Scar Tissue (Part Two) -- Chapter 19-B
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Scar Tissue (Part Two)
Chapter 19-B
Authors: kennedysbitch & livelovelearneg
Beta'd by englishstrawbie
Rating: NC-17 [Depictions of violence, PTSD, Language, Sexual Content]
Pairing: Callie/Arizona
Disclaimer
Scar Tissue [masterpost]
Summary: When Arizona Robbins’ brother dies in Iraq, her life takes off in a completely different direction. Now a highly-rated trauma surgeon with the United States Marine Corps, she spends the three years following his death serving their country overseas - until an insurgent attack leaves her with debilitating injuries. Traveling to Seattle at her father’s request, she falls under the care of orthopedic surgeon Dr. Calliope Torres. Damaged emotionally and physically, Arizona tries to start the healing process with the help of a headstrong woman she never saw coming.
Part Two: Now free from the confines of a hospital bed for the first time
in almost five months, Arizona begins her physical and emotional recovery while
navigating a budding yet rocky relationship with Callie Torres.
Warnings: Depictions of violence, PTSD, Language, Sexual Content
Trailer:
---
Arizona wasn’t so great with words these days. She used to pride herself on her speech-making capabilities, like how she used to rally her friends into staying out for one more drink or one last song and dance in her college days. In med school it turned into another hour of studying despite how exhausted everyone was at three in the morning. She could be very convincing when she wanted to and knew she could make it hard for people to say no.
With Callie it was different. She wasn’t playing games or making light of the situation; she wanted to explain that she was still adjusting to her new reality and would do better in the future. She was trying, even though it was really hard some days. Unfortunately every time she tried to think of how to put it into words, she came up empty. The blast had destroyed more than her leg, and her inability to process thoughts was becoming more frustrating as the afternoon wore on. Her head hadn’t felt this clustered since the concussion she’d earned in the explosion.
Frustrated and giving up all hope of a worthy explanation, she came up with a plan B born of desperation - cookies.
Arizona had always liked to bake when she was bored. With the demands of her job and the lack of an actual kitchen or ingredients while on-duty, she rarely got the chance. She had managed a few times at the base where she was stationed, but that was a ridiculous amount of months ago and before her hands were occupied by metal crutches.
She rooted around the kitchen like a starving racoon and tried to pull together the things she needed. It took her twice as long to dig the ingredients out, given that most of them were on the top shelf and she could barely reach them. The bag of flour fell and narrowly missed her head, scattering powder all over the floor and her pants. She cursed and begrudgingly decided to leave it for now, figuring this was only a prelude to how the whole session was about to go.
By the time she finally got everything set out on the counter and measured into the right proportions, she was exhausted. Her leg was throbbing and she kept banging it against something every time she turned around. For the first time since being injured, she half-heartedly wished that Callie had just cut it off. Swinging a lump of dead weight around for the rest of her life suddenly seemed like more of a hazard than a help.
Relying on the crutches for support made the disaster so much worse than she could have ever imagined. Whenever she turned around she either tripped over them, knocked something over, or sprayed ingredients during the mixing process because she couldn’t hold onto the mixer properly. It probably would have been easier to just give up and go back to plan A of making up a speech as she went along, but Arizona was far too stubborn to allow her disability to win out over her determination.
With only minutes left before Callie came home, the kitchen looked like a war zone - flour everywhere; a broken egg that had rolled onto the floor; pieces of squashed cookie dough that ended up in all kinds of bizarre places, some of which stuck to the bottom of her crutch. Every time she tried to clean up after herself she only made it worse - her limbs merely scattered more ingredients than she was managing to mop up.
By the time she heard a key turn in the front door, the determination she had been putting forth all evening evaporated, only to be replaced with sheer panic.
Callie was going to kill her.
***
Callie eventually hit a brick wall in her aimless wandering around the neighbourhood. It had started raining and while spending her evening sulking in it seemed fitting for the occasion, she was too tired to keep putting one foot in front of the other. It was with great apprehension that she finally headed home.
No matter how many times she went over it in her head, she couldn’t figure out how she had missed it. Aaron was a healthy young kid with no known history of heart problems. He had been brought in due to injuries sustained in a car accident, not physical exertion out on the field. She knew that most patients with his genetic condition went undiagnosed until they collapsed from a massive heart attack. In his case, the stress of surgery on his body had provided the same trigger. No one could have known, and yet none of that made her feel any better about letting an eight year old die on her table.
Suddenly she was starting to wonder why she had pushed Arizona back into pediatrics in the first place - if this was what she had dealt with on a daily basis, then no wonder the blonde wanted nothing to do with it.
All Callie wanted to do when she got back was strip out of her clothes and collapse into bed. She couldn’t deal with anything else tonight; least of all arguing with her girlfriend over their communication issues. The idea of sweeping their problems under the carpet only made her feel worse. Either way she felt like she was screwed.
