After All This Time
By Bella Taggart
Part 9/?
Callie stormed in through the ER, frantically looking around. Her wet hair felt like ice-chips across her face, her wet clothes were sticking to her body, her feet were bare within her sneakers, and it hadn't even crossed her mind to put on a rain coat as she sprinted across the street, in the stormy rain and the cold winter air.
Eyes searching for her father, she crossed the room in three long strides and barked down into the nurses' desk.
"Where is she?"
"Dr. Torres?" The nurse looked dumbly at her, obviously not having a clue as to what she was talking about.
Callie was soaking from head to toe, her cheeks were numb, and she was breathing heavily. Somewhere in this hospital was a woman, as close to a mother, as she had ever had, who was in who knew what condition. She didn't have time for this.
"Sanchez. Maria Sanchez." She growled. "Where is she?"
The nurse, startled into action, perhaps by the urgency of her tone or by her shocking appearance, quickly checked her records. "She should be in OR two ma'am." She said, after too long a moment.
"Two." Callie repeated and ran down the hallway. She could feel the curious glances of her colleagues on her, as she almost collided with her father in front of the operating room.
"Calliope, Calliope." He called, taking hold of her arms.
"Dad, what happened?"
"There was a car, she was just crossing the street and than, he hit her Callie." He sounded as though he was on auto-pilot, his voice unnaturally monotone as he recounted what had happened. "An SUV. She was- she was unconscious and bleeding. I don't think she was breathing. I called 911."
Oh god.
"Ok, Dad. I want you to wait here. I'm gonna go inside, just wait here Dad."
She had never seen her father look so lost.
"It's gonna be all right. I promise."
It had to be all right, Callie could not lose another person. She would not lose Maria today. Not like this.
"I promise-just wait." She said and pushed the doors open.
The scene she walked in on would stay with her for a very long time to come.
Maria was covered in tubes, intubated, looking small and broken under the bright florescent lights of the room, with an army of doctors working on her. Her face was drained of color, other than the angry looking cuts and bruises across it, and her shirt was cut open, baring parts of her normally modest self to a room full of strangers.
She wouldn't have liked that, had she been awake.
Then again, she would have fainted had she seen herself lying there with her abdomen sliced open, and a number of gloved fingers painted red with her blood as they worked on her now visible internal organs.
No, she wouldn't have liked that at all.
Bailey and Erica were barking orders over her seemingly lifeless body, leading the group. Callie stood frozen as words like "internal bleeding" and "hemorrhaging" and "collapsed lung" floated over her head. Derek kept on saying that he had to relieve the pressure.
None of it made any sense to her, she felt oddly numb, when suddenly her eyes caught sight of Maria's bare toes. One of her socks had fallen off, or been removed leaving her left foot uncovered. For some reason, out of all the injuries, this was the most shocking.
Maria's slim frame had never been one that could tolerate cold. The simplest breeze usually had her reaching for a jumper. Callie remembered many scorching summer days when while everyone stood under sprinklers and jumped into pools in an effort to cool down Maria walked around with a sweater over her shoulders.
Someone had to cover her foot up. It was freezing. Callie, herself was shivering, Maria would surely catch her death if she stayed like this.
Callie involuntarily gasped in horror at the thought and took a step forward, her wet sneakers squeaking on the floor.
Erica looked up, her eyebrows rising in surprise.
"Dr. Torres?"
"I…she…" She began but words refused to come out.
Erica quickly looked her up and down, and confusedly asked, "What do you need Doctor?"
Erica's voice was coming from so far away, lost under the beeps and clicks, of various machines.
Callie knew she had to start moving, she knew she had to take charge, but despite all her intentions she couldn't move. Instead she heard herself whisper, "Toes."
"Excuse me?" Erica repeated, not hearing her at all.
She had barely heard herself.
"Her toes," She said, louder this time.
Erica looked down at Maria and back up at Callie, not understanding.
"Whatever it is, it'll have to wait." Erica said after a moment. "We're trying to save a life here, if you haven't noticed."
"I need suction." Bailey ordered.
"Pressure is dropping" Derek said.
"Maria." Callie gasped, her voice sounding raspy to her own ears.
"What was that?" Erica asked sharply.
"That's my Maria."
She had told Erica about Maria, one of those many nights they had spent together, before they got to be something more than friends, all those years ago. On one of those nights of talking about their fears, and wants and losses and triumphs, she had told her about her mom and her dad and Maria.
About that time Maria had baked-actually baked from scratch- a birthday cake just for Callie. Of course Callie had had birthday cakes before-all kinds of extravagant, giant, layered cakes specially decorated according to her interests at the time, specially prepared and delivered by pastry chefs that appeared in television shows- but never a simple chocolate cake baked at home for her by someone that loved her.
