Haunted 2/3
Title: Secret Santa fic for Majincammy: Haunted 2/3
Author: Neolithicdream
Pairing/Character: Calzona
Rating: PG-13
Summary: For Majincammy, who gave an amazing prompt even if it terrified the living daylights out of me to write. "A christmas-y fanfic where Arizona is greeted by. Mark's ghost in a dream and shown how her life would be crap based on her making different choices in her life ( a Christmas Carol starring Arizona Mc Scrooge)"
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. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libellous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Chapter 1: http://neolithicdream.livejournal.com/43991.html
She landed on the barstool with a jolt, Mark needing to reach out a hand to steady her so she didn't do a dramatic face-plant onto the floor.
"Whoops!" She gasped.
Mark just grinned and said, " yeah, I probably should have put on the Fasten Seatbelt sign and told you to prepare for a bumpy landing". His laughter died in his mouth as he saw the stricken expression on her face.
"Too soon for Plane-crash humor?"
She nodded,the weakest of smiles beginning to form.
Mark nodded in understanding, then grinned again, " I suppose that means my whole " eaten by wolves" patter is out of the question too?
"Mark! What the hell is wrong with you, oh my God!" Horror and disgust evident in her tone, "Did you lose your mind as well as your life?"
He shrugged, " Lexie thinks its hilarious and if anyone should have a problem with it it would be..."
"Lexie? Little Grey? You, you've met..." Her eyes began to fill with tears.
"Of course I have..."
Her last memory of Lexie Grey was catching her eye as their plane plummeted to earth. When she closed her eyes that is what she saw. Not the funny pretty young girl who'd shared many a Brunch with her and Callie and other friends in Apartment 52 nor the talented surgeon with her 'Lexipedia' brain. No. When she closed her eyes she saw the look of complete unadulterated fear. A look she knew had been mirrored on her own face.
"How is she, Lexie, I mean?" She asked cautiously; some of the others had a chance to say a type of goodbye but Arizona had not. Her friend Lexie was just one of many things she, and all of them, had lost that day.
But she never really mourned her. Too caught up in her own loss,too pissed off at Callie's constant referencing to the loss of Mark; as if Mark had been the only loss, as if Callie had been the only one to lose him. So caught up in her own anger and trauma for so long that in the end, instead of properly grieving for Lexie and Mark, and even her friend Nick, she had just added that failure to her growing pile of crimes and misdemeanors.
"How is Lex?" Mark couldn't keep from grinning, " Uhm, she's dead." His grin turned to a grimace when this time Arizona's punch hit him on the shoulder, "...sorry, ok, she's... Lexie's doing great, enjoying....Uhm... Death I guess." He smiled broadly just thinking about her.
A long moment passed, a moment spent digesting that, somewhere, out there, there was Lexie Grey, happy. And, from what Mark said earlier, Nick too and her little baby, and who knows who else. It went against the grain for her to believe it. She believed in science, in medicine. In the certainties. In life, death and taxes. That the sun rose in the East and set in the West; in gravity and the other laws of physics.
She'd been brought up nominally as a Christian but not in any devout sense. Sure it was a nice concept, an afterlife; one where you would meet your lost loved ones again. But her scientific mind would not have any of it, the vagueness of it. This strange anomalous concept of faith was, as far as she was concerned, just a clever construct to explain the absence of any proof.
She respected those who did believe, like her late Grandmother and her friend April Kepner. Like Callie, whose faith was in God rather than any particular formal Church. She just could not share their belief. As she once explained to Callie, she needed logic and evidence, without these she could not believe. Callie had laughed and said, "So what about love? There's no logic or evidence but you believe in it?" She'd countered that loving her was the most logical thing in the world and that, if Callie needed evidence of that, then she would happily 'prove' it all night long.
And she had.
And now, this? At a time when even love was something she was struggling to believe in she was being faced with this. She rubbed her head, as if her headache of earlier had returned, it hadn't. For the first time in days her head felt clear, her body alive. And she knew that this was all a dream, that in reality she was lying in the OnCall room, probably coming down with that same bug as two thirds of her staff. That this was all an elaborate hallucination of her sick fevered brain. But right now, right here, she didn't care. She wanted to believe the proof before her eyes. Needed to believe.