As soon as her key unlatched the lock, Callie paused and closed her eyes, steadying herself for some sort of interaction. She didn’t want Arizona to see her this miserable and start worrying. Her girlfriend had bigger issues to deal with right now - chronic pain, endless nightmares, overwhelming stress of what reinventing her life would mean. Hell, she had even dealt with the deaths of probably dozens of peds patients in the past. Callie’s bad day didn’t really compare to any of that.
Cracking her neck to the side to relieve some of the tension, she pushed the door open and quietly closed up behind her. Sounds coming from the kitchen crushed any hopes of escaping to her bedroom unnoticed so she could clean up before Arizona saw her.
“Arizona?” Callie called out, hearing the noise stop. “That you?” Dropping her bag to the floor, she rounded the corner and immediately froze.
Arizona knew she looked guilty. Knew it. There was no hiding the panic-stricken look on her face even if she was the world’s best actor. She quickly whirled around to stare at the absolute disaster of a kitchen she was standing in, grimaced, and turned back to Callie. She took a step forward but banged her crutch into a mixing bowl that had just fallen to the floor moments before, sending it rolling across the tile.
Callie didn’t quite know what to say or do, so she just stood there unblinking, taking in the warzone that was her house. The bowl came to a stop by her toes.
“Uh, s-surprise!” Arizona blurted out, dropping the towel she’d been using to try and wipe the counter. She gestured to the stove where three racks of giant, freshly baked cookies lay uniformly spread out. They were about the only thing in the kitchen that didn’t look as though a bomb had demolished them. Even Arizona had flour and the occasional chunk of batter and egg stuck to her shirt, as well as in a strand or two in her hair.
Yep. Murder. She was going to be throttled and thrown down the garbage chute.
“I made cookies,” Arizona said dumbly, wobbling on her crutches as she stared at Callie with wide, fearful eyes. “Which I thought would be sexy, o-or something. But then I made a mess and every time I tried to fix it, it got worse, so then I ate a whole bunch of cookies. Which, not so sexy.”
Callie’s mouth opened but no sound came out. Arizona looked like a six year old that had just been caught drawing on the walls with finger paint. Of all the situations she had expected to come home to, this was not one of them.
“They’re really good,” Arizona added as an afterthought, as though that would make the nuclear explosion worth it somehow.
Callie arched a dumbfounded eyebrow, staring around the kitchen. She was still having trouble putting together a coherent thought - moments ago she had been miserable and dreading coming home, and now…this. Arizona looked scared to death and was covered in so much crap that Callie could hardly believe this was the same woman she had met a few months ago.
The tiniest of smiles broke through the tension and Callie refocused on her girlfriend, standing there with those irresistible blue eyes while covered in flour and egg yolk, even smearing a patch of cookie dough across one cheek as she pushed an errant strand of hair away from her face. All Callie could think was how utterly beautiful Arizona looked - she had never been more perfect than she was right now.
Callie crossed the distance between them as Arizona gulped nervously and twitched backward, as though she were about to run away. Instead of speaking, Callie reached up and tangled her fingers into unruly blonde curls, pulling her into a hard, sound kiss.
Arizona was surprised there wasn’t any yelling, or exasperation, or at the very least the shaking of an angry fist. Callie’s reaction caught her off guard but it only took her a moment before she reacted to the kiss and leaned into it, closing her eyes. Neither of them paid any attention to the fact that she was covered in food, and Arizona reached up to grip the lapels of Callie’s jacket to keep her close. This was a much more favourable outcome than being kicked to the curb, that was for sure.
Callie waited until Arizona stopped poising herself to flee before she pulled away. A disbelieving grin spread across her face as she surveyed what was left of her kitchen - pans, bowls, spatulas and random mixing utensils were everywhere and pretty much every surface had powdery finger prints all over it. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought that a bunch of kids and their dog had been playing in flour and gook all day.
And yet in the midst of Hurricane Arizona’s aftermath, the most perfectly round and delicious looking cookies she had ever seen sat on top of the stove, pristine and untouched, as though they were ready for a photoshoot in a catalogue.
Callie couldn’t help it. She cracked up.
Arizona pouted as her girlfriend started laughing. “Yeah, I know, I’m sorry,” she sighed sheepishly.
How in the world had an adult made this kind of mess? The look Arizona was giving Callie made her laugh that much harder, her fists curling around the blonde’s shirt to keep her balanced as she doubled over. Tears started to well up in her eyes and she could hardly breathe.
Arizona was wondering if Callie had lost her mind or if this was just a prelude to some sort of homicidal tendency. “I was gonna clean it up,” she mumbled in embarrassment.
Callie tried to speak through her case of the giggles. “Arizona, how did you manage - have you seen yourself in a mirror?” She tugged on the blonde's shirt. “You’re a trauma surgeon; you go in and fix messes that no one else could fix inside the human body. How in the hell did you manage this kind of carnage and still come out with flawless cookies?”
