hundred percent and then some.”
Arizona dipped her head forward and stole another kiss. Callie threaded a fist into her hair and they stayed locked together for a while, wiping away the aftertaste of their fight and choosing to celebrate something good instead.
Callie knew she would worry right up until Arizona’s first day - and likely beyond - but Arizona’s happiness made all the difference to her. She pulled away from the kiss and squeezed her shoulders. “I want you to know something.” Arizona waited patiently while Callie looked apprehensive. “I was hurt earlier, when you said that you wanted to go to someone else as your doctor, only-”
“Callie, no,” Arizona interrupted. “I was just shooting my mouth off. I didn’t really mean it.”
Callie held up a hand. “No, you weren’t entirely wrong. It’s hard for me to think of someone else getting to finish what we started together, but you have every right to separate the two areas of your life.” She quirked a tiny smile and cocked her head to the side. “I would rather be your girlfriend than your doctor if I had to choose, so if you want, I can recommend some great orthopedic surgeons for follow-up appointments and to keep an eye on things as they progress from here on out.”
Arizona was already shaking her head. “Thank you for saying that, but the only surgeon I want on my team is you. I don’t have any interest in going to someone less amazing.”
Callie didn’t seem entirely convinced. “Are you sure? Because I don’t want that getting in the way again like it did last night. I’m always going to have thoughts as your surgeon when something like this comes along.”
“And those thoughts are good thoughts,” Arizona reiterated, twirling a lock of dark hair around her index finger. “I promise to do my best to separate my reactions between girlfriend Arizona and patient Arizona from now on.”
“Me too,” Callie agreed. “And down the road, if we need to reconsider the arrangement, we can talk about it again without anyone taking offense, okay?”
Arizona didn’t foresee that happening, as she likely would never need surgery again, but she nodded anyway. If Callie ever really wanted to step away in that capacity, she would understand.
Now that that was settled, Callie had one more thing to add. “So, if you’re really okay with this, I’d like to get one final assessment in before you go back in the OR,” she said, then quickly held up a hand before Arizona could interrupt. “It’s not to shoot down your plans or to change my mind. It’s not for my benefit. You said I could hover, remember?”
“I think I said ‘keep tabs’, but I’ll allow it,” Arizona teased. “And when the time for that comes, you’ll help me figure out how to manage my OR time? Without being too extra cautious?”
That last part would be hard, Callie wasn’t delusional enough to think otherwise. She would just have to suck it up and stop trying to bubble-wrap Arizona every time she got nervous. “Deal.”
“Deal.”
They stared at each other and shook hands with the most serious of expressions, eventually breaking into a smile at the absurdity. Without warning, Callie hauled Arizona forward and engulfed her in a tight embrace, using all of her upper body strength to lift and twist her until they both collapsed horizontally on the couch.
Arizona was grinning as she wedged herself between the cushions and half draped over Callie. “Does this mean I can come back to the good bedroom tonight?”
“Oh no, you’re sleeping in the doghouse,” Callie said adamantly, cocking an eyebrow in challenge.
Snickering, Arizona nipped at her mouth before ducking down to suck on her earlobe. “You sure about that, Doctor Torres?”
Callie groaned loudly and arched her back. “Okay, you can come back to bed,” she relented, landing both hands in a tight grip on Arizona’s ass.
Arizona chuckled into her ear. “You’re easy.”
Callie gave one cheek a firm smack and let Arizona jerk away with a yelp. “Serves you right,” she smirked, wiggling out from underneath so she could sit up and reach for the cartons of food.
Arizona struggled into a sitting position and wiped hair out of her face. She scanned the stacks of containers littering the table and suddenly realized how hungry she was. “We’re gonna destroy this buffet, aren’t we?”
“Oh yeah,” Callie said emphatically, handing over a pair of chop sticks and clinking them together. “If we finish before sunrise, it’ll be nothing short of a miracle.”