So she did.
"So.... You and Lexie, you two are finally together now?" That very thought filled her with joy.
"Well..." Mark said, a little sheepishly, "... we're...well...working on getting there.."
And, for what they both suspected would not be the last time tonight she punched him on the shoulder, hard.
"What the hell, Blondie?" He yelled in near unison with her " What the hell is wrong with you, Mark... you and Lexie both?"
" What do you mean? And can you please stop hitting me, I bruise easily."
She muttered an apology and something about who knew he'd be as annoying dead as alive but then her eyes softened and she spoke again, "You and Little Grey...you two are meant to be, ya know...like....made for each other ....and you both keep ..." her voice lowered a fraction, " ...fucking it up."
"Well that's a bit rich, coming from..."
But she cut him off before he could finish. "What are the two of you waiting for...you both know the other is the one...damn it" she couldn't keep the frustration out of her voice. " If I can see it.... And I've always seen it....I've always shipped you two, even when Callie said that ship had sunk I still shipped you two!"
"Shipped?"
Noting his utter confusion she elaborated , " you know... like when you 'ship a couple from a TV show...like, say, in Buffy, I always shipped Buffy and Angel even after Angel got his own spinoff show and Buffy was with Spike?"
Mark nodded sagely as if he knew of what she spoke. It didn't fool her, not for a minute. "Oh, Mark, please! Buffy ...as in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy? and Angel was her vampire boyfriend? " How did an intelligent man like Mark not know this?
"Oh, now I remember, the show for young teenage girls, weren't you a bit old for that?"
Arizona bristled. She'd had this conversation many times before, not least with her wife who'd accused her of having adolescent TV viewing habits. So of course she'd had to explain that, in fact, BtVS, was a modern allegorical drama, highly intelligent and sophisticated, far, far removed from the usual teenage dross on TV. It was in fact, in its own way, as much a classic as "Its a wonderful life" or to go all literary for a moment, "Catcher in the Rye".
" I guess you were into the Blue eyed Blonde on the show, huh?
"What? No..it wasn't about...." She sighed but really she didn't have the time to explain, "...actually no, I've never been into blue eyed blondes much and, in fact Angel was my Gaygirl 'boy' crush, if you must know. David Boreanaz is hot."
He said nothing, storing for later the interesting fact that she was never really attracted to blue eyed blondes.
"Anyway, I'm talking about you and Lexie, remember?"
He nodded.
"What's it going to take for you two to get your heads out of your...seriously, Mark? Our plane fell out of the sky, and half of it landed on Lexie and pretty much cut her in two..." they both grimaced at the visual, "...and she died, Mark, she died." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "And then you died.... And now you've got this miraculous second or third or whatever it is chance.... What the hell are you two waiting for..." She shook her head, willing her tears not to fall, "... Just be together, Mark, just be."
He smiled at her, he'd probably be crying like she was right now too if he didn't know they were all watching... Lexie and the rest. And he knew her words were true and when he got back tonight he and Lexie would...well they'd take her advice and just be. He sighed loudly wondering how much of her own advice she heard herself.
" You're one to talk.... What about you and Torres, if anyones's meant to..."
"Don't..." She shook her head, eyes to the ground as if she couldn't bear to meet his look, "...please don't say....not now, not...it's not..." She used to believe that, believed it with all her heart. That Callie was the one, that Callie loved her just as much back.That they'd be the couple sitting on their porch chair in their eighties, holding hands; still laughing at each other's corny jokes, still in love, meant to be. That they would just be. And that would be enough.
Enough forever.
She just shook her head and fell silent.
Mark sighed. It was worse than he had imagined and yet was it? He knew this woman, or had known her. They hadn't always been friends but she'd always been true. Pig-headed, sure; wrong-headed, frequently but never less than honourable.
And she had loved his best friend, oh how she had loved her. The woman he knew would not, could not have..and yet she had. He supposed that's why they were here, right now. Sitting on barstools in the Emerald City Bar.
To help her remember. Remember how it was, how it was supposed to be.
Remember how she had loved his best friend, how she had been loved in return. How love was enough, was all that mattered.