Arizona glanced around, looking helplessly defeated. All she could do was whimper in response. “I was trying to make you happy?”
“Oh, sweetie.” Callie grinned and pulled her into another soft kiss, brushing a hand along her flour-caked cheek. “You have no idea.”
Arizona assumed that Callie was being sarcastic and rushed to explain. “I wanted you to know that I’m sorry, and that I’m gonna work at being better. Better for you, better for me, a-and that I’m trying to sort my life out, even if I have trouble telling up from down sometimes,” she stuttered. “I thought cookies were a good way to show you that I mean it, but then I turned into an octopus with eight limbs despite only having three and a half a-and it-they’re really good!”
Flustered, she suddenly yanked Callie over to the stove and grabbed one of the warm treats. When the brunette opened her mouth to speak, Arizona abruptly shoved the cookie inside. They both dissolved into a fit of laughter as Callie just about choked, while the other half crumbled to join the growing mess already on the floor.
Callie was nearly crying as they both collapsed sideways into the counter, clutching one another for support. Arizona dropped her head onto Callie’s shoulder and tried to apologize profusely while gasping for air. She got the hiccups as a result and it only served to make them laugh harder.
Eventually Callie was able to move without fainting and she grabbed a couple of fresh towels from the linen closet. It took them over half an hour to scrub the kitchen from top to bottom, give or take an extra ten minutes every time Arizona tripped over her crutches and smeared something else. Callie ended up sending her to the bathroom to wash up, pointing out that they were never going to get anywhere if she kept making things messier. She said this with a smile on her face and Arizona sheepishly agreed, hobbling off to make herself presentable again.
When she was by herself, Callie finished the kitchen and scarfed down a few of the wonderful cookies while they were still warm. Arizona hadn’t been lying; they tasted fantastic and were literally untouched by the rest of the mess. By the time she sank down onto the couch, some of her euphoria was beginning to fade. She felt the events of her day start to filter in around the edges.
About twenty minutes later, Arizona emerged from the bathroom, showered and changed into fresh pajamas. “Crisis officially over. I’m not longer fit to bake in an oven.”
Callie smiled tiredly as the blonde flopped down next to her, ditching her crutches on the floor. “You’re ridiculous,” she chuckled, reaching over to tuck a strand of hair behind Arizona’s ear. “Thank you.”
“For destroying your kitchen?” Arizona quirked a brow. “Any time, I guess?”
“For making my crappy day less crappy,” Callie sighed, dropping her head back against the cushions and closing her eyes. “I’m exhausted.” Her voice cracked unexpectedly and she had to swallow hard to keep some amount of control.
Arizona frowned and immediately moved closer. “What’s wrong?” she asked, settling a warm hand on Callie’s thigh. “Teddy said you had a bad day."
Callie released a shaky breath. “Nothing. Emotionally draining, I guess.” She hesitated. “I was worried about coming home and fighting again.”
Arizona felt a wave of guilt wash over her. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-”
“No, I didn’t mean it was your fault,” Callie corrected, turning her head and peeking one eye open. “I just hate it when we fight, and then things with a patient got complicated and now all I really want to do is forget about the whole damn thing and take a nap.”
“That sounds like a marvellous idea,” Arizona agreed, feeling pretty tired herself. She dropped a kiss to Callie’s shoulder and curled up against her side. “Do you want to talk about it? Your patient?”
Callie hesitated. “I can’t,” she said weakly. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this stuff, too. You’ve got enough on your mind these days.”
Arizona fixed the brunette with a hard stare, frowning. “Hey. Look at me.” She ducked her head until Callie met her gaze. “I know I’m not exactly the poster girl for communication and stability these days, but being in a relationship means you get to have bad days too, Calliope. Things need to be equal between us.”
“I’m fine, really,” Callie argued, mustering up what she could for a smile. “You don’t need to worry.”
Arizona shook her head. “Never gonna happen."
Callie knew she was being a hypocrite if she held back, especially after how much she had been pushing Arizona to open up lately, but the last thing she wanted to do was affect Arizona’s happy mood. She so rarely laughed like they had in the kitchen that Callie couldn’t stand to put such a damper on things.
“I’m not fragile,” Arizona added gently, tracing Callie’s jawline with her fingertips. “You don’t have to keep protecting me. Now tell me what happened, otherwise I'll try and bake again.”
Callie cracked a smile at that one. Arizona was gazing at her so intensely that it was all she could do to hold it together and not curl into a ball on her lap. “There was this patient. A kid. I was fixing his shoulder and then he…he had an undiagnosed heart defect. Teddy tried to save him but he died on my table. I had to tell his mom that a routine shoulder surgery killed him.”
“You didn’t kill him,” Arizona corrected, “his condition did.”
