Grey's Anatomy - Choices (19/23)
Title: Choices
Chapter 19/23
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: A patient occupies Arizona's mind, while thoughts of unfinished discussions occupy Callie's.
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: Medical knowledge. We have none. We Googled to the best of our ability.
---
Arizona left her car parked next to Callie’s and the two women walked the short distance to the hospital.
It was a definite bonus of living right across the street.
Hand in hand, they were too busy giggling as they approached the ambulance bay doors to notice two people watching them closely.
Mark shared a look with Teddy before focusing on the approaching women. “Ladies,” he spoke up, making them both look over. His eyes dropped to their tightly clasped hands, back up to the overly-happy expressions each of them wore, and then narrowed in suspicion.
Callie grinned widely back at her best friend. “Oh, don't worry Mark,” she assured him as she squeezed the blonde's hand just a little tighter in her own. “We're 'officially' official now.” She smiled over at Arizona before turning back to him. “We spent all night having the hot, hot make-up sex and everything.”
Arizona's matching grin dropped in an instant and her blue eyes widened at her girlfriend. “Calliope!”
Callie frowned. “What?” she asked, a little confused. “I said it was hot. Twice.”
Blushing furiously, Arizona avoided Mark’s gaze like the plague, in the process catching Teddy’s eye.
The other woman grinned widely at her. “Congrats, you two. I’m happy for you.”
Arizona couldn’t help but return the gesture.
Mark still looked uncertain, and he watched as Arizona tugged his best friend inside of the hospital. Even his libido couldn’t be distracted by the talk of two chicks having hot sex, for he was too worried about Callie. Somehow, he doubted Robbins had taken a sudden interest in having children after all of that fuss, and he didn’t like the idea of Callie settling for less than she deserved.
Teddy nudged him with an elbow. “You owe me fifty bucks, Sloan,” she pointed out with a smirk, before looking out to the arriving ambulance.
Mark scowled. “We’ll see.”
***
After quickly changing into her scrubs and white lab coat, Arizona took a moment to pin Callie against her locker and kiss her like she’d never been kissed before.
Just because.
Their pages weren’t ‘911’. They had a minute or two.
Callie gasped in surprise, but quickly caught up. She gave back just as good as she got until they were both desperate for oxygen.
When Arizona pulled away, Callie shot her a breathless, yet sultry smile. She reached down with her right hand to place it on the blonde's hip beneath her lab coat. Her fingers rubbed against the thin material of her scrub top. “Did I ever tell you how incredibly sexy you look in scrubs?”
Arizona cocked her head to the side with a smirk of her own. “Did I ever tell you how sexy you look out of them?”
Callie's grin widened. She tugged the woman in a little closer. “Once or twice,” she whispered before placing a soft, teasing kiss directly on her girlfriend's lips.
Girlfriend.
She liked the sound of that.
Really liked it.
‘Cause it meant she and Arizona could do...stuff now. Again.
Naughty things. In...naughty places.
But there would always be time for that. Later.
Callie pulled back from the kiss to meet shining blue eyes. “Go take care of Dani,” she whispered huskily, her fingers flexing against the other surgeon’s hip. “She needs you and that incredibly sexy brain of yours.”
‘Hm’ing softly, Arizona leaned in for one last kiss before forcing herself to take a few steps back towards the door. “Lunch later? Maybe an on-call room in between?”
She flashed her girlfriend a grin before turning and exiting the room, a spring in her step.
Callie bit her lip and watched her go, a light, floaty feeling making her head spin.
Life was looking up again.
She turned back to her locker, unable to stop smiling, and heard the door open a few seconds later. “Couldn’t get enough of me?” she called out without looking up.
“Never in your lifetime, Torres,” Mark Sloan replied in a bemused tone as he sauntered over to the locker across from Callie’s.
The brunette glanced back over her shoulder at her friend as he began to rummage through his things. “I know what you're gonna say before you say it,” she told him as she turned her attention back to her own stuff. “So...don't even.”
Mark was quiet for a long moment. “I don't know what you're talking about.”
Callie slammed her locker shut before turning to lean her back against the cold metal. She crossed her arms and leveled her gaze on the man's back. “This isn't a mistake,” she went on. “I know what I'm doing.”
“Do you?” Mark turned to face Callie. “Do either of you? Or have you forgotten why exactly you broke it off in the first place?”
He didn’t sound angry, just concerned, and he took a step toward Callie. “Did she decide she wants to have a baby with you? Did you even discuss it? Or are you back to ignoring it like you guys tried the first time around?”
Callie's eyes narrowed and she shot Mark a dirty look.
But it faded pretty quickly.
Her shoulders slumped and she heaved a sigh, averting her eyes to the floor. “We talked about it some,” she finally replied in a low whisper.
Mark dipped his head down to try and catch her eye. “Some?”
Callie slowly lifted her dark gaze back up. “She doesn't want one now, and she doesn't know if she wants one two years from now.” She took in a shaky breath. “But I know I want one...someday a lot sooner than that. I also know that I want her too much to let her go again.”
Mark sighed and reached up to delicately take Callie by the shoulders. “What’re you doin’ to yourself, Torres?” he asked quietly. “I know you love her, but you’re setting yourself up for a world of pain.”
He shook her once, gently, waiting until she met his eyes again. “Don’t settle for a ‘maybe’. You deserve better than that.”
Callie was close to tears. “I know,” she whispered. “But I love her.”