***
Late September, 2009
The first day on the job felt a lot like the first day of school. Coincidentally, Arizona had always loved school, so for her, the nerves came with a boatload of giddiness. There was a little bit of apprehension mixed in there somewhere, but for the most part she was elated.
Callie watched her as they came through the lobby, amused at the sunshine practically radiating from Arizona’s forehead. “Careful, you’ll vibrate right out of your shoes.”
Arizona cracked a grin and twirled her fancy new cane in a small arc. “I don’t need shoes. Right now it feels like I could fly upstairs if I tried hard enough.”
Callie just shook her head and adjusted the large duffel bag in her left hand. “Then by all means, feel free to carry your own crap when you take off, Dr. Twinkletoes.”
Arizona made a face and stuck her tongue out, ducking through a throng of visitors to get to the elevators. “You’re spoiling my fun.”
“You’re just so easy to make fun of,” Callie teased, slipping an arm around her waist and planting a kiss on her temple.
Arizona’s first day was an early one, so they had left the house shortly after 7a.m. Callie insisted on carrying the bag of her supplies, which contained items like a few changes of clothes, some shoes, towels, and other random things to put in her locker. Most of her personal effects were still in storage down in California, something they had agreed would need to be rectified now that she was staying permanently.
The first thing on their agenda was attending the staff meeting that morning. There, Chief Webber would introduce Arizona to the rest of the attendings and she would get a list of the residents assigned to the ER for the week. According to Callie, there had been a lot of rumblings about the new and mysterious trauma surgeon from the military and how things were going to be run differently once she started. Arizona kind of liked the idea of being revered before she even got there. It would give her an edge in intimidation, something Callie had informed her she would need if she kept grinning like an idiot.
They were early enough that the change room was empty. Callie looked around and found her girlfriend’s locker across the row from her own and down two numbers. She dropped the duffel on the bench and watched Arizona stare at the nametag adorning the front of it.
“Pretty cool, huh?” Arizona asked, tracing her fingers along the edges of the plaque.
“Very cool.” Callie smiled and looked away, giving Arizona a moment to let everything sink in. She dumped her jacket and purse into her own locker and busied herself with grabbing fresh scrubs from the laundry.
A quick glance around the room didn’t reveal too much. Arizona saw a door in the far wall that led to the showers and counted three rows of half-length lockers. She didn’t know the size of the staff but assumed not all of them were taken. The room was for surgical attendings only, so at least she wouldn’t have to deal with too many extra stares every time she went to change. While she was completely fine with Callie seeing her body, she had no desire to explain her battle wounds to anyone else.
The nervous flutter in her belly threatened to ruin the mood, so Arizona sat on the bench and dug through her things. She put away the clothing and toiletries she’d brought to keep at work, then leaned down to untie her shoes. Even though she wasn’t technically going to set foot in an OR for a couple more weeks, she had plans to visit the galleries shortly after meeting with IT to set up her office equipment. There were so many things happening in one day that she found herself too distracted to talk.
Callie didn’t push for conversation and changed into her scrubs in the meantime, taking a bit longer than usual so Arizona didn’t feel rushed. When she did look over her shoulder, she saw that Arizona had a scrub top on but not the pants, and she was making some adjustments to the brace with her leg stretched out in front of her on the bench.
Arizona was frowning in concentration when she felt a hand touch her shoulder. She glanced up and smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, I’m slow as an old lady these days. You can go ahead without me if you need to, I can find the boardroom on my own.”
Callie stepped around and sat on the bench by the heel of her girlfriend’s foot. She met the curious blue eyes staring back at her before wordlessly handing over a package wrapped in tissue paper.
Surprised, Arizona forgot about the brace and looked down at the object. “What’s this?”
Callie fidgeted. “I wanted you to have something special on your first day.”
Fingering the delicate wrapping, Arizona didn’t quite know what to say. “You didn’t have to get me anything. God knows you’ve already done more than enough for one lifetime.”
Callie rolled her eyes dramatically. “Would you just open it, please? I’m not taking it back.” She nudged the outstretched foot before continuing to make brace adjustments where Arizona had left off. She snuck a few peeks to watch her girlfriend’s face as she unwrapped the gift.
