FIC: Hold Me Tight (10/10)
Title: Hold Me Tight (10/10)
Author: white_lighter
Rating: R
Pairing: Callie/Arizona
Summary: Just when Callie's found happiness again, an old flame returns.
Disclaimer: The author of this piece does not, in any way, profit from the story and that all creative rights to the characters belong to Shonda, their original creator.
Previously:
One - Two - Three - Four - Five - SixA - SixB - Interlude - Seven - Eight - Nine - Interlude 2 - Interlude 2
a/n: apologies for the wait, but you know when something just isn't right and you have to keep working and working til it just feels right? ;) Yup. All that and more. Anyways, thanks for reading/commenting/the gentle pokes thru pm about finishing. :) this is for niki who helped, coached, beta-ed, and was an amazing friend when chaos ensued in this amazing journey. enjoy.
Chapter Ten
Beep.
This steady noise breaks the inevitable silence I've been slumbering in as my eyes flutter open. That's the fifth one I've counted since regaining consciousness. Everything is dark and foggy as I fight to find some level of consciousness. I'm dead and yet I can still hear her somewhere in the back of my mind.
Wake Calliope! Wake up and find me.
Beep.
For Godsakes! Why is Heaven beeping? Am I in purgatory or limbo? I mended bones for a living, made people walk, loved an amazing woman who fixes tiny humans for profession and somehow I'm trapped in wherever this is?
Beep.
Then slowly, I begin to remember. Arizona was purple? No, no that that was a bruise, marring the beautiful face I loved to wake up next to. There were tears and crying. She was scared and looking at me, desperately trying to memorize every detail about me like it would be the last time. But was it?
Beep.
Morphine is swimming laps in my head, as I will my eyes to open wider and see where I am. Coldness is still prevalent in my extremities or perhaps that's just Death lingering beside my bed. My lungs burn to take a deep breath but end up choking it back. I'm on a respirator and somehow to my disbelief, I'm alive.
Beep.
That bastard! He was there pointing his gun at anyone who defied him. All it did was grant him a false sense of godliness. Then there was a shot fired. I couldn't let him hurt her, so I moved in front of her with my arms stretched wide. Did I make it in time or did he just have bad aim? I guess I'll never know for sure. She was safe though and all that's all that mattered to me. Still, I was in pain. It was a self-fulfilling pain where it felt as if my outside finally matched what my insides had been feeling for weeks.
I try to move my hand to find the call button or at the very least some more morphine, but it feels like a sack of bricks is weighing me down.
"Holy shit, you're awake!" my roommate exclaims, her voice higher than anticipated.
She drops her sandwich onto her makeshift picnic table on my bed and checks my vitals. I want to shout at her to take this tube out of my throat, but it's Yang. Unless it leads to something incredible involving surgery, she wouldn't dare especially with Arizona probably lurking around. Jesus Christ, why am I waking up with my roommate next me to? Where's Arizona?
"You probably want to know what happened to you."
Or what's happened to my friends, my best friend, and my girlfriend? Yang's here so obviously she survived or I really am lying in ICU hell with my roommate as my eternal damnation. She was one of the people carrying me out, right? So that must mean all those people made it out, I think. Did Erica make it out after going all Rambo on that son of bitch? Where's Arizona?
"Psycho father shot you in the lower abdomen with a .22 at close range, which proceeded to leave an exit wound in its wake. But not before more than half the shell exploded, piercing your left lung."
Well, that explains the tube.
"You're lucky Hunt was in the room. It was amazing. He had you in and out. And you were a freaking mess. It was like playing where's Waldo in your abdomen trying to get everything out."
She holds back my eyelids and shines her pen light directly into them. My whole head burns.
"You've got a concussion to match. So as soon as you can, Shepherd wants to get a CT."
Shepherd and Hunt, that's two more names to add to the made-it-out-alive list.
"Look, I've got to call your parents or else they're going to kill me. They only left if I promised not to leave you come hell or high waters."
My parents are here? I guess the whole disowning you thing doesn't hold up if your estranged daughter has been gun down at her vocation. I hope Arizona's handling them all right.
"Good to see you awake, Callie. But take it easy."
Yang reaches over me and hits the morphine for me. The affects are immediate as I slip into unconsciousness unable to protest this indiscretion.
********
Hours must have passed when I wake up next. I can feel my whole body moving forward, slowly and sure. My eyes struggle to focus on anything.
"It's okay, Callie" says a voice over an intercom. Maybe Karev?