Mark kept his blue eyes locked onto the misty brown pair staring back at him. His best friend's words resonated to the very core of his perceived cold heart. “I know you do,” he replied with a soft sigh, pulling her in closely.
Callie sighed again as she reached out to wrap her arms around Mark’s waist. She turned her head to rest her cheek against his warm chest.
***
Dr. Robbins was very aware of the terrified parents watching her every move from outside of their daughter’s hospital room. She could practically feel their eyes boring holes into the back of her skull. Her focus remained on examining the seven year old girl, while Little Grey watched closely.
“She seized for how long?” Arizona questioned, holding open Danielle’s eyelids and testing her pupil reactions with a flashlight.
“Fifteen, maybe twenty seconds,” Lexi answered. “She stabilized for the most part when it stopped, but I’m worried that if it happens again…”
“Something in her brain might rupture,” Arizona finished, sighing as she stood back. “Did you get her scans back yet?”
Lexi nodded. “No signs of bleeding at the site of the surgery or the old aneurysm. She’s got no history of epilepsy. I have no idea what caused the seizure.”
Shaking her head, Arizona wracked her brain. “Keep monitoring her. I’m going to consult with Shepherd, try and figure out what we missed. She should have been awake and on her way to recovering by now if this was just about the tumor. There’s gotta be something else I'm missing.”
Now she had to once again steel herself to go out there and fill in Danielle's parents that their daughter’s life might still be in danger.
Damn it.
***
Arizona didn’t bump into Callie for several hours, until they both ended up at the admin desk around the same time.
The blonde looked up from the papers she was flipping haphazardly through at the arrival of her girlfriend. “Hey, stranger,” she said with a tired smile.
Callie frowned at her lover's haggard appearance. “Honey, you look exhausted.”
Arizona sighed. “I think that's appropriate,” she mumbled. “Considering I haven't so much as sat down for the last...” She trailed off, her brow ticking as she glanced up from the stack in thought, still holding several sheets of half-crumpled paper in her fists.
Callie was immediately concerned. “Well, you're sitting down now,” she ordered as she placed her own chart onto the desk. “Then I'm getting you some food.”
“I can’t,” Arizona sighed heavily again, running a hand back through her hair, resisting the urge to pull some out. “Danielle’s having seizures, and I can’t figure out what’s causing them. Nothing shows up on her initial scans, and there’s a backlog of patients waiting for a 3D MRI. So I’m drowning in medical papers and previous cases a-and a whole bunch of nothing is the only result I’m getting,” she growled in annoyance, waving around the fistful of the medical journals she was holding before slamming them impatiently back down onto the counter. “She’s in and out of consciousness, but no where near being able to go home like she’s supposed to be.”
Pouting, Arizona turned to Callie. “On second thought, maybe I’ll take you up on the sitting down.”
She was so tired.
“Well,” Callie began as she took her girlfriend by the elbow to guide her to the nearest chair. “You're getting the food, too.”
“Calliope-”
“Don't you dare 'Calliope' me on this one,” Callie shot back as she gently shoved the blonde down into the chair. She arched a brow as she pinned her to the spot with severe brown eyes. “I'm getting you some food. And you're eating it. Even if I have to feed you myself.”
Despite her exhaustion, Arizona found herself smirking up at her girlfriend. “Promise?” she asked in a low voice, raising a suggestive eyebrow.
Callie rolled her eyes, grinning a little as well. She turned to walk away, but Arizona reached up to snag her by the wrist. “Wait. Do you have time for a ten minute lunch? I could use your brain to bounce some ideas off of. And your company.”
Callie smiled as she twisted her wrist in her girlfriend’s grasp to intertwine their fingers. Her expression softened as she gazed down the short distance into curious blue eyes. “My brain's all yours.” She paused with a sigh and gentle shake of her head. “Just like the rest of me.”
Smiling, Arizona pulled herself to her feet. “I like the sound of that.” She squeezed Callie’s hand and brushed her thumb over the back of it. “How about you grab the food, and I’ll secure a quiet on-call room where we won’t be interrupted?”
Callie once more raised a slow, calculated brow.
“Where we can talk and eat…food,” Arizona quickly corrected. “Perv.” She smirked and leaned in real close. “If I wanted sex, I woulda said ‘supply closet’.”
Callie let out a quiet, needy groan, running her tongue along her bottom lip. “You are so hot when you say that.”
Arizona chuckled. “'Supply closet'?”
Callie dropped her gaze down to the blonde's mouth. “Wanting sex,” she corrected in a careful whisper. Her eyes slowly shifted back up to meet her girlfriend's. “Then again...” She reached up with her free hand to gently, slowly brush her thumb along Arizona's bottom lip with just the barest of touches. “Everything you say is hot.”
Arizona resisted the urge to nibble on Callie’s thumb.
Public place, lots of people…co-workers of whom they were the bosses of.
But that didn’t stop her from imagining doing all sorts of things to Callie right then and there.
She had a very active imagination, after all.
Of course, right when they were absorbed in sharing one of their steamy, sexy looks, Dr. Yang arrived on scene and snapped them both out of it by dropping a large stack of charts noisily onto the desk. “Get a room,” she added vocally, in case the loud ‘smack’ hadn’t been enough to break through the moment.
Blushing a little but not taking her eyes from Callie’s, Arizona took a step back. “Right. I’ll go get that room, you get the snacks?”
“Right,” Callie echoed with a slight nod. Her hand felt cold the instant the blonde pulled hers away. She watched her turn and disappear down the hallway.
Then she turned her focus to Yang.
