Fic: Statistics
Title: Statistics
Author: Nerdfightergirl
Pairing: Callie/Arizona
Rating: K
Summary: Affected by Tommy’s death, Arizona starts thinking about Sofia’s first days.
Disclaimer: I very happily do not own these characters. I just like to take them out for a spin now and then.
Arizona Robbins was a doctor. A surgeon. An amazing, skilled, renowned pediatric surgeon. She dealt with the deaths and lives of tiny humans every day. So why was this death eating at her so much? Dozens of preemies had come and gone (some home and far too many to the too-small coffins that had haunted her dreams for years) since Sofia Torres had spent 12 horrible weeks fighting to live. Sure, Sofia still occupied the coffins in her dreams, but in the light of day, she was home. She was healthy. And they’d just celebrated her first birthday. Well, they mostly just watched as a delighted Sofia destroyed the cake her mommy had made and decorated for her.
Arizona was hiding in an otherwise unoccupied and little-used attendings lounge. She longed for the quick comfort and easy relief she knew a cigarette would bring. But she’d promised Callie she’d quit and true to that, she hadn’t had a single cigarette since the day she found out Callie was pregnant with Sofia. She didn’t really want one anyway, if she was honest with herself. Thinking about how hard Sofia’s tiny, underdeveloped lungs had had to work to keep her alive had put the option of a cigarette permanently off the list of stress relievers. A glance at the clock had told her it was nap time at the day care, taking snuggles off the table with it. While she knew the day care workers would let her wake Sofia if she needed, she didn’t want to interrupt Sofia’s schedule for something like this and she feared the wrath of the day care workers if she accidentally woke any of the other kids.
That left Callie as her last option. Unfortunately, her wife was still in surgery for at least another hour. So she took a deep breath, wiped the tears out of her eyes, and left to find something to distract her. One of the benefits, at least in times like these, of being the department head was that there was never a shortage of paperwork. So she walked to her office, paging Callie to meet here there after surgery on the way, and settled in to tackle the mountain of paperwork on her desk.
Instead, she found herself drawn to her computer, where she looked up the algorithm Morgan’s boyfriend had used for Tommy. She put in the information she knew by heart and hit the button to calculate before she could change her mind.
There it was, in black and white.
19.3%
She thought about those first few days following the accident. She had been on the verge of losing everything. She flipped through the preemie website, though none of the information was news to her. She continued to read until she had read every article on every page of the site. By that point, she was openly sobbing.
She jerked up when she heard the sound of the door opening. She swiveled her desk chair to face backward, attempting to remove all evidence of her meltdown before turning back to face her visitor. She knew it was Callie. No one else would have entered without first knocking.
“Hey! I got your page. I would have been here sooner, but I figured you’d appreciate it if I showered before coming here so I wouldn’t smell like … surgery.” Callie’s voice trailed off as she noticed the state her wife was in. She let the door close behind her and crossed the room, gathering Arizona into her arms. “Hey. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing. Just lost a patient.”
Aware that just losing a patient wouldn’t affect the normally professionally stoic Dr. Robbins this much, Callie glanced around for clues. Seeing the web page on the computer screen, Callie let out a disappointed, “Arizona.”
“I know. I know I shouldn’t have looked it up. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Tommy died. He was born later than Sofia and he still didn’t make it. And I keep going over it and over it in my mind, going through every statistic, everything I learned in school, everything that’s telling me that my baby should have died.”
“But she didn’t die, Arizona. You saved her. She’s just fine.”
“I just feel so guilty. All these other babies who had a better chance died and my baby lived. Did I not try as hard because they weren’t mine? Did I tell their parents it was time to let go when they should have kept fighting? I never would have let anyone tell me to stop fighting for Sofia.”
“That was different, Arizona. You know that sometimes, letting them go is more merciful than allowing them to continue to suffer. Sofia wasn’t needlessly suffering. She was growing. She was getting better. And maybe you did try harder with Sofia, because she’s your daughter. You were trying as a doctor AND as a mom. And nobody can fault you for that. Parents are supposed to fight harder than doctors. That’s why they need you to tell them when it’s time to let go, to stop fighting.”
“Do you know how many little things aligned to give her a better chance? How many little things Sofia had that Tommy didn’t have? She was female. You’re bigger, so she was bigger. We waited almost a whole day after the crash before Addison delivered her, so she had a chance to recoup a little from the trauma, and she had three parents and all our friends fighting like crazy for her. Tommy only had Morgan and a bunch of doctors. It just isn’t fair.”
“I know.” Callie tightened her hold and pressed her lips to Arizona’s temple before pulling back to say, “You did everything you could for him. It was time to let him go. You gave him the best chance he could have had, but even that was still not enough. And that is NOT your fault. At all. So you gave Morgan the chance to hold her baby, to give him whatever she could in his last moments.” Arizona was no longer the only one crying.
Callie slipped her hand down to her pocket to pull out her phone so she could check the time. “Come on. Sofia should be awake by now. We might even get there in time to help with snack. You know how cute she is when she eats. We’ll get you some cuddles and maybe she can convince you to cancel your afternoon to take her to the park since it’s actually a nice day out today?”
“I can’t just leave, Callie. I have patients who need me,” Arizona protested weakly.
“Your daughter needs you. And you need her. Karev can take care of things for one afternoon,” Callie countered.
“We’ll see,” Arizona said, already mentally going through the rest of her day, figuring out what Karev could handle and what would have to be pushed back to be done another day.
