Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Callie,” Arizona managed, the tile cold against her spine and bile still thick around her teeth. Her wife’s voice had been filtering through the door for a few minutes, but she’d hardly taken in any of the words as she fought not to lose any more of her lunch, though she wasn’t sure there was anything left to lose.

“Yeah?” came the reply, but Arizona was once again swallowing hard against the wave of nausea that had risen in her throat.

There was a pause and then the door clicked open, with Callie stepping forward and panicked eyes looking her up and down. “Oh my god, did you fall?”

“No, no, no,” Arizona said softly, voice slightly raw. “The floor is just really nice and cool. And this,” she indicated the toilet with a tilt of her head, “is my friend.”

Callie was still looking at her with something like worry, but Arizona could feel that she was slightly ditzy from fever and just smiled dopily as she said, “but, guess what.”

“What?” Callie said, drawn out like she didn’t really want to know the answer.

“I’ve still got it!” Arizona celebrated weakly, swallowing hard. “My superpowers… are intact.”

“Yeah,” Callie said on an exhale, like she was working out what to do with the situation.

“Yay,” Arizona whispered, managing a smile.

Callie made a thumbs up, then said with fake jubilance, “super.” She was quiet for a second, and then she asked, “do you need me to take you home? Can’t quite leave you here, puking up a storm and hogging the attending’s lounge bathroom.”

“You can do whatever you want,” Arizona said, fighting back a yawn and a gag at the same time. She swallowed thickly, then murmured, “I might go to sleep.”

“You’re not sleeping there,” Callie said firmly, stepping forward and dropping to one knee in front of Arizona to press the back of her hand to her wife’s forehead. She was warm, too warm, and Callie sighed, “you’re burning up. I’m taking you home.”

“Take me home,” Arizona giggled. “Take me home, Dr Torres. Strong Dr Torres. My… Dr Muscles.”

Callie let out a long breath as she put her hands under Arizona’s arms and lifted her from the floor, draping Arizona’s left arm over her shoulders and holding around her waist as she said, “you’re sweating and feverish. This thing’s really got to you.”

“I told you it would,” Arizona nodded sagely, leaning most of her weight against Callie. “Just a teeny, tiny error with the timing. Three days of this… I can just sense it.”

“You gonna puke again? Or are you okay?” Callie asked, deciding it would be a good thing to ask before she removed Arizona from the bathroom; the last thing she wanted was yet another mess in a hospital hallway.

“I think I’m alright,” Arizona said on an exhale, leaning her head against Callie’s shoulder for a moment and waiting for the pounding in her head to recede slightly. “For now.”

“Okay. Wash your hands, and then we’ll get going.”

“We’re still in scrubs.” Arizona started to wash her hands, Callie’s arm around her waist helping keep her upright for her knees felt weak – even the metal one, it seemed.

Callie waved a hand. “I think the important thing here is to get you out of this building. It’s a festering pit of disease right now, and you’re only adding to the statistics.”

“Wow, way to make a girl feel special,” Arizona snarked weakly, drying her hands. Then, turning around and hooking her arm back around Callie’s neck, Arizona sighed, “God… I feel awful.”

“Run me down,” Callie said softly as she supported Arizona out of the bathroom and started walking them slowly down the hall, both their bags slung over her free shoulder. “Symptoms?”

“Vomiting, fever, flu like sneezing and coughing,” Arizona murmured. “Headache. My gut hurts and I slammed to the floor so hard that my leg hurts too.”

“So you did fall.”

“It was a measured fall,” Arizona argued weakly, a slight indignance in the words.

“Right,” Callie said, pressing the button for the elevator. “So you meant to fall over.”

“How else was I gonna kneel over the toilet?” Arizona huffed. “I’m sure leg pain’s preferable to the mess that would have been in there otherwise.”

“Fine,” Callie relented. “Cool towels and saltines for you when we get home.”

“What about Sof?” Arizona asked, looking up at Callie with wide, sad eyes. “I don’t want to give this to her.”