Folding back the torn edges, Arizona quickly realized she was holding a brand new lab coat. Curious, she took it out of the tissue paper and held it up, letting it unfurl in her lap. On one side of the chest was the official Seattle Grace Hospital name and logo, and on the other read ‘Dr. Arizona Robbins M.D., FACS’ with ‘Chief of Trauma Surgery and Emergency Medicine’ embroidered right below.
Arizona’s grin threatened to split her face. Just when she thought today couldn’t get any better, Callie went and did it again.
“I thought you deserved more than just a generic lab coat after everything you’ve been through,” Callie explained. “I special ordered it last week so it would get here in time for your start. Welcome aboard, Dr. Robbins.”
“Callie,” Arizona murmured, unable to peel her eyes away from the writing. “Thank you. I love it.” She dropped her hands and stared helplessly back at the brunette. She couldn’t remember a time when she had been this happy.
Callie gave Arizona’s thighs a firm squeeze before heaving herself up from the bench. “There’s technically a second part of the surprise, but you’ll have to see Teddy for it.”
Now Arizona just looked nervous. “Uh-oh.”
“Don’t worry, I think you’ll like it,” Callie chuckled. She closed her locker and shrugged on her own lab coat, rolling up the sleeves. “Ready for your first big meeting?”
Arizona inhaled a deep breath and released it in a steady wave. “Yeah, I think I’m ready to go,” she confirmed, closing her locker, stuffing her brother’s dog tags into her neckline, and moving to stand up.
Callie’s brow lifted. “Um, honey? Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Arizona looked down at herself. “Right, pants. Wow, that would’ve been awkward.” With the frazzled state her mind was in, walking out that door without pants on wasn’t entirely out of the question.
Laughing, Callie tossed a clean pair of scrub bottoms at Arizona’s face and waited for her to put them on. When she was settled and finally on her feet, it was Callie who couldn’t stop grinning. “Ready?”
Equal parts excited and wanting to hide in the corner, Arizona nodded. “Lead the way.”
***
They took up spots along the back of the room, opting to stand against the window rather than sit down. “I think I need more coffee,” Arizona said, practically vibrating across the floor on the balls of her feet. She didn’t know why she felt so nervous all of a sudden. “I need to be able to focus.”
“Then I think you should keep the caffeine intake to a minimum,” Callie suggested. She leaned against the window frame behind them and casually crossed her arms. “I love you when you’re excitable but you’ve got a lot of hands to shake in the next few hours. Any more coffee and you’ll be too worked up to remember anyone’s name.”
“This is assuming I don’t already have the brain of a goldfish,” Arizona mused, sharing a knowing smile with the other doctor. She was trying not to feel like the new kid at a strange school, doing her best to look friendly while the others around them shot her curious glances. So far the only one she recognized was Derek Shepherd, whom she had met briefly a few months ago, while the rest were all new faces.
A few stragglers trickled into the room and finally the Chief stood up at the head of the table. “As most of you already know, today we welcome Dr. Arizona Robbins to our staff,” he announced, extending a hand in her direction.
At least thirteen heads swivelled her way and she forced out the least-nervous looking smile she could manage. Next to her, Callie couldn’t seem to wipe the grin off her face.
“Dr. Robbins joins us after a lustrous career with the United States Marine Corps,” the Chief continued. “She first came here as a patient of Dr. Torres’. Thanks to her brilliance and dedication, Dr. Robbins decided to stick around. She’ll be running the trauma department and ER from now on. Welcome to Seattle Grace.”
From her place three chairs to Webber’s right, Teddy swivelled in Callie and Arizona’s direction. She hid a smirk behind her hand as the two subtly leaned an inch or so further apart and tried not to look extremely guilty. Whether or not anyone other than Yang and the two Greys knew the whole story of their relationship was beyond her, but it was worth seeing the looks on their faces.