“Have you always been such a spiteful little troll?” She walked over to the desk to face her roommate. “Or did med school just make you insanely evil?”
Cristina looked up slowly from her paperwork. “I prefer the term ‘malicious shark’,” she retorted. “And I blame my tormented childhood, et cetera, et cetera.”
Callie nodded. “Uh-huh. Figures.”
She turned and walked away.
***
Arizona had settled back into the couch in the Attending's Lounge with her feet propped up on the coffee table, arms crossed comfortably against her chest and her head resting back into the cushion. She was dozing lightly when Callie entered with food, and lifted her head to smile gratefully at her girlfriend.
“You are a Goddess among tiny, insignificant humans,” Arizona praised, not realizing until then how hungry she really was. “Remind me to thank you multiple times later.”
Callie smirked as she walked in, balancing a tray of steaming food on each arm. “Multiple times,” she repeated with a slight tilt of her head. “Multiple orgasms...” Her smirk widened a little as she glanced down to meet Arizona’s eyes.
Arizona laughed softly as she moved to sit forward on the couch.
Callie placed one of the trays down on the table in front of the blonde before taking a seat in the chair across from the couch. She held her own tray in her lap as she reached down for her mug of tea.
Arizona's smile faltered and her brow scrunched thoughtfully as she glanced down at the steaming food on her tray. “There's no way this came from our cafeteria. It looks too good.”
Callie smiled over the rim of her cup. “That's ‘cause it didn't.” She took a slow sip before releasing a satisfied sigh. “I sorta had the idea that you'd run yourself ragged and wouldn't eat all day, so I placed an early order with Perche No.”
Arizona groaned in appreciation. “I love you,” she sighed happily, her eyes taking in the sight and smell of the delicious non-cafeteria Italian food. She then reached over to snag Callie by the front of her scrubs and pull her close for a brief, but deep kiss over the table.
“If it weren’t for you, I’d starve to death and turn into a lonely old hag with a dog and a chicken for companions.” Arizona smirked and played with the soft material of Callie’s dark blue scrubs between her fingers.
Callie smiled that sweet little smile. The one she had perfected as her own. “And if it weren't for you,” she started with another deep, low husk to her voice. She leaned toward her partner, still holding the warm cup of tea in one hand. “I'd never have known what 'multiple orgasms' even were.”
That made Arizona grin, and she waggled her eyebrows suggestively at Callie. “Baby, I still haven’t shown you just how many ‘multiple’ can mean.”
Aware that they were dangerously close to forgetting all about the food and the work that needed to be done, Arizona allowed herself to steal just one more deep, lingering kiss from Callie before pulling back and reluctantly releasing the front of her scrubs.
“Carbonara,” the blonde sighed upon realizing what Callie had ordered for her. “God, I just fell in love with you all over again.” Her stomach growled loudly in agreement.
Callie smiled as she leaned back in her chair to take another slow sip of her tea. For a few minutes she just sat, watching her girlfriend as she literally devoured her food.
Arizona eventually paused to take a breath as she reached for her own glass of iced tea. Her hand froze as she looked up to meet dark brown eyes. “What?” she mumbled, blinking innocently with a few spaghetti noodles hanging from her lips.
Callie just shook her head as she relaxed back into her chair. “Nothing,” she replied in a soft whisper. “Sometimes, I just like watching you.” Her smile faltered. “But not in a creepy way.”
Arizona swallowed her mouthful of pasta and hurriedly wiped her mouth with a napkin. “You’re hardly creepy, Calliope,” she pointed out. “Though watching me stuff my face full of food isn’t exactly something I’d think you'd find that attractive.”
“Zona, you could sneeze and I’d find it attractive,” Callie pointed out with a chuckle.
That made the blonde blush just a little. “I guess that’s on par with me finding your snoring adorable. Most of the time.”
Callie’s smile instantly vanished. “I do not snore!” she snapped irritably.
Arizona smiled. “Oh, sweetie…yeah, you do.”
Dark eyes narrowed before the brunette lifted the hot cup of tea to her lips once more. “Do not,” she mumbled before taking another sip. She watched her girlfriend finish off her very, very late lunch.
Callie frowned a little at that thought. She didn't like it when Arizona didn't take care of herself. She knew how the blonde could be if she didn't get enough food.
A cranky and weak Arizona was not her friend, or anybody else’s for that matter.
“How's Danielle?” Callie asked in an attempt to change the subject. “And what exactly did you need my brain for again?”
Arizona finished off her pasta and all but drained her iced tea before collapsing back against the couch, starting to feel human again. “Poor kid survived brain cancer, a post-surgical aneurysm, multiple surgeries, and this morning she had a seizure.” The pediatric surgeon rubbed the heels of her palms against her eyes. “Her CT didn’t show any more blood clotting or complications from her tumor, and Shepherd wants to wait on a 3D MRI, but I’m not convinced that’ll show us anything, either. I’m at a total loss.”
She sighed heavily and dropped her hands back into her lap. “She should’ve been home recovering by now.” Arizona lifted her gaze back to meet Callie’s and smiled sadly. “She and Anna turn eight next week. I promised them months ago they’d be able to have their party at home with all their friends.”
Callie kept her gaze trained on her lover for a long moment before she leaned forward to place her mug of tea onto the table between them. She released a sigh of sympathy as she crossed her legs and draped an elbow across her knee. “There's something I learned once. A very long time ago, way back in the stone age when I was a rookie intern fresh out of med school.”
Arizona arched a slow brow, her curiosity perking up. “Isn't that when you learn...everything?”
