Fic: Sick Day, 1/1
Title: Sick Day
Author: A. Windsor
Pairing/Characters: Callie/Arizona
Rating: G
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. My one semester of law school could allow me to legalese this a little more, but it also tells me it’s pretty useless. So please don’t sue; it’s not mine, I’m just playing!
Series: Thing!verse
Summary: “When Teo melts down and throws an absolute tantrum over a choice between Jell-o and pudding to soothe his throat, she knows he’s really sick.” [May 2025]
Author’s Note: Mindless baby!fic. Tiny Dancer hogs the spotlight. There has been murmuring that Zeq is shouldering Teo out of the top cutest spot. Teo does not appreciate such insinuations. Beta’d by my favorite weirdy reindeer, roughian .
***
The day starts out normally enough.
The boys are already awake when Callie pads into the kitchen. It’s six in the morning, so they all have time before they have to be places.
Asa is hard at work on preparing some Eggos, having already lifted his three-year-old brother onto the counter and placated the sleepy boy with Go-gurt to feed and amuse him. Their relationship is surprisingly sweet. Asa loves his sisters dearly, but he waited eight years for another boy in the house, and accordingly, Teo is the only family member saved from eleven-year-old Asa’s preteen angst.
“Buenos, m’ijos. ¿Qué pasa? How long have you been up?”
“Salté a mi hermano’s belly,” [I jumped on my brother’s belly,] Teo grins, yogurt smeared across one cheek.
Asa rubs at his stomach as if to confirm the story.
“Are your hermanas still snoozing?”
Teo nods and leans in to give his mami a messy kiss.
“Where’s Momma?”
“Sleepin’,” Callie grins, nuzzling his sweet little neck.
“Mami. Basta. I’m eatin’.”
Callie sighs dramatically and lifts Teo off of the counter.
“Fine. Go eat like you’re civilized, por favor.” She directs him towards the kitchen table and moves to snuggle her bigger boy.
“Mami,” he complains as she hugs him from behind. The way he actually leans into her counters her tone of voice.
“You’re so grumpy in the morning. ¿Cómo están las costillas?” [How are your ribs?]
“Bien. Quiere darse comer a las chickies.” [Good. He wants to feed the chickies.]
“Oh, no. That’s Momma’s job. They smell.”
Asa snorts out a bit of a laugh. Callie flips on the coffee pot as the Eggos pop out of the toaster. They eat their breakfast in sleepy, companionable silence, until the girls come down and Momma emerges. Then, it’s just their normal chaos as they try to get the older kids to school (Momma’s job) and Teo to daycare (Mami’s job).
Callie drops Teo off with Miss Karen, and he happily runs to play with Nicky Altman-Tate with a quick kiss for his madre and barely a backwards glance. Callie promises to see him tonight.
She sees him a lot sooner.
***
“Hey Karen,” Callie says with a warm but exasperated smile as she enters the Seattle Grace-Mercy West daycare less than three hours after she left it. “What’s up?”
“You should get a punch card, Dr. Torres.”
“Nine visits and the tenth you page someone else?” Callie teases.
Karen steps aside to allow Callie entrance.
“Don’t you wish.”
Behind Karen is the reason for the page, and Callie’s heart breaks at the sigh. Teo is snuggled up in a chair, eyes glassy, face flushed and tear-stained.
“He’s got a fever,” Karen confirms. “100.9.”
“Mami,” he whines pitifully when he notices her. One hand reaches for her, the other holding fast to his yellow blankie.
“Oh, m’ijo,” she breathes in sympathy.
“I can’t keep him, sorry,” Karen tells her.
“Oh no, of course,” Callie says, squatting down to the three-year-old’s level, hand on his knee. “¿Te sientes mal, mi amor?” [Do you feel bad, my love?]
“Sí, Mami,” Teo says, tearing up.
“Oh, no no no. No te llores, baby. We’ll go home,” [Don’t cry,] Callie soothes, taking him into her arms.
He clings for dear life, cheek pressed to her shoulder.
“We’ll go see Momma. She’ll make you feel better and then we’ll go home and snuggle, okay?”
He nods empathically, fingers holding tight to her lab coat. Callie stands, and Karen hands her Teo’s backpack.
“Thanks,” she says lowly, slinging it over one shoulder. “Dr. Robbins will come get the rest at the end of her shift. Lena has to do her math before she can go outside.”
“I’ll see to it. First thing when she gets here from school,” Karen assures.
“Thanks. Have a good day. Oh, and when Asa gets here--”
“Teo’s sick, but he’s okay and with you,” Karen says knowingly.
“Thanks. You know he likes to head count.”
“Not a bad trait when you got so many, Dr. Torres.”
Callie laughs. “Oh, I know; I count to four in my sleep.”
“Ma-mi. I want Momma,” Teo cries.
“Yep. Okay. We’re going.”
***
“Oh no! Tiny Dancer!” Arizona exclaims when she meets them at the Peds nursing station, where two of the nurses, Becca and Grant, are fawning over the sick boy in his madre’s arms.
“Sick, Momma,” Teo explains pitifully.
“What hurts, bubba?”
“Throat. Head. Ear,” Teo points out, his blanket falling from his grasp. He whines: “Blankie.”
“Uh-oh,” Arizona says as she stoops to retrieve it. She turns to her wife. “Fever?”
“Grant just took it. 101.2.”
“Oh no, Tiny Dancer,” Arizona repeats, kissing his forehead. “Well, darn it.”
“Strep test?”
“Definitely. Becca, could you?”
“I’ll grab one,” the nurse says quickly.
“Alright. Um. I could maybe move some stuff around, see if Karev can cover my rounds.”
“I’ll take him; it’s fine. All electives today, nothing pressing.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. You took off with Cari and the stomach flu. It’s my turn.”
“Okay. Well, let’s take the sample and then you should get him home. If the test’s positive, I’ll bring home some antibiotics, but it’s probably just viral.”
“Sleep, popsicles, and movies?”
“That’s my prescription. And maybe some Mami snuggles if she washes her hands a lot. Don’t want a sick Teo and a sick Mami. Does that sound good, Mr. T?”
Teo nods.
“Okay, good. Oh, buddy, I’m sorry you’re feeling yucky. That’s not fun at all.”
Arizona holds her arms out to take him from Callie for a bit. He goes willingly; he has no preference as long as he is being cuddled by one of his moms. With a kiss to his ear, she adds: “Though, I’d like to take a day off to cuddle on the couch with Mami. That would be nice.”
Callie smiles. Between work and four kids, their schedules have been very busy recently, leaving little room for Mami/Momma time besides a few stolen moments here and there. Although they usually work it so that they have one weekend day off together without being on call, those are filled with family activities and their other days off rarely coincide.
“Tell Momma to check the surgical schedule for next Thursday,” Callie grins.
Poor sick little Teo does not play along.
“Oh, really? Do I actually get a day with the two of you?”
“Well, Nicky might be lonely in daycare without Teo... So maybe it’ll just be me.”
Arizona grins.
Becca returns with the strep test, which Teo is not a fan of, and then Callie and Mateo kiss Arizona and head on their way.
***
When Teo melts down and throws an absolute tantrum over a choice between Jell-o and pudding to soothe his throat, she knows he’s really sick. Her heart breaks, even if she wants to laugh, just a bit, at his dramatics. Teo is generally a happy kid, and always has been, but when he goes downhill, he does it all out: kicking, screaming, and declaring he'll never eat again.
“Hey, Tiny Dancer,” she says, firmly but gently. “Take a deep breath, mi amor. Tienes que comer algo. ¿Qué quieres?” [You have to eat something. What do you want?]
“Pap’tatoes,” he huffs out, combining Spanish and English for mashed potatoes, his favorite, face sticky with tears and flushed with exertion.
“Oh. Okay. Yeah, we can definitely do that.” She kisses his too warm forehead and hands him his yellow blankie and binky. “Go snuggle up on the couch and I will bring you the potatoes, okay?”
Wiping at his face with Blankie and popping the pacifier into his mouth, he nods. She lifts him off the bar stool and deposits him on the floor. He trudges over to the couch, stocking feet sliding on the hardwood.
After the pitiful little prince has his mashed potatoes on the couch, Callie sets up his absolute favorite movie, Happy Feet, and cuddles up with him. Even feverish and miserable, Teo’s little feet move in time with the music under the fluffy blanket they share; she can tell how very sick he is, though, by slightness of the movements. Instead of more purposeful dancing, his toes move of their own accord, like they did when he was a baby.
Oh, when he was a baby. Callie pulls her youngest even closer, dropping a kiss onto his head. When did her Mateo stop being a baby?
“¿Por qué creces tán rápidamente, m’ijo?” [Why are you growing so fast?] she asks softly, rhetorically, as his half-lidded eyes remain glued to the dancing penguins onscreen.
“Porque como todos los veggies,” [‘Cause I eat all my veggies,] the boy yawns, voice soft, an absolutely adorable whisper. “Y bebo la leche.” [And I drink my milk.]
“That must be it.”
“Qu’ero be alto como mi Asa,” [I wanna be tall like my Asa,] he continues, eyes never leaving the screen.
Callie scoops him up onto her lap and into a bone-crushing hug. He protests minorly but then settles quickly into her, content to be cuddled while his favorite movie plays.
“Ay, te quiero tanto,” [I love you so much,] Callie whispers in his ear.
Done with all this mushy stuff, Teo does not answer her, instead settling his head against her shoulder and watching his idol, Mumble Happyfeet, try to get the girl.
***
While Teo’s sleeps off his fever on the couch, finally lulled by movies and Baby Tylenol into an uneasy nap, Callie takes the time to get some work done around the house. Most of the time she adores their big old house; when she’s doing all of the housework that such a home requires, not so much. It seems impossible to stay on top of, even with the cleaning service coming in once a week.
Callie goes to retrieve one of the endless cycles of laundry and is pleasantly surprised to find that Arizona must have run a few loads while she was home and Callie worked late the night before. She finds them on the dryer, all folded with her wife’s military precision and waiting to be distributed. Of course there’s never a shortage of laundry; it’s a rare moment when their poor overworked machine isn’t chugging along. So Callie starts another load and carries the oversized basket of clean clothes to put away.
On her way upstairs, she checks on Teo. His little brow is scrunched in pain and, stuffed up, he snores grandly, the sound barely muffled by his pacifier. He coughs, and said binky falls from his lips. Callie sets down the laundry basket and hurries to replace it before he wakes.
Mission accomplished, Callie goes back to her task at hand, spending the rest of her afternoon distributing laundry and being otherwise housewife-y. She’s pretty glad she doesn’t do this full time. Breaking bones is so much more fulfilling that wiping down counters. She even manages to have time to put her feet up for all of an hour while Teo, now awake, watches Dora the Explorer and weakly shouts out the answers. Around six, he drifts off again, and when she hears the garage door open, she hurries to take him up to his bed before the chaotic horde can disturb his sleep.
Asa, Lena, and Caroline all barrel in, excited to see her, giving hugs and kisses and talking over each other to tell her everything about their days.
“Okay, okay,” Arizona laughs as they all flutter about. “Go drop your stuff upstairs and then you can play until dinner.”
“Clean laundry on your beds. Please put it away before you play,” Callie calls to the older children as they run up the stairs to put their backpacks away. “Lena, please help Cari.”
“Yes, ma’am,” nine-year-old Lena calls back, just a little bit of attitude in her voice.
“Hey, you,” Arizona greets her with a kiss. “No strep. It’s just a bug; we’ll have to hope it just runs its course quickly.”
Callie sighs, starting to grab everything for dinner.
“I guess that’s good. Don’t want the whole family down with strep. But really? Tylenol is all we can do for him?”
“And snuggles,” Arizona adds cheerily, setting the table. “How was your day?”
“Happy Feet and Dora between chores. Yay. Yours?”
Arizona laughs and recounts her day of surgeries while helping with dinner where she can.
***
Callie walks up the stairs in search of Asa for dinner and pauses when she hears voices coming from Teo’s room. She wanders to the doorway and spies in.
Asa kneels beside Teo’s bed, and the boys use Teo’s beloved planes (inherited from Asa) to act out adventures, complete with sound effects and dialogue. Asa gets a few wane smiles out of Teo while they play, and even the occasional giggle. After several minutes of watching them, her heart feeling fit to burst, Callie sees Teo start to fade. She’s about to intervene, but the little voice of her youngest stops her.
“I’m sleepy, Asa.”
“Oh, okay,” Asa says, hurriedly gathering the planes and depositing them into the bin next to Teo’s bed. He then tucks Teo in the way his moms have always tucked them all in, making sure he’s nice and comfy. “Should I turn out the light?”
The little one shakes his head, preferring the low light of his bedside lamp.
“Cántame, por favor.” [Sing to me, please.]
“Oh, that’ll make you feel better?”
Teo nods pitifully, and Callie’s pretty sure the sweetness is going to kill her.
“Mi canción.” [My song.]
“Really?”
“Por favor.”
“Blue jean baby,” Asa starts and continues to sing all of the words by heart. He doesn’t have the best voice, and at eleven-and-a-half, his voice is starting to very occasionally crack with coming puberty.
To his Mami, though, it’s absolutely beautiful.
His serenade done, he scruffs Teo’s hair and stands.
“G’night, hermanito.”
Asa walks out and right into his madre. He blushes hotly.
“Uh, hi, Mami.”
“Dinner’s ready, m’ijo. How’s your brother?”
“Sleeping. He feels really yucky, Mami.”
“I bet he feels a little better now,” she smiles knowingly. “Run on down to dinner. I’m gonna check on him.”
Asa nods and takes off down the stairs. Callie quietly enters Teo’s bedroom. He’s fast asleep already. She tucks his blankie more firmly under his arm and feels his forehead. Still a little warm, but cooler than before. She drops a few kisses to his cheeks and then clicks off the light.
“Feel better, Tiny Dancer.”
***
el fin