“I’m sure I’m gonna get it at some point,” Callie said darkly, though there was a lightness in her eyes when Arizona met them. “I’ll ask Mer if she can keep her for dinner, and then I’ll tuck her into bed as soon as Mer drops her off.”

“I’m gonna have to stay away from her for three days,” Arizona said sadly, entering the elevator and holding herself up on the bar as Callie followed and hooked a hand into her elbow for some extra stability.

Callie sighed, “well, if we all get it, then we can all rot in the same bed. But I’m hoping that she doesn’t pick it up because she gets so clingy when she’s sick, and I need to at least try and work tomorrow. I’m sorry, you’re going to be Sof deprived for at least a day or two.”

“Damn it,” Arizona groaned, new nausea climbing in her throat though she tried to shove it down. “I could- I could really do with some Zofran right now.”

Callie looked sideways, at the sheen of sweat covering Arizona’s face and the tension in her jaw, and asked, “are you going to puke again?”

“I don’t know.” Arizona swallowed thickly and took a few deep breaths, then said, “okay, not now.”

“Alright,” Callie said softly, waiting for the elevator to reach the first floor and then supporting Arizona down the hallway.

They saw Alex just as they were crossing the waiting room, charting at the nurse’s station.

Arizona gasped when she saw him and called, “Alex! Hey, Alex!”

He looked around, confusion etched in the dip of his brows, until he saw her waving at him and his lip curled in distaste. He walked forward and said, “so, you’re sick, then.”

“Told you,” Arizona said smugly, pointing at him.

Alex looked at Callie, his mouth lifting at one side as it always did when he got awkward. “You’re taking her home?”

“She’s no good here,” Callie said with a roll of her eyes. “She’s got a fever and she’s basically a drunk when she’s ill, so she should definitely leave this place.”

“See you later,” Alex said, starting to walk off. He called over his shoulder, “don’t let her come back until she’s fever free!”

“I won’t,” Callie replied, removing a feverish Arizona from the building before anything anymore awful could happen.

***

Three hours later, Arizona was curled up in bed with a trash can on the floor beside her and her laptop open, playing something she couldn’t focus on if she tried. She was medicated but didn’t feel much better, blowing her nose miserably and tossing the tissues into the trash can. Her head was stuffy and she was shivering a little, though the fever had been dulled by the medication she’d managed to force down after puking again an hour before. Her leg was leaning up against her nightstand, phantom pain prickling with the fever ravaging her body.

Callie came back through the door after settling Sofia down for bed, a packet of saltines in one hand and a new bottle of water in the other.

“Hey,” she said softly, taking in Arizona’s limp demeanour and looking at her with something like pity. “I brought you some saltines, just in case you think you can put anything away. Dry and salty; just what you need.”

“Thanks,” Arizona answered, throat raw and voice a barely there rasp. She inhaled and then coughed roughly, a hacking sound that felt like it was tearing her lungs free from her chest. She was only just aware of Callie slipping into bed beside her and urging her close, then rubbing her back and patting between her shoulder blades to try and calm down the fit.

Her throat felt like she’d been eating sand when she swallowed thickly and collapsed against Callie’s shoulder, grasping at her hand and fighting air into lungs that felt like they were clogged with concrete.

“Drink this,” Callie murmured, offering her the water and holding it for her when shaky hands couldn’t take it. She helped Arizona tip her head back and waited for her to swallow before she set the water aside and stroked some rogue hair back from Arizona’s face. It was mostly in a ponytail for ease of puking, but a few strands had escaped doing the coughing fit.

“You’re gonna get sick,” Arizona rasped sadly, though she didn’t lean away from Callie’s warmth.

“I’d rather get sick than leave you to suffer alone.”

“You won’t feel like that when you get this,” Arizona whispered, looking up into Callie’s face and chewing on her lip.

Callie’s mouth twitched. “Well, hopefully you can look after me if I get ill.”

“I’ll try my best,” Arizona sighed and swallowed hard, throat screaming.