A round of welcomes and hellos floated Arizona’s way and she nodded politely at the crowd, wishing the Chief would move on to other things. She had never been comfortable as the center of attention, or at least not in recent years.
“She won’t be stepping into the OR just yet, but she will be prepping plans for a shift in how we run our Emergency Medicine department. If you or your residents have any questions, her office will be 1101.” Webber looked at Arizona, waiting to see if there was anything he had missed, but she shook her head and he shifted topics.
Once the Chief started on the OR-2 maintenance schedule for next week, Callie leaned closer to Arizona. “See? That wasn’t so bad.”
“Except for the terribly obvious fact that you’re sleeping with a former patient,” Arizona smirked, keeping her eyes trained forward.
“Not obvious to him,” Callie murmured. She was happy to let Webber think that things with Arizona developed much later than in actuality. Technically, nothing had happened before Arizona was discharged, so it wasn’t like she would get into a lot of trouble. He just didn’t need to know that it only took an hour after she left the building before they made out in front of her hotel room.
Lost in the memory of her first kiss with Arizona, Callie was too busy to notice that the meeting had adjourned after only fifteen minutes. Arizona elbowed her in the side and she started. “What?”
Amused, Arizona quirked an eyebrow. “You were smirking the entire time. What is going on in that dirty little brain of yours?”
“Stuff,” Callie shrugged, figuring that now wasn’t the time to detail just how naked Arizona had been at a few points. She pushed off the wall and strolled towards the coffee machine across the room. There wasn’t a lot left now that the meeting was over, so she set about making a new batch.
Someone tapped Arizona on the shoulder and she turned to find Teddy smiling widely. “Hey!”
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Teddy gushed, immediately pulling her into a giant hug. “You must feel like a million bucks.”
Arizona laughed and squeezed her back. “Mm, pretty close. I need to get my bearings first.”
“Better hope you find them soon,” another voice said from behind her. “The ER is falling apart and the residents are running around like a pack of wild, stupid puppies.” Arizona pivoted towards the source.
“Things aren’t that bad,” Callie scolded, frowning when Dr. Bailey butted in line and stole what little coffee had already hit the pot.
Bailey remained nonplussed as she then fixed her gaze on Arizona, sizing her up without much of an attempt to be subtle. “Sure they are. We’re stuck as a Level Two trauma centre for the first time ever, we’ve dropped ten spots on the top teaching list in the last eleven months, and we’re running short on beds. What I want to know is what you’re gonna do about it.” She cocked an eyebrow and waited for an answer.
Arizona wondered how one person could go for so long without blinking. “Chief Webber and I have already had a few conversations about the kinds of changes that need to be made. Bringing a certified trauma surgeon on board is the first step in getting Level One status back, but we’re going to have to rework the way things are run and bring in some new equipment if we want to turn heads. It’ll be tough but doable.”
Bailey snorted. “Day one and you’re already delusional. Asking them to spend more money is like asking Santa Clause to give you a polar bear for Christmas. All they see are the sharp teeth and scary claws that’ll rip a hole in their wallets, not the fuzzy, top-of-the-line DaVinci arm that will stop people from bleeding to death.”
That was a hard mental image to form. “I have my ways,” Arizona said, offering the abrasive woman a small smile. “It’s nice to meet you, by the way. Arizona Robbins.” She stuck out her hand and hoped she wouldn’t get bitten.
Bailey’s brow went up again and she stared blankly at the offending arm. Callie shot her a sharp glare and the shorter woman finally relented. “Miranda Bailey, general surgery,” she said, shaking hands with Arizona, albeit somewhat stiffly. “I’ll be spending my day in the Pit, corralling the stupid puppies and making sure they don’t go around peeing on things and making it all worse. Most of our good residents have already jumped ship for bloodier ERs, which means we’re short staffed and I get stuck doing all the damn dirty work.” That infamous glower was starting to return. “When can I expect you down there for support?”
