Grey's Anatomy - Choices (5/23)
Title: Choices
Chapter 5/23
Authors: Faith & Kye
Pairing: Callie/Arizona
Rating: NC-17
Story Summary: Post-6x17 "Push" -- Arizona prefers chickens to children, and Callie isn't okay with that. Heartbroken and lonely, the two women try unsuccessfully to move on with their lives, only to find they really are made for eachother.
Chapter Summary: The first in a series of important medical cases linking Callie and Arizona shows up at Seattle Grace. Bailey interferes with their not-a-relationship.
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
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A/N: Thanks for the feedback, as always, Kye and I appreciate it! We love knowing what you guys think. Un-betaed, so all fuck ups are things I've missed.
Also, I took a look at the requests thread, but there hasn't been anything recent. If anyone has any burning ideas they're dying to request, I might give it a shot. Preferably canon Calzona, no far-in-the-future or completely AU wackiness, but other than that I'm pretty open to writing anything with them.
---
Miranda Bailey was situated at the ER desk with a sad, bored look on her face. Her elbow was propped up on the hard surface, cheek resting in her palm. She watched with disinterest as Cristina Yang walked up.
Yang smiled, crossing her arms as she placed her file onto the counter. “How's ER duty goin' for ya?”
Bailey still stared straight ahead, absently clicking the pen in her other hand. “Single biggest thrill of my life,” she replied in monotone.
Cristina was smirking as she turned around to rest her back against the desk, propping her elbows up onto the counter. She looked out at the quiet, calm, nearly empty floor. “Something cardio is coming. I can smell it. Something that’ll make this day is suck less is about to walk through those-”
Her words were abruptly cut off when the large double doors suddenly swung open. The sound of a high-pitched, terrified scream unsettled the calm.
Yang nearly jumped out of her skin while Bailey sprang up from her seat.
“Somebody, help me!” a frantic looking man carrying a screaming child called out. His blue eyes darted from one side of the hall to the other as he numbly stumbled forward. “She...she won't stop crying!”
Bailey darted around the end of the desk as she headed toward the man. “Sir, I need you to calm down.”
“Calm down?!” the man shouted back. “Do you hear this?!” he added as he lifted his daughter up a little higher. The girl was still screaming, her face red and streaked with tears.
Yang blinked and stuck her finger in her ear, rubbing at the inside.
This? Right here? Why she didn’t do the whole ‘kid’ thing.
“I’ll just be…” She started to shuffle away, but Bailey turned and caught her with one of those terrifying ‘Nazi woman’ stares of hers.
“Yang, get your skinny little ass over here right now,” she barked.
Cristina hung her head with a sigh, but obediently marched over as Bailey had the man put his kid down onto an open bed. “What…” She cleared her throat, ears ringing from the loud cries. “What seems to be the problem!” she shouted overtop of it.
The man looked at her with wide eyes.
Bailey leaned over next to Cristina's ear so she could hear her. “I think the terrified, never ending screaming would be her biggest symptom.”
Yang nodded. “Right.”
***
Bailey struggled to hold the little girl down against the gurney. The child was in obvious, excruciating pain as she kicked and screamed at anyone who tried to touch her.
“I need an IV stat!” she called out to the hoard of nurses standing around her. “Somebody get some morphine into this kid!”
When nobody immediately reacted, Cristina rolled her eyes before pushing the nearest nurse out of the way.
Bailey winced as she tried to hold the toddler down while Yang worked to get a needle into her arm. “And get me Dr. Robbins!”
***
“You just gonna hide in here all day?”
Callie was stretched out on a bed in the on-call room. Her arms were folded under her head and her ankles were crossed. Her gaze was trained on the bunk directly above her head.
“I was doing a pretty good job of it 'til you showed up.”
Mark Sloan smiled, shaking his head as he walked over from the doorway. “It's been two days, Torres,” he stated blatantly as he climbed over her prone body and collapsed onto the other side of the bed. He looked down as he rested his elbow on his leg. “You're hiding.”
Callie sighed. “I know.”
***
The girl was a little more manageable now that the morphine had started to kick in. Tears were still falling from her eyes and she was still whimpering in pain, but at least she had stopped kicking.
Yang released a heavy sigh. “Oh thank God.”
Across the hall, the elevator doors opened and Arizona Robbins pushed past several people to jog over to Bailey and Yang, her white lab coat in hand, trailing behind her. “I’m here! Sorry.”
Cristina turned to glare a little at Arizona. “I paged you twenty minutes ago.”
Dr. Robbins glared right back as she shrugged on the white coat. “Surgery, Dr. Yang. You expected me to leave a ten month old with his chest cracked open on the table?”
Yang’s eyes widened. “Mini heart surgery?” When all she received in return was a silent, pointed glare, she mumbled under her breath and turned back to the patient. “Anna Drake, three years old, in severe distress. We gave her just enough morphine to relieve some of the pain.”
Arizona furrowed her brow. “Pain from what, Dr. Yang?”
Bailey, who was standing next to the father trying to keep him calm, looked up as the two other women approached the bed.
Cristina blanked and looked at Bailey. “Um…”
Arizona glanced to the father. “Mr. Drake, I’m Dr. Robbins. Can you tell me exactly what happened?” She pulled on some latex gloves while the father stuttered for an answer.
“I don’t…I-I don’t know. We were at the playground, a-and she fell, and then she wouldn’t stop screaming.” He still looked like he was in shock and at a loss for what to do.
“Fell? From how high?” Arizona asked.
“S-she didn’t. She was running on the ground. I swear she only just scraped her knee, but she wouldn’t stop screaming…” He gulped.
Arizona kept herself from frowning at that answer as she turned to look at the patient with a warm smile. “Hey there, Anna. My name is Arizona. I’m here to help you feel better, okay? I just need to take a tiny look around to see where it hurts.”
Still smiling, she placed her right hand onto the little girl's leg. Anna instantly jerked it with a soft cry.
Arizona's brow furrowed as she quickly pulled her hand away. She glanced up to inspect the cut and bruising on the little girl's knee. “That seems like a lot of pain for a scraped knee. Even one like this.” She trailed her eyes over the rest of the girl's body.
Anna was favoring her right wrist and kept it tucked closely next to her body.