*******
They sat for awhile till, out of the blue, Arizona grabbed him by his scrub top, pulling him towards her, hiding herself behind his larger bulk, "Mark, don't move...I just came into the bar."
Turning his head, sure enough, there was Arizona Robbins walking into the bar with a woman he vaguely recognised, from the Hospital.
"Yes, that's you..." Mark nodded, " ...why are you hiding?"
She looked at him as if he was an idiot, "I can't let me see me, Mark! Can I?"
"Huh?"
"If I let that me see this me it might cause a time paradox that will tear a hole in the fabric of the time space continuum and then where will we be?"
Mark blinked, twice, before repeating, "Huh?"
"Like in Back to the Future, Marty McFly couldn't let past or future Marty see present Marty or all hell would break loose, right?"
Mark tried vainly not to laugh, " Firstly they can't see you, only we can see each other and secondly, please, please tell me Michael J. Fox was another of your "boy" crushes?"
She scowled in reply,she wasn't telling him another thing about her younger self. He especially did not need to know, that before she'd finally admitted her true sexuality to herself, Michael J. Fox had occupied a proud place on her bedroom wall. In fact he'd only come down to make room for Cindy.
"Was she an ex of yours?" Mark tried to place her female companion from where they were now seated at the bar.
" Who, Anne? Oh no, she's very,very straight..." She laughed at the very thought, "...she's probably my oldest friend in Seattle, she was my favourite Scrub Nurse but now she's my Head of..." She tailed off, remembering their encounter from earlier; another loss, another regret.
Mark didn't seem to notice, seemingly confused himself "Are you sure she's straight cause I definitely came on to her a couple of times and she turned me down..."
Arizona just rolled her eyes in reply.
" Oh God, Calliope just walked in.... That's why we're here, right? This is the night, the night we first..." She stopped in mid sentence, seemingly spellbound by the sight of her wife, before she was her wife, before she was her anything.
" Blondie, you okay?"
" She looks so sad, sad and defeated and... gorgeous," she was barely whispering.
"You know they can't hear us either?" Mark replied in his normal tone but she took no notice, still whispering, " She shouldn't be this sad, she should never be this.... don't be sad Calliope, honey don't..." She practically beseeched the woman now sitting barely four feet away.
"They had done a right job on her, you know, O'Malley and Hahn; before you came along I was beginning to despair that the old Callie was gone for good." He wasn't sure she even heard him, she was entranced, hanging onto every word the brunette uttered, every move she made.
When Callie moved to the bathroom he answered her silent question with a nod, "How this works is...wherever you want to go, you will it and we will find ourselves there, this is your past not mine.." And seconds later they were there, in the dingy bathroom in Joes, watching her Calliope crying her eyes out, sobbing loudly.
" Do something, Mark, tell her it's going to be okay, or, or make her feel it, do something, please." It killed her seeing Callie like this, she'd always hated seeing her cry, hated herself all the more knowing that she'd been the cause of so many more tears in the intervening years and, that soon, she would be again.
" No-one can change the past, Arizona, not you, not even me ...." He laid a comforting hand on her shoulder, "... All we can do, all we can ever do is change the present and pray like hell that the future looks after itself." He'd only stopped speaking when the door opened and in came Past Arizona just as Callie had regained a semblance of control and was applying running repairs to her face.
" Ortho, right?" The Blonde asked breezily, as if walking in on a distraught woman was the most natural thing in the world, "....Arizona Robbins, Peds Surgeon."
Arizona cringed a little as she watched her younger self babble on, somewhat inanely she now thought, " for Gods sake, get to the point, just tell her she's the most gorgeous woman you have ever seen and ask her out..." She muttered crossly to herself.
" Some people really like you...and when you're done with being upset you"ll have people lining up for you..."
"Yeah, you wanna give me some names?" A disbelieving Callie replied.
Mark whispered into his Arizona's ear, " See she's always been a bit oblivious, sometimes she has to be practically hit on the head before she sees what's going on..." He cut himself short as Past Arizona leaned forward just a little, rising on tippy toes to plant the gentlest of kisses on the brunettes lips, "...I think you'll know..."