Callie smiled and gave a slight nod. “True,” she relented. “But this one thing in particular, most doctors aren't fortunate enough to learn until much, much later in their careers.”
Arizona tilted her head curiously.
Callie kept her gaze locked with Arizona’s. “Sometimes, when you're searching for an answer that you can't seem to find, you just have to stop looking so hard. And then you might actually see that it’s already right in front of you.”
Arizona scrunched her brow in deep thought. “Huh. I guess that makes sense.” She frowned a little. “Sort of. I can’t really stop looking…”
She glanced up to find Callie smiling softly at her. “What?”
“Just think,” the brunette encouraged. “Go over the facts. Chances are you already know the answer, you just aren’t seeing it.”
Arizona furrowed her brow again. “But that’s just it. The facts don’t add up. Her tumor is gone, there are no more complications that we can see, except for this seizure.”
“So, maybe it wasn’t caused by the tumor,” Callie pointed out. “Maybe it’s something else.”
Arizona shook her head, her brain doing burnouts inside of her skull. “After all those tests? We more than likely would have uncovered the something else, if it was there. But there were no obscure symptoms.”
“So, whatever’s causing the seizures has the same symptoms as the brain tumor,” Callie offered.
Arizona leaned forward, letting that fact click into place. “Huh. So the tumor’s gone, her brain is healthy again, except for something that also causes seizures, with symptoms similar or the same to what she was experiencing before we took the tumor out.” She closed her eyes and wracked her brain. “But she was fine, right up until she was…”
Her head jerked up and her eyes widened.
Callie blinked back at Arizona. “What?”
“She stood up,” Arizona stated. “For the first time in…months, probably. On her own. She stood up, and almost immediately fainted and began to seize.”
Callie's dark brow furrowed. “O...kay,” she said slowly as she moved back a little into her seat. She kept her focus trained on her partner, and it was almost as if she could literally see the wheels turning in Arizona's head.
Arizona slowly began to smile as she gazed lovingly back at her girlfriend. “I think I finally see it now.”
Callie mirrored her smile. “Yeah?”
Arizona jumped up from her seat and began to pace. “Extreme cases of chronic orthostatic hypotension aren’t terribly uncommon in sick kids. It’s not usually this serious. But with all her body had been through the last seven months, with the chemo and surgeries and the general crapiness all around, her chemical balance is completely off. If it started when she developed the tumor, there’s no way we could have picked it out from her headaches and fainting episodes that the tumor could have caused. She’s been laying in a bed for the better part of a year now, too weak to walk, and the first time she goes to stand up the blood pools in her legs. Her body’s too weak to compensate, her heart rate drops, blood doesn’t get to her brain fast enough and boom, she seizes.”
Arizona stopped pacing and grinned breathlessly down at Callie, clearly excited that this was all finally making sense. “It’s like when you stand up too fast and the blood rushes from your head, only in her case it doesn't rush back fast enough. Her brain is deprived of oxygen and blood flow just long enough for her to faint and start seizing.” She ran a hand back through her hair, hurriedly repeating the facts inside of her head to make sure she wasn’t missing anything this time. “It’s treatable with meds for now, and it’ll probably dissipate as she recovers.”
Callie grinned proudly up at her pacing girlfriend. “See?” she whispered reverently as she waited for those blue eyes to focus back on her. “I knew you and that sexy brain would make a good team.” Her smile softened just a little as she felt a sudden heaviness in her chest. “Kinda like us just now,” she added quietly after a moment.
Couldn't Arizona see how great they'd be together? Raising a family, taking care of their future kids?
Arizona couldn’t stop beaming down at Callie, feeling as though she was on a high. “We do, don’t we?” She stopped pacing and knelt down in front of Callie’s chair. “We make a kick ass team.”
The blonde reached up, gently caressing the side of Callie’s face and neck with her right hand. “Believe me when I say there’s no one else I’d rather have as my partner in crime. Or in medicine, I guess.”
Callie smiled sadly. “Yeah,” she whispered as she closed her eyes against the soft, welcoming touch. “Just not in parenthood.” Her smile instantly vanished and her eyes shot open. She could tell by the look in Arizona's that she was really going to regret saying that.
Dammit.
Arizona bit her lip and very slowly withdrew her hand. But instead of pulling away completely, she rested it on top of Callie’s knee. “Calliope-”
“Don’t,” Callie interrupted with a quick shake of her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t…mean it…just forget…”
Arizona watched her girlfriend avoid looking at her, shaking her head sadly. “No,” she said quietly. “I’m not gonna ‘just forget’. I -”
The universe interrupted at that moment, making her pager go off insanely loudly at her hip. Arizona closed her eyes and sighed, resigning herself to the fact that this wasn’t the time to talk about it.
She pulled her hands away from Callie’s knee and glanced down at her pager. “I gotta go.” She stood, but didn’t move just yet, keeping a careful eye on her lover. “Wait for me? This won’t take long.”
Callie shook her head, still avoiding Arizona’s gaze. “I, um…have surgery pretty soon.”
Arizona bit her lip again. “Okay. I’ll find you after, I promise. Okay?”
Callie nodded mutely, her brown eyes a little misty as she held the other woman's soft blue gaze for just a moment longer.
It was still so heartbreakingly easy to get lost in those eyes.
The only sound in the on-call room was Arizona's quiet footsteps as she hurried to the exit. A soft click of the door echoed her departure.
Callie sat in silence, staring straight ahead at the wall as her resolve slowly started to crumble.