“He was only eight.” Callie swallowed thickly. “I told him he’d be back on the lacrosse field by the end of the season. Now he’s in the morgue and his mom can’t pick herself up off the floor.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I just, I-I can’t be sane and put together tonight like I wanted to be, so we could talk.”
“It’s okay,” Arizona said softly.
“No, it’s not,” Callie argued, feeling a surge of frustration. “I wasn’t enough for him, and sometimes I don’t think I’ll ever be enough for you. I’m supposed to be the one you can lean on right now, and then I go and lose a patient and I’m a blubbering mess, a-and I can’t handle-“
“Callie.” Arizona silenced her with a kiss. “You didn’t let him die, and you have never let me down. It’s okay to have a bad day and feel like this. That’s what I’m here for, remember?”
“I feel pathetic,” Callie mumbled, snatching a tissue from her jacket pocket and dabbing at her eyes. “I’m just so tired, Arizona. Crying isn’t helpful or romantic o-or any of the things I wanted to be tonight.”
“Then let me help,” Arizona said, smiling for Callie’s sake. “Cry and be angry and be sad. Let me take care of you for once; god knows you’ve been taking care of me since the day we met.”
Callie felt herself crumble and she burrowed into Arizona, finally allowing the blonde to gather her in her arms and hold her close. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“Lose me?” Arizona asked, confused.
“You can’t keep pulling away like this,” Callie choked out, a few tears trickling down her cheeks. “I can’t keep sitting back while you shut me out. But I won’t lose you, I can't.”
Arizona’s heart broke as she felt her girlfriend's tears soak through her shirt. It killed her that Callie still felt like she needed to protect her when she was in pain, like she had to be the strong one for fear of Arizona leaving her otherwise. Callie made her feel normal again for the first time in years and all she wanted was to give her that same sense of security. Fine job she had done so far.
“You won’t lose me, okay?” Arizona cradled Callie’s face between her hands. “Never. Least of all for needing comfort.”
Callie sniffled and buried her face into Arizona’s neck, feeling another shudder run through her. “How did you do it?” she murmured. “All those years in your residency and then the fellowship. They’re just…they’re babies. Kids. It’s not fair.”
Arizona ignored the pain in her knee and slid herself across Callie’s lap, feeling the brunette’s arms circle her waist and wrapping her own around Callie’s strong shoulders. She continued to trail her fingers soothingly through the dark hair she was so crazy about. “No matter how long you’ve been in the game, no matter how tough you think you are, it’s humanly impossible not to feel it when we lose a child.” She took in a shallow breath, trying to sort her thoughts out on the issue. She could still feel Callie trying to get her breathing under control, so she kept talking.
“You’ll feel like it’s your fault, like you missed something, like it shouldn’t have happened and that you could’ve done something differently. But I know you and I know what kind of surgeon you are, Calliope. You care like crazy and I love that about you. You did everything you could to save that child’s life and there is nothing else you could have done.”
“How do you know?” Callie mumbled into her shoulder.
Arizona smiled against the top of her head. “Because you fought like hell to save my leg and you did it. Not many people would have done what you did for me.” She closed her eyes and released a sigh. “You didn’t fail him, Callie. You did everything in your power because that’s who you are. You don’t know how to operate any differently.”
Callie exhaled against Arizona’s neck, holding tighter around her waist. “He was just a kid. It’s not fair.”
“We can’t save them all,” Arizona continued. “It’s painful, and you’ll see the tiny coffins in your sleep every time it happens, but you have to keep pushing forward. To the next kid, the one you can save, because those almost make up for the ones you can’t.”
She ducked her head down and dropped a butterfly kiss to Callie’s ear. “You’re the strongest person I've ever met. Crying after a day like today doesn’t change that. You didn’t fail anyone; not him, not me, least of all yourself. You’re allowed to be sad.”
There was physically nothing more that Callie could do. Two full nights of almost no sleep coupled with the loss of her patient had drained her energy reserves completely. “I need to sleep,” she repeated, though she wasn’t willing to let go of Arizona just yet.
Arizona gently maneuvered them down against the couch, keeping her arms around Callie as they settled into a more comfortable position. “It’s okay, sweetie. Just rest. Close your eyes." She reached up to tug the throw blanket down on top of them.
Callie was too tired to even take her jacket off. She just buried her face into Arizona’s chest and held her closely, taking comfort in the warmth and compassion the blonde was radiating. She didn’t care about being hungry or how little space the couch provided compared to her bed; she only cared about falling asleep while she was in the safety of her partner’s arms. Alone in her own bed didn’t come close to how much better she felt right here.
Arizona stroked Callie’s back until she drifted to sleep, only then allowing herself to close her eyes and follow suit. They still needed to talk and would sort things out come morning, but somehow she was feeling much more at ease than she had only an hour before. They would get through this just like they had got through everything else thrown at them so far, she was sure of it.