Arizona very gently checked a few other visible marks on the girl’s body, and then pulled her hands away. She knew any touch was resulting in excruciating pain, and didn’t want to inflict anymore than she had to. “Sweetie, I’m gonna take you to get some x-rays, okay? I promise it won’t hurt any extra.” She glanced up at the father. “I think she might have fractured something in the fall.”
She glanced over to Cristina as she and Bailey flipped up the sides of the gurney and got the little girl ready to move. “Dr. Yang, call ahead to radiology, and then escort Mr. Drake to the waiting area.”
***
Arizona pushed open the door to the x-ray viewing room a little while later to find Miranda Bailey already standing there waiting for her. “Is it just me, or is the Mercy West radiologist much less pleasant than our old one used to be?”
“Mercy Westers in general are less pleasant than a colony of fire ants,” Bailey murmured as her eyes studied the blood work papers in her hands.
Sighing, Arizona pulled open the file and started to tack up each x-ray to a light box. “She’s tiny enough that we did just about her entire body, but I wanted to focus on extremities. Something just doesn’t seem right.”
She finished displaying them, flipped the light on and stepped back to observe.
There was a long pause between the two women, during which time both of their facial expressions very slowly began to give way to complete shock.
“Oh my God,” Arizona mumbled under her breath after a few seconds.
“We need a social worker,” Bailey added absently.
“And Calliope,” Arizona sighed. “Great.”
***
Mark had laid down next to his best friend, almost a perfect copy of her current position, hands behind his head and ankles crossed. He let out a little sigh as he continued to look up at the bunk above them.
“She called yet?”
Callie waited before replying. “No.”
Mark turned his head. “You called her?”
“You're really kinda missing the whole point of a break up, Mark,” Callie shot back as she finally tore her gaze from the bed above to meet his eyes.
Mark went silent for a moment. “You could still call her.”
Callie sighed and closed her eyes. “Shut up, Mark.”
There was a tentative knock on the door, and Mark pushed himself up onto his elbows. “Yeah.”
It opened, and a very peeved looking Cristina Yang poked her head in.
She was not an errand girl for bossy attendings.
“You’re needed,” she called out to Callie in a deadpan voice.
But the ortho surgeon didn't budge. She just kinda...pouted instead.
“Don't care,” she grumbled.
Yang rolled her eyes. “Would you just get over it already?” she shot back, her left hand holding the door wide open. “So she dumped you because she didn't want ten little brats running around her legs and spitting mashed up bananas in her hair.”
Callie's brow twisted as she looked over to her roommate. “Uh, not even.”
“Who cares,” Cristina whined. “I was just told to page you, and after that didn't work...” she added with a sharp look to her friend.
Callie glanced around innocently. “My pager is...lost. I lost it. Yep. Completely...lost.”
Mark reached down between them, and not even a second later, a loud beeping broke the silence. He smirked as he pulled his hand away.
Callie narrowed her eyes to shoot him a glare. “I hate you.” She shifted a bit on the bed as the beeping continued. “Did you have to set it to vibrate, too?”
Mark's smirk widened as Cristina groaned.
“Would you just come on already?” she shot back in annoyance. “I've totally had to pee for like the last ten minutes of aimless wandering.”
Callie finally began to smile as she sat up, reaching down to shut off her pager. “I'm all yours, Yang.”
“Finally,” Cristina grumbled as she moved to back out of the room. She paused mid-step and then stuck her head back in. “It's Robbins' consult, by the way.”
Callie's smile instantly vanished.
***
Arizona was standing in the hallway outside of the x-ray room with the social worker, conversing in low, but urgent voices.
Midway through a sentence, she spotted Callie at the other end of the hall, over the social worker’s shoulder.
It took some effort to tear her eyes away, but she did. “We really don’t know anything just yet, but for a so called playground fall, her leg and wrist are way too damaged. And with what the x-rays show in history…”
“I’ll talk to the father,” the social worker agreed. “See what I can get out of him. For now, I’ll try and keep him away from the kid.” With a nod, she headed toward the waiting area to find Nathan Drake.
Arizona sighed heavily and ran a hand back through her hair as Callie slowly and begrudgingly neared her.
After a moment of silence, Arizona managed a shaky smile. “Hi, Calliope.”
“Yeah, hi,” Callie instantly answered as she brushed past the blonde to head into the room.
Arizona watched her walked by, a sad look in her eyes. She waited a moment before pulling the door open to follow her ex.
***
Mark was seated at one of the lunch tables, munching on a crisp apple when he suddenly felt a slap to the back of his head. His body jolted forward, and he nearly choked on his bite of fruit. “Uh, ow.”
Meredith Grey stepped around from behind him, her arms cross as she shot him a glare. “What the hell are you thinking?”
“What?” Mark shot back with an innocent jerk of his shoulders. “What'd I do this time?”
“Oh you know damn well what you did,” the other surgeon replied in kind as she reached down to pull out the chair nearest to him. She leveled him with another hard glare. “Cristina told me she overheard you talking to Callie.”
Mark's eyes slowly closed as he let out a deep sigh.
“You can't do this, Mark,” Meredith added in a much softer tone. “You can't try to fix something that's broken for a reason.”
“Have you seen Torres in the last two days?” Sloan retorted as he fixed his gaze onto Derek’s wife. “She's a mess. She barely eats. She doesn't answer her phone. Turns off her pager.” He waved his apple through the air. “When have you ever known her to give up an opportunity at a rare disfigurement or a shattered...anything?”
Meredith glared.
“You know I'm right,” Mark went on as he bit into his apple. He chewed for a minute. “She rarely sleeps. Hides all the time.” He reached for his juice box. “She's broken.”
“She broke up with her girlfriend,” Meredith stated. “Of course she’s depressed. She’s going to be upset. She’s going to cry. She’s going to pout. And considering Arizona works in the same hospital, some level of hiding can be expected.” She paused, waiting for him to say something. When he didn’t, she continued. “It’s only going to hurt more if you keep trying to push her and Arizona together when they clearly don’t fit.”
Mark turned in his chair to fix Meredith was a hard stare. “You and Derek had your drama for how many years before you were finally pushed back together? And now look at you. Happy and fake-post-it married. I’d like to spare Callie the ‘several years’ part and get her and Robbins to talk or something. Torres wasn’t this upset over Hahn. Not even O’Malley. That’s how I know I’m right, Grey.”
