"Blow out the candles, Devon! Go ahead, buddy!"
Your cheerful voice rings out as Devon, a large chocolate cake set before him, sputters over the surface of it before plunging both his fists into the gooey centre. Meredith laughs and snaps a picture to match the one from the year before.
"Devon, smile, sweetie!"
His smile lights up the room and he happily crows, "Birfday! Devon birfday!"
Derek tousles his hair. "You're a big boy now, aren't you, buddy?"
"Big boy!"
When all the gifts are opened, and everyone's heading home, you stand a minute at the door to talk to Meredith about an ortho surgery you have scheduled tomorrow. Devon pads into the room, trailing a blanket and holding a bottle, which is supposed to be forbidden, being as he's just turned two.
Meredith immediately lifts him up, and he lays his head on her shoulder, sucking his thumb and clutching his right ear. You gently put out a hand and stroke his hair.
"Happy birthday, buddy."
He immediately stretches out his arms for you and you cuddle him in your arms for a minute as he giggles against your neck.
"Cal. Callie."
As you leave, you regret that Erica couldn't have been there to see that, too.
/
You're scrubbing out of surgery when Derek comes in.
His face is white. He looks like he's lost weight, and he won't look you in the eye. As he scrubs in, you notice that he grabs the tap with his hands right after he finishes washing, and you open your mouth involuntarily as he grabs a paper towel from the dispenser.
Thankfully, he notices himself, and re-scrubs in.
You sigh. "Derek."
He turns almost immediately, his face twisted. "I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it and I don't want to talk about Erica."
You close your mouth and turn away from him, then.
"We will be having this conversation at some point, Derek," you reply, not really caring about his attending status right now and the fact that you're a resident who's cheekily standing up to her boss.
"Now's not the time, Callie."
When will it be the time?
Later, you're staring out over the lake when you see Erica bustling past on the bridge over reception. Immediately, you half-turn towards her before you remember the scene in the practice room, and then you turn away. For some reason, standing up for her – for your relationship – isn't worth it anymore. She'll never change. She'll never give back.
However, she stops in her tracks and staring at you consideringly, begins to walk purposefully towards you.
It's the sort of moment that's pivotal; you know that you could make or break something by how you act right now. Her eyes are still red; she's still pale-faced, but she's back to herself and you know that she's buried it somewhere.
But it's not an excuse. You didn't hurt her like he did.
So before she can get to you, you turn away and begin walking quickly in the other direction. Tossing a look over your shoulder, you immediately regret it when you catch her stricken face as she comes to stand at the spot on the bridge that you just left.
You can't deal with it. You're done, and she knows it.
/
So, you shouldn't have overreacted. Fine, you get that. It wasn't her fault and you know she was trying to help.
But you were on your own – you were standing on another shore. For one, you barely knew the little boy and yet failing to save him was among the worst mistakes you've made in your life. For two, she wasn't there for the letter. She didn't even see the letter. She's going on hearsay and she has no right to shut down on you. She doesn't know what you're going through.
And yet, the guilt is overpowering.
You broke down and she was there. She was there every time and you pushed her away.
Considering what you've fought for – it's ridiculous that this is even happening.
What's more ridiculous is the thought that you may have lost her forever.
/
She swings her long black hair over her shoulder and flashes you her trademark bright smile. "You ready to go? Dare I call this what it is?" Her giggle is like a chime, and you can't help but smile back.
"Do we want to label it?"
"Well . . . we don't have to," she finishes quickly, clutching her soft leather hobo purse to her side and biting her lip in that way that she has. You remember the way she bit her lip in surgery – when she didn't know – when you had to step up. And it was then that you realized that you could be a good teacher when the occasion called for it; you had the ability to find patience and understanding because you know very well what it's like to try something experimental and be standing on that side, not knowing how to proceed.
And she's so beautiful tonight, with her sparkling eyes, that you slip your hand in hers as you walk through the doors and out into the shining wet night.
It's the first time you considered rain could be beautiful, seeing it bead on the black hair of Calliope Torres.
Later on, she kisses you under the dripping awning over the door of your apartment building and you hold her sort of desperately as the rain gets heavier. The kiss becomes hungry, and you end up slipping your hand under her shirt to feel the warmth of her skin against your fingers.
Slowly, she slips her own cold hands onto your bare back (you gasp with the shock), and the two of you share a long look.
"Do you want to come up?" you whisper to her, and for a fleeting moment, you're almost certain she'll say yes.
But the evening ends with one more long kiss; one more look, and she turns to hail a cab.
In retrospect, it made later dates so much better, saving it on the first date.
/
Later on, she corners you in the on-call room.
"Stop this."
"Stop what, Erica?" You roll onto your stomach and glare at her. How dare she stand there and act as if nothing has happened?
"Stop avoiding me." She sits gingerly on the edge of the bed, almost seeming afraid to rest her full weight next to you. And then she fixes you with a look that's more desperate than you've ever seen it.
"I know I've been a bitch. A bitch that doesn't deserve you – yeah, that's me. And I know all the apologies in the world won't fix it, Callie.
"But you didn't get it, okay? You didn't understand what it was . . . like. You didn't have to stand there and watch Derek Shepherd hate you, or find a passive-aggressive note in your locker the next morning telling you not to attend the funeral of a little boy who, let's face it, lit up everyone's lives."
She pauses, and then sniffles suddenly, a little crudely wiping a tear away from her cheek.
"So here it is. I didn't want to let you see this, because I fight my own battles, and I always have. And I didn't want you to do this for me. This was my thing, you know? I didn't see a reason for both of us to be hurting this much."