---
![]()
Scar Tissue (Part Two)
Chapter 19-B
Authors: kennedysbitch & livelovelearneg
Beta'd by englishstrawbie
Rating: NC-17 [Depictions of violence, PTSD, Language, Sexual Content]
Pairing: Callie/Arizona
Disclaimer
Scar Tissue [masterpost]
Summary: When Arizona Robbins’ brother dies in Iraq, her life takes off in a completely different direction. Now a highly-rated trauma surgeon with the United States Marine Corps, she spends the three years following his death serving their country overseas - until an insurgent attack leaves her with debilitating injuries. Traveling to Seattle at her father’s request, she falls under the care of orthopedic surgeon Dr. Calliope Torres. Damaged emotionally and physically, Arizona tries to start the healing process with the help of a headstrong woman she never saw coming.
Part Two: Now free from the confines of a hospital bed for the first time
in almost five months, Arizona begins her physical and emotional recovery while
navigating a budding yet rocky relationship with Callie Torres.
Warnings: Depictions of violence, PTSD, Language, Sexual Content
Trailer:
Click to view---
Arizona wasn’t so great with words these days. She used to pride herself on her speech-making capabilities, like how she used to rally her friends into staying out for one more drink or one last song and dance in her college days. In med school it turned into another hour of studying despite how exhausted everyone was at three in the morning. She could be very convincing when she wanted to and knew she could make it hard for people to say no.
With Callie it was different. She wasn’t playing games or making light of the situation; she wanted to explain that she was still adjusting to her new reality and would do better in the future. She was trying, even though it was really hard some days. Unfortunately every time she tried to think of how to put it into words, she came up empty. The blast had destroyed more than her leg, and her inability to process thoughts was becoming more frustrating as the afternoon wore on. Her head hadn’t felt this clustered since the concussion she’d earned in the explosion.
Frustrated and giving up all hope of a worthy explanation, she came up with a plan B born of desperation - cookies.
Arizona had always liked to bake when she was bored. With the demands of her job and the lack of an actual kitchen or ingredients while on-duty, she rarely got the chance. She had managed a few times at the base where she was stationed, but that was a ridiculous amount of months ago and before her hands were occupied by metal crutches.
She rooted around the kitchen like a starving racoon and tried to pull together the things she needed. It took her twice as long to dig the ingredients out, given that most of them were on the top shelf and she could barely reach them. The bag of flour fell and narrowly missed her head, scattering powder all over the floor and her pants. She cursed and begrudgingly decided to leave it for now, figuring this was only a prelude to how the whole session was about to go.
By the time she finally got everything set out on the counter and measured into the right proportions, she was exhausted. Her leg was throbbing and she kept banging it against something every time she turned around. For the first time since being injured, she half-heartedly wished that Callie had just cut it off. Swinging a lump of dead weight around for the rest of her life suddenly seemed like more of a hazard than a help.
Relying on the crutches for support made the disaster so much worse than she could have ever imagined. Whenever she turned around she either tripped over them, knocked something over, or sprayed ingredients during the mixing process because she couldn’t hold onto the mixer properly. It probably would have been easier to just give up and go back to plan A of making up a speech as she went along, but Arizona was far too stubborn to allow her disability to win out over her determination.
With only minutes left before Callie came home, the kitchen looked like a war zone - flour everywhere; a broken egg that had rolled onto the floor; pieces of squashed cookie dough that ended up in all kinds of bizarre places, some of which stuck to the bottom of her crutch. Every time she tried to clean up after herself she only made it worse - her limbs merely scattered more ingredients than she was managing to mop up.
By the time she heard a key turn in the front door, the determination she had been putting forth all evening evaporated, only to be replaced with sheer panic.
Callie was going to kill her.
***
Callie eventually hit a brick wall in her aimless wandering around the neighbourhood. It had started raining and while spending her evening sulking in it seemed fitting for the occasion, she was too tired to keep putting one foot in front of the other. It was with great apprehension that she finally headed home.
No matter how many times she went over it in her head, she couldn’t figure out how she had missed it. Aaron was a healthy young kid with no known history of heart problems. He had been brought in due to injuries sustained in a car accident, not physical exertion out on the field. She knew that most patients with his genetic condition went undiagnosed until they collapsed from a massive heart attack. In his case, the stress of surgery on his body had provided the same trigger. No one could have known, and yet none of that made her feel any better about letting an eight year old die on her table.
Suddenly she was starting to wonder why she had pushed Arizona back into pediatrics in the first place - if this was what she had dealt with on a daily basis, then no wonder the blonde wanted nothing to do with it.
All Callie wanted to do when she got back was strip out of her clothes and collapse into bed. She couldn’t deal with anything else tonight; least of all arguing with her girlfriend over their communication issues. The idea of sweeping their problems under the carpet only made her feel worse. Either way she felt like she was screwed.