That's debatable at this point. I think I'm getting a CT, which explains the immense amount of grayish white surrounding my fuzzy vision. I turn to sit up, but the pains of my injuries stop me. My hand gropes for the morphine button anywhere. There's nothing, but hollow walls surrounding me. Figures, the time I actually want the stuff it's nowhere to be found.
"Callie, stop moving. I'm not about to run this again."
Okay, that's definitely Karev. He must have made it out too, though I can't really remember seeing him while I was bleeding out on the floor with… oh god. Where is she?
"Ari? Erica?"
Neither respond, instead Karev comes back on the intercom. "Torres, you're in a scan. Stop moving. You'll be done in just a few."
The idiot leaves the intercom on as he continues some sort of conversation with whoever is in the scan room. "Bullet rips right through her and every time the girl's been remotely conscious she's been muttering for Roller girl. You'd think they'd tell her."
"Karev, it's her family's personal business. We do not get involved in family drama," Bailey states like it's the hundredth time she's said this today.
"You weren't in there! Robbins' was balling her eyes out like a baby the whole time. It's not right. God, why doesn't Hahn say something?" Karev asks like Bailey should have the know-all/be-all answer to this.
"Last time, Karev," Bailey begins like she always does when she's delivering a lecture to inferior residents or interns. "The Torres family has sunk a lot of money into this hospital. Good money that funds your residency program. They specifically said not tell Torres what happened until she's stronger."
My heart begins to race. Stronger for what? Where is she? Why isn't she holding my hand through this? Why wasn't she the one keeping vigil next to my bed? Why isn't she the one dressed in lead, talking me through this scan? Where is my girlfriend?
The beat of my heart reaches my head; my breath starts to come in desperate gasps. It seems like nothing I do will fill my lungs. My mind screams run as I try to get up.
"Arizona!" I choke out, raspy and frantic.
"Callie! Breathe!" Karev roars over the mic, but his words don't comprehend.
Then I feel it again; warmth begins to spill down the side of abdomen as I feel stitches pops and slice through my tender wound. It doesn't matter. Something went wrong and now Arizona's not here. And if she can't come to me, I'm going to her.
"Shit! She's gonna go to into cardiac arrest."
The bed begins to move out. Once free I feel someone take my hand and place another on top of my chest, trying to make me lie back down. I pray it's her, but a glance to my left and there is Miranda, my saint with a backhand.
"Torres, I'm not losing you. Not after everything, God, help me if I lose you too. So breathe!"
With that, it went dark again.
*******
"And what am I suppose to do, Carlos?" My mother's wavering voice begins as I approach a state of consciousness again. "She's bound to get that tube thing out of her mouth eventually and that'll be the end of this charade. We'll have to tell her."
I can hear them, almost as if I'm in a dream, but I can't seem to control this dreams. What happened? Why can't I move again? Cristina said my parents were here, but something else has happened. Something no one has yet to tell me, and I think I know what it is. They didn't make it. Why no one won't anyone talk to me?
"Marie, we've been through this time and time again. Calliope needs a clean break. Once we have everything in order, we'll wake her up, fly back to Miami and be rid of this place forever," my father counters.
My mother's hand reaches across and sweeps my hair back my hair. "They said she was happy here. I just - I don't know if I could do that to her."
"She was shot, Marie! If that isn't evidence enough that she doesn't belong here then I don't know what it."
My mother voice hitches as she tries to talk. She's probably somewhere between holding back tears and being unable to cry anymore. "How could she do this to us? In the eyes of God, how could she lead a life like this? Divorce then become a gay? I just - This is not the daughter I raised."
I hear my father wrap his arms around my mother; the two of them emitting a deep sigh of comfort and relief.
"What are we going to tell her when she wakes up?" My mother whispers out.
"The truth, I guess."
*******
It's like a thousand of the sharpest needles are being dragged out of my throat as I'm torn from purgatory for the umpteenth time this day. The feeling is violent as if someone is slashing at my throat from the inside. I'm coughing, sputtering, and having the urge to breathe on my own.
"Hang in there, Callie. Just cough. It's almost over."
My eyes snap open to see my cardio ex watching over me like a Shepherd does to Grey as she pulls the intubation line from my mouth. Finally free, I lean over the side of my bed willing my lungs to breathe on their own, but Erica is there, holding me back.
"Erica! I gasp out.
"Slow down there. You don't want to pop your stitches again."
A few painful breaths bleed down my raw throat and I begin to feel like my self again. She lets me lays me back down. She blinks back a few tears as I tried to smile at her. Slowly, I slide my hand to hers. She greets it with her own, steadily bringing it her lips and kissing the back of my hand.