Callie leaned to the side and grabbed a cold cloth from her own nightstand, then swiped it across Arizona’s forehead. She wiped it over every part of Arizona’s face and neck, helping cool her down while kissing her hair and talking quietly about the tetanus patient she’d been dealing with that day.

Arizona wasn’t really listening to the words, but Callie’s voice was soothing and low and she found herself falling asleep against Callie’s comfort.

She didn’t know what the time was when she woke up, only that there was an imminent disaster on the horizon – proven by the amount of spit accumulated on her tongue and the uncomfortable squeezing sensation in her stomach.

“Shit,” she gasped quietly, slamming a hand over her mouth and rolling out of Callie’s arm, which had been tossed over her ribs. In her fevered, middle of the night state, she forgot one very important detail about her body and threw herself out of bed to get to the bathroom. She should have landed on her left leg, should have caught herself on it and managed to fall to her knees by the toilet, but there was nothing there.

Instead, she clattered to the floor while gagging into her palm, fighting down the bile in her throat as her head slammed into the wall. She moaned in pain when agony sparked though her head and left side, which hit the floor first. Her right hand was still firm over her mouth, trying to hold back the inevitable, while her left tried to haul her heavy and aching body upright to reach the trashcan.

Callie jolted awake when there was a loud crash, her hair everywhere when she sat up and blindly groped for her wife, asking in a voice hoarse with sleep, “Arizona?”

She heard a muffled, urgent sound of pain and reached to turn her lamp on, rubbing her eyes and following the sound before her eyes could even adjust to the light. She blinked furiously as she found the image of Arizona splayed on the floor, one hand over her mouth and eyes closed against the light, gagging urgently.

“Arizona!” Callie called urgently, throwing herself across the bed and slipping to the floor beside her wife. She grabbed the trash can, instantly hauling it to Arizona’s mouth just in time.

That was when Arizona’s stomach gave up and she retched desperately into it, hands grabbing at it and pulling it closer. Bile flowed thickly back over her tongue, heart going like a jackhammer and light pulsing across her eyes with the violent pounding of her head. Her eyes watered and her mouth did the same, fighting for breath against each violent wave of expulsion.

“It’s okay,” Callie whispered, rubbing Arizona’s back and spotting a dent in the drywall – presumably the origin of the crashing sound that had woken her up. She filed it away for later and instead said again, “it’s alright. Let it out. It’s okay.”

A few minutes later, Arizona was spitting bile from around her teeth and letting her head hang, softly moaning in pain. Her whole body was aching but she felt a little bit better in the stomach region, though her mouth felt disgusting and she was pretty sure she now had a concussion.

“Fuck,” Arizona groaned miserably, gasping and wrecked as she finally believed that the waves had died down and leaned back against Callie. She felt gross.

“What happened?” Callie finally asked, looking down into Arizona’s face and seeing pain across her features.

“I forgot,” Arizona mumbled. “No left leg… head to the wall.”

“That was your head?!” Callie asked, some kind of shock in her voice. “You slammed your head into the wall hard enough to break the drywall?”

“I broke the drywall?” Arizona looked up with tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry…”

“No, no, no, no,” Callie said quickly, tucking Arizona’s hair back behind her ears. “Don’t be daft; I’m more worried about you.”

Part of Arizona was touched, though the other half of her was just mortified. She sniffled and whispered, “I forgot.”

“I know you did,” Callie soothed, holding Arizona a little tighter. “It’s alright. I’ve got you.”

They stayed there for a moment, before Callie said softly, “let’s get you back into bed, yeah? And get some meds in you.”

“Meds sounds good,” Arizona whispered softly, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “Sorry I woke you up.”

“Stop apologising,” Callie chastised lightly, picking Arizona up with one arm around her back and the other hooked under her knee. “It’s alright. I’ll just put you back in here, fetch the meds and get you some mouthwash, and then I’ll clean out the trash.”