As soon as her key unlatched the lock, Callie paused and closed her eyes, steadying herself for some sort of interaction. She didn’t want Arizona to see her this miserable and start worrying. Her girlfriend had bigger issues to deal with right now - chronic pain, endless nightmares, overwhelming stress of what reinventing her life would mean. Hell, she had even dealt with the deaths of probably dozens of peds patients in the past. Callie’s bad day didn’t really compare to any of that.
Cracking her neck to the side to relieve some of the tension, she pushed the door open and quietly closed up behind her. Sounds coming from the kitchen crushed any hopes of escaping to her bedroom unnoticed so she could clean up before Arizona saw her.
“Arizona?” Callie called out, hearing the noise stop. “That you?” Dropping her bag to the floor, she rounded the corner and immediately froze.
Arizona knew she looked guilty. Knew it. There was no hiding the panic-stricken look on her face even if she was the world’s best actor. She quickly whirled around to stare at the absolute disaster of a kitchen she was standing in, grimaced, and turned back to Callie. She took a step forward but banged her crutch into a mixing bowl that had just fallen to the floor moments before, sending it rolling across the tile.
Callie didn’t quite know what to say or do, so she just stood there unblinking, taking in the warzone that was her house. The bowl came to a stop by her toes.
“Uh, s-surprise!” Arizona blurted out, dropping the towel she’d been using to try and wipe the counter. She gestured to the stove where three racks of giant, freshly baked cookies lay uniformly spread out. They were about the only thing in the kitchen that didn’t look as though a bomb had demolished them. Even Arizona had flour and the occasional chunk of batter and egg stuck to her shirt, as well as in a strand or two in her hair.
Yep. Murder. She was going to be throttled and thrown down the garbage chute.
“I made cookies,” Arizona said dumbly, wobbling on her crutches as she stared at Callie with wide, fearful eyes. “Which I thought would be sexy, o-or something. But then I made a mess and every time I tried to fix it, it got worse, so then I ate a whole bunch of cookies. Which, not so sexy.”
Callie’s mouth opened but no sound came out. Arizona looked like a six year old that had just been caught drawing on the walls with finger paint. Of all the situations she had expected to come home to, this was not one of them.
“They’re really good,” Arizona added as an afterthought, as though that would make the nuclear explosion worth it somehow.
Callie arched a dumbfounded eyebrow, staring around the kitchen. She was still having trouble putting together a coherent thought - moments ago she had been miserable and dreading coming home, and now…this. Arizona looked scared to death and was covered in so much crap that Callie could hardly believe this was the same woman she had met a few months ago.
The tiniest of smiles broke through the tension and Callie refocused on her girlfriend, standing there with those irresistible blue eyes while covered in flour and egg yolk, even smearing a patch of cookie dough across one cheek as she pushed an errant strand of hair away from her face. All Callie could think was how utterly beautiful Arizona looked - she had never been more perfect than she was right now.
Callie crossed the distance between them as Arizona gulped nervously and twitched backward, as though she were about to run away. Instead of speaking, Callie reached up and tangled her fingers into unruly blonde curls, pulling her into a hard, sound kiss.
Arizona was surprised there wasn’t any yelling, or exasperation, or at the very least the shaking of an angry fist. Callie’s reaction caught her off guard but it only took her a moment before she reacted to the kiss and leaned into it, closing her eyes. Neither of them paid any attention to the fact that she was covered in food, and Arizona reached up to grip the lapels of Callie’s jacket to keep her close. This was a much more favourable outcome than being kicked to the curb, that was for sure.
Callie waited until Arizona stopped poising herself to flee before she pulled away. A disbelieving grin spread across her face as she surveyed what was left of her kitchen - pans, bowls, spatulas and random mixing utensils were everywhere and pretty much every surface had powdery finger prints all over it. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought that a bunch of kids and their dog had been playing in flour and gook all day.
And yet in the midst of Hurricane Arizona’s aftermath, the most perfectly round and delicious looking cookies she had ever seen sat on top of the stove, pristine and untouched, as though they were ready for a photoshoot in a catalogue.
Callie couldn’t help it. She cracked up.
Arizona pouted as her girlfriend started laughing. “Yeah, I know, I’m sorry,” she sighed sheepishly.
How in the world had an adult made this kind of mess? The look Arizona was giving Callie made her laugh that much harder, her fists curling around the blonde’s shirt to keep her balanced as she doubled over. Tears started to well up in her eyes and she could hardly breathe.
Arizona was wondering if Callie had lost her mind or if this was just a prelude to some sort of homicidal tendency. “I was gonna clean it up,” she mumbled in embarrassment.
Callie tried to speak through her case of the giggles. “Arizona, how did you manage - have you seen yourself in a mirror?” She tugged on the blonde's shirt. “You’re a trauma surgeon; you go in and fix messes that no one else could fix inside the human body. How in the hell did you manage this kind of carnage and still come out with flawless cookies?”
