After All This Time
By Bella Taggart
Part 7/?
"What do we have?" Christina asked, walking outside to join Callie in the cold, as she waited for the ambulance to arrive.
"Twenty-six year old female with multiple stab wounds to the chest, should be here any minute." Callie replied, shifting from foot to foot in an effort to keep warm.
"Ooh fun."
Callie chuckled, "You're bad."
"Like you weren't thinking the same thing."
It was a cold day, even for November and it didn't seem to be warming up despite the time approaching two o'clock in the afternoon. The warmest hour of the day my ass, she thought as she breathed warm air into her palms.
"Owen is going to Geneva tonight, you wanna come over?" Christina asked, turning her back to Callie, so that she could tie the yellow plastic overall onto her.
"Geneva?"
"The Pan-American trauma congress."
"Oh, right…weren't you supposed to go with him to that?"
"Changed my mind."
"You changed your mind?" Callie asked incredulously, shivering as she literally felt the cold seep into her bones.
"That's right."
"Why on earth would you change your mind? It's Switzerland, land of chocolate and skiing and…banks."
"Banks, Cal, really?"
"You know what I mean, I thought you guys were planning a romantic getaway afterwards, weren't you the one asking me about hotels in St. Moritz?
Christina shrugged, looking around, as she tucked her hands in her armpits. "What's taking so long? I thought they were supposed to be here any minute."
Callie moved closer to her friend. "Did you have a fight?"
"No."
"Oh my god, you did. Have I been so out of it that I missed a major fight? What happened, is it the army thing? No-is it because you work too much? "
"We didn't have a fight."
"Did he cheat on you?" She suddenly covered her mouth with her palm, "Oh my God, did you cheat on him?"
"What? NOo! We didn't have a fight you crazy woman! There's a surgery, just a surgery I don't want to miss." She said, shaking her head, rolling her eyes. "Did I cheat on him-Oy vey."
"What surgery?"
"A coronary artery bypass graft on a twelve month old baby."
"Twelve months?"
"Are you gonna repeat everything I say in a question?"
"I will if I want to and that's never been done before, has it?"
"Nope, and when am I gonna get a chance to see something like that, it's too big, and he understands I can't miss it"
Callie understood it too. There was no way Christina would be missing such a major surgery. Hell, she wouldn't even have missed something half as important.
"Well, why didn't you just say so?"
"I don't know, I just…" she trailed off, looking unsure, like she wanted to say something but couldn't.
There could only be one reason for that Callie realized after a moment of contemplation.
"It's Hahn's surgery." Callie stated, as though answering a question in her own mind.
Christina nodded guiltily. "It is."
Callie felt her stomach tense at the face of her friend's reluctance. She didn't want to be that person people skirted around an issue for.
"Christina, you can talk about her, I don't mind."
"I know, it's just…you've been so silent the whole week, you haven't even mentioned her name and I didn't want to rub it in your face…"
"I haven't talked about her cause there is nothing to talk about." Callie rushed in reflex, than looked down when she realized that her words sounded more defensive than she intended.
"And?"
"And…nothing."
Christina gave her a doubtful look.
"And…and…just saying her name pisses me off. It does."
She was furious with Erica, she couldn't help it. Erica, true to her word, had not spoken to her about anything other than work since their confrontation. In fact they had barely spoken at all. And when they did, the few spattered words could barely pass for conversation. Brief directives, concise confirmations all delivered with out most respect and politeness, were more like it.
After just a week, Callie was already sick of being so damn polite and respectful all the damn time. She couldn't help it, the more Erica followed Callie's instructions and acted like they were nothing but distant and yet amiable colleagues, the more Callie wanted to rip her own arm and strangle Erica with it. In fact, she often found herself silently willing Erica to say something out of place, something inappropriate, anything that would allow Callie to wipe off that polite smile she wore every time their eyes met.
But she wouldn't, and time was passing, a fact that only heightened her aggression instead of lessening it, as it promised. Still she believed that given enough time her aggression would wear itself off, and she'd be free of this general feeling of un-satisfaction. She had to be.
"It's a subject best left unspoken." She finished, rubbing her palms against each other.
"Aha."
"It'll pass on its own."
She didn't know who she was trying to convince, Christina or herself.
Christina looked at her sideways, and took a deep breath.
"If I was into psych, I'd tell you that it's not healthy to keep it all in, and that you're bound to explode at some point, you know that right?"
Callie nodded, "I guess it's a good thing you're not into psych then."
"Right."
"Anyway, this is my issue and I'll deal with it; you don't have to worry about it and you definitely don't have to censure yourself for my benefit…I don't expect you to stay away from her just because I do. She is…a great surgeon and if she's doing that surgery, you should definitely be there, hell, I wanna be there."