---
Chapter 19/23
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: A patient occupies Arizona's mind, while thoughts of unfinished discussions occupy Callie's.
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: Medical knowledge. We have none. We Googled to the best of our ability.
---
Arizona left her car parked next to Callie’s and the two women walked the short distance to the hospital.
It was a definite bonus of living right across the street.
Hand in hand, they were too busy giggling as they approached the ambulance bay doors to notice two people watching them closely.
Mark shared a look with Teddy before focusing on the approaching women. “Ladies,” he spoke up, making them both look over. His eyes dropped to their tightly clasped hands, back up to the overly-happy expressions each of them wore, and then narrowed in suspicion.
Callie grinned widely back at her best friend. “Oh, don't worry Mark,” she assured him as she squeezed the blonde's hand just a little tighter in her own. “We're 'officially' official now.” She smiled over at Arizona before turning back to him. “We spent all night having the hot, hot make-up sex and everything.”
Arizona's matching grin dropped in an instant and her blue eyes widened at her girlfriend. “Calliope!”
Callie frowned. “What?” she asked, a little confused. “I said it was hot. Twice.”
Blushing furiously, Arizona avoided Mark’s gaze like the plague, in the process catching Teddy’s eye.
The other woman grinned widely at her. “Congrats, you two. I’m happy for you.”
Arizona couldn’t help but return the gesture.
Mark still looked uncertain, and he watched as Arizona tugged his best friend inside of the hospital. Even his libido couldn’t be distracted by the talk of two chicks having hot sex, for he was too worried about Callie. Somehow, he doubted Robbins had taken a sudden interest in having children after all of that fuss, and he didn’t like the idea of Callie settling for less than she deserved.
Teddy nudged him with an elbow. “You owe me fifty bucks, Sloan,” she pointed out with a smirk, before looking out to the arriving ambulance.
Mark scowled. “We’ll see.”
***
After quickly changing into her scrubs and white lab coat, Arizona took a moment to pin Callie against her locker and kiss her like she’d never been kissed before.
Just because.
Their pages weren’t ‘911’. They had a minute or two.
Callie gasped in surprise, but quickly caught up. She gave back just as good as she got until they were both desperate for oxygen.
When Arizona pulled away, Callie shot her a breathless, yet sultry smile. She reached down with her right hand to place it on the blonde's hip beneath her lab coat. Her fingers rubbed against the thin material of her scrub top. “Did I ever tell you how incredibly sexy you look in scrubs?”
Arizona cocked her head to the side with a smirk of her own. “Did I ever tell you how sexy you look out of them?”
Callie's grin widened. She tugged the woman in a little closer. “Once or twice,” she whispered before placing a soft, teasing kiss directly on her girlfriend's lips.
Girlfriend.
She liked the sound of that.
Really liked it.
‘Cause it meant she and Arizona could do...stuff now. Again.
Naughty things. In...naughty places.
But there would always be time for that. Later.
Callie pulled back from the kiss to meet shining blue eyes. “Go take care of Dani,” she whispered huskily, her fingers flexing against the other surgeon’s hip. “She needs you and that incredibly sexy brain of yours.”
‘Hm’ing softly, Arizona leaned in for one last kiss before forcing herself to take a few steps back towards the door. “Lunch later? Maybe an on-call room in between?”
She flashed her girlfriend a grin before turning and exiting the room, a spring in her step.
Callie bit her lip and watched her go, a light, floaty feeling making her head spin.
Life was looking up again.
She turned back to her locker, unable to stop smiling, and heard the door open a few seconds later. “Couldn’t get enough of me?” she called out without looking up.
“Never in your lifetime, Torres,” Mark Sloan replied in a bemused tone as he sauntered over to the locker across from Callie’s.
The brunette glanced back over her shoulder at her friend as he began to rummage through his things. “I know what you're gonna say before you say it,” she told him as she turned her attention back to her own stuff. “So...don't even.”
Mark was quiet for a long moment. “I don't know what you're talking about.”
Callie slammed her locker shut before turning to lean her back against the cold metal. She crossed her arms and leveled her gaze on the man's back. “This isn't a mistake,” she went on. “I know what I'm doing.”
“Do you?” Mark turned to face Callie. “Do either of you? Or have you forgotten why exactly you broke it off in the first place?”
He didn’t sound angry, just concerned, and he took a step toward Callie. “Did she decide she wants to have a baby with you? Did you even discuss it? Or are you back to ignoring it like you guys tried the first time around?”
Callie's eyes narrowed and she shot Mark a dirty look.
But it faded pretty quickly.
Her shoulders slumped and she heaved a sigh, averting her eyes to the floor. “We talked about it some,” she finally replied in a low whisper.
Mark dipped his head down to try and catch her eye. “Some?”
Callie slowly lifted her dark gaze back up. “She doesn't want one now, and she doesn't know if she wants one two years from now.” She took in a shaky breath. “But I know I want one...someday a lot sooner than that. I also know that I want her too much to let her go again.”
Mark sighed and reached up to delicately take Callie by the shoulders. “What’re you doin’ to yourself, Torres?” he asked quietly. “I know you love her, but you’re setting yourself up for a world of pain.”
He shook her once, gently, waiting until she met his eyes again. “Don’t settle for a ‘maybe’. You deserve better than that.”
Callie was close to tears. “I know,” she whispered. “But I love her.”
Mark kept his blue eyes locked onto the misty brown pair staring back at him. His best friend's words resonated to the very core of his perceived cold heart. “I know you do,” he replied with a soft sigh, pulling her in closely.
