AN: Loosely based on upcoming episode info, so there are possible spoilers.

In the hospital you get used to specific events, especially as an orthopedic surgeon. The first time you get pulled into an emergency surgery you're excited and running down the halls like a mad woman scurrying to get to the patient as if their life depended on it, even when their life does not depend on it. Eventually though, after the first few months, you learn, you definitely learn. Some idiot is going to try to jump over the roof of a building and break both of his legs; he'll live. Kelly-Sue Sunshine is going to run her car into a bus bench cause she just had to send a text; she's got whiplash and needs a back brace but she'll live. You come to realize you're the lead orthopedic surgeon in the hospital; you don't have to run they're all coming to you, every last one of them. You get used to it. The sound of the heart monitor beats in rhythm to the song you've been singing in your head during surgery. It's an expected noise hopping along at three-quarter time and after much exposure you learn to ignore it. I am used to it all by now, well everything except that one sound that stops every doctor in their tracts. One solid unbroken note can send a doctor's world into a tailspin. As doctors we live in constant fear of that time when the heart monitor goes from hopping rhythmic beats to a consistently held hum, we fear the unbroken note.

It didn't matter who I was operating on, or how complex the surgery was, or even that I had an audience in the gallery. Nothing was unusual, nothing startled me until I heard the sound, and then it was time to think fast. About a minute ago I was breezing through a surgery and rocking out to Journey. Then that synthetic hum hit and everything went to hell. The music goes off and I come out of autopilot mode; it's time to assess the situation. The Leukemia's spread it's affecting the muscle around the heart tissue. I knew that going in, I knew this surgery was a risk before I even opened him up. But now it seemed a clot developed during surgery and with the hardened muscle already a factor, it was all too easy for even a tiny little blockage to initiate the arrest we were witnessing now.

"Get in there and massage it" I order my resident

"Call cardio, NOW!" I am frantic by this point.

A few seconds later the door swings open, I think it's Teddy here to save the day, I don't even bother looking up.

"You got here quickly Grey's got her hand on the arrested area we're trying to massage it out…"

"You said you could do this" I hear, then I know it's not Teddy.

Arizona's looking at me face full of worry and panic. She knows this isn't helping; we've had that conversation before. But, I also know she can't help it, she doesn't know what else to do which is why she hates caring; it makes it too hard to walk away. She thinks I've forgotten, that it somehow skipped my mind that I had her best childhood friend laying open in my OR.

"Lexie is working on it now" I tried to reassure her.

"What are you doing?" she retorted

I couldn't answer, even if I explained that I wanted the best person available to go in there, even if I reminded her that I hadn't even touched a heart since residency, she wouldn't understand. If I went in I'd be guessing, but Teddy would be sure.

"Arizona you have to leave" I instructed with some firmness in my voice.

She stared me down for a while to see if I was serious, when my eyes didn't move away from hers she finally started to retreat.

Just as she was backing out of the door, Arizona turned around again pausing with her body rested against the port so that it was slightly ajar.

"Don't kill him, just please don't kill him. I'm all the family he has left."

No sooner had she gone than Teddy came rushing in not even asking any questions before pushing Lexie aside and sticking her hands down fist deep into the chest cavity.

"Damn it, this thing is hard as a rock!" Teddy sighed in frustration.

"How long has he been out for?" while flipping the overhead light to get a better view of the situation.

"two minutes" Lexie answered which almost gave Teddy a heart attack herself.

"Dr. Torres…" she started to say, but she didn't have to finish.

"I know" I answered and we shared a look of mutual understanding.

I watched as Teddy meticulously tried to find a way to bypass the blockage finally settling on another unconventional method she'd learned in the field. Then we just waited for what seemed like ages. No response , nothing. Lexie gave me a look and I knew she was saying we should call it, but I couldn't walk away I wasn't ready to give up.

"Nick you son of a bitch, wake the hell up!" I demanded of his unconscious body.

Just then I saw a blip on the screen the monitor started to pick back up. Lexie watched in complete shock as the numbers started to pick back up.

"He's back" Teddy cheered with glee.

Later in the scrub room I had a moment to take in everything that had happened. It was almost too much to fully comprehend. More importantly, I had no idea how I was going to explain it all to Arizona. Ever since she found out Nick needed surgery, it'd been like walking on egg shells every time I went home. Tiptoeing around the details, hoping not to say the wrong thing or cause unnecessary alarm.

"Bet you can't wait to tell her the good news" Lexie enthused seemingly out of nowhere. I stared at her for a minute completely confused.

"What good news?"

"We got him back and you still got the infection out so…" I could see she wasn't grasping the full magnitude of the situation.

She paused for a minute and observed the distant look in my eyes.

"He's going to wake up" she tried to reassure me.