Arizona glanced around, looking helplessly defeated. All she could do was whimper in response. “I was trying to make you happy?”
“Oh, sweetie.” Callie grinned and pulled her into another soft kiss, brushing a hand along her flour-caked cheek. “You have no idea.”
Arizona assumed that Callie was being sarcastic and rushed to explain. “I wanted you to know that I’m sorry, and that I’m gonna work at being better. Better for you, better for me, a-and that I’m trying to sort my life out, even if I have trouble telling up from down sometimes,” she stuttered. “I thought cookies were a good way to show you that I mean it, but then I turned into an octopus with eight limbs despite only having three and a half a-and it-they’re really good!”
Flustered, she suddenly yanked Callie over to the stove and grabbed one of the warm treats. When the brunette opened her mouth to speak, Arizona abruptly shoved the cookie inside. They both dissolved into a fit of laughter as Callie just about choked, while the other half crumbled to join the growing mess already on the floor.
Callie was nearly crying as they both collapsed sideways into the counter, clutching one another for support. Arizona dropped her head onto Callie’s shoulder and tried to apologize profusely while gasping for air. She got the hiccups as a result and it only served to make them laugh harder.
Eventually Callie was able to move without fainting and she grabbed a couple of fresh towels from the linen closet. It took them over half an hour to scrub the kitchen from top to bottom, give or take an extra ten minutes every time Arizona tripped over her crutches and smeared something else. Callie ended up sending her to the bathroom to wash up, pointing out that they were never going to get anywhere if she kept making things messier. She said this with a smile on her face and Arizona sheepishly agreed, hobbling off to make herself presentable again.
When she was by herself, Callie finished the kitchen and scarfed down a few of the wonderful cookies while they were still warm. Arizona hadn’t been lying; they tasted fantastic and were literally untouched by the rest of the mess. By the time she sank down onto the couch, some of her euphoria was beginning to fade. She felt the events of her day start to filter in around the edges.
About twenty minutes later, Arizona emerged from the bathroom, showered and changed into fresh pajamas. “Crisis officially over. I’m not longer fit to bake in an oven.”
Callie smiled tiredly as the blonde flopped down next to her, ditching her crutches on the floor. “You’re ridiculous,” she chuckled, reaching over to tuck a strand of hair behind Arizona’s ear. “Thank you.”
“For destroying your kitchen?” Arizona quirked a brow. “Any time, I guess?”
“For making my crappy day less crappy,” Callie sighed, dropping her head back against the cushions and closing her eyes. “I’m exhausted.” Her voice cracked unexpectedly and she had to swallow hard to keep some amount of control.
Arizona frowned and immediately moved closer. “What’s wrong?” she asked, settling a warm hand on Callie’s thigh. “Teddy said you had a bad day."
Callie released a shaky breath. “Nothing. Emotionally draining, I guess.” She hesitated. “I was worried about coming home and fighting again.”
Arizona felt a wave of guilt wash over her. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-”
“No, I didn’t mean it was your fault,” Callie corrected, turning her head and peeking one eye open. “I just hate it when we fight, and then things with a patient got complicated and now all I really want to do is forget about the whole damn thing and take a nap.”
“That sounds like a marvellous idea,” Arizona agreed, feeling pretty tired herself. She dropped a kiss to Callie’s shoulder and curled up against her side. “Do you want to talk about it? Your patient?”
Callie hesitated. “I can’t,” she said weakly. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this stuff, too. You’ve got enough on your mind these days.”
Arizona fixed the brunette with a hard stare, frowning. “Hey. Look at me.” She ducked her head until Callie met her gaze. “I know I’m not exactly the poster girl for communication and stability these days, but being in a relationship means you get to have bad days too, Calliope. Things need to be equal between us.”
“I’m fine, really,” Callie argued, mustering up what she could for a smile. “You don’t need to worry.”
Arizona shook her head. “Never gonna happen."
Callie knew she was being a hypocrite if she held back, especially after how much she had been pushing Arizona to open up lately, but the last thing she wanted to do was affect Arizona’s happy mood. She so rarely laughed like they had in the kitchen that Callie couldn’t stand to put such a damper on things.
“I’m not fragile,” Arizona added gently, tracing Callie’s jawline with her fingertips. “You don’t have to keep protecting me. Now tell me what happened, otherwise I'll try and bake again.”
Callie cracked a smile at that one. Arizona was gazing at her so intensely that it was all she could do to hold it together and not curl into a ball on her lap. “There was this patient. A kid. I was fixing his shoulder and then he…he had an undiagnosed heart defect. Teddy tried to save him but he died on my table. I had to tell his mom that a routine shoulder surgery killed him.”
“You didn’t kill him,” Arizona corrected, “his condition did.”