“Okay,” Arizona said tiredly, chewing her lip as bitterness stayed in all the crevices of her mouth. She felt Callie lift her and deposit her back into bed, and she pulled the duvet up and shivered beneath it.

Once she’d drunk some water and taken some meds, then rinsed her mouth out, Arizona screwed her eyes shut against the pounding in her head, searching for the spot of the most pain with her fingers and finding a lump there. It was tender and made her hiss through her teeth, but it wasn’t bleeding and she decided that that was at least something.

Once Callie had cleaned out the trash, she walked back to the bedroom and sat it on Arizona’s side. Then she slipped back into her side and let Arizona curl up against her. She didn’t say anything, just let Arizona sniffle against her in a way that was definitely more than just her illness.

After a moment of fighting back tears, Arizona whispered tearfully, “I forgot.”

“I know,” Callie murmured, kissing Arizona’s temple.

“I forgot that I don’t have a leg,” Arizona said, shaking her head as tears slipped down her nose. “And I think I’ve got a concussion.”

“I’m sorry,” Callie whispered. “I know it’s hard.”

Arizona sniffled, “missing a leg sucks. Can’t even puke my guts out correctly.” She let out a long breath, nausea still ebbing in her gut and flipping over the meds and water that were inside her. She reached over to her nightstand and grabbed a saltine, which she nibbled miserably, crying softly into it.

Callie didn’t know how Arizona was allowed to be so endearing while crying into a saltine, but she found herself just looking at Arizona’s face as she dragged that wet cloth across Arizona’s sweaty forehead once again.

“It sucks,” Callie agreed. “You’re allowed to hate it sometimes.”

“I hate it all the time,” Arizona spoke around the saltine, still crying. “I just… forget quite often.”

Guilt tickled Callie just a little, but she waved it away to say, “and that’s okay. Just know that I love you. And that you are still you, no matter how much of you there is.”

Arizona looked up, a saltine crumb stuck to her lip and tears running down her cheeks. “God, you always know the right thing to say. I hate that I feel too ill to make love to you right now.”

Callie managed a slight smile. “You can make it up to me when you feel a little better. We’ll take a day off and go on a weekend trip to… France or somewhere. Derek owes us a weekend without Sof.”

“France sounds nice,” Arizona whispered. “The land of love.”

“I’ll take us to Paris, and get us a hotel room overlooking the Eiffel Tower,” Callie said softly, running the cloth over Arizona’s face and down her arm, to the blood rushing in the artery in her wrist. “We’ll eat dinner somewhere expensive and I’ll kiss you when the sun goes down and the lights on the tower turn on. We can walk along the river and sit down in the grass with a good bottle of wine, and then we can come back to the hotel and pretend to watch Thelma and Louise.”

“Pretend?”

“I’ll be kissing you the whole time,” Callie whispered, setting the cloth aside and holding Arizona close. “There’ll be wandering hands and something special to try in the bedroom, and afterward we’ll eat good French bread and laugh together until the early hours of the morning.”

“I like this plan,” Arizona whispered back, blinking slowly and starting to feel a little more human despite the thudding in her temples and the pit in her gut that was either illness or sadness toward her disability. “I love you, Calliope.”

“I love you too,” Callie answered, smiling softly. “And I’ll look after you when you’re gross so that we can spend time together when you’re not.”

“Did you just call me gross?” Arizona’s eyes narrowed, but there was a weary humour in them.

“Always complimentary.” Callie winked. “Now, go back to sleep. I’ve got you.”

“I know you do,” Arizona said, resting her head against Callie’s chest and subsiding slightly in the bed, though she didn’t trust lying down so she was awkwardly half propped up. She wormed her arm around Callie’s waist and let out a long breath, nuzzling against her wife and feeling her heart beating against her cheek.

Callie exhaled and pulled the duvet up a little, ignoring the crunch of saltine crumbs under her ass and simply holding Arizona close. It pained her to see Arizona ill, but she was so glad that she got to be the one looking after her when she was.