You're sitting up against the wall by this point, and after a moment of consideration, you take the letter from her.
Reading it, you can understand why she acted the way she did, almost immediately. There's something about the finality of the upright black writing; the way the ink is smudged slightly on the signature. The utter coldness of the words – the hatred oozing through.
The thing is, it's not the hatred for Erica that's prevalent here. The thing is, it's the hatred for the whole situation that made Erica the scapegoat. And what Derek failed to realize in his own grief was the fact that once you say something to someone else, you can't take it back, and you perpetuate the cycle of blame and anger. Revenge is rarely satisfying when it comes to death. It doesn't bring the person back.
So that's why you drop the letter to the floor, reach for her, and hold her as tightly as you can.
"I just want you to let me in," you whisper into the whorled ear, studded with tiny silver studs, one through her cartilage.
"I don't know how."
You sigh a little and rock her slightly back and forth – this woman of ice who can't seem to melt even in the warmest temperatures.
"Well, we'll work on that together. You just can't treat me that way. You can't act like it's my fault or be abusive like that." Your lower lip starts to tremble, and you bite it to quell its shaking.
She studies you so carefully, those blue eyes that are so deep and distrustful, and then it's her turn to pull you into her strong arms, stroking back your hair; cuddling you into her soft body.
"I love you, Callie," she says above your ear, her no-nonsense voice finally soft.
And finally, you hear it.
/
Derek Shepherd is in the elevator when you slide in after the day is finished. Callie's due to come over later, and you're feeling relaxed and not bothered by anything much. And really, it's been a good day – up until now.
He refuses to meet your eyes, and he deliberately turns from you and fixes his gaze on a spot high up in the west corner of the tiny electronic box. And suddenly, you get tired of it all, and you grab his arm, jerking it slightly to get his attention.
It certainly does. He jerks it away from you, looking startled, but his gaze is on yours, and that's when you begin to speak.
"You've been an asshole to me. You've been an asshole, and I don't even know why I'm doing this."
Your voice is tough and harsh, and he can't break your gaze. With one swift movement, you pull out the emergency stop and listen to the faint ringing as you continue.
"But I am sorry, Derek, and I mean it. I'm really sorry. I wasn't as involved in Devon's life as your other friends and I don't begin to understand what happened, but that does not give you a right to blame me or treat me like shit. Do you not think that I'm suffering my own personal hell because of this? Do you not realize that the last week has been hell for me?"
"Do YOU not realize that the rest of my life will be hell for me? Because you failed to save my son?" His voice is just as harsh as yours, and then you sigh.
"Yes, I realize that. I realize that more than you know. Because I'm always going to be remembered in your mind as the surgeon who killed your son. You won't remember how I fought to get his surgery moved because I saw a potential problem. You won't remember the hours I spent trying to get him to stop crying because of the needles and CT scans that scared the hell out of him. No, Derek, I'm just the surgeon who couldn't save your child, and you know what? That's a fucking heavy label to carry."
There's silence between you, although the alarm rings overhead.
"So do what you want. Believe what you want. And maybe one day you'll actually read the charts and find out that I did CPR for over ten minutes. And the nurses did everything they could to stabilize him, even as he bled out." Your voice starts to shake, and you clear your throat, avoiding Derek's gaze until you realize he's looking right at you.
"Erica –"
"Don't apologize, okay. I can't." You rub at your eyes and look at him straight again. "I just want you to know. I didn't treat him like he was nothing. I tried my best and you being a passive-aggressive asshole doesn't help the fact that I already feel guilty enough over this because of the sole reason that he WAS your son."
You release the stop, and ride to the next floor in silence.
When the door opens, he turns to you.
"Thank you for doing all you could for Devon, Erica."
You look him square in the eye and allow yourself to soften a little.
"I'm sorry I couldn't do more."
/
The day is crisp; a fall day that's rarely seen in Seattle, land of rain. But the trees are whipping a little and there's a bright sun in the blue, blue sky. It's a good day for walking, and walk you do, through the cemetery's winding, silent paths.
When you get to the tiny grave, it's covered over with leaves. Quietly, you bend to brush them from his name, even though you know the exact font and size; the exact way it's spelled out there on the shining stone.
Derek clutches a handful of bright gerbera daisies, because roses would have hurt Devon's little hands and it's the closest you can get to a child-friendly flower. They make a bright splash of colour on the gravestone, and he steps back, tears on his cheeks, as you bend to put a hand on the stone.
"Hi, buddy. I'm here today to tell you exactly what happened when you were sleeping. You probably won't understand, but I wanted you to know the steps we took, because I told you I had your back in there. And I know you know this anyway, but I want to make sure that we're all clear up there."
Suddenly, you gasp, a large, painful sob that gets caught in your chest. Callie steps forward, but the hand that rests on your shoulder isn't hers.
Meredith Grey, with tears on her cheeks, has a hand on your shoulder and as you try to get ahold of yourself, she wraps her arms around you and just rests there, giving silent comfort to the woman who couldn't save her son.
Derek says in a low voice, "It's okay. He knows. He knows you did everything you could to save him."
"Does he?" You look at him through tear-filled eyes and notice his eyes are bright, too.
"Yes. He knows and he's okay with it."
Fifteen minutes spent at a small grave. Ten hours spent in surgery. A relationship saved and a child lost, and a friendship forged through the grief of it all.
He was lost, but he was never taken. And you learn not to take it for granted, either.
Nothing is ever routine; but some things are constant.
Love is always constant.