"...Or you could just kiss her on the mouth, I guess, way to go Arizona" Mark finished. No wonder, he thought, his friend had gushed about the Blonde Peds surgeon the next day. With a ballsy move like that Callie hadn't stood a chance.
They watched as the other Blonde turned and left, Callie watching too, as a smile, starting on her lips crept upwards to cover her entire face, transforming it; a tiny laugh escaping too.
"Oh..." Arizona said in surprise.
"Oh?" Mark questioned, this was her memory she should remember it.
"She smiled... I didn't know...I mean...that I made her smile, her laugh....with just that kiss...I..." And for the first time since his return the Blonde he'd come to see smiled a truly happy smile.
" Yeah, you did that a lot, you know." He added softly.
*****
"Ok so what's this now, you two about to get your freak on?" Mark smirked. She just scowled back at him. They both watched as Past Arizona opened the door gallantly for Callie.
"And they say the age of chivalry is dead..." Callie smiled.
Arizona grinned, "Just because you agreed to go to dinner with a woman is no reason not to expect to be treated like a lady... And a lady should always be dropped home to her door..."
Reaching the so familiar blue door both women fell silent, "I had a wonderful time, Calliope...", the Blonde smiled a megawatt smile, "...I'd like to do it again sometime."
Callie's smile was all the reply she needed.
Mark and Arizona watched on as the two women kissed, laughed, kissed some more.
"Do you want to come in for coffee?"
Past Arizona hesitated, "...that might not be the best idea...I..."
"I don't want to sleep with you..." Callie added quickly, " ...I mean..."
Past Arizona's eyes opened wide but before she could reply Callie rushed in again, ".... I mean I do, but I don't, I mean tonight.....I mean I don't not want to sleep with you tonight but..." Arizona's lips meeting her own stopped the torrent of words "...I get it, Calliope, I do. And I think this might be something worth taking slow too."
"So, just coffee?"
"Uhm..."
"Or if its too late, how about a juice or a hot chocolate, I make a mean Hot Chocolate." Callie clearly did not want their date to end.
Past Arizona smiled mischievously, " Do I get marshmallow on top?"
"Only if you are good." Came the reply.
She stood on tippy toes and whispered in Callie's ear, " I can be good, I can be very good."
They watched on as, inside the Apartment, the two women danced it out.
Mark laughed, and Arizona blushed; unlike Callie she was never the most graceful of dancers, " It was her idea....but it was fun...we danced like loons for over an hour..." She laughed at the memory.
"Good first date?" Mark asked already knowing the answer.
"Best ever..." Arizona added quietly"...best first everything, best always."
*****
Mark led them to the other times and memories Arizona's mind directed them towards, during some of which he was shooed away as Arizona watched alone. A smorgasbord of memories, laughing in the Cafeteria, eating Pizza in bed; joint surgeries. The mundane stuff that makes up life, the grocery shopping, a tiff about who was supposed to remember to put out the garbage. An evening spent in silence over a stupid argument concerning an Avocado and a Tomato, a failed excursion to buy a Christmas Tree because neither could stop laughing long enough to choose.
With each memory the smile on Arizona's face broadened, stress lines disappearing before his eyes.
And the ultimate memory for her. She watched on as her soon to be wife appeared at the other end of the aisle, her dreams all exploding into life in that moment. Neither of the two Arizonas present remembering to breathe as the beautiful Latina walked up that aisle.
And hearing their words, and Baileys too...
"We are here today to celebrate love, happiness, loyalty and... in my opinion...a little bit of magic too."
"I take you, Calliope Torres, to be my wife."
"I choose you to be the one with whom I spend my life."
"I pronounce you wife and wife."
The tears would not stop, and for the first time in a long time, there were more happy than sad.
*****
But there were memories that were not of her choosing, that she might understandably never wish to re-live and now Mark's job was to bring them to her
anyway.
" I love everything about you, and I don't want you to change..."
"I can't be the one that keeps you from having a baby, Calliope."
"I'm going to get my stuff together....we"ll see each other at work."
He'd seen it before, heard it all from his friend's point of view, her devastation, her journey through grief all the way to anger and he'd held her hand and nodded in agreement when she called the Blonde unfeeling, unbending; he'd seen her flourish while his friend floundered. But he hadn't seen this.