“George cheated on her with Izzie,” Meredith shot back. “And Erica was her first lesbian,” she pointed out, “not love.” She reached out with a sudden hand to grab Mark by the front of his scrubs. “I swear to anything Holy, Mark-”
“Geeze, Grey,” Sloan cut in, a little shocked by her physicality.
“Zip it,” Meredith quickly shushed him. She pulled on his scrubs just a little harder. “You're gonna stay out of it-” Mark opened his mouth to protest, but she quickly cut him off. “I said zip!”
Sloan slumped with a pout.
“You are gonna stay out of it. They are broken up for a reason.” She gave another hard tug to his shirt. He groaned a little. “I'll admit things weren't always so 'post-it' with Derek,” Meredith went on as her voice grew softer. “They are now, and that's great. But sometimes, even when you push for all the right reasons, it can still find some way to totally and completely blow up in your face.”
“Ahh,” Mark protested, a little frightened. “I’m not going to make things blow up…I’m trying to un-blow them.”
Both doctors paused for a moment.
“You know what I mean,” Mark added after a beat.
Meredith sighed as she released her grip on his shirt. She fell back into her own chair, resting her elbow on the table as she reached up to rub at her brow. “Nothing I say is gonna change your mind, is it?”
Mark released a low sigh of his own as he folded his arms over his chest and slouched down in his chair. “Nope.”
There was a short pause.
“You better not make it any worse,” Meredith warned as she dropped her hand and sat up in her chair. She leaned forward, setting a hard glare on the other surgeon. “I'll totally kick your ass.”
“Why do you even care?” Mark shot back, but with a laugh.
“I resent that,” Meredith retorted as she reached out to smack him upside the head once more. “I care about Callie.” She retracted her hand, but kept her glare set firmly on the man. “But you know it as well as I do. When anything happens to anyone in this hospital, it always somehow finds a way to suck us all in.”
***
“There’s at least nine previous fractures, and only one was treated by a physician according to her records. Not to mention her right tibia and radius are currently shattered.” Arizona sighed, staring at the x-rays. She had her arms crossed stiffly against her chest and her jaw set in anger, imagining beating the father’s face into the cement out in the parking lot. “Bastard,” she murmured. “Who beats a toddler?”
Callie's brow was scrunched thoughtfully as she stared at the images before her. “Maybe,” she replied, clearly distracted by the x-ray. “Look at this,” she added as she reached up to trace her finger along the picture. “Doesn't this look a little odd to you? Like maybe even a little deformed?”
Arizona stepped forward, eyes narrowing as her gaze followed the line of her ex's finger. “Huh.”
“I'll see that 'huh',” Callie instantly added, “and raise you a 'hmm'.” Her own gaze narrowed as she focused in on the x-ray once more. “This might not be from abuse. It takes a lot of force to break a bone this badly, even in such a little body. And she’s showing no external signs of trauma from what you told me.”
Arizona squinted at the x-rays, shifting a little bit closer. “She’s three. How on earth did she break this many bones without her parents noticing?” Arizona scoffed, shaking her head. “Even if he isn’t responsible, I don’t want him alone with her until we’re sure. Negligent isn’t much better than abusive.”
There was still an angry ball of fire inside her chest at the thought of that sweet little girl being hit, but she did her best to swallow and force it back. They had no proof, and until they learned more…
Well, she couldn’t go out there and bash his head in without costing the hospital a lot of money.
“Do you know where you want to start?” She glanced sideways at Callie, still avoiding direct eye contact.
Callie's dark brown gaze had already shifted back to the scans. “Don't need to,” she replied absently. She took a short step forward. “What color are her eyes?”
Arizona's brow raised. “Uh, blue, I think. Why?”
Callie quickly glanced to the right. “Like completely blue?”
Arizona tilted her head a bit, clearly confused. “Say what now?”
“Her eyes,” Callie shot back in frustration as she turned her body to fully face her ex. “Are they completely blue? Or just the iris?”
Arizona frowned, thinking. “I don’t know. They were bloodshot and puffy when they brought her in. Took Yang and Bailey twenty five minutes to get her to calm down enough to even take her blood pressure.”
She tilted her head to the side, surveying Callie curiously. “You’ve got that look. What are you thinking?”
Dr. Torres chewed on her bottom lip as she thought. “It's a long shot at this point,” she informed the blonde as a slow smile began to overtake her lips. “And I could be wrong...”
Arizona found herself smiling in return.
“What if it's not abuse, but something else that's been causing all these fractures?”
“Something else?” Arizona echoed with curiosity.
Callie was starting to feel...excited. The 'non-sex' kind of excited.
For the first time in a good many days.
“Yeah,” Callie replied, still grinning despite the fact that her recently ex-girlfriend was the only other person in the room. And they weren't ripping each others’ scrubs off.
Huh.
Arizona nodded, still smiling, and waited for Callie to elaborate. When she didn’t, the pediatric surgeon laughed softly and stepped a little closer. “You just gonna leave me hanging, Torres, or are you gonna share?” She automatically reached out to grasp the hem of Callie’s scrubs with the very tips of her fingers, playing with the material a little.
Old habit. Had yet to die hard.
She realized it pretty much as soon as she did it, and her smile immediately fell a little. The blonde cleared her throat softly and dropped her hand away, hoping that maybe Callie hadn’t noticed.
Callie's own hand instantly reached up to snag her by the wrist before it could pull completely away. The brunette's smile was still intact, but had grown considerably...different.
A little...sexy.
Seductive, even.
Arizona swallowed back.
Callie gave a little tug on the wrist in her grasp. She knew this was wrong. She knew it was wrong on so many levels.
They'd had the talk. The talk. The talk to end all talks.
It was final. They agreed.
They were over.
That was it.
So why was she still pulling Arizona closer? Guiding the hand in her grasp onto her hip, reaching out with her own to thread her fingers through soft blonde locks.
Leaning in closer.
Arizona was just resigning herself to the fact that they could never, ever be alone together, ever again.
...after this.
She closed her eyes, their lips barely a hairs width apart, the only sound in the room their shallow breathing. But they both stopped, and just kind of…hovered there.
“We’re really, really terrible at this,” Arizona murmured softly, smiling again despite herself.
