Sinus Node 3/?
ARIZONA: I’m so tired that I can feel it in my marrow. The day is passing me by as though I’m watching everything on a mute television. People talk to me and I reply gaily, they page me and I consult; nothing breaches anything but the very periphery of my mind. The remnant of feeling her arms around me is enough to drag me through the day, for now.
Bailey is speaking to me as I prepare to administer the medication to my new five year old patient; after a throng of confusing symptoms we are now sure in our diagnosis of diabetes. I remove the cap of the hypodermic needle and move to insert it into the line already placed.
“Dr. Robbins!” I hear Bailey call forcefully and realise she’s been saying my name repeatedly for some time. I halt and look up at her with a furrowed brow.
“You’re about to administer an adult dose,” she hissed, “that’s ten times what she should get, it’ll kill her!” She places her hand over mine and gently extricates the syringe. “Go,” she says simply and I leave the room as I feel the blood drain all colour from my features.
CALLIE: I find her immediately because as much as she tries to conceal herself from me, I know her inside out. She’s not a person of faith at all but is often found in the hospital chapel; it’s the peace that she likes and the fact that nobody questions tears in here. She’s sitting on the floor out of sight around the side of the pews, her back resting against one of their sturdy planks. I sit quietly in front of her and she draws her knees closer to her chest, her arms wrapped tightly around her own shins. Her hands are shaking.
“Bailey found me,” I say simply and quietly. She’s removed her wheelies and I lightly caress the top of her foot, her pink socks drawing a smile from my lips, despite everything.
Suddenly she looks at me, directly into my eyes, and holds the gaze. It’s surprising because it’s been so long since she’s done so, and shocking because her own are brimming with tears and deeply sunken in ashen features. “I could have killed her,” she chokes out and droplets trickle freely down her cheeks.
“Arizona,” I speak her name softly, “you didn’t do anything; we all make mistakes, doctors are fallible, no matter how careful we are.”
She screws her eyes shut against her pain and I feel the image brand my heart. “I wasn’t careful,” her voice is strangled and laced with her anguish. “I wasn’t even in that room, Callie.” She looks at me as though her inner dialogue is violently battling with itself. “I wasn’t there... I... Cal.” My name is a plea from her lips as her whole body seems to fold and crumble; I shift to her side and take her in my arms.
After several minutes of cradling and sobbing and silence, I speak carefully. “I think you need to talk Arizona. Not with me; well, eventually with me, I hope. But for now with... someone else.”
I feel her nod her head against my chest and exhale deeply. “I know,” she raises her head to look at me again, her hands grasping the material of my scrub top. “I really think I need to.”
ARIZONA: I sit on the sofa; legs curled beneath me, and gratefully accept the steaming mug of tea she hands over the back to me. She brings her own mug around the side of the sofa with her and taps at my shoulder to indicate she wants to slot in behind me. She encourages me to settle back against her chest and squeezes me gently with her thighs, wrapping me up with her entire body. Her hand snakes around my stomach and I feel a chin rest against my head.
She hasn’t asked me one question about my session with Dr. Wyatt and I’m grateful. I feel a little better; the pressure has at least been somewhat released but I know that we didn’t even touch on the root cause, that will take much, much longer. I can’t express how much I love being wrapped in her arms, I just hope she understands when I cuddle back into her and take her hand, stroking gently. “I can’t tell you now,” I say quietly.
“I know,” she replies and kisses the top of my head. “I don’t need you to. In your own time, I’ll be here.”
“I love you, Callie.” I’ve never meant it more profoundly than in this moment. The next thing I’m conscious of is her taking my mug from me gently and soothing me back to slumber against her warm chest.
CALLIE: I press my lips together almost violently to abate encroaching tears. She’s completely broken in my arms and it’s the shock that brings hot, salty drops to my eyes. This is Arizona Robbins; this is the perky, confident woman who has scraped me from the pavement so many times I can’t even remember. She’s the one whose arms cradle me and whose scrubs absorb my tears, but now she needs me and I’m terrified that I won’t be able to ease the tightness in her chest and soothe the racing tracks of her mind like she does mine.
I’d take the pain from her if I could and that thought shocks me. Because I’ve loved and lost, I know how it feels to have the wind so completely knocked out of your chest that you wonder at how easy it had always seemed to simply breathe. And yet I’d take it on for her; to hear that carefree giggle and see the return of fairy dust and magic to her eyes, I’d take it all.
She’s playing with a delicate silver bracelet that’s fixed around my wrist. She gave it to me a year or so ago and of all the gifts she’s ever bought for me this is the one that’s really stuck. I rarely take it off except during surgery and idly playing with it during moments of quiet reflection has become a habit of both hers and mine. Keeping a hold of my wrist, she flips herself over, nuzzles into my embrace and pulls a blanket from the back of the sofa to cover us.
“Can we put on a really bad movie and stay here all night?” she asks and I feel her lips brush intermittently against the skin of my neck as she speaks.
“Miracle on 34th St?” I offer quickly, so glad that she wants to stay here with me and not run away from her troubles, literally.
“It’s nowhere near Christmas,” she looks up at me with what I think might be a brief grin.
“I know,” I tell her, “but it’s your favourite and I know you secretly have the hots for Elizabeth Perkins in a pant-suit so we can make an exception!”
She nods with what might almost be considered enthusiasm and I search for the movie with the remote. I can tell she’s fighting exhaustion and lasts only until her favourite scene, the kiss by the ice-rink, before falling asleep against my chest. As I hold her tightly and inhale the scent of her hair deeply, I resolve that I will be strong enough to carry her through this. She deserves selflessness and patience on my part; this is being in a relationship. And the funny thing is that for her I don’t mind the rough, though the road may be long and rocky, because the smooth... is exquisite.