Callie sighed again as she reached out to wrap her arms around Mark’s waist. She turned her head to rest her cheek against his warm chest.
***
Dr. Robbins was very aware of the terrified parents watching her every move from outside of their daughter’s hospital room. She could practically feel their eyes boring holes into the back of her skull. Her focus remained on examining the seven year old girl, while Little Grey watched closely.
“She seized for how long?” Arizona questioned, holding open Danielle’s eyelids and testing her pupil reactions with a flashlight.
“Fifteen, maybe twenty seconds,” Lexi answered. “She stabilized for the most part when it stopped, but I’m worried that if it happens again…”
“Something in her brain might rupture,” Arizona finished, sighing as she stood back. “Did you get her scans back yet?”
Lexi nodded. “No signs of bleeding at the site of the surgery or the old aneurysm. She’s got no history of epilepsy. I have no idea what caused the seizure.”
Shaking her head, Arizona wracked her brain. “Keep monitoring her. I’m going to consult with Shepherd, try and figure out what we missed. She should have been awake and on her way to recovering by now if this was just about the tumor. There’s gotta be something else I'm missing.”
Now she had to once again steel herself to go out there and fill in Danielle's parents that their daughter’s life might still be in danger.
Damn it.
***
Arizona didn’t bump into Callie for several hours, until they both ended up at the admin desk around the same time.
The blonde looked up from the papers she was flipping haphazardly through at the arrival of her girlfriend. “Hey, stranger,” she said with a tired smile.
Callie frowned at her lover's haggard appearance. “Honey, you look exhausted.”
Arizona sighed. “I think that's appropriate,” she mumbled. “Considering I haven't so much as sat down for the last...” She trailed off, her brow ticking as she glanced up from the stack in thought, still holding several sheets of half-crumpled paper in her fists.
Callie was immediately concerned. “Well, you're sitting down now,” she ordered as she placed her own chart onto the desk. “Then I'm getting you some food.”
“I can’t,” Arizona sighed heavily again, running a hand back through her hair, resisting the urge to pull some out. “Danielle’s having seizures, and I can’t figure out what’s causing them. Nothing shows up on her initial scans, and there’s a backlog of patients waiting for a 3D MRI. So I’m drowning in medical papers and previous cases a-and a whole bunch of nothing is the only result I’m getting,” she growled in annoyance, waving around the fistful of the medical journals she was holding before slamming them impatiently back down onto the counter. “She’s in and out of consciousness, but no where near being able to go home like she’s supposed to be.”
Pouting, Arizona turned to Callie. “On second thought, maybe I’ll take you up on the sitting down.”
She was so tired.
“Well,” Callie began as she took her girlfriend by the elbow to guide her to the nearest chair. “You're getting the food, too.”
“Calliope-”
“Don't you dare 'Calliope' me on this one,” Callie shot back as she gently shoved the blonde down into the chair. She arched a brow as she pinned her to the spot with severe brown eyes. “I'm getting you some food. And you're eating it. Even if I have to feed you myself.”
Despite her exhaustion, Arizona found herself smirking up at her girlfriend. “Promise?” she asked in a low voice, raising a suggestive eyebrow.
Callie rolled her eyes, grinning a little as well. She turned to walk away, but Arizona reached up to snag her by the wrist. “Wait. Do you have time for a ten minute lunch? I could use your brain to bounce some ideas off of. And your company.”
Callie smiled as she twisted her wrist in her girlfriend’s grasp to intertwine their fingers. Her expression softened as she gazed down the short distance into curious blue eyes. “My brain's all yours.” She paused with a sigh and gentle shake of her head. “Just like the rest of me.”
Smiling, Arizona pulled herself to her feet. “I like the sound of that.” She squeezed Callie’s hand and brushed her thumb over the back of it. “How about you grab the food, and I’ll secure a quiet on-call room where we won’t be interrupted?”
Callie once more raised a slow, calculated brow.
“Where we can talk and eat…food,” Arizona quickly corrected. “Perv.” She smirked and leaned in real close. “If I wanted sex, I woulda said ‘supply closet’.”
Callie let out a quiet, needy groan, running her tongue along her bottom lip. “You are so hot when you say that.”
Arizona chuckled. “'Supply closet'?”
Callie dropped her gaze down to the blonde's mouth. “Wanting sex,” she corrected in a careful whisper. Her eyes slowly shifted back up to meet her girlfriend's. “Then again...” She reached up with her free hand to gently, slowly brush her thumb along Arizona's bottom lip with just the barest of touches. “Everything you say is hot.”
Arizona resisted the urge to nibble on Callie’s thumb.
Public place, lots of people…co-workers of whom they were the bosses of.
But that didn’t stop her from imagining doing all sorts of things to Callie right then and there.
She had a very active imagination, after all.
Of course, right when they were absorbed in sharing one of their steamy, sexy looks, Dr. Yang arrived on scene and snapped them both out of it by dropping a large stack of charts noisily onto the desk. “Get a room,” she added vocally, in case the loud ‘smack’ hadn’t been enough to break through the moment.
Blushing a little but not taking her eyes from Callie’s, Arizona took a step back. “Right. I’ll go get that room, you get the snacks?”
“Right,” Callie echoed with a slight nod. Her hand felt cold the instant the blonde pulled hers away. She watched her turn and disappear down the hallway.
Then she turned her focus to Yang.