Arizona glanced at the cane she was carrying and lifted it a couple of inches, almost like a feeble excuse. “I won’t be back in the OR just yet but I’ll make my way down to the ER this afternoon. If you need me before then, feel free to page me or try my office?”
Callie cleared her throat.
“I’ll be taking it easy,” Arizona reiterated for her girlfriend’s benefit. “I promise. Skills lab and office set up only for now.”
Bailey snorted. “Mm-hm.” Unimpressed, she pivoted on her heels and made an abrupt exit from the conversation.
Arizona deflated. “That went about as well expected. It wouldn’t be a day in the life of Arizona if someone didn’t think I was useless.”
“She’s just being Bailey,” Callie said, smiling apologetically. “She’ll warm up to you. I don’t think she likes new people very much.”
“She still doesn’t like me,” Teddy chimed in, pausing mid-sip when Callie shot her a deadpan glare. “But I’m sure you’ll be fine,” she added quickly for Arizona’s benefit.
Shaking her head, bemused, Arizona saw Derek Shepherd break away from the Chief and head in their direction. “Dr. Shepherd, it’s good to see you again.”
Derek shook Arizona’s hand with much more ease than Bailey had. “Glad to see you’re finally joining us. Welcome aboard.”
“You two know each other?” Callie asked, wondering when that had happened.
“Teddy introduced us a couple of weeks ago,” Arizona explained. “Besides, everyone with a brain knows the best neurosurgeon in North America. I’m looking forward to working together.”
He flashed one of his classic Derek smiles and Callie barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
“It turns out you also know my sister,” he added. “I hear you went to Hopkins together back in the day.”
Callie watched the wheels turn in Arizona’s head until a funny look came over her face. “You knew his sister?” she echoed.
“Amelia Shepherd, of course,” Arizona said with an awkward laugh, scratching at the side of her neck. “I don’t know why I didn’t put two and two together the first time.” She glanced at Callie, who was fixing her with a curious stare. “We, er, were in residency together. She was two years under me - below me - so I was her Chief Resident.”
“Oh,” Callie shrugged. “Cool.” She didn’t get why that was such a big deal. Arizona looked really uncomfortable all of a sudden.
Derek seemed oblivious. “Anyway, I know you’ll be busy for quite a while, but if you have the chance to talk later, I’d love to pick your brain about a few things.”
The offer was friendly enough, though Callie knew multiple people would be talking Arizona’s ear off over the coming weeks, trying to get what they wanted from her. Everyone had an idea of how their department could benefit from an Emergency Medicine overhaul. Thankfully, she knew Arizona was not easily manipulated.
“Yeah, of course. Look me up in my office and we can talk sometime.” Arizona smiled politely and waited until he left the room before it dropped away and she cleared her throat. “Oh boy.”
Callie slowly began to clue in and she tilted her head to one side. “So, you slept with his sister, huh?”
Arizona looked over sharply. “What? No, that’s not even…” She trailed off when Callie only looked more amused than before. Deflated again, her shoulders sagged. “Shut up, that’s not first-day-on-the-job talk.”
Callie dropped her head back and cackled as she followed Arizona from the boardroom. Teddy jogged to keep up with them after securing the coffee that Callie had left behind.
“Forgot something,” the cardiovascular surgeon spoke up, pressing a bundle of fabric into Arizona’s hands as they walked.
Arizona stopped in place when she realized it was a pair of her old scrub caps. “Where on earth did you get these?” she asked, holding them up. They were a mixture of dark, deep blues that blended together to look like light shining on the surface of water. She had been wearing the same kind for years but had left them all behind when she was medically evacuated from Iraq, or so she had thought.
“I took the only one that was left in your bag and found where to order them online,” Teddy explained. “For when you got back on your feet. Figured you could use some familiarity on your first day. There’s four all together.”
The scrub cap alone brought back a ton of memories, a lot of them with mixed emotions. Arizona fingered the material in her hands. “Thanks, Teddy. This is great.”