“He was only eight.” Callie swallowed thickly. “I told him he’d be back on the lacrosse field by the end of the season. Now he’s in the morgue and his mom can’t pick herself up off the floor.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I just, I-I can’t be sane and put together tonight like I wanted to be, so we could talk.”
“It’s okay,” Arizona said softly.
“No, it’s not,” Callie argued, feeling a surge of frustration. “I wasn’t enough for him, and sometimes I don’t think I’ll ever be enough for you. I’m supposed to be the one you can lean on right now, and then I go and lose a patient and I’m a blubbering mess, a-and I can’t handle-“
“Callie.” Arizona silenced her with a kiss. “You didn’t let him die, and you have never let me down. It’s okay to have a bad day and feel like this. That’s what I’m here for, remember?”
“I feel pathetic,” Callie mumbled, snatching a tissue from her jacket pocket and dabbing at her eyes. “I’m just so tired, Arizona. Crying isn’t helpful or romantic o-or any of the things I wanted to be tonight.”
“Then let me help,” Arizona said, smiling for Callie’s sake. “Cry and be angry and be sad. Let me take care of you for once; god knows you’ve been taking care of me since the day we met.”
Callie felt herself crumble and she burrowed into Arizona, finally allowing the blonde to gather her in her arms and hold her close. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“Lose me?” Arizona asked, confused.
“You can’t keep pulling away like this,” Callie choked out, a few tears trickling down her cheeks. “I can’t keep sitting back while you shut me out. But I won’t lose you, I can't.”
Arizona’s heart broke as she felt her girlfriend's tears soak through her shirt. It killed her that Callie still felt like she needed to protect her when she was in pain, like she had to be the strong one for fear of Arizona leaving her otherwise. Callie made her feel normal again for the first time in years and all she wanted was to give her that same sense of security. Fine job she had done so far.
“You won’t lose me, okay?” Arizona cradled Callie’s face between her hands. “Never. Least of all for needing comfort.”
Callie sniffled and buried her face into Arizona’s neck, feeling another shudder run through her. “How did you do it?” she murmured. “All those years in your residency and then the fellowship. They’re just…they’re babies. Kids. It’s not fair.”
Arizona ignored the pain in her knee and slid herself across Callie’s lap, feeling the brunette’s arms circle her waist and wrapping her own around Callie’s strong shoulders. She continued to trail her fingers soothingly through the dark hair she was so crazy about. “No matter how long you’ve been in the game, no matter how tough you think you are, it’s humanly impossible not to feel it when we lose a child.” She took in a shallow breath, trying to sort her thoughts out on the issue. She could still feel Callie trying to get her breathing under control, so she kept talking.
“You’ll feel like it’s your fault, like you missed something, like it shouldn’t have happened and that you could’ve done something differently. But I know you and I know what kind of surgeon you are, Calliope. You care like crazy and I love that about you. You did everything you could to save that child’s life and there is nothing else you could have done.”
“How do you know?” Callie mumbled into her shoulder.
Arizona smiled against the top of her head. “Because you fought like hell to save my leg and you did it. Not many people would have done what you did for me.” She closed her eyes and released a sigh. “You didn’t fail him, Callie. You did everything in your power because that’s who you are. You don’t know how to operate any differently.”
Callie exhaled against Arizona’s neck, holding tighter around her waist. “He was just a kid. It’s not fair.”
“We can’t save them all,” Arizona continued. “It’s painful, and you’ll see the tiny coffins in your sleep every time it happens, but you have to keep pushing forward. To the next kid, the one you can save, because those almost make up for the ones you can’t.”
She ducked her head down and dropped a butterfly kiss to Callie’s ear. “You’re the strongest person I've ever met. Crying after a day like today doesn’t change that. You didn’t fail anyone; not him, not me, least of all yourself. You’re allowed to be sad.”
There was physically nothing more that Callie could do. Two full nights of almost no sleep coupled with the loss of her patient had drained her energy reserves completely. “I need to sleep,” she repeated, though she wasn’t willing to let go of Arizona just yet.
Arizona gently maneuvered them down against the couch, keeping her arms around Callie as they settled into a more comfortable position. “It’s okay, sweetie. Just rest. Close your eyes." She reached up to tug the throw blanket down on top of them.
Callie was too tired to even take her jacket off. She just buried her face into Arizona’s chest and held her closely, taking comfort in the warmth and compassion the blonde was radiating. She didn’t care about being hungry or how little space the couch provided compared to her bed; she only cared about falling asleep while she was in the safety of her partner’s arms. Alone in her own bed didn’t come close to how much better she felt right here.
Arizona stroked Callie’s back until she drifted to sleep, only then allowing herself to close her eyes and follow suit. They still needed to talk and would sort things out come morning, but somehow she was feeling much more at ease than she had only an hour before. They would get through this just like they had got through everything else thrown at them so far, she was sure of it.
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