“Worst ever,” Callie agreed with a low chuckle.
Arizona opened her eyes again and looked up into the slightly taller woman’s. Her own were filled with a little bit of sadness, and a lot of love.
Somewhere along the way, Callie's free hand had somehow found itself onto the other woman's hip, her fingers gently playing with the material of Arizona's scrubs.
It was so powerful. Just that one touch, and Callie felt like she was instantly reconnected with her former girlfriend.
Just like that.
Which was...bad.
Good, but bad.
Very, very bad.
Because they were supposed to be broken up. She wasn't supposed to be still feeling this.
It wasn't supposed to be this easy. Not anymore.
Callie's smile vanished as she swallowed back, gazing into those soft blue eyes. “Can...can I,” she started, her heart hammering in her chest. “Can I have just one last kiss?” She paused for a moment. “Please?”
Instead of answering with words, Arizona closed the small remaining distance between them and fulfilled Callie’s request.
For both of them.
It wasn’t a hard or feverish kiss like the previous ones. No, this one was much more…soft and slow, yet just as deep and meaningful as always.
Like it was the last kiss they’d ever have.
Her hands tightened their grip on Callie’s hips, bunching dark blue scrubs into her fists.
Callie willingly surrendered to the kiss. She moaned softly, but didn't try to increase the pressure.
Right away.
But then, after only seconds, it was like everything just...changed.
Before she knew it, Callie was pushing Arizona up against the nearest wall.
Arizona pulled Callie hard against her, moaning into the kiss.
Jesus, what the hell was wrong with them? Could they really not be alone in a room together without doing…this?
Apparently not.
She released Callie’s shirt and brought both hands up to cup the brunette’s face between them as they kissed.
Callie moaned in return.
Because it just felt so...
Her hands moved a little further down on the blonde's hips, and then slipped underneath the material of her scrub shirt.
The instant Callie's fingers made contact with warm skin, it sent a jolt through her entire body.
“Fuck,” she moaned as she pulled back from the kiss just long enough to take in a breath. She blinked, frowning a little. “What are we - oh, screw it.” Callie pushed forward into the kiss.
Arizona grinned into it despite herself. Her fingers weaved themselves into dark brown locks, and she -
The door burst open.
- jumped away from Callie so fast she almost tripped and fell sideways along the wall.
And she would have, if it weren't for the arms that Callie still had wrapped around her waist.
Dr. Bailey suddenly looked up from her papers at the image before her.
She looked to Callie. And then to Arizona. And back to Callie.
Then turned on her heel and headed straight back out of the room.
Callie stood in silence, rooted to the spot as she watched the big door swing shut with the general surgeon's departure. Her hand was still resting against Arizona's hip, and she made no effort to move it.
Arizona was the first to speak. “Oh…crap.” She winced and finally tore her gaze from the door to look back at Callie. “I think we’re gonna hear about this later.”
For just a second, as soon as her eyes met the brunette’s, she felt lost in them.
All over again.
Arizona felt the sudden urge to yell ‘Fuck it, let’s have a baby!’, if it meant that she and Callie could just be together again. She felt like she’d do anything to get things back to the way they were before. After all, it wasn’t just a sexual attraction that kept pulling them back together like this. There was still that intense spark between them that had grown immensely since Arizona had first kissed Callie in that bathroom over a year ago.
It meant something, right? That they kept finding themselves in this position? It had to.
But…
But.
Arizona looked up at Callie to say something, but all her mouth could do was hang partway open while her mind tried to make itself up about what to say.
Callie's brow furrowed in concern. Her fingers flexed, gripping onto the material of the blonde's scrubs. “Arizona?” she called softly when the blonde still didn’t say anything.
Arizona fought to speak for a moment longer. “I…I…” Her grip on Callie’s scrub shirt tightened. “I wan-”
The doors blew open again, and a pissed off looking Dr. Bailey came stalking back in. She had a firm grip on Lexi Grey’s white lab coat sleeve and was literally dragging the young resident in behind her. Lexi just looked confused, and was eventually pulled to a rough halt beside Bailey.
Lexi straightened up and blinked, looking around. She took in the way Arizona and Callie were intertwined around one another, and smiled for a second. “You guys are back togeth-”
“They most certainly are not,” Bailey cut in, her authoritive and angry voice enough to make Arizona quiver a little bit. “And it’s now up to you to make sure they stay that way, Little Grey. You will not leave Calliope Torres’ side for one single second, not until this case is over and that little girl is sent home happy and healthy, which from the look of things, is gonna be a while.”
Lexi, Callie, and Arizona all looked at Bailey in shock.
“But, I’m not on this case,” Lexi pointed out, fearing the answer.
“Well, you are now,” Bailey snapped. She looked at the two lovers and shook her head. “Unbelievable. You two are like a pair of bunnies in heat, goin’ at it in on-call rooms and supply closets and now the x-ray station? Pathetic. Pull yourselves together, people, and for Gods sake, keep your damn pants on. We have a sick child here, what is wrong with you?”
Then, she just as abruptly turned and strode from the room, the door slamming shut behind her.
Lexi watched her go, then turned to look at the other two with a visible gulp. “Um…”
Callie stared back at Little Grey for a long moment. And then, with a heavy sigh, she finally released her grip on her ex's scrubs. She took a few steps back as she reached up to rub at her brow.
It seemed that everyone in this entire fucking hospital was out to get her.
And apparently suddenly involved in her relationship.
Or her...'not-a-relationship'.
Whatever.
Callie sighed again as she finally lifted her gaze to meet her ex-girlfriend's. She offered an apologetic smile. Then she turned her attention to the other set of brown eyes in the room.
“C'mon, Little Grey,” she called softly as she walked over, never pausing in her stride as she grabbed the resident by her sleeve.
Lexi only had a moment to blink at Arizona before she was suddenly jerked backward towards the door.
Arizona closed her eyes and was about to beat her head against the nearest light box, when she suddenly stopped and turned back to the door. “Wait.”
Callie and Lexi stopped just before exiting. Callie looked curious and Lexi looked scared.
“You never told me why you wanted to know about her eyes. The ‘long shot’ idea.” Arizona looked tired, but curious at the same time.
Callie flashed her ex a grin. “Come see the MRI I’m ordering and I’ll show you.”
