Work Text:
i.
The first time it happened, Arizona was alone. Callie was sleeping at Mark’s and Arizona was laying on her right side, in the bedroom they used to share, staring at the wall as the darkness seeped through the window. Two weeks since she’d come home, part of her lost forever and some of her mind gone with it. Her stump was still wrapped with gauze, the texture rough against her other thigh as she laid there in a sleep shirt and underwear, waiting for the brief reprieve of tentative sleep.
Sleep wasn't easy. But it was something she could try and fight through by herself.
It got harder every day. Every time Callie looked at her, or a home help nurse looked at her, or she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. It was always hard. Even the nightmares that plagued most of her sleep disturbed her with memories of the woods and broken promises and a life that would never be the same again.
She was almost asleep when a jerk of pain in her left foot made her jump and hiss through her teeth. Like a rubber band snapping against her skin. She shook it off and closed her eyes again, though her heartrate had increased with the sudden pain and she could feel heat in her ears.
The pain devolved into a sort of messy tingle, like she was standing too close to a fire and embers were spitting at her exposed ankle. Arizona gritted her teeth against it and tried to ignore it, but it sunk deeper than surface level until it was settled into the marrow of her bones.
“God,” she whispered, sitting up and leaning forward to press her hand against her ankle, meeting only the mattress with the heel of her hand, a brutal realisation that she had most days. She didn’t want to know what the pain was. But she did. She knew what happened when a limb was suddenly lost and the body couldn’t cope with the departure of a piece of itself.
Knew that her brain was fighting to catch up, struggling with the loss subconsciously as well as consciously, and sending signals to a part of her that wasn't there anymore. Signals that didn't land with an itch or a prickle so evolved into brutal, indescribable agony.
Her head dropped to her chest and her eyes closed as she tried to will away the phantom pain wracking her incinerated leg.
Tears burned like the fire licking through her ankle, knee and hip, left hand rubbing what remained of her left thigh and aching to fix the cramping agony in the lower part of her leg. A tear ran down her nose as she cursed through her teeth, hissing and pained.
After a moment, it faded away. Receded like the tide. But, as Arizona laid back into her pillows with a stiff movement like a door that needed its hinges oiled, she knew that it wouldn’t be the last time it happened. She was going to cope with phantom pain for the rest of her life, and the thought made her cry softly into the darkness, totally alone.
ii.
A week later, Callie tried to strike up a conversation.
Arizona was in bed with a book that she was pretending to read, if only as an excuse to not meet her wife’s eye. Mark Sloan was dead and she hadn’t even seen him before he died. A man she had considered her brother, who had tried to leave them so many times out in the woods, had given up while she couldn't even go and see him. So trapped in her own head, her own issues, that she took for granted his stubborn streak. She believed that he going to wake up. And then he didn't.
The duvet was heavy but at least it hid the restlessness in her hips and remaining leg. Hid the heavier emotions weighing her down like an anchor around her throat, choking her a little tighter with every passing day.
Callie’s voice was strained with forced optimism as she asked, “are you having any phantom pain yet?”
“No,” Arizona said through gritted teeth, pointedly ignoring the way she was trying to curl the toes on her left foot to relieve the cramp in her ankle.
Callie nodded with kind, pitying eyes. “That’s good. I don’t want you to go through it, it's awful, but I’m sure it’ll happen sooner or later. You’ll tell me when it does?”
“Whatever,” Arizona muttered, her jaw clamped tightly down.
Callie smiled gently, in a condescending way that Arizona was starting to hate. “You’re healing. That’s good.”
“Oh, leave me alone, Callie,” Arizona snapped, all of the pain threatening to crush her as the prickle up her left calf turned into pokes from knife points. She jerked in the bed and looked up with her face in a scowl. “Don’t talk to me like you know what’s good for me.”
Hurt flashed across Callie’s face but she didn't argue. She did as Arizona asked and left.
As soon as the door closed, Arizona was ripping the duvet back and grabbing her leg with both her hands, the skin heated and red against her palms. She shook it lightly and hissed, “stop, damn it! You’re not even there anymore!” Tears ran and her voice became more desperate as she fought to keep it hushed enough that Callie didn’t hear.
“Stop,” she begged, “just stop hurting, please!”
She shook it too hard and pulled a stitch that day, just a little more pain on top of everything else. She stuck it back together with a sticky stitch and didn’t let anyone else see it for days, hiding pain under agony under pain.
iii.