The way she silently, stoically packed her stuff, disentangling their entwined lives. The way she gently kissed the crying woman's temple as she bade her farewell. The way she drove away in silence. The way minutes later she pulled into a lay-by, released her seatbelt and cried. Sobbed. Screamed her ex- lovers name. Sat in that car for two hours, unseen grief, unwitnessed agony.
Watching his companions face now, she was just as stoic as the woman he remembered. Realising and marvelling at her art of concealment, wondering how he'd ever confused it with indifference.
"It wasn't easy to walk away, huh?"
She looked at him in astonishment, " From Calliope? Easy to walk away? How could that ever be easy?"
******
Malawi was bathed in sunshine as they watched on as the enormity of what she'd done dawned on her. After she'd gotten over her righteous indignation, after some amazing surgeries; while making a difference, she realised none of it mattered. Only Callie made a difference, only Callie mattered in the end. Not the Carter Madison, nor the tiny ill humans. Just Callie.
As if she read his mind she whispered, to herself, "It was only ever Callie."
******
It was OR 3 and most of their friends were there, Callie too. But for once Callie was not being a kick-ass surgeon, she was the patient and she was dying. Arizona knew how this ended but that didn't seem to matter to her. She watched,just as paralysed with fear as her Past self was as she and Past Mark ran into the OR accompanied by a soundtrack of frantic monitors and panicked, yet, steadfast surgeons.
"Baby, please pull through, just beat, just let your heartbeat, just once, then twice, then..." the changing beeps of the monitor proved her silent prayers were heard and answered. Her sigh of relief synchronised exactly with that of the other Blonde Peds surgeon in the room. The one that, with a tacit nod form Past Mark, sprung into action to save the tiny preemie, that one pound one ounce of strong.
They were both in tears as the events of one of their worst days unfolded before them, as they heard her Past Self say those most magical of magic words
"I have a heartbeat."
Later they watched as she sat by Callie's hospital bed and beseeched her just to wake up, "Please baby just wake up, just be okay... I'll do anything you want just live. I don't care if you're not exactly the same, you'll still be the only one I want, I'll ever want... If you still want me....or even if you don't... It doesn't matter....all that matters is that you live..."
Mark had the good grace to look ashamed as she continued, " Mark's right in a way, I am nothing, legally I mean..."
She felt him squeeze her arm in a gesture of reconciliation, she shook her head and smiled as she said, "...you're my friend , Mark...it was a long time ago..."
"... Which is crazy, cause I feel like your wife, like our Baby's Mom....can you, can you just live, for me? Please? Can you just live for me...."
"I almost lost them, Mark, both of them...if I'd lost her..." She couldn't get the words out. A world without Callie in it.. it was incomprehensible.
"But she lived... Arizona...." She nodded at his words as she roughly brushed her tears away, ".... and for four days she thought she'd lost you too.. but she didn't...you lived, you lived for her, remember that.
*****
"No! I'm not going in there...no!!!!" For all his 'BigBrain' talk Mark could not think of a word to adequately describe the sheer horror on her face. He'd shown her her wife dying on a gurney, their daughter blue and lifeless. She'd relived the pain of walking away twice from the love of her life.
But nothing compared to her visceral reaction to standing inside OnCall room 1 as Past Arizona and Dr. Lauren Boswell entered.
"No!" And she stormed out past the two blonde women."...not this!"
Before he could speak she began "You, this, all this..." she swallowed hard,"...it's about showing me the error of my ways ? To stop me from making the biggest mistake of my life, right?"
" Exactly..." He briefly thought his job here might be done.
She nodded, that tight little bob of the head she did sometimes when she knew she was right or had figured something out but then she laughed, a bitter twisted laugh before launching herself at him in anger,pummelling his chest with both fists, "...then why the hell didn't you, Mark? You and Lexie and Nick and God knows who else? Why didn't you stop me? That..."she gestured towards the infamous room, "...that was it, you stupid useless bastard, why didn't you stop me then?" And she stopped hitting him and instead buried her head into his chest and sobbed, " Why now, when its too late?"
"It's not too late, you're still here, she's still here, the love is still here..."