“Have you always been such a spiteful little troll?” She walked over to the desk to face her roommate. “Or did med school just make you insanely evil?”
Cristina looked up slowly from her paperwork. “I prefer the term ‘malicious shark’,” she retorted. “And I blame my tormented childhood, et cetera, et cetera.”
Callie nodded. “Uh-huh. Figures.”
She turned and walked away.
***
Arizona had settled back into the couch in the Attending's Lounge with her feet propped up on the coffee table, arms crossed comfortably against her chest and her head resting back into the cushion. She was dozing lightly when Callie entered with food, and lifted her head to smile gratefully at her girlfriend.
“You are a Goddess among tiny, insignificant humans,” Arizona praised, not realizing until then how hungry she really was. “Remind me to thank you multiple times later.”
Callie smirked as she walked in, balancing a tray of steaming food on each arm. “Multiple times,” she repeated with a slight tilt of her head. “Multiple orgasms...” Her smirk widened a little as she glanced down to meet Arizona’s eyes.
Arizona laughed softly as she moved to sit forward on the couch.
Callie placed one of the trays down on the table in front of the blonde before taking a seat in the chair across from the couch. She held her own tray in her lap as she reached down for her mug of tea.
Arizona's smile faltered and her brow scrunched thoughtfully as she glanced down at the steaming food on her tray. “There's no way this came from our cafeteria. It looks too good.”
Callie smiled over the rim of her cup. “That's ‘cause it didn't.” She took a slow sip before releasing a satisfied sigh. “I sorta had the idea that you'd run yourself ragged and wouldn't eat all day, so I placed an early order with Perche No.”
Arizona groaned in appreciation. “I love you,” she sighed happily, her eyes taking in the sight and smell of the delicious non-cafeteria Italian food. She then reached over to snag Callie by the front of her scrubs and pull her close for a brief, but deep kiss over the table.
“If it weren’t for you, I’d starve to death and turn into a lonely old hag with a dog and a chicken for companions.” Arizona smirked and played with the soft material of Callie’s dark blue scrubs between her fingers.
Callie smiled that sweet little smile. The one she had perfected as her own. “And if it weren't for you,” she started with another deep, low husk to her voice. She leaned toward her partner, still holding the warm cup of tea in one hand. “I'd never have known what 'multiple orgasms' even were.”
That made Arizona grin, and she waggled her eyebrows suggestively at Callie. “Baby, I still haven’t shown you just how many ‘multiple’ can mean.”
Aware that they were dangerously close to forgetting all about the food and the work that needed to be done, Arizona allowed herself to steal just one more deep, lingering kiss from Callie before pulling back and reluctantly releasing the front of her scrubs.
“Carbonara,” the blonde sighed upon realizing what Callie had ordered for her. “God, I just fell in love with you all over again.” Her stomach growled loudly in agreement.
Callie smiled as she leaned back in her chair to take another slow sip of her tea. For a few minutes she just sat, watching her girlfriend as she literally devoured her food.
Arizona eventually paused to take a breath as she reached for her own glass of iced tea. Her hand froze as she looked up to meet dark brown eyes. “What?” she mumbled, blinking innocently with a few spaghetti noodles hanging from her lips.
Callie just shook her head as she relaxed back into her chair. “Nothing,” she replied in a soft whisper. “Sometimes, I just like watching you.” Her smile faltered. “But not in a creepy way.”
Arizona swallowed her mouthful of pasta and hurriedly wiped her mouth with a napkin. “You’re hardly creepy, Calliope,” she pointed out. “Though watching me stuff my face full of food isn’t exactly something I’d think you'd find that attractive.”
“Zona, you could sneeze and I’d find it attractive,” Callie pointed out with a chuckle.
That made the blonde blush just a little. “I guess that’s on par with me finding your snoring adorable. Most of the time.”
Callie’s smile instantly vanished. “I do not snore!” she snapped irritably.
Arizona smiled. “Oh, sweetie…yeah, you do.”
Dark eyes narrowed before the brunette lifted the hot cup of tea to her lips once more. “Do not,” she mumbled before taking another sip. She watched her girlfriend finish off her very, very late lunch.
Callie frowned a little at that thought. She didn't like it when Arizona didn't take care of herself. She knew how the blonde could be if she didn't get enough food.
A cranky and weak Arizona was not her friend, or anybody else’s for that matter.
“How's Danielle?” Callie asked in an attempt to change the subject. “And what exactly did you need my brain for again?”
Arizona finished off her pasta and all but drained her iced tea before collapsing back against the couch, starting to feel human again. “Poor kid survived brain cancer, a post-surgical aneurysm, multiple surgeries, and this morning she had a seizure.” The pediatric surgeon rubbed the heels of her palms against her eyes. “Her CT didn’t show any more blood clotting or complications from her tumor, and Shepherd wants to wait on a 3D MRI, but I’m not convinced that’ll show us anything, either. I’m at a total loss.”
She sighed heavily and dropped her hands back into her lap. “She should’ve been home recovering by now.” Arizona lifted her gaze back to meet Callie’s and smiled sadly. “She and Anna turn eight next week. I promised them months ago they’d be able to have their party at home with all their friends.”
Callie kept her gaze trained on her lover for a long moment before she leaned forward to place her mug of tea onto the table between them. She released a sigh of sympathy as she crossed her legs and draped an elbow across her knee. “There's something I learned once. A very long time ago, way back in the stone age when I was a rookie intern fresh out of med school.”
Arizona arched a slow brow, her curiosity perking up. “Isn't that when you learn...everything?”