"I thought I lost you," she says.
She had no idea how much I thought I lost her. Watching her run off to meet destiny with that psycho, I'm not sure whom it was harder on. But there's one more I've wanted to see since I've woken up. Everything time I've been awake, no one has mentioned her, told me she just ran out, or showed me the over kill of get well soon bouquets that I know Arizona would have decorated my room with.
Then it hits me.
She's gone.
Arizona is gone.
I'll never wake up with her by my side again. She'll never kiss the back of my hand. The love of my life has been taken from me and I wasted the last weeks of her life. She was in pain because of me. I'll never be able to make it right with her.
"Erica?" I try again, my voice is hoarse and barely there, but she hears me.
"It's okay, Callie. You're okay."
"You're alive?" I croak out trying to hold in my tears over Arizona.
She laughs, "I was fine. You were the one we were all worried about." She pulls my chart from the end of the bed. "Shot to lower-"
"Don't."
She nods and puts the chart back. I can't hear it again. It just makes it all the more real.
"Yang was here earlier. She told me," I whisper out and attempt to get up, but she's there stopping me again.
She clicks the bed control to help me sit up then pours me a glass of water complete with bendy straw. "Drink, you sound horrible."
Halfheartedly, I obliged her and sip the cool water savoring it as it runs down my throat calming the wake of the tube. But it doesn't deter me. I have to know what happened. Was it a fly bullet or did her guerrilla warfare fall short and the gunman went after Arizona? Why is everyone avoiding this giant elephant in the room?
"How'd it happen?"
She turns away from me and begins filling out something on my chart. "How'd what happen?"
"Erica, please. Just tell me."
"It's not that simple, Callie."
"I need to know.”
"No, it's not that. It's just, well, your parent said-"
"Where is she? The morgue?"
"The morgue?" Erica asked, perplexed. "Why on Earth would Robbins be there?"
"You mean she's not -?" I can't even finish the statement as my father's voice reigns over us.
"Security, please escort Dr. Robbins off this floor and out of this hospital immediately."
"Please! Just let me see if she's okay!" cries Arizona from the hallway.
"Out of the question!" my father counters. "You put her in there!"
I turn to Erica. "She made it out?"
"They won't let her in," Erica explains. "Per your father's orders. We've tried everything, but the Chief won't let her in because of all the money your father donated. I think Yang put it as the epic, House of Torres verse the State of Arizona."
She's alive. I can't believe it. She's alive, she's alive she's alive! I can't say it enough. She's alive!
"Wait, why would they…?"
Erica sighs, looking away from me. "They think she caused this all and I swear to you, I've tried to tell him that out of all of us, she's the one only you'd want to see, but-"
"She's my girlfriend!" I don't act like I notice the pain that flashes in Erica's eyes as I say that.
"But in the eyes of the law, she's not family. Richard's hands were tied."
"Help me up," I demand as I sit up more and pull the covers back.
"Callie-"
"Erica, help me up," I demand again, placing one hand on the bed railing and another on my nightstand. "If they're not going to let her in to see me, I'm going to her."
She's quick to lend a hand, as I stand on my own two feet for the first time in a few days. No matter how much morphine or whatever painkiller I've got cursing through my body, the pain wins out, instantly blinding as stumble back on the bed.
"Let me get a wheelchair," Erica offers, but I'm already trying to get back to my feet before she has a chance.
"Just help me to the door."
With frown of acceptance, Erica take one of my arms around her shoulders and wraps the other wraps around me, careful of my wound. She knows there's no fighting this.
"Go slow and give me a heads up if you're about to pass out on me, okay?"
A weak smile greets her attempt at humor as we take a few steps around the bed and towards the door. I can hear a struggle going on outside and as soon as we're to the doorway, I witness it. There is a guard pushing Arizona face first into the wall. His muscular hand is pinching a pressure point in her shoulder while the other is painfully twisting hers into submission.
"Please!" Arizona begs, tears rolling down her face. "Mr. Torres, I'm so sorry this happened. I know it's my fault, but please! I need to -"
"You need to what?" My father's voice booms again in his dulcimer tones. "Destroy her life some more? It's in abomination what you've doing to my daughter."
No. The abomination is my parents not letting her in to see me. She's the love of my life and foolishly it took a tragedy of almost losing her for me to finally see it. I can't even begin to imagine how she's feeling at this point.
"I love her!" Arizona cries.
"Let her go," I say as Erica holds me stead in the doorway.
My father turns around. My mother's jaw drops.
"Calliope!" My father shouts at me. "What are you doing out of bed?"
It doesn't matter if I answer him or not. What matters to me is Arizona. She looks weak, as if rest or food hasn't come into her life in days. It probably hasn't either.
"I said let her go," I demand again, locking eyes with the guard.
The hired guard looks to my father who gives him a quick nod to release Arizona. She about collapses to the floor before a near by Lexie catches her, helping her back to her feet.
"Calliope!" he tries again.
"No!" I counter He seems shocked that I would do that. "You don't get to play concern father after you disowned me!"
"She hurt you, Calliope. This whole ordeal is her fault! It God's way of tell you that homosexuality is a sin! Don't -"
"God went out of his way to have a father lose his child then lose his mind and shoot me for loving a woman? Do you even hear yourself?"
My father scoffs at my outburst, unable to see things my way. So my mother tries. "Calliope, you're not well," my mother wails, tears threatening to ruin her perfect make up. "Think of your soul! You will go to hell for this."
"No, Mama. God wants us to love and that's exactly what Arizona's done for me this past months. Finding out who I am? It was confusing and scary and I needed my family more than anything, but you were weren't there."
My side feels like it's on fire as I spit out the words I've wanted to say for weeks to them. Erica senses this as she tries to motion me to go back to my bed, but I stand firm. Out of all of them, Arizona stuck by me through all those confusing months. I owe her this, to myself, to let my family know that what they did by cutting me out of their lives was not acceptable.
"You both need to leave now."
"Calliope!" my father roars at me.
"Security can escort you out if you won't leave."
"We are your family, Mija," my mother cries. "You're just confused. A lot has happened during these past few days."
"She's my family too. This hospital is my family. They have stuck by me through everything. You only came here after you thought I was dying. You can't pick when it's convenient again to play mom and dad. I love her! So, please, just go."
My mother locks eyes with almost pleading me to reconsider this, but my mind's made up.
"If you can accept us, then there's room for you both, Mama."
"Will you at least call us and let us know how you're doing?"
"Marie!" Carlos protests.
"Every Sunday; I promise you."
She makes her way to me, cupping my face with her tan hands and kissing my forehead. It's not so much a kiss good bye as it is a kiss of faith and love. Taking my father's hand, they leave in silence. They'll come around eventually, I know they will. And when they do we'll be ready with open hearts to make up for time lost.
*******
It's nearly 3 am.
And just like I did all those months ago, I find myself awake listening to the humming of the hallway's florescent lights, accompanied by a symphony of soft snores from my colleagues as they slept on cots and chairs brought into my room.
Mark and Lexie are wrapped in each other's arms as if they were one. Alex is drooling onto his half finished chart, as Bailey unconsciously cradles an exhausted Tuck in her arms. Yang has slumped over onto Erica's shoulder and I know the second either of them wake up they'll snap apart like it never happened.
No one has left the hospital since I've woken up and righted the wrongs of my parents. No one seems to want to. We're exhausted by the events of the past few days. Our emotions were raw.
Arizona's been asleep curl up against my good side with an arm holding me tight on the tiny hospital bed for the better part of an hour. The two of us have been fading in and out of sleep but each time I would wake, my hand would reach out for hers to disprove the unruly thoughts of doubt. We made it out a little worse for wear, but alive.
"Callie?" a voice speaks.
Erica's awake in all her gentle giant gloriousness. She lifts Yang up, and carefully lies her back down on the cot, pulling a stray blanket over top of her.
"Careful Erica. Someone around here might think the cardio surgeon actually has a heart in that tin chest."
She smiles at me and sits next to my bed.
"Are we going to be okay?" I whisper as I watch her eyes wander down to my sleeping girlfriend.
"You are."
I frown at her knowing that she's about to give me some news I don't want to hear.
"And in the morning, you're going to tell her that. You both will be ok."
"Erica…"
"You and I? Well, we've run our course, Cal." Her long fingers runs through my hair. "But Robbins and You…" She pauses and looks to the girl sleeping next to me.
"Promise me, Callie, if things get difficult with her like they did with us, promise me you'll talk to her." Her hand retracts back to the safety of her folded arms. "Promise me instead of Sloan or wine or surgery, it'll be her you'll turn to."
"Erica?"
"No," she says with tears threatening to spill. "Just promise me this before I go."
"I promise."
With almost perfect timing, Erica's pager chirps to life. She quickly excuses herself to answer the call, but the sound does not fall on deaf ears as Arizona stirs awake.
"Calliope…?" .
"Not your pager, Ari."
Her hand brushes over mine and interlaces our fingers. "No… no… Just making sure you're still there," she mumbles falling back into sleep.
"Always."
Author: white_lighter
Rating: R
Pairing: Callie/Arizona
Summary: Just when Callie's found happiness again, an old flame returns.
Disclaimer: The author of this piece does not, in any way, profit from the story and that all creative rights to the characters belong to Shonda, their original creator.
Previously:
One - Two - Three - Four - Five - SixA - SixB - Interlude - Seven - Eight - Nine - Interlude 2 - Interlude 2
a/n: apologies for the wait, but you know when something just isn't right and you have to keep working and working til it just feels right? ;) Yup. All that and more. Anyways, thanks for reading/commenting/the gentle pokes thru pm about finishing. :) this is for niki who helped, coached, beta-ed, and was an amazing friend when chaos ensued in this amazing journey. enjoy.
Chapter Ten
Beep.
This steady noise breaks the inevitable silence I've been slumbering in as my eyes flutter open. That's the fifth one I've counted since regaining consciousness. Everything is dark and foggy as I fight to find some level of consciousness. I'm dead and yet I can still hear her somewhere in the back of my mind.
Wake Calliope! Wake up and find me.
Beep.
For Godsakes! Why is Heaven beeping? Am I in purgatory or limbo? I mended bones for a living, made people walk, loved an amazing woman who fixes tiny humans for profession and somehow I'm trapped in wherever this is?
Beep.
Then slowly, I begin to remember. Arizona was purple? No, no that that was a bruise, marring the beautiful face I loved to wake up next to. There were tears and crying. She was scared and looking at me, desperately trying to memorize every detail about me like it would be the last time. But was it?
Beep.
Morphine is swimming laps in my head, as I will my eyes to open wider and see where I am. Coldness is still prevalent in my extremities or perhaps that's just Death lingering beside my bed. My lungs burn to take a deep breath but end up choking it back. I'm on a respirator and somehow to my disbelief, I'm alive.
Beep.
That bastard! He was there pointing his gun at anyone who defied him. All it did was grant him a false sense of godliness. Then there was a shot fired. I couldn't let him hurt her, so I moved in front of her with my arms stretched wide. Did I make it in time or did he just have bad aim? I guess I'll never know for sure. She was safe though and all that's all that mattered to me. Still, I was in pain. It was a self-fulfilling pain where it felt as if my outside finally matched what my insides had been feeling for weeks.
I try to move my hand to find the call button or at the very least some more morphine, but it feels like a sack of bricks is weighing me down.
"Holy shit, you're awake!" my roommate exclaims, her voice higher than anticipated.
She drops her sandwich onto her makeshift picnic table on my bed and checks my vitals. I want to shout at her to take this tube out of my throat, but it's Yang. Unless it leads to something incredible involving surgery, she wouldn't dare especially with Arizona probably lurking around. Jesus Christ, why am I waking up with my roommate next me to? Where's Arizona?
"You probably want to know what happened to you."
Or what's happened to my friends, my best friend, and my girlfriend? Yang's here so obviously she survived or I really am lying in ICU hell with my roommate as my eternal damnation. She was one of the people carrying me out, right? So that must mean all those people made it out, I think. Did Erica make it out after going all Rambo on that son of bitch? Where's Arizona?
"Psycho father shot you in the lower abdomen with a .22 at close range, which proceeded to leave an exit wound in its wake. But not before more than half the shell exploded, piercing your left lung."
Well, that explains the tube.
"You're lucky Hunt was in the room. It was amazing. He had you in and out. And you were a freaking mess. It was like playing where's Waldo in your abdomen trying to get everything out."
She holds back my eyelids and shines her pen light directly into them. My whole head burns.
"You've got a concussion to match. So as soon as you can, Shepherd wants to get a CT."
Shepherd and Hunt, that's two more names to add to the made-it-out-alive list.
"Look, I've got to call your parents or else they're going to kill me. They only left if I promised not to leave you come hell or high waters."
My parents are here? I guess the whole disowning you thing doesn't hold up if your estranged daughter has been gun down at her vocation. I hope Arizona's handling them all right.
"Good to see you awake, Callie. But take it easy."
Yang reaches over me and hits the morphine for me. The affects are immediate as I slip into unconsciousness unable to protest this indiscretion.
********
Hours must have passed when I wake up next. I can feel my whole body moving forward, slowly and sure. My eyes struggle to focus on anything.
"It's okay, Callie" says a voice over an intercom. Maybe Karev?
That's debatable at this point. I think I'm getting a CT, which explains the immense amount of grayish white surrounding my fuzzy vision. I turn to sit up, but the pains of my injuries stop me. My hand gropes for the morphine button anywhere. There's nothing, but hollow walls surrounding me. Figures, the time I actually want the stuff it's nowhere to be found.
"Callie, stop moving. I'm not about to run this again."
Okay, that's definitely Karev. He must have made it out too, though I can't really remember seeing him while I was bleeding out on the floor with… oh god. Where is she?
"Ari? Erica?"
Neither respond, instead Karev comes back on the intercom. "Torres, you're in a scan. Stop moving. You'll be done in just a few."
The idiot leaves the intercom on as he continues some sort of conversation with whoever is in the scan room. "Bullet rips right through her and every time the girl's been remotely conscious she's been muttering for Roller girl. You'd think they'd tell her."
"Karev, it's her family's personal business. We do not get involved in family drama," Bailey states like it's the hundredth time she's said this today.
"You weren't in there! Robbins' was balling her eyes out like a baby the whole time. It's not right. God, why doesn't Hahn say something?" Karev asks like Bailey should have the know-all/be-all answer to this.
"Last time, Karev," Bailey begins like she always does when she's delivering a lecture to inferior residents or interns. "The Torres family has sunk a lot of money into this hospital. Good money that funds your residency program. They specifically said not tell Torres what happened until she's stronger."
My heart begins to race. Stronger for what? Where is she? Why isn't she holding my hand through this? Why wasn't she the one keeping vigil next to my bed? Why isn't she the one dressed in lead, talking me through this scan? Where is my girlfriend?
The beat of my heart reaches my head; my breath starts to come in desperate gasps. It seems like nothing I do will fill my lungs. My mind screams run as I try to get up.
"Arizona!" I choke out, raspy and frantic.
"Callie! Breathe!" Karev roars over the mic, but his words don't comprehend.
Then I feel it again; warmth begins to spill down the side of abdomen as I feel stitches pops and slice through my tender wound. It doesn't matter. Something went wrong and now Arizona's not here. And if she can't come to me, I'm going to her.
"Shit! She's gonna go to into cardiac arrest."
The bed begins to move out. Once free I feel someone take my hand and place another on top of my chest, trying to make me lie back down. I pray it's her, but a glance to my left and there is Miranda, my saint with a backhand.
"Torres, I'm not losing you. Not after everything, God, help me if I lose you too. So breathe!"
With that, it went dark again.
*******
"And what am I suppose to do, Carlos?" My mother's wavering voice begins as I approach a state of consciousness again. "She's bound to get that tube thing out of her mouth eventually and that'll be the end of this charade. We'll have to tell her."
I can hear them, almost as if I'm in a dream, but I can't seem to control this dreams. What happened? Why can't I move again? Cristina said my parents were here, but something else has happened. Something no one has yet to tell me, and I think I know what it is. They didn't make it. Why no one won't anyone talk to me?
"Marie, we've been through this time and time again. Calliope needs a clean break. Once we have everything in order, we'll wake her up, fly back to Miami and be rid of this place forever," my father counters.
My mother's hand reaches across and sweeps my hair back my hair. "They said she was happy here. I just - I don't know if I could do that to her."
"She was shot, Marie! If that isn't evidence enough that she doesn't belong here then I don't know what it."
My mother voice hitches as she tries to talk. She's probably somewhere between holding back tears and being unable to cry anymore. "How could she do this to us? In the eyes of God, how could she lead a life like this? Divorce then become a gay? I just - This is not the daughter I raised."
I hear my father wrap his arms around my mother; the two of them emitting a deep sigh of comfort and relief.
"What are we going to tell her when she wakes up?" My mother whispers out.
"The truth, I guess."
*******
It's like a thousand of the sharpest needles are being dragged out of my throat as I'm torn from purgatory for the umpteenth time this day. The feeling is violent as if someone is slashing at my throat from the inside. I'm coughing, sputtering, and having the urge to breathe on my own.
"Hang in there, Callie. Just cough. It's almost over."
My eyes snap open to see my cardio ex watching over me like a Shepherd does to Grey as she pulls the intubation line from my mouth. Finally free, I lean over the side of my bed willing my lungs to breathe on their own, but Erica is there, holding me back.
"Erica! I gasp out.
"Slow down there. You don't want to pop your stitches again."
A few painful breaths bleed down my raw throat and I begin to feel like my self again. She lets me lays me back down. She blinks back a few tears as I tried to smile at her. Slowly, I slide my hand to hers. She greets it with her own, steadily bringing it her lips and kissing the back of my hand.
"I thought I lost you," she says.
She had no idea how much I thought I lost her. Watching her run off to meet destiny with that psycho, I'm not sure whom it was harder on. But there's one more I've wanted to see since I've woken up. Everything time I've been awake, no one has mentioned her, told me she just ran out, or showed me the over kill of get well soon bouquets that I know Arizona would have decorated my room with.
Then it hits me.
She's gone.
Arizona is gone.
I'll never wake up with her by my side again. She'll never kiss the back of my hand. The love of my life has been taken from me and I wasted the last weeks of her life. She was in pain because of me. I'll never be able to make it right with her.
"Erica?" I try again, my voice is hoarse and barely there, but she hears me.
"It's okay, Callie. You're okay."
"You're alive?" I croak out trying to hold in my tears over Arizona.
She laughs, "I was fine. You were the one we were all worried about." She pulls my chart from the end of the bed. "Shot to lower-"
"Don't."
She nods and puts the chart back. I can't hear it again. It just makes it all the more real.
"Yang was here earlier. She told me," I whisper out and attempt to get up, but she's there stopping me again.
She clicks the bed control to help me sit up then pours me a glass of water complete with bendy straw. "Drink, you sound horrible."
Halfheartedly, I obliged her and sip the cool water savoring it as it runs down my throat calming the wake of the tube. But it doesn't deter me. I have to know what happened. Was it a fly bullet or did her guerrilla warfare fall short and the gunman went after Arizona? Why is everyone avoiding this giant elephant in the room?
"How'd it happen?"
She turns away from me and begins filling out something on my chart. "How'd what happen?"
"Erica, please. Just tell me."
"It's not that simple, Callie."
"I need to know.”
"No, it's not that. It's just, well, your parent said-"
"Where is she? The morgue?"
"The morgue?" Erica asked, perplexed. "Why on Earth would Robbins be there?"
"You mean she's not -?" I can't even finish the statement as my father's voice reigns over us.
"Security, please escort Dr. Robbins off this floor and out of this hospital immediately."
"Please! Just let me see if she's okay!" cries Arizona from the hallway.
"Out of the question!" my father counters. "You put her in there!"
I turn to Erica. "She made it out?"
"They won't let her in," Erica explains. "Per your father's orders. We've tried everything, but the Chief won't let her in because of all the money your father donated. I think Yang put it as the epic, House of Torres verse the State of Arizona."
She's alive. I can't believe it. She's alive, she's alive she's alive! I can't say it enough. She's alive!
"Wait, why would they…?"
Erica sighs, looking away from me. "They think she caused this all and I swear to you, I've tried to tell him that out of all of us, she's the one only you'd want to see, but-"
"She's my girlfriend!" I don't act like I notice the pain that flashes in Erica's eyes as I say that.
"But in the eyes of the law, she's not family. Richard's hands were tied."
"Help me up," I demand as I sit up more and pull the covers back.
"Callie-"
"Erica, help me up," I demand again, placing one hand on the bed railing and another on my nightstand. "If they're not going to let her in to see me, I'm going to her."
She's quick to lend a hand, as I stand on my own two feet for the first time in a few days. No matter how much morphine or whatever painkiller I've got cursing through my body, the pain wins out, instantly blinding as stumble back on the bed.
"Let me get a wheelchair," Erica offers, but I'm already trying to get back to my feet before she has a chance.
"Just help me to the door."
With frown of acceptance, Erica take one of my arms around her shoulders and wraps the other wraps around me, careful of my wound. She knows there's no fighting this.
"Go slow and give me a heads up if you're about to pass out on me, okay?"
A weak smile greets her attempt at humor as we take a few steps around the bed and towards the door. I can hear a struggle going on outside and as soon as we're to the doorway, I witness it. There is a guard pushing Arizona face first into the wall. His muscular hand is pinching a pressure point in her shoulder while the other is painfully twisting hers into submission.
"Please!" Arizona begs, tears rolling down her face. "Mr. Torres, I'm so sorry this happened. I know it's my fault, but please! I need to -"
"You need to what?" My father's voice booms again in his dulcimer tones. "Destroy her life some more? It's in abomination what you've doing to my daughter."
No. The abomination is my parents not letting her in to see me. She's the love of my life and foolishly it took a tragedy of almost losing her for me to finally see it. I can't even begin to imagine how she's feeling at this point.
"I love her!" Arizona cries.
"Let her go," I say as Erica holds me stead in the doorway.
My father turns around. My mother's jaw drops.
"Calliope!" My father shouts at me. "What are you doing out of bed?"
It doesn't matter if I answer him or not. What matters to me is Arizona. She looks weak, as if rest or food hasn't come into her life in days. It probably hasn't either.
"I said let her go," I demand again, locking eyes with the guard.
The hired guard looks to my father who gives him a quick nod to release Arizona. She about collapses to the floor before a near by Lexie catches her, helping her back to her feet.
"Calliope!" he tries again.
"No!" I counter He seems shocked that I would do that. "You don't get to play concern father after you disowned me!"
"She hurt you, Calliope. This whole ordeal is her fault! It God's way of tell you that homosexuality is a sin! Don't -"
"God went out of his way to have a father lose his child then lose his mind and shoot me for loving a woman? Do you even hear yourself?"
My father scoffs at my outburst, unable to see things my way. So my mother tries. "Calliope, you're not well," my mother wails, tears threatening to ruin her perfect make up. "Think of your soul! You will go to hell for this."
"No, Mama. God wants us to love and that's exactly what Arizona's done for me this past months. Finding out who I am? It was confusing and scary and I needed my family more than anything, but you were weren't there."
My side feels like it's on fire as I spit out the words I've wanted to say for weeks to them. Erica senses this as she tries to motion me to go back to my bed, but I stand firm. Out of all of them, Arizona stuck by me through all those confusing months. I owe her this, to myself, to let my family know that what they did by cutting me out of their lives was not acceptable.
"You both need to leave now."
"Calliope!" my father roars at me.
"Security can escort you out if you won't leave."
"We are your family, Mija," my mother cries. "You're just confused. A lot has happened during these past few days."
"She's my family too. This hospital is my family. They have stuck by me through everything. You only came here after you thought I was dying. You can't pick when it's convenient again to play mom and dad. I love her! So, please, just go."
My mother locks eyes with almost pleading me to reconsider this, but my mind's made up.
"If you can accept us, then there's room for you both, Mama."
"Will you at least call us and let us know how you're doing?"
"Marie!" Carlos protests.
"Every Sunday; I promise you."
She makes her way to me, cupping my face with her tan hands and kissing my forehead. It's not so much a kiss good bye as it is a kiss of faith and love. Taking my father's hand, they leave in silence. They'll come around eventually, I know they will. And when they do we'll be ready with open hearts to make up for time lost.
*******
It's nearly 3 am.
And just like I did all those months ago, I find myself awake listening to the humming of the hallway's florescent lights, accompanied by a symphony of soft snores from my colleagues as they slept on cots and chairs brought into my room.
Mark and Lexie are wrapped in each other's arms as if they were one. Alex is drooling onto his half finished chart, as Bailey unconsciously cradles an exhausted Tuck in her arms. Yang has slumped over onto Erica's shoulder and I know the second either of them wake up they'll snap apart like it never happened.
No one has left the hospital since I've woken up and righted the wrongs of my parents. No one seems to want to. We're exhausted by the events of the past few days. Our emotions were raw.
Arizona's been asleep curl up against my good side with an arm holding me tight on the tiny hospital bed for the better part of an hour. The two of us have been fading in and out of sleep but each time I would wake, my hand would reach out for hers to disprove the unruly thoughts of doubt. We made it out a little worse for wear, but alive.
"Callie?" a voice speaks.
Erica's awake in all her gentle giant gloriousness. She lifts Yang up, and carefully lies her back down on the cot, pulling a stray blanket over top of her.
"Careful Erica. Someone around here might think the cardio surgeon actually has a heart in that tin chest."
She smiles at me and sits next to my bed.
"Are we going to be okay?" I whisper as I watch her eyes wander down to my sleeping girlfriend.
"You are."
I frown at her knowing that she's about to give me some news I don't want to hear.
"And in the morning, you're going to tell her that. You both will be ok."
"Erica…"
"You and I? Well, we've run our course, Cal." Her long fingers runs through my hair. "But Robbins and You…" She pauses and looks to the girl sleeping next to me.
"Promise me, Callie, if things get difficult with her like they did with us, promise me you'll talk to her." Her hand retracts back to the safety of her folded arms. "Promise me instead of Sloan or wine or surgery, it'll be her you'll turn to."
"Erica?"
"No," she says with tears threatening to spill. "Just promise me this before I go."
"I promise."
With almost perfect timing, Erica's pager chirps to life. She quickly excuses herself to answer the call, but the sound does not fall on deaf ears as Arizona stirs awake.
"Calliope…?" .
"Not your pager, Ari."
Her hand brushes over mine and interlaces our fingers. "No… no… Just making sure you're still there," she mumbles falling back into sleep.
"Always."