Author: Nerdfightergirl
Pairing: Callie/Arizona
Rating: K
Summary: Affected by Tommy’s death, Arizona starts thinking about Sofia’s first days.
Disclaimer: I very happily do not own these characters. I just like to take them out for a spin now and then.
Arizona Robbins was a doctor. A surgeon. An amazing, skilled, renowned pediatric surgeon. She dealt with the deaths and lives of tiny humans every day. So why was this death eating at her so much? Dozens of preemies had come and gone (some home and far too many to the too-small coffins that had haunted her dreams for years) since Sofia Torres had spent 12 horrible weeks fighting to live. Sure, Sofia still occupied the coffins in her dreams, but in the light of day, she was home. She was healthy. And they’d just celebrated her first birthday. Well, they mostly just watched as a delighted Sofia destroyed the cake her mommy had made and decorated for her.
Arizona was hiding in an otherwise unoccupied and little-used attendings lounge. She longed for the quick comfort and easy relief she knew a cigarette would bring. But she’d promised Callie she’d quit and true to that, she hadn’t had a single cigarette since the day she found out Callie was pregnant with Sofia. She didn’t really want one anyway, if she was honest with herself. Thinking about how hard Sofia’s tiny, underdeveloped lungs had had to work to keep her alive had put the option of a cigarette permanently off the list of stress relievers. A glance at the clock had told her it was nap time at the day care, taking snuggles off the table with it. While she knew the day care workers would let her wake Sofia if she needed, she didn’t want to interrupt Sofia’s schedule for something like this and she feared the wrath of the day care workers if she accidentally woke any of the other kids.
That left Callie as her last option. Unfortunately, her wife was still in surgery for at least another hour. So she took a deep breath, wiped the tears out of her eyes, and left to find something to distract her. One of the benefits, at least in times like these, of being the department head was that there was never a shortage of paperwork. So she walked to her office, paging Callie to meet here there after surgery on the way, and settled in to tackle the mountain of paperwork on her desk.
Instead, she found herself drawn to her computer, where she looked up the algorithm Morgan’s boyfriend had used for Tommy. She put in the information she knew by heart and hit the button to calculate before she could change her mind.
There it was, in black and white.
19.3%
She thought about those first few days following the accident. She had been on the verge of losing everything. She flipped through the preemie website, though none of the information was news to her. She continued to read until she had read every article on every page of the site. By that point, she was openly sobbing.
She jerked up when she heard the sound of the door opening. She swiveled her desk chair to face backward, attempting to remove all evidence of her meltdown before turning back to face her visitor. She knew it was Callie. No one else would have entered without first knocking.
“Hey! I got your page. I would have been here sooner, but I figured you’d appreciate it if I showered before coming here so I wouldn’t smell like … surgery.” Callie’s voice trailed off as she noticed the state her wife was in. She let the door close behind her and crossed the room, gathering Arizona into her arms. “Hey. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing. Just lost a patient.”
Aware that just losing a patient wouldn’t affect the normally professionally stoic Dr. Robbins this much, Callie glanced around for clues. Seeing the web page on the computer screen, Callie let out a disappointed, “Arizona.”
“I know. I know I shouldn’t have looked it up. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Tommy died. He was born later than Sofia and he still didn’t make it. And I keep going over it and over it in my mind, going through every statistic, everything I learned in school, everything that’s telling me that my baby should have died.”
“But she didn’t die, Arizona. You saved her. She’s just fine.”
“I just feel so guilty. All these other babies who had a better chance died and my baby lived. Did I not try as hard because they weren’t mine? Did I tell their parents it was time to let go when they should have kept fighting? I never would have let anyone tell me to stop fighting for Sofia.”
“That was different, Arizona. You know that sometimes, letting them go is more merciful than allowing them to continue to suffer. Sofia wasn’t needlessly suffering. She was growing. She was getting better. And maybe you did try harder with Sofia, because she’s your daughter. You were trying as a doctor AND as a mom. And nobody can fault you for that. Parents are supposed to fight harder than doctors. That’s why they need you to tell them when it’s time to let go, to stop fighting.”
“Do you know how many little things aligned to give her a better chance? How many little things Sofia had that Tommy didn’t have? She was female. You’re bigger, so she was bigger. We waited almost a whole day after the crash before Addison delivered her, so she had a chance to recoup a little from the trauma, and she had three parents and all our friends fighting like crazy for her. Tommy only had Morgan and a bunch of doctors. It just isn’t fair.”
“I know.” Callie tightened her hold and pressed her lips to Arizona’s temple before pulling back to say, “You did everything you could for him. It was time to let him go. You gave him the best chance he could have had, but even that was still not enough. And that is NOT your fault. At all. So you gave Morgan the chance to hold her baby, to give him whatever she could in his last moments.” Arizona was no longer the only one crying.
Callie slipped her hand down to her pocket to pull out her phone so she could check the time. “Come on. Sofia should be awake by now. We might even get there in time to help with snack. You know how cute she is when she eats. We’ll get you some cuddles and maybe she can convince you to cancel your afternoon to take her to the park since it’s actually a nice day out today?”
“I can’t just leave, Callie. I have patients who need me,” Arizona protested weakly.
“Your daughter needs you. And you need her. Karev can take care of things for one afternoon,” Callie countered.
“We’ll see,” Arizona said, already mentally going through the rest of her day, figuring out what Karev could handle and what would have to be pushed back to be done another day.