Callie smiled and gave a slight nod. “True,” she relented. “But this one thing in particular, most doctors aren't fortunate enough to learn until much, much later in their careers.”
Arizona tilted her head curiously.
Callie kept her gaze locked with Arizona’s. “Sometimes, when you're searching for an answer that you can't seem to find, you just have to stop looking so hard. And then you might actually see that it’s already right in front of you.”
Arizona scrunched her brow in deep thought. “Huh. I guess that makes sense.” She frowned a little. “Sort of. I can’t really stop looking…”
She glanced up to find Callie smiling softly at her. “What?”
“Just think,” the brunette encouraged. “Go over the facts. Chances are you already know the answer, you just aren’t seeing it.”
Arizona furrowed her brow again. “But that’s just it. The facts don’t add up. Her tumor is gone, there are no more complications that we can see, except for this seizure.”
“So, maybe it wasn’t caused by the tumor,” Callie pointed out. “Maybe it’s something else.”
Arizona shook her head, her brain doing burnouts inside of her skull. “After all those tests? We more than likely would have uncovered the something else, if it was there. But there were no obscure symptoms.”
“So, whatever’s causing the seizures has the same symptoms as the brain tumor,” Callie offered.
Arizona leaned forward, letting that fact click into place. “Huh. So the tumor’s gone, her brain is healthy again, except for something that also causes seizures, with symptoms similar or the same to what she was experiencing before we took the tumor out.” She closed her eyes and wracked her brain. “But she was fine, right up until she was…”
Her head jerked up and her eyes widened.
Callie blinked back at Arizona. “What?”
“She stood up,” Arizona stated. “For the first time in…months, probably. On her own. She stood up, and almost immediately fainted and began to seize.”
Callie's dark brow furrowed. “O...kay,” she said slowly as she moved back a little into her seat. She kept her focus trained on her partner, and it was almost as if she could literally see the wheels turning in Arizona's head.
Arizona slowly began to smile as she gazed lovingly back at her girlfriend. “I think I finally see it now.”
Callie mirrored her smile. “Yeah?”
Arizona jumped up from her seat and began to pace. “Extreme cases of chronic orthostatic hypotension aren’t terribly uncommon in sick kids. It’s not usually this serious. But with all her body had been through the last seven months, with the chemo and surgeries and the general crapiness all around, her chemical balance is completely off. If it started when she developed the tumor, there’s no way we could have picked it out from her headaches and fainting episodes that the tumor could have caused. She’s been laying in a bed for the better part of a year now, too weak to walk, and the first time she goes to stand up the blood pools in her legs. Her body’s too weak to compensate, her heart rate drops, blood doesn’t get to her brain fast enough and boom, she seizes.”
Arizona stopped pacing and grinned breathlessly down at Callie, clearly excited that this was all finally making sense. “It’s like when you stand up too fast and the blood rushes from your head, only in her case it doesn't rush back fast enough. Her brain is deprived of oxygen and blood flow just long enough for her to faint and start seizing.” She ran a hand back through her hair, hurriedly repeating the facts inside of her head to make sure she wasn’t missing anything this time. “It’s treatable with meds for now, and it’ll probably dissipate as she recovers.”
Callie grinned proudly up at her pacing girlfriend. “See?” she whispered reverently as she waited for those blue eyes to focus back on her. “I knew you and that sexy brain would make a good team.” Her smile softened just a little as she felt a sudden heaviness in her chest. “Kinda like us just now,” she added quietly after a moment.
Couldn't Arizona see how great they'd be together? Raising a family, taking care of their future kids?
Arizona couldn’t stop beaming down at Callie, feeling as though she was on a high. “We do, don’t we?” She stopped pacing and knelt down in front of Callie’s chair. “We make a kick ass team.”
The blonde reached up, gently caressing the side of Callie’s face and neck with her right hand. “Believe me when I say there’s no one else I’d rather have as my partner in crime. Or in medicine, I guess.”
Callie smiled sadly. “Yeah,” she whispered as she closed her eyes against the soft, welcoming touch. “Just not in parenthood.” Her smile instantly vanished and her eyes shot open. She could tell by the look in Arizona's that she was really going to regret saying that.
Dammit.
Arizona bit her lip and very slowly withdrew her hand. But instead of pulling away completely, she rested it on top of Callie’s knee. “Calliope-”
“Don’t,” Callie interrupted with a quick shake of her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t…mean it…just forget…”
Arizona watched her girlfriend avoid looking at her, shaking her head sadly. “No,” she said quietly. “I’m not gonna ‘just forget’. I -”
The universe interrupted at that moment, making her pager go off insanely loudly at her hip. Arizona closed her eyes and sighed, resigning herself to the fact that this wasn’t the time to talk about it.
She pulled her hands away from Callie’s knee and glanced down at her pager. “I gotta go.” She stood, but didn’t move just yet, keeping a careful eye on her lover. “Wait for me? This won’t take long.”
Callie shook her head, still avoiding Arizona’s gaze. “I, um…have surgery pretty soon.”
Arizona bit her lip again. “Okay. I’ll find you after, I promise. Okay?”
Callie nodded mutely, her brown eyes a little misty as she held the other woman's soft blue gaze for just a moment longer.
It was still so heartbreakingly easy to get lost in those eyes.
The only sound in the on-call room was Arizona's quiet footsteps as she hurried to the exit. A soft click of the door echoed her departure.
Callie sat in silence, staring straight ahead at the wall as her resolve slowly started to crumble.
---