Solo Act

Chapter 14

"Time of death..." Before Teddy can complete her sentence Arizona jumps forward.

"NO!" Pushing everyone out of the way to get to Emma, she starts doing compressions. "No, she can't die!" The rest of the world disappears as all she can see, all she can focus on is her sister's limp body, trying to force the life back into it. She keeps talking telling her to come back to her, to stay. A pair of hands grabs onto her shoulders.

"Arizona it's been twenty minutes she's not coming back," Teddy says softly.

"No! She can't... I can't..." She is not giving up on her, she just needs more time.

"Arizona." Teddy takes a hold of her friend's wrists, she has to put all of her strength into pulling Arizona away from her little sister.

"Time of death 17:03," Teddy announces.

Barbara's heart-wrenching sobs cut through the air. Arizona just keeps her eyes on her sister. It feels like she is trapped in some alternate universe. No, Emma can't be dead. Arizona has had to face countless deaths of patients but it's different when it's your own flesh and blood.

"Arizona I'm so sorry," Teddy says as she tugs on her wrists that she is still holding on to, forcing her to look at her for the first time. She sees Teddy's eyes start to water threatening to spill over any second. "We did everything we could, so did you." Teddy can see her words are not registering.

Arizona pulls her arms free from Teddy's grasp seeing her hands covered in her sister's blood. Her now-dead sister. Clenching her fists when a stray tear hits her palm, she looks up seeing the nurses removing the incubation tube to pull the white sheet over her.

"I... I have to go." She says in almost a zombie-like state. "I have patients." Turning around she leaves the room and starts running down the hall, she just keeps running if she keeps running then it will go away.

"I'm a doctor I knew she wasn't going to make it, but the sister in me kept holding on that something, anything is going to happen and she will be okay. She was twenty-one." Sniffing Arizona wipes at her cheeks not even realizing she started crying. Callie runs her fingers over Arizona's name on the lab coat, feeling tears roll down her own cheeks. "Afterwards I focused on my work, on only my work. Working longer and harder hours. If I kept busy I wouldn't have time to think about it. I use to love being a surgeon, the bright lights, latex gloves, even the smell. All those things that use to bring me joy only reminded me of my loss. I was barely hanging on. I... I'm supposed to protect the things I love." Arizona looks down at her hands, her mind is flooded with images of it covered in Emma's blood. "My life went pretty much south from there, I turned into a shell of who I used to be. I had a meltdown in the middle of an OR." She closes her eyes. "When I scrubbed out I grabbed my stuff and haven't gone back since. I couldn't stand being in that hospital anymore, everywhere I looked I saw her. So I ran. When Emma died I piece of me died with her."

After what feels like hours of silence, Callie finds her voice. "Arizona." She says softly not to startle her. Arizona snaps out of her trance and starts tossing the stuff back into the box.

"You know what it doesn't matter anymore." She says grabbing the lab coat from the singer forcefully pushing it into the box.

Callie places her hand on her shoulder. Feeling her girlfriend's hand she stops, still not able to look into those big brown eyes.

"Arizona it does matter. You lost someone very close to you, you were grieving and you still are."

"I just wish there is something I could have done." She says defeated. Callie places her hands on her cheeks trying to wipe away the never-ending tears. "I miss her so much."