The first day she got her prosthetic, her head struggled to keep up with the development. Arizona looked down at her feet, one muscle, bone and tendon, and one plastic, and her eyebrows lowered just a little. She was sat on the couch, perched on the cushions, and leaned down to poke the rubber that was feigning flesh.
Instantly, she breathed in sharply as she felt the touch in a foot that wasn’t there.
Like a train wreck, she couldn’t look away. Not even as she hit her fist down on the metal and rubber and felt the impact of the heel of her hand against bones that weren’t there. Not even when she grabbed a book and dropped it onto her very expensive prosthetic foot just to see what would happen. The answer was pain, as it always was.
Then, when Arizona leaned back up and forced herself to stop, the pain didn’t. It tingled and spat and burned, making sweat prick across the back of her neck.
She leaned back into the couch and ran her hands over her face. “It’s not there,” she repeated over and over. “Leg, gone. Get over it, Robbins, damn it.”
iv.
Then she was back at work, and it was horrible. The way people looked at her, the interns that only knew her as bitter and bedbound, her coworkers that knew what had happened to her and, god, Callie. Callie was trying her best, Arizona knew that, but she just wanted to feel like nothing had changed.
Wanted to pretend.
Pretend that her leg didn’t ache with every step. Pretend that the cold cane in her right hand was unnecessary for every painful step she took.
A gurney rolled over her left foot and someone apologised, even when she didn’t feel it. She pretended that she did, just to feel a little more normal. But then someone looked at her with eyes filled with pity and she flushed bright red, feeling like a complete idiot for trying to feign normalcy for a few more precious minutes.
That night, the stress got to her in the form of nightmares. Nightmares of the plane crash, of being cut open on an OR table while she was awake, of having to cut her own leg off in the woods just to stay alive.
She jerked back into life soaked through with sweat and with breathing so quick she could hardly absorb the oxygen. She swallowed thickly, choking on the air in her throat as Callie slept soundly beside her, their bed back in their bedroom.
Arizona writhed gently, trying to find the oomph to get out of bed and take a trip around the apartment, but she couldn’t find it. All she could do was lay there. So she did. The tears fell as a knife stabbed the sole of her foot and up into her ankle, stirring the marrow there and making her pillow wet as she squeezed her eyes closed and lay on her back, frozen.
The next morning, she got up before Callie did. Hid the tearstained pillowcase and had a shower to wash away the lingering salt on her cheeks.
Hid everything she didn't want Callie to see, just like she always did.
Hid it even from herself.
v.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine,” Arizona smiled tightly, walking the halls of the hospital a little too fast than she should have been, trying to keep up with the crowds. Callie was next to her and had just given her a coffee, but Arizona knew it was guise to check on her wellbeing.
Those brown eyes were scanning her intently and Arizona knew that Callie could see she was lying, but she also knew that Callie wouldn’t push for information. Not anymore.
Her leg was throbbing after a six hour surgery, both in her stump and her invisible knee and calf. But she ignored it – she was getting rather good at ignoring it all now. Even as they rounded a corner and nails raked down the back of her calf, making her shiver as a cramp picked up in the space where the touch had passed over. Her jaw clenched but she fought it down, a chart under her arm as she sipped her coffee and pretended that her wince was to do with the boiling hot beverage and nothing to do with the pain etched into her bones.
“You sure?” Callie asked just once more, her eyes narrowed a little as they dropped to Arizona’s leg and flicked back up.
“I’m fine,” Arizona said again, harsher that time. “Really.”
i.
They fell asleep watching the Great British Baking Show. A bottle of wine was open on the table, and the plan had been television and then bed. But Arizona leaned against Callie and found herself falling asleep against her, finally finding solace in her wife's hold again.
Callie smiled softly and combed a hand through Arizona’s hair, resting her head atop Arizona’s and letting her eyes drift closed too.
All was serene.
Until a while later, when Arizona’s mind was infiltrated with nightmares and agony and she jolted awake with a start, hitting her head into Callie’s jaw and jumping back, ripping herself from Callie’s arms.
“Shit,” Callie cursed, also awake now and blinking to focus in the half darkened room. Her hand shot out and grabbed Arizona's wrist as she rubbed her jaw with her other hand and asked, “whoa, you okay?”