"She doesn't love me anymore, not like before..."
" You're wrong Robbins, she..."
"No."
Mark let out an exasperated sigh, what would it take to make her see that leaving now, even for what she thought was the right reason was just plain wrong.
"C'mon Robbins you gotta wake up and..."
"GO away ,Mark, just go away..." She was angry now.
"ROBBINS! Wake the hell up, we got incoming..."
The near violent shaking dragged her awake, "K- Karev?"
"No, it's Santa Claus, Robbins..." Alex Karev's gruff tone masked his concern. She looked like crap, and not just that " look like crap" look they all got after too many hours on call. Tired was a given, but she was sweating profusely, and yet seemed deathly pale, but right now it was all hands on deck, "... A bus load of kids turned over on the freeway after a visit to Santa's Grotto in that Mall downtown. 'Presbyterian' is taking five, a downtown clinic is dealing with the walking wounded, we got 11 on route, 5 serious, 6 critical."
"Damnit..." She muttered, "... two days before Christmas..."
"I'll meet you in the Pit, one minute.."
He nodded, at the door turned back, "... If you hadn't cancelled all electives, we'd be screwed now, Boss."
She smiled a wry smile as he walked away, that was as close to a compliment as anyone ever got from Alex Karev.
She looked around for one last minute, her headache was back with a vengeance and that dream or nightmare or whatever it was... It really hadn't helped. For a brief moment she closed her eyes, not sure what she hoped to see when she opened them. But she saw nothing, not Mark, not her past self. She shook her head, how could she see that.
All she'd left were memories, that's all she had now.
*********
Callie was dealing with one of the first casualties to arrive. Some of the more critical were still being stabilised at the scene. Maybe it was the freshness of the memories so recently revisited , maybe it was just one of those moments frozen in time. Arizona had a free second amidst the chaos, time to stop and watch. Callie, Calliope, her wife. Magnificently in command of her patient, stabilising one fracture before moving on to the next.
She couldn't help but watch and smile. Just then Callie looked up, catching her in mid stare. Arizona just smiled back. For a moment Callie wondered if she was imagining that, the way her wife looked at her. She hadn't looked at her like that in so long she had forgotten.
Forgotten the effect of a super magic smile. Forgotten what it felt like, to feel worthy, to feel awesome. No-one had ever made her feel like that, not with a glance nor a touch. Only Arizona.
Time fell away,the events of the past eighteen months and more a distant memory. In that moment they were them, just them and it was enough, it had always been enough.
The moment passed but not before Arizona laughed, a loud guffaw, an unintentional escapee, incongruous in the chaos that was the Pit. And Callie smiled back, suppressing her own laughter, just shook her head.
And they both smiled.
******
April Kepner ran as tight a ship in Trauma as they did in their two respective Departments. Soon all patients were triaged and allocated and Arizona found herself in the OR, hands deep in the chest cavity of a seven year old fighting desperately to patch an Aortic tear . The kid's skull fracture and lacerated nose would have to wait, his heart would not. Not even for Cristina Yang who had an elective patient on quadruple bypass in OR 6.
"Shouldn't we wait for cardio?" Dr. Ross argued. Arizona sighed, there was something about the young man that made her skin crawl and it wasn't just the rumours about him and Yang. "We could but when Cardio got here Cardio would have nothing to do as our patient would be dead...or I could fix him and you could watch and learn."
She could launch into her 'Peds is Hardcore' speech but really she didn't feel this young man was worthy of it.
Dr. Edwards rushed in, freshly scrubbed, brandishing a cellphone "... Uhm Dr. Robbins? Drs Bailey and Grey need to talk to you about their patient... 4 year old, liver and kidneys ruptured..." Edwards was holding the phone to Arizona's ear as Arizona's fingers nimbly sewed the tiny vessel up, hoping it would hold long enough for the patient to stabilise when a terrified looking intern dashed in, surgical mask held to mouth, "Dr. Robbins? Dr. Torres says she needs you now, one year old, multiple fractures, fragments everywhere, bleeders everywhere,she can't....she needs you now OR 3"
As she fixed the aorta of her kid she talked Miranda and Grey through their particular surgical dilemma. It took less than a minute, before she had them on the right track. She yelled at the intern to get another cell phone so she could talk to her wife. Callie was one of the coolest, calmest surgeons she'd ever met, if she was panicking then it was serious.