It had caught her by surprise, being at age-twelve- where she couldn't yet understand what was missing from her life before she found it, but also old enough to appreciate it when she recognized something as such.
It had been such a simple thing to do, simple and ordinary and oh so very extraordinary.
Maria had filled a gap.
She had told Erica that, Erica who filled a different kind of gap in Callie altogether. And Erica had held her hand, and smiled softly, with understanding eyes.
She had to remember that. Now, holding her fate once again in her hands, her happiness lying open and broken on a cold table in front of her, she had to know what she was holding.
Erica looked down once again, a flash of what looked like understanding crossing her face.
She looked up, met Callie's eyes and reassuringly said, "All right," and then, in a tone that left no room for debate, as though she was foreseeing the argument her words were going to flare up, she added, calmly, coolly, solidly, "now please wait outside."
That woke her up.
Erica was ordering her out of the room.
"What-no." She said incredulously, moving fully into the room at last.
"What are you doing Torres?" Derek interrupted, looking up at her through wide eyes.
"I'm helping." She said, taking a step forward.
"No, you're not." Erica ordered, sharply.
"The hell I'm not." Callie walked further up to the table.
Erica looked up at Miranda, "Bailey?"
"I've got it."
Then Erica stepped away from Maria and intentionally blocked Callie's path.
"Get out of the way." Callie shouted, apprehensively knowing somewhere in the back of her mind that she was about to cross some irreversible line with Erica.
But when Erica shook her head and unrelentingly said "No." She found herself walking-no jumping- right across it in one giant leap.
"Get the fuck out of my way Erica!" she barked.
"You need to back away now." Erica said, clenching her teeth.
People were looking, and with each passing second Callie felt more and more desperate.
"No, no! You can't stop me, damn it."
She felt her blood boiling. Erica's face was only inches away from her own, and their shoulders were almost touching. Throwing knives into each other, through their eyes, they stared, unwavering, neither one of them backing down. For a moment, she wondered if she could physically push Erica out of her way.
Perhaps the thought was visible to the outside world because the next moment, Derek was calling her, his voice cautioning, "Torres,"
She looked up at him; he met her eyes and slowly shook his head, warning.
"No," Callie cried, "she thinks she can just come in here and…and-No, no. I have to, I have to-"
"Chief." Miranda called, covering Maria with the sheet. "She's stable. Now's the time to move her."
Erica looked up at her vitals and nodded.
"Call them and tell them we're coming up. I'll meet you there." Erica ordered and turned back, gave Callie one final disdainful look and walked out.
"What are you thinking Torres?" Derek asked as he passed her by, pushing Maria's bed out of the room. "Look at yourself! Dripping rain water and mud all over the OR; you want her to get an infection?" He shook his head. "You're not even wearing scrubs."
Scrubs. That made sense. She had to put on scrubs.
She could hear the muffled voices coming from outside. By the sounds of it, Erica had just arrived.
"Callie is in there" Bailey was saying.
"Oh, you can't be serious."
"I told her-"
"Go ahead, Dr. Bailey, I'll be there in a minute."
Then the door was thrown open and a mighty pissed off looking Erica walked in.
Maria was holding stable and Callie felt a little more in control now.
"Look, Erica I-" She started softly but Erica didn't allow her to continue.
"Shut up and get out of those clothes."
"Excuuuse me?"
"Stop talking Callie, I am serious." Erica barked, pointing a strained finger at her and than banging her hand on the wall, startling Callie with the sheer sound of the loud bang.
She took a deep breath and let it out, in an effort to calm herself and continued speaking, sounding deadly, in barely controlled anger.
"Despite whatever your feelings may be towards me, I am your boss, whether you like it or not, and I have the final say in surgeries. I'm not asking you, I am telling you, you are not scrubbing in."
Callie could feel her stomach burning, the angry words dying to get out and yet whatever she was going to say was halted by the lethal look in Erica's eyes. Erica took a step forward and Callie felt herself move back in reflex.
"All you're doing right now is wasting time. Time Maria can't afford. So you have two options; you can get out of those surgical scrubs and go be with your family, or we can have security escort you out of here. Either way, you're not getting into that OR today. I promise you that..."
Erica gave Callie a final stare and turned towards the sink, reaching down to turn on the water and starting the process of disinfecting her hands.
"I-" she started but was once again immediately cut off by Erica, who did not even turn around to face her. "Use your head Callie, I mean it."
Callie could see that this was one battle she would not be able to win. She remembered a similar situation with Bailey when her son was brought in. Hell Erica had not even allowed her to stay in the room to hold the kid's hand, let alone scrub in.
A part of her knew that she was right, but that did not stop her from hating Erica at that moment.
"You'd better save her." Callie warned and walked out.
Continued...