“I think this completes the set,” Teddy added, sweeping her eyes over her friend’s newly minted form. “New coat, favourite scrub caps, kickass leg brace that basically makes you The Terminator. I’d say you’re set for a day in the OR.” Her eyes flickered over to Callie’s. “Metaphorically speaking, of course.”
“Yeah, if only today would be that interesting,” Arizona laughed. “Right now I’m going to go park myself in the skills lab for a few hours and work with some of those digital animation segments you’ve told me about.”
“Those are fun,” Callie said. “You’ll probably cream the interns’ time records and make them all feel really bad about themselves.”
“That’s the plan,” Arizona teased. “That, and the IT guy is setting up my office in a little while. Then I’ve got to prep for a meeting tomorrow morning with Chief Webber and the Board to talk about some new equipment options while I convince them to spend the money. I’ll be lucky if I even see a single patient this week.”
Secretly, a part of Callie was happy to hear that, although she felt selfish for it immediately. It was exciting having Arizona at work, really. Seeing how well she was already fitting in made her happy. It would just take some time for Callie to stop the constant worrying she had become accustomed to.
Teddy’s pager went off and she checked it before backtracking in the direction they had just come from. “That’s my cue. Call if you need anything today, okay?” Arizona nodded and Teddy took off, leaving them alone.
The two of them continued on and Callie checked her watch on reflex, pursing her lips at the time crunch of a schedule she had today. “I’ve got to check in on some post-ops and meet with a patient about a hip replacement. You’re okay to go from here?”
Pausing at a junction in the hallway, Arizona faced her girlfriend and tugged on the lapels of her lab coat. “I think I can find my way.” She glanced up under her lashes and met the concerned eyes staring back at her. “Try not to worry too much, okay? I promise I’ll be fine. Lots of sitting and minimal stress.”
By this point, Callie was probably feeling more nervous than Arizona. “Okay,” she relented, not wanting to rain on her girlfriend’s parade. “I’ll look for you at lunch.”
“I would like that.” Arizona took a quick peek around them before pushing up on her toes and planting a quick peck on Callie’s cheek.
Callie melted, leaning forward on instinct. “I love you, you know that, right?” she asked quietly, not caring about their rules for workplace conduct.
Arizona gave her a funny look. “Of course I do, you goof,” she replied, nudging her in the hip. “Now go, do your thing and stop worrying so much. I’ll try to watch from the gallery later when you’re in the OR.”
Knowing she could look up mid-surgery and see Arizona smiling back at her made Callie break out into a huge grin. “Okay. That would be cool.”
“Then I’ll make it happen.” Arizona playfully wiggled her eyebrows before breaking away and strutting down the hall in the same direction they had been heading. She didn’t look back, though she knew very well that a set of eyes would be watching her every move.
Callie did watch her go, amazed that there was barely a hitch in her step. Her instincts were still screaming at her to follow and spend the day playing ‘invisible ninja’, peeking out from around random objects when Arizona wasn’t looking, but she knew Arizona wouldn’t appreciate the over-protective gesture now that she was actually here.
Stuffing her hands in her pockets and inhaling deeply, Callie peeled off in the opposite direction. With any luck, her day would be busy enough that she could think about something other than how Arizona was holding up for more than five minutes.
On the way to the surgical post-op wing, she spotted a familiar scowl when passing one of the filing rooms. Callie backtracked and poked her head in. “Karev, you’re in the ER today working with the new trauma doctor, right?”
He barely glanced at her while rummaging through a draw full of old patient files. “Yeah, what of it?”
Callie pursed her lips. “Try not to be a total ass, okay? I know you’re not exactly a ray of sunshine, but she’s here to help and you could learn a lot from her.”
Alex rolled his eyes and finally looked up. “Yeah, yeah, I got it. It’s not like I have anything better to do.”
“That’s the spirit,” Callie muttered under her breath before leaving him to his own devices and continuing on her way. She checked her watch three times in the short walk to the elevator and came to the conclusion that lunch time couldn’t come fast enough.
---
Note: Picture of Arizona's scrub cap: