FIC: Hold Me Tight (1/?)
Title: Hold Me Tight
Author: anna morgan
Rating: R
Pairing: Callie/Arizona, Callie/Erica, Mark/Lexie, Hunt/Yang
Summary: Just when Callie's found happiness again, an old flame returns.
Disclaimer: All characters, show references, and story lines are the rightful property of their owners. that means I don't own any of the Grey's Anatomy characters nor would I be able to pay for them if sued. kthanx economy.
AN: So the idea of what would happen when Arizona and Callie got their act together and then Erica coming back to Seattle (even though that’s now apart of Mission: Never Gonna Happen) has been plaguing my thoughts since the bathroom scene. I feel like Callie despite her treatment of Erica had this deep love for her, but the arrival of Arizona brings a youthful element that I feel Callie was lacking with Erica. So! Time to explore who would ultimately be the one to win the girl.
Ps. I thought I’d go ahead say where this fic is headed in case anyone was dead set against reading anything that would make them choose between Arizona & Erica for Callie. But leave with thought that with fanfic we are able to explore the could-have-been’s, the subtext, and the impossible. Isn’t the Internet great?
It’s nearly 3 am.
And like clock work I’m awake listening to a muffled ambulance pull into Seattle Grace only a few blocks down from my apartment building. It’s the only down fall of living so close to your job. Different career like a computer engineer or IT analyst and I would be peacefully sleeping near a Lockheed Martin building with a bad case of carpel tunnel instead of this.
The ambulance’s siren brings back hundreds of reasons of why I wanted to be a doctor ranging from a Peace Crops mission to making my father proud. I wanted to help people. I wanted to make sure I fought and saved the weak so they could return to their loved ones. Some doctors fix hearts while others save children, but I chose to mend their bones
There’s a silence of the siren and I’m hoping I’ll be able to get back to sleep, but that’s not the case. Another ambulance can be heard in the distance. Something big is coming into Seattle Grace tonight.
This morning I’m awake a little bit before 3 am staring at two hospital pagers sitting on my nightstand. Any second now one of those pagers are going go off. Any moment now the warm body pressed so intimately into my back is going to stir and reach over me for whatever pager is sounding.
Another moment and neither of those pagers go off. Instead, I find myself tuning out the ambulance and tuning in to the soft breaths coming from Arizona Robbins, the peds surgeon that has taken up residency in my bed during the past week.
Unlike myself, Arizona can and will sleep through anything except the chirp of her pager. I remember asking her once why that’s just about the only thing that could wake her to which she replied, “Children are really small which only gives them small opportunities to get better. We can’t waste a second in saving them.”
Arizona breathes out again. Her warm breath caresses the back of my neck causing me to forget about sirens and pagers going off. Just a sleepy exhale stops time and I find myself lost in the moment. If you had asked me in November if I’d be happy again, I probably would have pushed you in front of one of those speeding ambulances. But it's almost May now and I truly am happy again.
It’s been three months since she kissed me in the bathroom at Joe’s. Two months since I brought her back to my apartment and made tender use of my bed with her. One month and thirty days since Dr. Hunt walked into my room and declared that don’t ask, don’t tell was over-rated and six weeks since we updated our Date and Tell sheets for the Chief.
I’ve fallen for butterfly scrub cabs, heely’s --despite the number of broken arms I’ve set because of them, animal characters sewn onto lab coats, and endless smiles. She found my heart in that parking lot of no return, took it off life support and showed it how to beat again. For that I’m thankful Arizona Robbins is naked in my bed hogging the bed sheets, keeping her pager next to mine, and making everything okay with each breath she takes next to me.
She shifts in her sleep, wrapping her arm over my stomach and pulling me closer. I give into the comfort and heat radiating off her and shut my eyes. If heaven is feeling completed by your lover’s presence even at 3 in the morning, then I never want to leave the safety of her arms again.
But the moment is lost when I can hear a pager in the next room going off. There’s a loud thud as two people scramble out of their bed. One of them is hurrying towards the door and out into the living room.
Suddenly my bedroom door opens and the lights are turned on. It’s Yang and obviously something big as predicted has rolled into Seattle Grace. Slowly, I open my sleep deprived eyes and lift my head giving her the “this better be good” look.
“Sixteen car pile up on I-90. Trauma, kids, the works. You better wake-“
Yang’s cut off by my girlfriend’s startling awakening as she sits all the way up, the covers falling off her body exposing her breasts. Okay, so maybe it’s not just pagers that will wake her. It’s also a child in trouble. But ever stoic, Christina averts her eyes and continues. “Owen’s calling now. Something about kids so you might want-“
Again she’s cut off, but this time by Arizona’s pager going off. Ari reaches across me to retrieve it. Owen joins Yang in our doorway. He gets one glance of my naked girlfriend and he too looks away like nothing happened. Situations and reactions like these show me that these two might actually be made for each other.
“Dr. Robbins, hospital says there are two kids in critical condition. We’ll see you there,” he says and closes the door.
I finally sit up and give Arizona a frown as she’s typing the pager number into her cell phone. “What?” she asks innocently enough.
I point a finger at her full breasts still hanging out for the entire world to see or at least the world that likes to enter my bedroom at 3 am. “Most people would have covered up after the first person walked in.”
“I was named after one of the fifty states. That’s definitely qualifies me as being a little different from most people,” she say, not looking up from her phone. “I gotta get going. You coming?”
I shake my head. It’s been one too many 3 am nights for me. I’d probably hurt more than help a patient at this hour.
She gets out of bed and put her clothes. “Looks like I might be missing out on sunrise yoga. Wanna grab lunch instead?”
“Ummm, maybe. If nothing better comes up,” I joke with her, but in all honesty that’s all I’ll be thinking about until lunch. Lunch with her, a stolen cuddle moment in the on-call rooms, passing her in the hallway; she brightens my day without even trying.
Leaning back onto the bed Arizona gives me a quick kiss, but its one that has the strength to send my heart into cardiac arrest. “Wish me luck,” she says like always just before she’s pried away from me for some stellar surgery.
“Good luck.” She turns to leave when I notice it. “Ari,..”
“Wha?” she asks hopping on one foot, trying to get her shoes on in record time.
“You got my shirt on again.”
She gives me a 10,000 watt smile which is just as heart stopping, but this I swear could make the lights go out in Vegas. “Looks like you’ll just have to have lunch and now dinner with me if you want it back.”
She’s good.
Another quick yet smoldering kiss later and she’s out the door chasing after Yang and Dr. Hunt as they head off to Seattle Grace.
I roll over onto her side of the bed and bury my face into her pillow smelling wild honeysuckles and play-doh. What a combination, but it’s my girlfriend nonetheless. It lulls me back to sleep.
****************
It’s nearly noon now. The chief has scheduled a late afternoon meeting today for debriefing of last night’s ER bombardment from I-90 and some general house keeping. It’s probably the usual we hired so and so, this person is leaving us, M&M is scheduled for the following Wednesday. It never changes, but I’ve learned to come prepared with coffee for my three favorite doctors.
Mark Sloan is the first to arrive. He sits next to me grabbing one of the coffees from my lap and slowly sipping it.
”Got called in last night too?” I ask looking at the dark circles under his eyes.
Mark gives a chuckle. “What do you think?”
Same old Mark, but sometimes I like to give him the benefit of the doubt. “What about Lexie?”
He stretches out and gives a smile. “She was already here when the first bus rolled in.”
“Keeping her company, weren’t you?”
His unchanging smile is all I need to know. “Saw Doogie Howser come in little bit after that. She still staying the night at your place?”
Mark’s always making up names for Arizona. But the latest has been a reference to her being one of the youngest attendings on staff. Stuff like that makes me confident that he likes her or at the very least approves of our relationship.
“She left wearing my shirt this morning.” The thought of it gave me goose bumps and shivers in all the right places. I might be curvier than Ari, but my clothes still manage to cling to her in all her right places.
“Get use to it. Girls love to steal their guy’s err-lady’s clothes.”
“Erica wouldn’t let me do that. I always thought that -“
Mark held up his hand halting me in mid-sentence. “Remember what I said, Torres. Girls don’t wanna hear about the one before them.”
Deep down I know he’s right. I was no different and I completely hated it when any of my old boyfriend’s exes came up in conversation. It happened one too many times with some of them to be considered an accident. Erica only mentioned her exes once during her leaves confessional about it never feeling right. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t count the number of times George came up in conversation when I was with Eri --AH! I did it again. Damnit.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t tell me. Do it when you’re with her.”
I can’t help but giggle a little bit as I say, “That’s what she said.” Mark rolls his eyes at me. I’m getting good at that game now.
Lexie finally shows up taking a seat next to Mark. I hand her one of the coffees. She’s been awake just as long as Mark possibility even longer, but she still looks like a baby after a nap. That is, she did look rested until she opened her mouth and began rambling on a mile a minute. “I can’t believe the Chief would call for a meeting after the night we had! My guy crashed five times just while we were trying to get him stable for surgery. And who’s got their kids out that early in the morning anyways?! They needed to spend the night at a hotel and rest! Not drive the entire coast in a day! Young kids, stupid parents, ugh! It’s a shame Dr. Robbins couldn’t save the younger girl. She really looked-“
“Hold it! Ari lost a kid?” I interrupt.
Lexie slips the coffee and I’m starting to regret giving it to her, as it will only fuel the rambling insanity. “Yeah, she locked herself in the fifth floor on-call room afterwards. Really thought that girl was going to make it, but you know how often complications can happen.”
I don’t even stick around hear to Lexie finish as I bolt out on the auditorium. Sprinting through the hallways and to the stairs, I don’t even bother with the elevator because with my luck Derek’s got it on lockdown. I still have the remaining coffee in my hand gripping it too tight as some of it spills onto my hand. I know Arizona is all smiles and doesn’t show it enough, but when one her patients die she does take it to heart. Probably worse than Miranda Bailey, but she’d never tell them.
I get to the fifth floor on-call room and sure enough she’s locked it, but that never stopped me. In college, I would always forget my keys and would have to resort to opening my dorm room with a credit card. Thankfully my hospital ID will have to do in this instance. I slide the card through a few times and jiggle the handle before it finally opens and there is Arizona.
She was lying on the bottom bunk with her back to the door. No blanket over her body because the cold helps her not feel. I close the door, set down the now half full coffee and slip into the bed with her, wrapping an arm across her. We lay in a comfortable silence until she has the courage to say something.
“Doesn’t get any easier the longer you do this.”
“I’m sure you did everything you could,” I say. My words do little to soothe her as I feel her start to tremble.
“It should’ve never happened,” she sobs. “Those kids should have never been out that late!”
No words can console her at this point, so I stick with what I know and continue to hold her close. Ari’s breakdowns are few and far apart and with good reason. Pediatric Surgeons can burn out easier than teachers after seven years. She never wants any of the peds residents to quit because they see her, their superior, unable to handle the emotional stress of the job.
She finally calms down and turns to face me. It’s unbearable to see the dried tear marks that have run down her face, but I put on a big smile and kiss her forehead. “Hey.”
“Sorry I’m such a wet blanket,” Ari sniffles. She should never feel like she has to apologize for something like that. Still, Arizona does it anyways.
“If you didn’t then I wouldn’t think there was a human under that S on your chest.”
It’s feeble attempt, but it gets her to smile.
She rubs her eyes, which only makes it worse, but I’ll never tell. “So,” she begins putting a brave face on.” I believe you and I are missing out right now on one of the Chief invigorating debriefings about last night. Wanna head down there? We could sit in the back…” Her fingers run down the side of my clothed breast.
Saying things like can send my sex drive from 0 to 120 in no time flat. “I think you might have earned a pass on that today.”
Her face quivers a bit as she remembers the kid and just like that, the moment’s over. Smooth Torres! Just when she’s feeling better! Ugh…
Arizona sit up and fixes her hair into a messy ponytail. She spots the coffee on the night. “That for me?”
“Oh yeah,” I pick it up and hand it to her. “Sorry, I spilt most of doing a 100 meter dash up the stairs.”
“Why didn’t you take the el-“ She cuts herself off knowing the answer already. She’s able to finish what’s left of the coffee in one gulp and pitches it in the can across the room. “So about this lunch, I was thinking we should venture somewhere away from the hospital.”
I couldn’t agree more as we leave the on-call room for green pastures and blue skies.
***********
Nighttime at Seattle Grace can either be a whirlwind of bizarre ER cases or it can be as dull as a bar on Sunday. I’m supposed to be studying up on an arthroplasty surgery, but I’ve done enough of them now that I could perform one of them in my sleep. Instead I’ve got my laptop out and I’m researching vacation spots in Mexico.
At the end of May, we both have a few days off and I feel like its time we took an extended weekend away from the Northwest. Not to mention it’ll finally be a good reason for me to see her in bikini. I blush wondering if she tans easily or if I’ll get to rub sun block all over her body.
The clock next me beeps telling me it’s late. Mark and I are both on call tonight, but he’s happily shacking up in an on-call room with Little Grey while I made sure my girl went home to sleep. Her mind was still a wreck from the lost of the little girl last night and I knew it would be awhile before she’d be up to rolling down the hallways again.
Bailey slamming a bunch of charts down on the counter snaps me out of my thoughts. “Can’t fill out a mutha frickin’ chart. Having me spend my good time away from my son to correct their mistakes…” She trails on.
“Interns having chart issues again?”
“You’d think that since they couldn’t touch any of the patients for weeks that they would’ve gotten really good at their paperwork, but NO! That would be too easy for them. THIS! The interns who cut themselves up just because their stupid residents, THAT I TAUGHT, can’t get over themselves and teach!”
I love it when Bailey’s upset. She’s a force never to be reckoned with and fortunately, I’m on her good side. She sees the website for a Mexican resort on my laptop’s screen and gives me a smirk. Bailey may not approve of the bedroom tales that happen here at Seattle Grace, but she does approve of me keeping her mentor happy.
“Planning a trip?” she asks.
“Yeah, first trip as a couple. I wanted to surprise her and get away from the rainy-coldness of this place.”
“Make sure there are no kids.” It’s sage advice from Bailey. She too must have seen the hurt in Arizona today. “Saw you two weren’t at the meeting.”
“Yeah…”
“Is she okay? Nurses said she didn’t come back after lunch.”
“She’ll be fine. Just needs to rest away from this place.”
“Well, you two missed out on the chief announcing that a cardiothoracic surgeon will be returning here.” My ears burned at the words cardiothoracic surgeon.
“Not, Not Erica?” I choke out.
Bailey shakes her head, still reading through the charts. “Not sure. That’s all the Chief said before he ended, but the nurses say it’s Preston Burke. How on earth he’s getting back in here after lying about that tremor, I’m not sure. He’s lucky his license wasn’t taken.”
OMG! It’s Preston Burke. Preston Burke! Dr. I-beat-Hahn-out-of-a-Harpy-Avery-Award Burke. Not Erica.
“You might want to warn Yang. I think you know why,” Bailey said. And I think she has a soft spot for her former interns. Her nickname about being the Nazi can kiss my ass. Miranda Bailey is a saint ...with the occasional strong backhand.
“She’s with Owen now. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
She doesn’t answer me and continues to charts. I hate it when Bailey’s all silence and right.
“I’ll go find her,” I say with a heavy sigh and head down the hallway.
Yang’s bound to be somewhere around the nurse’s station or the dispatcher. She’s usually waiting for another amazing case to come in, but tonight she’s nowhere to be found. However, something else does catch my eye. It’s a chart in the cardio section and it’s marked urgent.
It’s got to be for the returning cardio surgeon, which means their name would be listed at the top. One quick look wouldn’t hurt and it would definitely answer the question about whether or not it’s Preston Burke. And if it isn’t then I wouldn’t have to put Yang through the stress and relived memories of Burke all for nothing. It’s for the greater good.
I glance to my left and then my right making sure the coast is clear. There’s just a sleepy nurse down the hall filling out morning medicine charts. All systems are go as I bite my lip and reach for the chart.
“Torres!” Mark shouts.
I nearly jump out of my shoes as my hand shoots back and I turn around to face him. The bastard has too much energy for this hour of night.
“Hear about Burke coming back?” he asked.
“So it is true?”
“Yeah, he’s supposed to come in later this week for some consults. Does Yang know yet?”
I shrug my shoulders. “If the nurses are talking about it, then she probably knows.”
“Still, if I was her roommate, I’d find her and make sure.”
That’s two people to tell me that now, so clearly it’s a sign from above. I give up on looking at the chart and head down to the resident’s lounge.
The more I think about it, the more I notice it. Yang and I are not so different. We both come from very well off families. Our respective “person” is could qualify as a nympho. We’re both seeing new Attendings and we both got horribly burned by a cardio surgeon. Maybe it’s fate that we worked out as roommates.
I opened the door to the residence’s lounge and see Yang sitting there with a book on her lap and a suture kit over it. Another banana is receiving the running whip stitch.
“Hey Yang-“
“I know already. I’m fine. Meredith is probably going to play twenty questions with me about it later,” she says not bothering to look up at me.
“Okay, well uh… I guess I’ll see you around then.”
I turn to leave when, “Callie.” She’s looking at me now. I give her my full attention. “If it was Hahn coming back, what would you do?”
A sigh escapes me as I look at my feet like the answer’s somewhere written on my shell tops. “I guess I would tell her off for leaving me without a good bye.”
“Really?”
“No, maybe? I don’t know. There’s a part of me that just wants to stop being so upset and angry about. I’m happy now. I think I just really want to get some answers from her. Why? What are you planning?”
She smiles. It’s kind of creepy. “I was going to see if Owen would kick his ass.”
Her answer makes me snort and laugh. Yang surprises me sometimes. It makes me forget about the cardio chart that could’ve solved this all. Because for all we know, it could be some retired cardio guy before Burke. Hell, it could be an old resident who’s moved on to bigger and better things. But I don’t think about it again, as I head back to my laptop to confirm that Mexican getaway.
******************
My hands are elbow deep in a man who’s in need of a hip replacement. The guy’s been the all-American dad. He coached the neighborhood baseball team, was involved in the church, and spent a good deal of his retirement between being out on a boat fishing and making his wife’s last remaining years absolutely brilliant.
Now it’s his turn. This surgery will give him a second lease on walking. It should only take about three hours to complete what the man should have had a few years ago. Its cases like these that make me enjoy being a “carpenter.”
I’m about to insert the implant and set it when the OR’s door swings open. It’s Little Grey, looking slightly panicked.
“Uh, Dr. Torres. Do you have an ETA of when you’ll be done?”
“Hour or so,” I answer then turn on my drill. She remains standing there, wait for me to stop.
I stop and ask for a smaller drill. “Do, do you think you could finish sooner than that?” Lexie asked a little more adamant than the last question.
“Seriously, Grey?”
“It’s just that, uh, there’s a consult that needs to uh, happen now. Could-could you just hurry?” She’s pushing frantic now.
“I’m not going to hurry through this man’s hip replacement for a consult, Dr. Grey.” I’m getting frustrated by this. “Really Lexie!” Does she want me to kill this man? “I’m replacing his bones. This cannot be rushed.”
Her eyes lock with mine. “I really think you should take this consult.”
I turn to Meredith Grey who’s standing across from me. “Grey, go handle the consult.”
“No, uh, Dr. Torres they need to see you immediately,” Lexie tries again.
I’m about to hurl a scalpel into Little Grey’s foot then Meredith speaks up. “Lexie, tell the patient that Dr. Torres will see them once the surgery’s over. GO!”
Lexie is such a puppy. She’s always trying to please others, always pushing the boundaries of being annoyingly cute. I know she doesn’t want to get on Meredith’s bad side. She still talks about how terrible she felt after calling Meredith a bad sister. So of course, Lexie listens and leaves or so I hoped.
I’m just about to go back to work when Little Grey burst back into the room.
“Callie,” She used my first name, whoa. “I lied. It’s Dr. Robbins. You need to go to her right now.”
Author: anna morgan
Rating: R
Pairing: Callie/Arizona, Callie/Erica, Mark/Lexie, Hunt/Yang
Summary: Just when Callie's found happiness again, an old flame returns.
Disclaimer: All characters, show references, and story lines are the rightful property of their owners. that means I don't own any of the Grey's Anatomy characters nor would I be able to pay for them if sued. kthanx economy.
AN: So the idea of what would happen when Arizona and Callie got their act together and then Erica coming back to Seattle (even though that’s now apart of Mission: Never Gonna Happen) has been plaguing my thoughts since the bathroom scene. I feel like Callie despite her treatment of Erica had this deep love for her, but the arrival of Arizona brings a youthful element that I feel Callie was lacking with Erica. So! Time to explore who would ultimately be the one to win the girl.
Ps. I thought I’d go ahead say where this fic is headed in case anyone was dead set against reading anything that would make them choose between Arizona & Erica for Callie. But leave with thought that with fanfic we are able to explore the could-have-been’s, the subtext, and the impossible. Isn’t the Internet great?
It’s nearly 3 am.
And like clock work I’m awake listening to a muffled ambulance pull into Seattle Grace only a few blocks down from my apartment building. It’s the only down fall of living so close to your job. Different career like a computer engineer or IT analyst and I would be peacefully sleeping near a Lockheed Martin building with a bad case of carpel tunnel instead of this.
The ambulance’s siren brings back hundreds of reasons of why I wanted to be a doctor ranging from a Peace Crops mission to making my father proud. I wanted to help people. I wanted to make sure I fought and saved the weak so they could return to their loved ones. Some doctors fix hearts while others save children, but I chose to mend their bones
There’s a silence of the siren and I’m hoping I’ll be able to get back to sleep, but that’s not the case. Another ambulance can be heard in the distance. Something big is coming into Seattle Grace tonight.
This morning I’m awake a little bit before 3 am staring at two hospital pagers sitting on my nightstand. Any second now one of those pagers are going go off. Any moment now the warm body pressed so intimately into my back is going to stir and reach over me for whatever pager is sounding.
Another moment and neither of those pagers go off. Instead, I find myself tuning out the ambulance and tuning in to the soft breaths coming from Arizona Robbins, the peds surgeon that has taken up residency in my bed during the past week.
Unlike myself, Arizona can and will sleep through anything except the chirp of her pager. I remember asking her once why that’s just about the only thing that could wake her to which she replied, “Children are really small which only gives them small opportunities to get better. We can’t waste a second in saving them.”
Arizona breathes out again. Her warm breath caresses the back of my neck causing me to forget about sirens and pagers going off. Just a sleepy exhale stops time and I find myself lost in the moment. If you had asked me in November if I’d be happy again, I probably would have pushed you in front of one of those speeding ambulances. But it's almost May now and I truly am happy again.
It’s been three months since she kissed me in the bathroom at Joe’s. Two months since I brought her back to my apartment and made tender use of my bed with her. One month and thirty days since Dr. Hunt walked into my room and declared that don’t ask, don’t tell was over-rated and six weeks since we updated our Date and Tell sheets for the Chief.
I’ve fallen for butterfly scrub cabs, heely’s --despite the number of broken arms I’ve set because of them, animal characters sewn onto lab coats, and endless smiles. She found my heart in that parking lot of no return, took it off life support and showed it how to beat again. For that I’m thankful Arizona Robbins is naked in my bed hogging the bed sheets, keeping her pager next to mine, and making everything okay with each breath she takes next to me.
She shifts in her sleep, wrapping her arm over my stomach and pulling me closer. I give into the comfort and heat radiating off her and shut my eyes. If heaven is feeling completed by your lover’s presence even at 3 in the morning, then I never want to leave the safety of her arms again.
But the moment is lost when I can hear a pager in the next room going off. There’s a loud thud as two people scramble out of their bed. One of them is hurrying towards the door and out into the living room.
Suddenly my bedroom door opens and the lights are turned on. It’s Yang and obviously something big as predicted has rolled into Seattle Grace. Slowly, I open my sleep deprived eyes and lift my head giving her the “this better be good” look.
“Sixteen car pile up on I-90. Trauma, kids, the works. You better wake-“
Yang’s cut off by my girlfriend’s startling awakening as she sits all the way up, the covers falling off her body exposing her breasts. Okay, so maybe it’s not just pagers that will wake her. It’s also a child in trouble. But ever stoic, Christina averts her eyes and continues. “Owen’s calling now. Something about kids so you might want-“
Again she’s cut off, but this time by Arizona’s pager going off. Ari reaches across me to retrieve it. Owen joins Yang in our doorway. He gets one glance of my naked girlfriend and he too looks away like nothing happened. Situations and reactions like these show me that these two might actually be made for each other.
“Dr. Robbins, hospital says there are two kids in critical condition. We’ll see you there,” he says and closes the door.
I finally sit up and give Arizona a frown as she’s typing the pager number into her cell phone. “What?” she asks innocently enough.
I point a finger at her full breasts still hanging out for the entire world to see or at least the world that likes to enter my bedroom at 3 am. “Most people would have covered up after the first person walked in.”
“I was named after one of the fifty states. That’s definitely qualifies me as being a little different from most people,” she say, not looking up from her phone. “I gotta get going. You coming?”
I shake my head. It’s been one too many 3 am nights for me. I’d probably hurt more than help a patient at this hour.
She gets out of bed and put her clothes. “Looks like I might be missing out on sunrise yoga. Wanna grab lunch instead?”
“Ummm, maybe. If nothing better comes up,” I joke with her, but in all honesty that’s all I’ll be thinking about until lunch. Lunch with her, a stolen cuddle moment in the on-call rooms, passing her in the hallway; she brightens my day without even trying.
Leaning back onto the bed Arizona gives me a quick kiss, but its one that has the strength to send my heart into cardiac arrest. “Wish me luck,” she says like always just before she’s pried away from me for some stellar surgery.
“Good luck.” She turns to leave when I notice it. “Ari,..”
“Wha?” she asks hopping on one foot, trying to get her shoes on in record time.
“You got my shirt on again.”
She gives me a 10,000 watt smile which is just as heart stopping, but this I swear could make the lights go out in Vegas. “Looks like you’ll just have to have lunch and now dinner with me if you want it back.”
She’s good.
Another quick yet smoldering kiss later and she’s out the door chasing after Yang and Dr. Hunt as they head off to Seattle Grace.
I roll over onto her side of the bed and bury my face into her pillow smelling wild honeysuckles and play-doh. What a combination, but it’s my girlfriend nonetheless. It lulls me back to sleep.
****************
It’s nearly noon now. The chief has scheduled a late afternoon meeting today for debriefing of last night’s ER bombardment from I-90 and some general house keeping. It’s probably the usual we hired so and so, this person is leaving us, M&M is scheduled for the following Wednesday. It never changes, but I’ve learned to come prepared with coffee for my three favorite doctors.
Mark Sloan is the first to arrive. He sits next to me grabbing one of the coffees from my lap and slowly sipping it.
”Got called in last night too?” I ask looking at the dark circles under his eyes.
Mark gives a chuckle. “What do you think?”
Same old Mark, but sometimes I like to give him the benefit of the doubt. “What about Lexie?”
He stretches out and gives a smile. “She was already here when the first bus rolled in.”
“Keeping her company, weren’t you?”
His unchanging smile is all I need to know. “Saw Doogie Howser come in little bit after that. She still staying the night at your place?”
Mark’s always making up names for Arizona. But the latest has been a reference to her being one of the youngest attendings on staff. Stuff like that makes me confident that he likes her or at the very least approves of our relationship.
“She left wearing my shirt this morning.” The thought of it gave me goose bumps and shivers in all the right places. I might be curvier than Ari, but my clothes still manage to cling to her in all her right places.
“Get use to it. Girls love to steal their guy’s err-lady’s clothes.”
“Erica wouldn’t let me do that. I always thought that -“
Mark held up his hand halting me in mid-sentence. “Remember what I said, Torres. Girls don’t wanna hear about the one before them.”
Deep down I know he’s right. I was no different and I completely hated it when any of my old boyfriend’s exes came up in conversation. It happened one too many times with some of them to be considered an accident. Erica only mentioned her exes once during her leaves confessional about it never feeling right. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t count the number of times George came up in conversation when I was with Eri --AH! I did it again. Damnit.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t tell me. Do it when you’re with her.”
I can’t help but giggle a little bit as I say, “That’s what she said.” Mark rolls his eyes at me. I’m getting good at that game now.
Lexie finally shows up taking a seat next to Mark. I hand her one of the coffees. She’s been awake just as long as Mark possibility even longer, but she still looks like a baby after a nap. That is, she did look rested until she opened her mouth and began rambling on a mile a minute. “I can’t believe the Chief would call for a meeting after the night we had! My guy crashed five times just while we were trying to get him stable for surgery. And who’s got their kids out that early in the morning anyways?! They needed to spend the night at a hotel and rest! Not drive the entire coast in a day! Young kids, stupid parents, ugh! It’s a shame Dr. Robbins couldn’t save the younger girl. She really looked-“
“Hold it! Ari lost a kid?” I interrupt.
Lexie slips the coffee and I’m starting to regret giving it to her, as it will only fuel the rambling insanity. “Yeah, she locked herself in the fifth floor on-call room afterwards. Really thought that girl was going to make it, but you know how often complications can happen.”
I don’t even stick around hear to Lexie finish as I bolt out on the auditorium. Sprinting through the hallways and to the stairs, I don’t even bother with the elevator because with my luck Derek’s got it on lockdown. I still have the remaining coffee in my hand gripping it too tight as some of it spills onto my hand. I know Arizona is all smiles and doesn’t show it enough, but when one her patients die she does take it to heart. Probably worse than Miranda Bailey, but she’d never tell them.
I get to the fifth floor on-call room and sure enough she’s locked it, but that never stopped me. In college, I would always forget my keys and would have to resort to opening my dorm room with a credit card. Thankfully my hospital ID will have to do in this instance. I slide the card through a few times and jiggle the handle before it finally opens and there is Arizona.
She was lying on the bottom bunk with her back to the door. No blanket over her body because the cold helps her not feel. I close the door, set down the now half full coffee and slip into the bed with her, wrapping an arm across her. We lay in a comfortable silence until she has the courage to say something.
“Doesn’t get any easier the longer you do this.”
“I’m sure you did everything you could,” I say. My words do little to soothe her as I feel her start to tremble.
“It should’ve never happened,” she sobs. “Those kids should have never been out that late!”
No words can console her at this point, so I stick with what I know and continue to hold her close. Ari’s breakdowns are few and far apart and with good reason. Pediatric Surgeons can burn out easier than teachers after seven years. She never wants any of the peds residents to quit because they see her, their superior, unable to handle the emotional stress of the job.
She finally calms down and turns to face me. It’s unbearable to see the dried tear marks that have run down her face, but I put on a big smile and kiss her forehead. “Hey.”
“Sorry I’m such a wet blanket,” Ari sniffles. She should never feel like she has to apologize for something like that. Still, Arizona does it anyways.
“If you didn’t then I wouldn’t think there was a human under that S on your chest.”
It’s feeble attempt, but it gets her to smile.
She rubs her eyes, which only makes it worse, but I’ll never tell. “So,” she begins putting a brave face on.” I believe you and I are missing out right now on one of the Chief invigorating debriefings about last night. Wanna head down there? We could sit in the back…” Her fingers run down the side of my clothed breast.
Saying things like can send my sex drive from 0 to 120 in no time flat. “I think you might have earned a pass on that today.”
Her face quivers a bit as she remembers the kid and just like that, the moment’s over. Smooth Torres! Just when she’s feeling better! Ugh…
Arizona sit up and fixes her hair into a messy ponytail. She spots the coffee on the night. “That for me?”
“Oh yeah,” I pick it up and hand it to her. “Sorry, I spilt most of doing a 100 meter dash up the stairs.”
“Why didn’t you take the el-“ She cuts herself off knowing the answer already. She’s able to finish what’s left of the coffee in one gulp and pitches it in the can across the room. “So about this lunch, I was thinking we should venture somewhere away from the hospital.”
I couldn’t agree more as we leave the on-call room for green pastures and blue skies.
***********
Nighttime at Seattle Grace can either be a whirlwind of bizarre ER cases or it can be as dull as a bar on Sunday. I’m supposed to be studying up on an arthroplasty surgery, but I’ve done enough of them now that I could perform one of them in my sleep. Instead I’ve got my laptop out and I’m researching vacation spots in Mexico.
At the end of May, we both have a few days off and I feel like its time we took an extended weekend away from the Northwest. Not to mention it’ll finally be a good reason for me to see her in bikini. I blush wondering if she tans easily or if I’ll get to rub sun block all over her body.
The clock next me beeps telling me it’s late. Mark and I are both on call tonight, but he’s happily shacking up in an on-call room with Little Grey while I made sure my girl went home to sleep. Her mind was still a wreck from the lost of the little girl last night and I knew it would be awhile before she’d be up to rolling down the hallways again.
Bailey slamming a bunch of charts down on the counter snaps me out of my thoughts. “Can’t fill out a mutha frickin’ chart. Having me spend my good time away from my son to correct their mistakes…” She trails on.
“Interns having chart issues again?”
“You’d think that since they couldn’t touch any of the patients for weeks that they would’ve gotten really good at their paperwork, but NO! That would be too easy for them. THIS! The interns who cut themselves up just because their stupid residents, THAT I TAUGHT, can’t get over themselves and teach!”
I love it when Bailey’s upset. She’s a force never to be reckoned with and fortunately, I’m on her good side. She sees the website for a Mexican resort on my laptop’s screen and gives me a smirk. Bailey may not approve of the bedroom tales that happen here at Seattle Grace, but she does approve of me keeping her mentor happy.
“Planning a trip?” she asks.
“Yeah, first trip as a couple. I wanted to surprise her and get away from the rainy-coldness of this place.”
“Make sure there are no kids.” It’s sage advice from Bailey. She too must have seen the hurt in Arizona today. “Saw you two weren’t at the meeting.”
“Yeah…”
“Is she okay? Nurses said she didn’t come back after lunch.”
“She’ll be fine. Just needs to rest away from this place.”
“Well, you two missed out on the chief announcing that a cardiothoracic surgeon will be returning here.” My ears burned at the words cardiothoracic surgeon.
“Not, Not Erica?” I choke out.
Bailey shakes her head, still reading through the charts. “Not sure. That’s all the Chief said before he ended, but the nurses say it’s Preston Burke. How on earth he’s getting back in here after lying about that tremor, I’m not sure. He’s lucky his license wasn’t taken.”
OMG! It’s Preston Burke. Preston Burke! Dr. I-beat-Hahn-out-of-a-Harpy-Avery-Award Burke. Not Erica.
“You might want to warn Yang. I think you know why,” Bailey said. And I think she has a soft spot for her former interns. Her nickname about being the Nazi can kiss my ass. Miranda Bailey is a saint ...with the occasional strong backhand.
“She’s with Owen now. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
She doesn’t answer me and continues to charts. I hate it when Bailey’s all silence and right.
“I’ll go find her,” I say with a heavy sigh and head down the hallway.
Yang’s bound to be somewhere around the nurse’s station or the dispatcher. She’s usually waiting for another amazing case to come in, but tonight she’s nowhere to be found. However, something else does catch my eye. It’s a chart in the cardio section and it’s marked urgent.
It’s got to be for the returning cardio surgeon, which means their name would be listed at the top. One quick look wouldn’t hurt and it would definitely answer the question about whether or not it’s Preston Burke. And if it isn’t then I wouldn’t have to put Yang through the stress and relived memories of Burke all for nothing. It’s for the greater good.
I glance to my left and then my right making sure the coast is clear. There’s just a sleepy nurse down the hall filling out morning medicine charts. All systems are go as I bite my lip and reach for the chart.
“Torres!” Mark shouts.
I nearly jump out of my shoes as my hand shoots back and I turn around to face him. The bastard has too much energy for this hour of night.
“Hear about Burke coming back?” he asked.
“So it is true?”
“Yeah, he’s supposed to come in later this week for some consults. Does Yang know yet?”
I shrug my shoulders. “If the nurses are talking about it, then she probably knows.”
“Still, if I was her roommate, I’d find her and make sure.”
That’s two people to tell me that now, so clearly it’s a sign from above. I give up on looking at the chart and head down to the resident’s lounge.
The more I think about it, the more I notice it. Yang and I are not so different. We both come from very well off families. Our respective “person” is could qualify as a nympho. We’re both seeing new Attendings and we both got horribly burned by a cardio surgeon. Maybe it’s fate that we worked out as roommates.
I opened the door to the residence’s lounge and see Yang sitting there with a book on her lap and a suture kit over it. Another banana is receiving the running whip stitch.
“Hey Yang-“
“I know already. I’m fine. Meredith is probably going to play twenty questions with me about it later,” she says not bothering to look up at me.
“Okay, well uh… I guess I’ll see you around then.”
I turn to leave when, “Callie.” She’s looking at me now. I give her my full attention. “If it was Hahn coming back, what would you do?”
A sigh escapes me as I look at my feet like the answer’s somewhere written on my shell tops. “I guess I would tell her off for leaving me without a good bye.”
“Really?”
“No, maybe? I don’t know. There’s a part of me that just wants to stop being so upset and angry about. I’m happy now. I think I just really want to get some answers from her. Why? What are you planning?”
She smiles. It’s kind of creepy. “I was going to see if Owen would kick his ass.”
Her answer makes me snort and laugh. Yang surprises me sometimes. It makes me forget about the cardio chart that could’ve solved this all. Because for all we know, it could be some retired cardio guy before Burke. Hell, it could be an old resident who’s moved on to bigger and better things. But I don’t think about it again, as I head back to my laptop to confirm that Mexican getaway.
******************
My hands are elbow deep in a man who’s in need of a hip replacement. The guy’s been the all-American dad. He coached the neighborhood baseball team, was involved in the church, and spent a good deal of his retirement between being out on a boat fishing and making his wife’s last remaining years absolutely brilliant.
Now it’s his turn. This surgery will give him a second lease on walking. It should only take about three hours to complete what the man should have had a few years ago. Its cases like these that make me enjoy being a “carpenter.”
I’m about to insert the implant and set it when the OR’s door swings open. It’s Little Grey, looking slightly panicked.
“Uh, Dr. Torres. Do you have an ETA of when you’ll be done?”
“Hour or so,” I answer then turn on my drill. She remains standing there, wait for me to stop.
I stop and ask for a smaller drill. “Do, do you think you could finish sooner than that?” Lexie asked a little more adamant than the last question.
“Seriously, Grey?”
“It’s just that, uh, there’s a consult that needs to uh, happen now. Could-could you just hurry?” She’s pushing frantic now.
“I’m not going to hurry through this man’s hip replacement for a consult, Dr. Grey.” I’m getting frustrated by this. “Really Lexie!” Does she want me to kill this man? “I’m replacing his bones. This cannot be rushed.”
Her eyes lock with mine. “I really think you should take this consult.”
I turn to Meredith Grey who’s standing across from me. “Grey, go handle the consult.”
“No, uh, Dr. Torres they need to see you immediately,” Lexie tries again.
I’m about to hurl a scalpel into Little Grey’s foot then Meredith speaks up. “Lexie, tell the patient that Dr. Torres will see them once the surgery’s over. GO!”
Lexie is such a puppy. She’s always trying to please others, always pushing the boundaries of being annoyingly cute. I know she doesn’t want to get on Meredith’s bad side. She still talks about how terrible she felt after calling Meredith a bad sister. So of course, Lexie listens and leaves or so I hoped.
I’m just about to go back to work when Little Grey burst back into the room.
“Callie,” She used my first name, whoa. “I lied. It’s Dr. Robbins. You need to go to her right now.”