---
Chapter 5/23
Authors: Faith & Kye
Pairing: Callie/Arizona
Rating: NC-17
Story Summary: Post-6x17 "Push" -- Arizona prefers chickens to children, and Callie isn't okay with that. Heartbroken and lonely, the two women try unsuccessfully to move on with their lives, only to find they really are made for eachother.
Chapter Summary: The first in a series of important medical cases linking Callie and Arizona shows up at Seattle Grace. Bailey interferes with their not-a-relationship.
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Previous Chapters
A/N: Thanks for the feedback, as always, Kye and I appreciate it! We love knowing what you guys think. Un-betaed, so all fuck ups are things I've missed.
Also, I took a look at the requests thread, but there hasn't been anything recent. If anyone has any burning ideas they're dying to request, I might give it a shot. Preferably canon Calzona, no far-in-the-future or completely AU wackiness, but other than that I'm pretty open to writing anything with them.
---
Miranda Bailey was situated at the ER desk with a sad, bored look on her face. Her elbow was propped up on the hard surface, cheek resting in her palm. She watched with disinterest as Cristina Yang walked up.
Yang smiled, crossing her arms as she placed her file onto the counter. “How's ER duty goin' for ya?”
Bailey still stared straight ahead, absently clicking the pen in her other hand. “Single biggest thrill of my life,” she replied in monotone.
Cristina was smirking as she turned around to rest her back against the desk, propping her elbows up onto the counter. She looked out at the quiet, calm, nearly empty floor. “Something cardio is coming. I can smell it. Something that’ll make this day is suck less is about to walk through those-”
Her words were abruptly cut off when the large double doors suddenly swung open. The sound of a high-pitched, terrified scream unsettled the calm.
Yang nearly jumped out of her skin while Bailey sprang up from her seat.
“Somebody, help me!” a frantic looking man carrying a screaming child called out. His blue eyes darted from one side of the hall to the other as he numbly stumbled forward. “She...she won't stop crying!”
Bailey darted around the end of the desk as she headed toward the man. “Sir, I need you to calm down.”
“Calm down?!” the man shouted back. “Do you hear this?!” he added as he lifted his daughter up a little higher. The girl was still screaming, her face red and streaked with tears.
Yang blinked and stuck her finger in her ear, rubbing at the inside.
This? Right here? Why she didn’t do the whole ‘kid’ thing.
“I’ll just be…” She started to shuffle away, but Bailey turned and caught her with one of those terrifying ‘Nazi woman’ stares of hers.
“Yang, get your skinny little ass over here right now,” she barked.
Cristina hung her head with a sigh, but obediently marched over as Bailey had the man put his kid down onto an open bed. “What…” She cleared her throat, ears ringing from the loud cries. “What seems to be the problem!” she shouted overtop of it.
The man looked at her with wide eyes.
Bailey leaned over next to Cristina's ear so she could hear her. “I think the terrified, never ending screaming would be her biggest symptom.”
Yang nodded. “Right.”
***
Bailey struggled to hold the little girl down against the gurney. The child was in obvious, excruciating pain as she kicked and screamed at anyone who tried to touch her.
“I need an IV stat!” she called out to the hoard of nurses standing around her. “Somebody get some morphine into this kid!”
When nobody immediately reacted, Cristina rolled her eyes before pushing the nearest nurse out of the way.
Bailey winced as she tried to hold the toddler down while Yang worked to get a needle into her arm. “And get me Dr. Robbins!”
***
“You just gonna hide in here all day?”
Callie was stretched out on a bed in the on-call room. Her arms were folded under her head and her ankles were crossed. Her gaze was trained on the bunk directly above her head.
“I was doing a pretty good job of it 'til you showed up.”
Mark Sloan smiled, shaking his head as he walked over from the doorway. “It's been two days, Torres,” he stated blatantly as he climbed over her prone body and collapsed onto the other side of the bed. He looked down as he rested his elbow on his leg. “You're hiding.”
Callie sighed. “I know.”
***
The girl was a little more manageable now that the morphine had started to kick in. Tears were still falling from her eyes and she was still whimpering in pain, but at least she had stopped kicking.
Yang released a heavy sigh. “Oh thank God.”
Across the hall, the elevator doors opened and Arizona Robbins pushed past several people to jog over to Bailey and Yang, her white lab coat in hand, trailing behind her. “I’m here! Sorry.”
Cristina turned to glare a little at Arizona. “I paged you twenty minutes ago.”
Dr. Robbins glared right back as she shrugged on the white coat. “Surgery, Dr. Yang. You expected me to leave a ten month old with his chest cracked open on the table?”
Yang’s eyes widened. “Mini heart surgery?” When all she received in return was a silent, pointed glare, she mumbled under her breath and turned back to the patient. “Anna Drake, three years old, in severe distress. We gave her just enough morphine to relieve some of the pain.”
Arizona furrowed her brow. “Pain from what, Dr. Yang?”
Bailey, who was standing next to the father trying to keep him calm, looked up as the two other women approached the bed.
Cristina blanked and looked at Bailey. “Um…”
Arizona glanced to the father. “Mr. Drake, I’m Dr. Robbins. Can you tell me exactly what happened?” She pulled on some latex gloves while the father stuttered for an answer.
“I don’t…I-I don’t know. We were at the playground, a-and she fell, and then she wouldn’t stop screaming.” He still looked like he was in shock and at a loss for what to do.
“Fell? From how high?” Arizona asked.
“S-she didn’t. She was running on the ground. I swear she only just scraped her knee, but she wouldn’t stop screaming…” He gulped.
Arizona kept herself from frowning at that answer as she turned to look at the patient with a warm smile. “Hey there, Anna. My name is Arizona. I’m here to help you feel better, okay? I just need to take a tiny look around to see where it hurts.”
Still smiling, she placed her right hand onto the little girl's leg. Anna instantly jerked it with a soft cry.
Arizona's brow furrowed as she quickly pulled her hand away. She glanced up to inspect the cut and bruising on the little girl's knee. “That seems like a lot of pain for a scraped knee. Even one like this.” She trailed her eyes over the rest of the girl's body.
Anna was favoring her right wrist and kept it tucked closely next to her body.