" Talk to me, Torres?"
"She's just so small, we can't find them, there's too many, she's losing blood twice as fast as we can... We need your hands in here now."
"My seven year old needs my hands in him right now, who've you got with you...?" She prayed it was Alex but Callie would not be panicking if he was there.
"Murphy."
If there was a Doctor her wife trusted less then Arizona was unaware of it, and that was only the beginning of their issues. But Arizona had worked with the young woman and knew what she was capable of when given a chance, when she wasn't terrified of her lead surgeon.
"Okay, this is what we're going to do....it's fine, Murphy has good hands so..." Arizona really wasn't sure if it was her imagination or if she really heard the two women cringe at her choice of words, "...so ..."
******
Leah wondered if she should just leave the program altogether. Robbins clearly hated her, so did Torres and now,as she and the aforementioned tried in vain to find the source of bleeding from the tiny body, she was pretty sure the Gods hated her too.
She heard the sharp intake of breath from the brunette at the words "...Murphy has good hands..." And exchanged a deeply uncomfortable look. But then the calming voice of the Peds surgeon broke through the tension. Following her instructions for the next fifteen minutes meant there was little need for conversation, a fact for which both women were deeply grateful.
******
Five hours after Karev woke her up she was done. Her seven year old patient would live long enough to endure that first crushing disappointment of life. There was no Santa Claus, no matter if you'd been naughty or nice. In fact he'd make a full recovery.
Bailey and Greys patient pulled through too as did all of the Bus kids. It was the kind of nightmare Surgeons thrived on. A few kids were still being patched up in various ORs and as Head of Peds Arizona was doing the rounds. Maybe she was being cowardly but she left OR 3 till last, facing her wife and Murphy together was not something she enjoyed on the best of days and right now, she was nearly dead on her feet.
She trudged in, summoning up her last bit of faux perk as she entered, "So how's our patient doing? Need any help?"
Callie smiled at her, then frowned as she took in her wife's appearance but answered her anyway, " No, we're doing good here, once we got her stabilised everything's gone okay....thanks for your help earlier."
Arizona smiled, Callie nodded; Leah stared at the little girl on the table desperately hoping to be ignored.
"Uhm...you were right...about Murphy... she's not... She's steady...good..." Callie had always been a generous teacher and, despite everything, Murphy had impressed her today.
" I am?" Leah's shock at a compliment coming from the most unlikely of sources broke her self- imposed vow of silence but neither woman really heard her.
p
"Yeah.." Arizona replied to her wife.
" You look exhausted..." Callie added tentatively. Arizona hated it, absolutely hated it when she, as Arizona perceived it, mollycoddled her especially at work. It told Callie all she needed to know when her wife nodded in agreement.
" I got this headache and...a temp... I, I think I might be coming down with this Peds bug that's been going round...." She sighed ".... Maybe it's best if I stay here tonight, don't want you and Sofia getting this on Christmas Day...I can hook myself up to some fluid , take a few ....."
"Why don't you do that so..." Arizona was not the only one that snapped easily these days, "... Hey why not spend Christmas here too, yeah, come home , say Jan 5th....if you can remember the way!" Callie blinked back a tear, she really wasn't sure if it was a sad tear or an angry tear; all she knew was her wife clearly needed little excuse to stay away.
Arizona stood in mute shock for a moment before stuttering out , " ...my, my shifts over but I need about an hour to do some paperwork to cover all these new admissions, I'll collect Sofia round five, see you at home so."
Callie wanted to apologise, wanted to say so many things but instead she nodded curtly and said, "...make sure you do."
They worked in silence after the blonde left, eventually Leah timidly saying, "... She did look really ill..."
Callie stared at her for a long moment, "... Just shut up and sew , Murphy!"
******
Her headache which, with the adrenalin of earlier had almost disappeared, was back with a vengeance. It was all consuming. She'd grabbed a few Advil but the pain just kept getting worse. The paperwork would have to wait. All she wanted right now was to get home and sleep. And now she felt nauseous, and dizzy. Making her way to the small private bathroom adjoining her office she was hit by a blinding flash of light and pain, it's severity knocking her off balance, the resulting stumble dramatic.
She had just enough time to stick out her left hand to partially slow her descent. Just as well really, if she'd hit her head any harder off the hard porcelain toilet, it might have fractured her skull. As it was she was still conscious as, after the impact she slid slowly to the cool floor.
"Ow... Crap...that..." She moaned in the semi- darkness, raising her head to her left temple she was sure it felt all sticky and wet....and then it went black.
Dousing water on her face, she slowly raised her head to catch a glimpse in the mirror over the wash hand basin. She was pleasantly supprised at what she saw. Sure she looked like crap, large dark circles under tired eyes, dull skin with patchy redness here and there. She was the picture of ill- health, but she was sure, after that fall, there would be at least a bruise if not worse.
"You are going to have one hell of a headache when you wake up!"
She recognised the booming voice without looking this time, "Mark? Again?" She sighed.
" Yes, again..." He didn't sound any happier about it than she did.
Turning around to face him, that's when she noticed the body, lying there, face down beside the toilet, a small dark puddle underneath the head. It was herself, one side of her labcoat revealed a bright orange monkey. She appeared unconscious.
"Oh my god, what happened to me? Am I okay?" She looked up at the Plastic Surgeon who was looking positively peeved., "A-aren't you going to help me?"
" Nope, we gotta go, he dragged her away from her self as she resisted,staring down at her prone body "...Mark, I need to help me..."
"Blondie, someone else will find you, trust me....and they'll patch you up, a nasty bruise and a few magic stitches from Avery and you'll live, and as for helping you.... this whole elaborate thing you and I have going on is all about helping you so now come on."
"But..." She did trust him, at least more than her own mind at present, "... Where are we going now, cause I'm done with Memory Lane..."
"Nowhere." The cryptic answer didn't help.
"What?"
"We're not going anywhere, we're staying right here, In the here and now. Which by the way means I've lost my bet with your brother which is really really annoying."
"My....Timothy? You've spoken to..."
"Of course Timothy...I mean Tim.... He's a good guy, no where near as annoying as his little sister..." He smirked.
" I'd do anything to talk him..." She was barely audible, tears flowed silently down reddened cheeks "... Why you? If Timothy is there why didn't he come instead of you...."
He could have feigned hurt but he knew no insult was intended. He'd guessed at the strength of the bond between Brother and sister in the past but it was only after meeting the man that he really got it.
"Or Nick?"
He'd figured that she and the photographer were not dissimilar to Callie and himself, except without the whole benefits thing.
."Is it, is it because they're ashamed of me..." She refused to meet his eye.
"What? No! Why would you think that? That's crazy talk ...the only reason I'm the one is..."
"...cause how badly I handled it...the crash, the amputation?" She'd always had this image of herself as honourable, and brave. Instead, she'd been bitter, hateful. " Nick was in the Army for seven years, Timothy was a career marine...if either had been given the chance to live... they'd have gladly chewed off a second limb and I just..."
"Hey, don't do that, they are proud of you and adore you....and..." Mark shook his head "... they wanted to come but The Powers That Be, well she decided I was the one who knew you and Callie as a couple so..."
"She?"
"Hmmmmm....." He muttered.
"Wait in the afterlife your boss is a woman?"
"It's not like that, she's not my boss she's..."
"Oh Mark..." Arizona chuckled "...karma bit you on the ass!"
"What bet did you have with my brother?" She just remembered.
" I said you'd change your mind about leaving once you saw the past, remembered how good you are together, how much it hurts when...."
"We were good, Mark... And I hadn't forgotten.... Any of it. I didn't come to this decision lightly... But it's for the best...eventually she'll meet someone and.... l'll meet people and..." She shook her head "... So what did Tim say?"
"Nice change of subject, Blondie .... And your brother said you're as stubborn as a mule so he bet it would take two trips....and here I am, again."
He chuckled loudly, "So hurry up Dr. McScrooge, time's a wastin', prepare to meet your Present."
And with that they were walking down the corridors of Grey - Sloan Memorial.