"I think that she might even let me participate." Christina said after a moment, her voice filled with awe.
"Yeah?"
"I think so, I spoke to her, asked her if I could be in the OR and she said, get this, she said that she was gonna ask me the same thing."
Callie snorted at that, her eyebrows lifting in surprise.
"I know and that's not all. I was like, 'Me?' and she was like, 'Only two percent of heart surgeons specialize in pediatric cardiology Dr. Yang, and I hear that you want to be one of them. Or was I misinformed?' Can you believe that?"
"Wow…well, she always was one to do her homework."
"She seems different, Cal. More… approachable."
"Maybe it's you who's different." Callie said, linking her arm with Christina's, trying to borrow her body heat.
"You think?"
"Also, it probably helps that you're not trying to climb up her ass anymore."
"Yeah, probably."
They started chuckling then, and afterwards laughing out loud as they recognized the absurdity of the situation.
Callie was having mixed emotions about the whole thing but Christina looked so excited, she couldn't let herself bring her down just because her stomach burned every time she thought about her ex.
Having Erica back was good for this hospital, that much was clear, she just wasn't sure if it was good for her.
"Cal, if she can pull it off, it'll be amazing. I mean, we'll be the talk of the country. Forget our ranking, our prestige will be-"
Her words were interrupted by the loud shrill of the approaching sirens, and within seconds they were standing in front of a parked, red and white ambulance.
"Here we go." Callie mumbled, as they lunged forward towards the opening doors of the vehicle.
* * * * * * * * *
Callie was sitting in the locker room, pulling on her boots, a task that was taking her minutes instead of seconds.
It had been a long day. As though accompanying her bad mood, each passing hour had brought with it all kinds of impossible cases. She had saved two, lost one and the other, she wasn't sure about. If he made it till the morning, she'd take it.
The heart stab wound, had been the most wearing one of the day for sure. Erica had scrubbed in alongside her, taking the lead. She had cracked open the woman's chest, localized the bleeding, cleaned and sutured the ruptured muscle.
One minute there were arms everywhere rushing back and forth, passing clamps and pads and forceps, frantically trying to keep her going, and the next there was the shrill steady squeal of the monitor as she flat lined.
After all else failed, and they exhausted their chances with pushing various cc's of various medications into her iv line, all that was left was for Erica to massage the heart manually in an effort to pump it back to life.
And all Callie could do, along with every one else in the room, was to watch her in frozen silence.
There she was, elbow deep in a woman's chest, holding her heart in her hands, squeezing and releasing-squeezing and releasing the ripped muscle with her palms.
Callie could not pull her eyes away, even after minutes passed and others started looking away in resignation.
Finally, she watched Erica's shoulders sag and her hands slow down. But instead of acceptance all she could feel was a monstrous surge of rage in herself, an uncontrollable urgency that rushed her forward. Then, before she could think twice about it, she was pushing Erica out of the way and replacing her hands with her own.
"Dr. Torres-" Erica started, sounding surprised as she pulled back.
"No-"
"There is nothing you can do."
"No!" she repeated, forcefully. Looking down at the woman's body, she rhythmically compressed and ordered under her breath, "Come on-come on…"
"It's been 6 minutes." Erica said in explanation. Like that should mean something. It didn't mean anything. People came back all the time. And this woman, this young innocent woman was going to come back. She had a whole future ahead of her.
"No."
"We've done all that we can."
"Come on-come on…"
"You're wasting your time."
"I'm bringing her back!"
"Dr. Torres-"
"You can give up Erica, I'm not going to!" She shouted over her shoulder, meeting her eyes, daring her to say something back.
She didn't.
Nobody said anything after that.
There was silence as she worked, as hard as she had ever worked, willing the heart to start pumping on its own, praying for a flutter, a beat, anything.
But nothing came.
After some unaccountable time, after her own breathing was rushing in and out of her body and sweat was clouding her vision, she felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up. It was Christina.
"Cal… it's been 22 minutes."
Had it really been that long? It couldn't be. She looked around the room and they were the only ones left. Her, still pumping the woman's heart, Christina by her side and Erica, by the door, watching her silently and intently.
She felt tired all of a sudden, bone tired. The adrenalin that had kept her going had pushed out of her system in one quick punch and left exhaustion on its wake.
Her arms ached, as she slowed them down to a stop and finally pulled them back.
"Call it Doctor." Erica said quietly.
Callie looked up blankly, met her eyes for a long moment, and then she took a step away from the body. It wasn't a woman anymore, it was just a body.
Rubbing the sweat out of her eyes with her upper arm, she looked up at the wall behind Erica, swallowed and opened her mouth, "Time of death 14:53."