Arizona very gently checked a few other visible marks on the girl’s body, and then pulled her hands away. She knew any touch was resulting in excruciating pain, and didn’t want to inflict anymore than she had to. “Sweetie, I’m gonna take you to get some x-rays, okay? I promise it won’t hurt any extra.” She glanced up at the father. “I think she might have fractured something in the fall.”
She glanced over to Cristina as she and Bailey flipped up the sides of the gurney and got the little girl ready to move. “Dr. Yang, call ahead to radiology, and then escort Mr. Drake to the waiting area.”
***
Arizona pushed open the door to the x-ray viewing room a little while later to find Miranda Bailey already standing there waiting for her. “Is it just me, or is the Mercy West radiologist much less pleasant than our old one used to be?”
“Mercy Westers in general are less pleasant than a colony of fire ants,” Bailey murmured as her eyes studied the blood work papers in her hands.
Sighing, Arizona pulled open the file and started to tack up each x-ray to a light box. “She’s tiny enough that we did just about her entire body, but I wanted to focus on extremities. Something just doesn’t seem right.”
She finished displaying them, flipped the light on and stepped back to observe.
There was a long pause between the two women, during which time both of their facial expressions very slowly began to give way to complete shock.
“Oh my God,” Arizona mumbled under her breath after a few seconds.
“We need a social worker,” Bailey added absently.
“And Calliope,” Arizona sighed. “Great.”
***
Mark had laid down next to his best friend, almost a perfect copy of her current position, hands behind his head and ankles crossed. He let out a little sigh as he continued to look up at the bunk above them.
“She called yet?”
Callie waited before replying. “No.”
Mark turned his head. “You called her?”
“You're really kinda missing the whole point of a break up, Mark,” Callie shot back as she finally tore her gaze from the bed above to meet his eyes.
Mark went silent for a moment. “You could still call her.”
Callie sighed and closed her eyes. “Shut up, Mark.”
There was a tentative knock on the door, and Mark pushed himself up onto his elbows. “Yeah.”
It opened, and a very peeved looking Cristina Yang poked her head in.
She was not an errand girl for bossy attendings.
“You’re needed,” she called out to Callie in a deadpan voice.
But the ortho surgeon didn't budge. She just kinda...pouted instead.
“Don't care,” she grumbled.
Yang rolled her eyes. “Would you just get over it already?” she shot back, her left hand holding the door wide open. “So she dumped you because she didn't want ten little brats running around her legs and spitting mashed up bananas in her hair.”
Callie's brow twisted as she looked over to her roommate. “Uh, not even.”
“Who cares,” Cristina whined. “I was just told to page you, and after that didn't work...” she added with a sharp look to her friend.
Callie glanced around innocently. “My pager is...lost. I lost it. Yep. Completely...lost.”
Mark reached down between them, and not even a second later, a loud beeping broke the silence. He smirked as he pulled his hand away.
Callie narrowed her eyes to shoot him a glare. “I hate you.” She shifted a bit on the bed as the beeping continued. “Did you have to set it to vibrate, too?”
Mark's smirk widened as Cristina groaned.
“Would you just come on already?” she shot back in annoyance. “I've totally had to pee for like the last ten minutes of aimless wandering.”
Callie finally began to smile as she sat up, reaching down to shut off her pager. “I'm all yours, Yang.”
“Finally,” Cristina grumbled as she moved to back out of the room. She paused mid-step and then stuck her head back in. “It's Robbins' consult, by the way.”
Callie's smile instantly vanished.
***
Arizona was standing in the hallway outside of the x-ray room with the social worker, conversing in low, but urgent voices.
Midway through a sentence, she spotted Callie at the other end of the hall, over the social worker’s shoulder.
It took some effort to tear her eyes away, but she did. “We really don’t know anything just yet, but for a so called playground fall, her leg and wrist are way too damaged. And with what the x-rays show in history…”
“I’ll talk to the father,” the social worker agreed. “See what I can get out of him. For now, I’ll try and keep him away from the kid.” With a nod, she headed toward the waiting area to find Nathan Drake.
Arizona sighed heavily and ran a hand back through her hair as Callie slowly and begrudgingly neared her.
After a moment of silence, Arizona managed a shaky smile. “Hi, Calliope.”
“Yeah, hi,” Callie instantly answered as she brushed past the blonde to head into the room.
Arizona watched her walked by, a sad look in her eyes. She waited a moment before pulling the door open to follow her ex.
***
Mark was seated at one of the lunch tables, munching on a crisp apple when he suddenly felt a slap to the back of his head. His body jolted forward, and he nearly choked on his bite of fruit. “Uh, ow.”
Meredith Grey stepped around from behind him, her arms cross as she shot him a glare. “What the hell are you thinking?”
“What?” Mark shot back with an innocent jerk of his shoulders. “What'd I do this time?”
“Oh you know damn well what you did,” the other surgeon replied in kind as she reached down to pull out the chair nearest to him. She leveled him with another hard glare. “Cristina told me she overheard you talking to Callie.”
Mark's eyes slowly closed as he let out a deep sigh.
“You can't do this, Mark,” Meredith added in a much softer tone. “You can't try to fix something that's broken for a reason.”
“Have you seen Torres in the last two days?” Sloan retorted as he fixed his gaze onto Derek’s wife. “She's a mess. She barely eats. She doesn't answer her phone. Turns off her pager.” He waved his apple through the air. “When have you ever known her to give up an opportunity at a rare disfigurement or a shattered...anything?”
Meredith glared.
“You know I'm right,” Mark went on as he bit into his apple. He chewed for a minute. “She rarely sleeps. Hides all the time.” He reached for his juice box. “She's broken.”
“She broke up with her girlfriend,” Meredith stated. “Of course she’s depressed. She’s going to be upset. She’s going to cry. She’s going to pout. And considering Arizona works in the same hospital, some level of hiding can be expected.” She paused, waiting for him to say something. When he didn’t, she continued. “It’s only going to hurt more if you keep trying to push her and Arizona together when they clearly don’t fit.”
Mark turned in his chair to fix Meredith was a hard stare. “You and Derek had your drama for how many years before you were finally pushed back together? And now look at you. Happy and fake-post-it married. I’d like to spare Callie the ‘several years’ part and get her and Robbins to talk or something. Torres wasn’t this upset over Hahn. Not even O’Malley. That’s how I know I’m right, Grey.”