Arizona was breathing heavily and the affirmative was sat on the tip of her tongue, but it wouldn’t leave her mouth. Not when a wave of pain rolled through her left leg, so strong that she couldn’t breathe. She nodded instead, not trusting herself not to scream if she opened her mouth. There was an ache in her jaw from clenching it so hard as she fought back from Callie’s embrace and fell off the couch to the floor with a thud.
“Whoa, Arizona,” Callie said, alarm in her voice as she reached out with that same hand. “Hey, what’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Arizona gritted out wetly, the words broken by tears as her left ankle was pulled too far, tendons tearing and muscles ripping as bones cracked and splintered. She pulled her knee to her chest and held it there, trying to think of the waves and unable to see anything but fire and warped, broken metal. Tears spilled down her cheeks, anger and betrayal to her own body escaping in anguish that poured from her closed eyes.
“Is it your leg?” Callie asked, also dropping to the floor on her knees and grabbing Arizona’s wrists in a firm yet careful grip. “Hey, speak to me.”
Arizona shook her head wildly, still trying to diffuse the situation. “It’s nothing, Callie! God, don’t- don’t- it’s fine, it’s fine. I’m fine.”
“You are not fine,” Callie scolded, worry sharpening her voice. “You had a nightmare, didn’t you?”
“It’s stupid!” Arizona cried finally, still not looking up while white hot pain blistered through her left leg, making her want to writhe. “It’s not even there!” The words tore from her throat like an arrow from a bow, coming out on a sob.
“I know,” Callie’s voice was emotional now, too. “I know it’s not. I also know that it hurts like a bitch.”
“It shouldn’t!” Tearful, agonised.
“But it does,” Callie countered softly. “It’s a phenomenon, you know it is. Let me help.”
“You can’t do anything,” Arizona sobbed, “nothing works, Callie! I’m a lost fucking cause who can hardly live because I’m so ruined by a part of me that’s not even there!”
Stress was only making the pain worse, blood coating Arizona’s tongue as she chewed in the inside of her lip, trying to bite back the mortification that came with the sobs she couldn't keep in control. She thrashed her head back and forth and tried to pull back from Callie’s hands, but then there were arms wrapping around her and Callie was hauling her into her lap like a child.
“Callie, please…” Arizona cried, shaking her head as humiliation made her ears burn red. “Just stop.”
“It’s okay,” Callie held Arizona securely and rocked her gently, one hand dropping to Arizona’s left thigh and massaging firmly. “Breathe.”
Her voice was calm. Level. Warm. The voice of a wife, of a mother.
And Arizona, so tired of the pain, melted into Callie’s embrace. She rested her head into Callie’s neck as that talented hand continued to press and squeeze her leg, working the pain from the muscles. After a moment, the pain started to ebb away. Not completely – maybe never completely – but the tears slowly stopped and she could breathe again. She swallowed hard and gasped for air, her own arms holding onto Callie like a life raft as she let herself take the comfort, if only for a few minutes. She didn't know when she'd latched onto Callie so hard, but she didn't want to let go. Wanted to hide herself away in Callie's calm, level, warm embrace.
A little while later, Callie asked quietly, “is this happening a lot? The pain, the crying?”
Arizona nodded, worn thin, and sniffled, “it’s stupid.”
“It’s not,” Callie shook her head. “It’s normal.”
“I hate it.”
“I know.”
There was a pause, and then Callie whispered, “let me help, okay? I can help.”
“I’m not your patient, Callie,” Arizona shook her head. “I was… I’m trying so hard not to be your patient. I can’t.”
“You’re not my patient,” Callie answered gently. “You’re my wife. I’m merely your loving spouse who googled ways to soothe phantom pain. I’ve been researching in my free time, between my boring desk job and picking up our hoarde of eleven children.”
Arizona looked up and saw humour playing around Callie's eyes and mouth, and a tiny laugh escaped Arizona’s lips as she rested her head back into Callie's neck. “Dr Google’s been helping you?” she asked quietly, a smile at the corner of her mouth as she inhaled the scent of Callie's perfume.
“You know it.”
They stayed there for a long while, until both of them were stiff and yawning in each other's arms, and then Arizona lifted her head and looked at Callie with exhausted eyes.
Callie looked back. Tilted her head. “I know things we can try. Let me help.” A quiet plea.
A minute passed, and then Arizona breathed shakily, “okay.”