"Lexie," I finally explain "the patient was out for more than three full minutes before we were able to get his heart rate back up from rest. That prolonged loss of circulation…even if he wakes up, I killed him"

With that I walked out of the room and headed over to the locker area to get changed.

By the time I got home it was closer to 11pm than it was to ten. I should have been back an hour ago and I knew it, Arizona knew it too. But, I needed to think, so I stopped by Joes. When I put the key in the door and opened it to see her asleep on the couch with Sofia in her arms resting against her chest I thought I was in the clear, we'll talk about it in the morning I told myself. I should have known better, I just should have known. The minute Sofia heard my keys jingling past the living room it startled her awake and she started fidgeting with excitement, happy to see her mommy was home. I leaned over to pick her up, but the minute I did that Arizona's maternal instincts flipped on and she jumped up from the sofa before realizing it was just me.

"You're late" she observed groggily.

"I know" I answer in a calm whisper.

"You know?" by now she sounded sort of insulted. "Where were you?" she questioned.

I had begun rocking Sofia back and forth until she fell back asleep, I could tell this wasn't going to be a fun conversation and I wanted to be able to put Sofia down before we got into it.

"I went to Joe's" I answered while walking over to Sofia's room. I closed the door behind me and walked down to our bedroom with Arizona following closely behind.

"You went to Joe's?"

"I had a long day." I tried earnestly not to get agitated but it was increasingly difficult with each question seeming to pile on top of the next.

"You had a long day so you went to Joe's or you went to Joes because you're avoiding me?"

In science, well chemistry mostly, they tech you about calculating the threshold. How much of any particular form of matter can be forced into a contained space before it exceeds the limitations of that space? Right now, Arizona had definetly hit my threshold and she knew it from the expression on my face.

"The surgery ran long and I…"

"How was that?" she cut me off.

"He's out of it, we um got the infected bone out without having to amputate and Teddy was able to get his heart rate to pick up."

"That's good though" Arizona smiled, though visibly confused at the fatigued expression on my face.

"He's not awake yet, and he'll need another surgery" I explain while trying to convince myself that an omission is not a lie.

Arizona stepped closer and brushed a lock of hair away from my face before kissing me for reassurance.

"This is good, he's going to be fine." I wasn't sure if that last part was to reassure me or herself. All I could do was stand there practically frozen in thought as she moved to kiss me again. I could tell she wanted more than that, but my head wasn't there and I ended up pulling away.

"I'm sorry, I'm just tired. I really need to sleep." That one was an outright lie, and I think she may have felt it because she gave me a questioning glance before turning away and climbing into bed with her back turned. I didn't get much sleep, I couldn't. My mind was going over everything in sequence repeatedly.

The next day at work was absurdly uncomfortable. Everyone was congratulating me on my miracle surgery and while I did my best to deflect and give credit to Teddy it all went nowhere. I knew it was a high risk surgery, But I failed to see the miracle in putting a man into a coma, and possibly turning him into a vegetable. Even though I'd gotten all the infected bone in the lower leg area, there was still a necessary heart surgery and that wouldn't happen if Nick never got out of the coma. As the days passed I grew even more distant and Arizona became increasingly suspicious. I felt like I was sitting on a powder keg waiting for her to find out exactly how long his heart had been stopped. At first she tried to ignore it and act like everything was progressing normally, but she was a doctor, she knew. There was nothing normal about a week long coma. Even if she didn't know because of that, she had to know something was wrong the way I retreated any time she got close to me. I couldn't help it. Every single time I would just hear her words before she left the OR and I would feel like I failed.

Then, out of the blue one day, it just happened. I walked into the OR wing to see her standing at the reception desk skimming through a file she seemed transfixed on whatever was in there, so I just stood and watched as she continued to read. Then, like a missal out of water, her eyes shot up then down toward me. I was hesitant but decided to go to her, maybe she would understand I thought.

She just stared at me for a while, unable to form any coherent phrases. But then "six minutes and twenty seven seconds."

I knew the number well; I'd been repeating it in my head for the past two weeks by now. Doctors usually stop counting after three, that's the threshold for hope in an OR.

"I told you he was in a coma" I try to explain.

"You didn't, you didn't tell me about six minutes and twenty-seven seconds of lost circulation, of total blood loss to the brain. You didn't tell me any of that"

There was really nothing I could say, she was right about that. But I thought I could try to be comforting.

"I was trying to protect you, people have come out of worse and…" she, at this point, closed her eyes and started to softly shake her head no.

"I got a call this morning, he went in to multiple organ failure and suffered a second heart attack. He listed me as family so…anyway, he's not uh…" she couldn't really finish but I got the important bits. Nick was gone and she had to be the one to shut off life support.