“George cheated on her with Izzie,” Meredith shot back. “And Erica was her first lesbian,” she pointed out, “not love.” She reached out with a sudden hand to grab Mark by the front of his scrubs. “I swear to anything Holy, Mark-”
“Geeze, Grey,” Sloan cut in, a little shocked by her physicality.
“Zip it,” Meredith quickly shushed him. She pulled on his scrubs just a little harder. “You're gonna stay out of it-” Mark opened his mouth to protest, but she quickly cut him off. “I said zip!”
Sloan slumped with a pout.
“You are gonna stay out of it. They are broken up for a reason.” She gave another hard tug to his shirt. He groaned a little. “I'll admit things weren't always so 'post-it' with Derek,” Meredith went on as her voice grew softer. “They are now, and that's great. But sometimes, even when you push for all the right reasons, it can still find some way to totally and completely blow up in your face.”
“Ahh,” Mark protested, a little frightened. “I’m not going to make things blow up…I’m trying to un-blow them.”
Both doctors paused for a moment.
“You know what I mean,” Mark added after a beat.
Meredith sighed as she released her grip on his shirt. She fell back into her own chair, resting her elbow on the table as she reached up to rub at her brow. “Nothing I say is gonna change your mind, is it?”
Mark released a low sigh of his own as he folded his arms over his chest and slouched down in his chair. “Nope.”
There was a short pause.
“You better not make it any worse,” Meredith warned as she dropped her hand and sat up in her chair. She leaned forward, setting a hard glare on the other surgeon. “I'll totally kick your ass.”
“Why do you even care?” Mark shot back, but with a laugh.
“I resent that,” Meredith retorted as she reached out to smack him upside the head once more. “I care about Callie.” She retracted her hand, but kept her glare set firmly on the man. “But you know it as well as I do. When anything happens to anyone in this hospital, it always somehow finds a way to suck us all in.”
***
“There’s at least nine previous fractures, and only one was treated by a physician according to her records. Not to mention her right tibia and radius are currently shattered.” Arizona sighed, staring at the x-rays. She had her arms crossed stiffly against her chest and her jaw set in anger, imagining beating the father’s face into the cement out in the parking lot. “Bastard,” she murmured. “Who beats a toddler?”
Callie's brow was scrunched thoughtfully as she stared at the images before her. “Maybe,” she replied, clearly distracted by the x-ray. “Look at this,” she added as she reached up to trace her finger along the picture. “Doesn't this look a little odd to you? Like maybe even a little deformed?”
Arizona stepped forward, eyes narrowing as her gaze followed the line of her ex's finger. “Huh.”
“I'll see that 'huh',” Callie instantly added, “and raise you a 'hmm'.” Her own gaze narrowed as she focused in on the x-ray once more. “This might not be from abuse. It takes a lot of force to break a bone this badly, even in such a little body. And she’s showing no external signs of trauma from what you told me.”
Arizona squinted at the x-rays, shifting a little bit closer. “She’s three. How on earth did she break this many bones without her parents noticing?” Arizona scoffed, shaking her head. “Even if he isn’t responsible, I don’t want him alone with her until we’re sure. Negligent isn’t much better than abusive.”
There was still an angry ball of fire inside her chest at the thought of that sweet little girl being hit, but she did her best to swallow and force it back. They had no proof, and until they learned more…
Well, she couldn’t go out there and bash his head in without costing the hospital a lot of money.
“Do you know where you want to start?” She glanced sideways at Callie, still avoiding direct eye contact.
Callie's dark brown gaze had already shifted back to the scans. “Don't need to,” she replied absently. She took a short step forward. “What color are her eyes?”
Arizona's brow raised. “Uh, blue, I think. Why?”
Callie quickly glanced to the right. “Like completely blue?”
Arizona tilted her head a bit, clearly confused. “Say what now?”
“Her eyes,” Callie shot back in frustration as she turned her body to fully face her ex. “Are they completely blue? Or just the iris?”
Arizona frowned, thinking. “I don’t know. They were bloodshot and puffy when they brought her in. Took Yang and Bailey twenty five minutes to get her to calm down enough to even take her blood pressure.”
She tilted her head to the side, surveying Callie curiously. “You’ve got that look. What are you thinking?”
Dr. Torres chewed on her bottom lip as she thought. “It's a long shot at this point,” she informed the blonde as a slow smile began to overtake her lips. “And I could be wrong...”
Arizona found herself smiling in return.
“What if it's not abuse, but something else that's been causing all these fractures?”
“Something else?” Arizona echoed with curiosity.
Callie was starting to feel...excited. The 'non-sex' kind of excited.
For the first time in a good many days.
“Yeah,” Callie replied, still grinning despite the fact that her recently ex-girlfriend was the only other person in the room. And they weren't ripping each others’ scrubs off.
Huh.
Arizona nodded, still smiling, and waited for Callie to elaborate. When she didn’t, the pediatric surgeon laughed softly and stepped a little closer. “You just gonna leave me hanging, Torres, or are you gonna share?” She automatically reached out to grasp the hem of Callie’s scrubs with the very tips of her fingers, playing with the material a little.
Old habit. Had yet to die hard.
She realized it pretty much as soon as she did it, and her smile immediately fell a little. The blonde cleared her throat softly and dropped her hand away, hoping that maybe Callie hadn’t noticed.
Callie's own hand instantly reached up to snag her by the wrist before it could pull completely away. The brunette's smile was still intact, but had grown considerably...different.
A little...sexy.
Seductive, even.
Arizona swallowed back.
Callie gave a little tug on the wrist in her grasp. She knew this was wrong. She knew it was wrong on so many levels.
They'd had the talk. The talk. The talk to end all talks.
It was final. They agreed.
They were over.
That was it.
So why was she still pulling Arizona closer? Guiding the hand in her grasp onto her hip, reaching out with her own to thread her fingers through soft blonde locks.
Leaning in closer.
Arizona was just resigning herself to the fact that they could never, ever be alone together, ever again.
...after this.
She closed her eyes, their lips barely a hairs width apart, the only sound in the room their shallow breathing. But they both stopped, and just kind of…hovered there.
“We’re really, really terrible at this,” Arizona murmured softly, smiling again despite herself.
“Worst ever,” Callie agreed with a low chuckle.
Arizona opened her eyes again and looked up into the slightly taller woman’s. Her own were filled with a little bit of sadness, and a lot of love.
Somewhere along the way, Callie's free hand had somehow found itself onto the other woman's hip, her fingers gently playing with the material of Arizona's scrubs.
It was so powerful. Just that one touch, and Callie felt like she was instantly reconnected with her former girlfriend.
Just like that.
Which was...bad.
Good, but bad.
Very, very bad.
Because they were supposed to be broken up. She wasn't supposed to be still feeling this.
It wasn't supposed to be this easy. Not anymore.
Callie's smile vanished as she swallowed back, gazing into those soft blue eyes. “Can...can I,” she started, her heart hammering in her chest. “Can I have just one last kiss?” She paused for a moment. “Please?”
Instead of answering with words, Arizona closed the small remaining distance between them and fulfilled Callie’s request.
For both of them.
It wasn’t a hard or feverish kiss like the previous ones. No, this one was much more…soft and slow, yet just as deep and meaningful as always.
Like it was the last kiss they’d ever have.
Her hands tightened their grip on Callie’s hips, bunching dark blue scrubs into her fists.
Callie willingly surrendered to the kiss. She moaned softly, but didn't try to increase the pressure.
Right away.
But then, after only seconds, it was like everything just...changed.
Before she knew it, Callie was pushing Arizona up against the nearest wall.
Arizona pulled Callie hard against her, moaning into the kiss.
Jesus, what the hell was wrong with them? Could they really not be alone in a room together without doing…this?
Apparently not.
She released Callie’s shirt and brought both hands up to cup the brunette’s face between them as they kissed.
Callie moaned in return.
Because it just felt so...
Her hands moved a little further down on the blonde's hips, and then slipped underneath the material of her scrub shirt.
The instant Callie's fingers made contact with warm skin, it sent a jolt through her entire body.
“Fuck,” she moaned as she pulled back from the kiss just long enough to take in a breath. She blinked, frowning a little. “What are we - oh, screw it.” Callie pushed forward into the kiss.
Arizona grinned into it despite herself. Her fingers weaved themselves into dark brown locks, and she -
The door burst open.
- jumped away from Callie so fast she almost tripped and fell sideways along the wall.
And she would have, if it weren't for the arms that Callie still had wrapped around her waist.
Dr. Bailey suddenly looked up from her papers at the image before her.
She looked to Callie. And then to Arizona. And back to Callie.
Then turned on her heel and headed straight back out of the room.
Callie stood in silence, rooted to the spot as she watched the big door swing shut with the general surgeon's departure. Her hand was still resting against Arizona's hip, and she made no effort to move it.
Arizona was the first to speak. “Oh…crap.” She winced and finally tore her gaze from the door to look back at Callie. “I think we’re gonna hear about this later.”
For just a second, as soon as her eyes met the brunette’s, she felt lost in them.
All over again.
Arizona felt the sudden urge to yell ‘Fuck it, let’s have a baby!’, if it meant that she and Callie could just be together again. She felt like she’d do anything to get things back to the way they were before. After all, it wasn’t just a sexual attraction that kept pulling them back together like this. There was still that intense spark between them that had grown immensely since Arizona had first kissed Callie in that bathroom over a year ago.
It meant something, right? That they kept finding themselves in this position? It had to.
But…
But.
Arizona looked up at Callie to say something, but all her mouth could do was hang partway open while her mind tried to make itself up about what to say.
Callie's brow furrowed in concern. Her fingers flexed, gripping onto the material of the blonde's scrubs. “Arizona?” she called softly when the blonde still didn’t say anything.
Arizona fought to speak for a moment longer. “I…I…” Her grip on Callie’s scrub shirt tightened. “I wan-”
The doors blew open again, and a pissed off looking Dr. Bailey came stalking back in. She had a firm grip on Lexi Grey’s white lab coat sleeve and was literally dragging the young resident in behind her. Lexi just looked confused, and was eventually pulled to a rough halt beside Bailey.
Lexi straightened up and blinked, looking around. She took in the way Arizona and Callie were intertwined around one another, and smiled for a second. “You guys are back togeth-”
“They most certainly are not,” Bailey cut in, her authoritive and angry voice enough to make Arizona quiver a little bit. “And it’s now up to you to make sure they stay that way, Little Grey. You will not leave Calliope Torres’ side for one single second, not until this case is over and that little girl is sent home happy and healthy, which from the look of things, is gonna be a while.”
Lexi, Callie, and Arizona all looked at Bailey in shock.
“But, I’m not on this case,” Lexi pointed out, fearing the answer.
“Well, you are now,” Bailey snapped. She looked at the two lovers and shook her head. “Unbelievable. You two are like a pair of bunnies in heat, goin’ at it in on-call rooms and supply closets and now the x-ray station? Pathetic. Pull yourselves together, people, and for Gods sake, keep your damn pants on. We have a sick child here, what is wrong with you?”
Then, she just as abruptly turned and strode from the room, the door slamming shut behind her.
Lexi watched her go, then turned to look at the other two with a visible gulp. “Um…”
Callie stared back at Little Grey for a long moment. And then, with a heavy sigh, she finally released her grip on her ex's scrubs. She took a few steps back as she reached up to rub at her brow.
It seemed that everyone in this entire fucking hospital was out to get her.
And apparently suddenly involved in her relationship.
Or her...'not-a-relationship'.
Whatever.
Callie sighed again as she finally lifted her gaze to meet her ex-girlfriend's. She offered an apologetic smile. Then she turned her attention to the other set of brown eyes in the room.
“C'mon, Little Grey,” she called softly as she walked over, never pausing in her stride as she grabbed the resident by her sleeve.
Lexi only had a moment to blink at Arizona before she was suddenly jerked backward towards the door.
Arizona closed her eyes and was about to beat her head against the nearest light box, when she suddenly stopped and turned back to the door. “Wait.”
Callie and Lexi stopped just before exiting. Callie looked curious and Lexi looked scared.
“You never told me why you wanted to know about her eyes. The ‘long shot’ idea.” Arizona looked tired, but curious at the same time.
Callie flashed her ex a grin. “Come see the MRI I’m ordering and I’ll show you.”
---