That had been hours ago. Now she was sitting on the bench in front of her locker, trying to get the hollow feeling out of her system with the awarding thought that at least the day had come to an end.
She jumped, as a pair of arms encircled her waist and a torso pressed into her back.
"Miss me lover?" a sultry voice whispered into her ear.
She spun around to look into a pair of blue-green eyes.
"Sade! You're back!" she shrieked, throwing her arms around Sadie.
"I'm baaack." Sadie hugged her back, pecking her on the lips.
When she pulled back Callie gave her a great big smile and reaching forward ruffled her hair. "What did you do to your hair?"
"Cut it, dyed it, you like it?"
"Very Wynona."
"I'll take that as a yes." Sadie said, patting down her hair.
Callie snorted, "Yes, yes. When did you get in?"
"This morning, looked for you but you were in surgery."
"Yeah, back to backs today." She whispered, flashing back to the OR for a fleeting second, and then smiling extra-widely to cover it up.
Sadie arched her eyebrows all the same. "You look knackered."
"Gee, thanks."
"Seriously, who died?"
She swallowed and shook her head, "Long day…How was your flight?"
"Are you diverting?"
"Yes."
"Alright; then long and boring."
She bumped their shoulders together, "How was England? Tell me."
"Wet and boring" Sadie quipped. Callie tipped her head in amusement, raising an eyebrow. "No seriously, all I remember at the moment are a few songs, a few surgeries, one where I got to kind of fly solo, and a lot of rain. It was good experience but I'm glad to be back."
"Me too. One whole month is too long girl. You'll have to tell me all about it in detail later."
"I will." Sadie assured, getting up to open her locker, and started changing her clothes. "Anything interesting happen while I was gone?"
"You don't wanna know."
"I hear we have a new commander in chief."
"That, we do." Callie mumbled, looking down.
"This, Erica Hahn, is not the bird you were dating before me, is it?" Sadie asked, halting her hands and looking at Callie.
Right after Erica had left three years ago, Sadie had entered the picture. Callie had been moping around, feeling sorry for herself, not noticing anything around her other than work, when suddenly she noticed Sadie. In retrospect, it was impossible not to with her gorgeous figure and irresistible accent and her shameless flirting. She remembered well how each time Sadie touched a lock of her hair or smiled a little widely how she used to turn into a blubbering idiot. Loosing the ability to complete full sentences as the blood in her brain relocated to more southern regions every time Sadie came close to touching distance.
Looking back now, Callie was pretty sure that, even if they hadn't gotten stuck on the roof and almost turned into popsicles, even if they hadn't clung to each other in an effort to keep warm, Sadie would have made the first move some other way. "I can warm you up," she had said, opening her arms to welcome Callie into them. "And I mean that for more than just now." Callie had swallowed audibly, feeling like a fish out of water and after a moment walked into her arms.
What had started that night as a few, no strings attached, rolls in the hay had quickly transformed into something else. They made better friends than lovers, both decided not long after, and although their physical relationship had quickly come to an end their flirting had not.
Callie loved that their friendship was fun-easy-uncomplicated. They had a great time together all the while knowing that they cared a great deal about each other. She really couldn't ask for anything more.
She looked back at her sheepishly, not answering.
"Oh God, it is…your first, your deflowerer, the one that led you out through the gateway of the straight and narrow and into the magical land of lady lovin'…"
"That's the one." She said chuckling at the adjectives Sadie was throwing her way.
"What is she doing here?"
Callie shrugged. "Damned if I know."
After a moment Sadie humfhed and continued dressing.
"She probably wants to get back in your knickers." She said in a sing song voice.
"Oh please."
"You wanna bet?"
"You think everybody wants to get in my 'knickers'"
"That's because they do."
Callie smiled, feeling a sudden sense of hope at the possibility. A rush of energy flew through her system. Then she realized her involuntary reaction and felt even worse than before. What was she doing, hoping? Hoping for what? Her body was betraying her. There was nothing to hope for.
"You all right?" Sadie asked, with a note of worry in her voice.
Callie knew that beneath Sadie's tough girl routine was a sensitive, good person. She had seen that right from the beginning. She didn't want to upset her, but she couldn't bring herself to lie either. So she simply looked up at her with a sad smile on her face.
Sadie sat down next to her, and threw an arm around her shoulder.
"Fancy a shag to make you feel better?"
Sadie asked it so seriously, and as such a matter of fact that Callie couldn't stop the laughter that suddenly burst out of her, "Ha-ha, no thanks."
Laughter was good; it lightened her heart and made her feel a little bit more like her normal self. Looking at the smiling face of Sadie, Callie realized, she needed that now more than ever.
"Hey, can't blame a girl for trying."
"I missed you."
Continued...