Title: 17 Ounces, 23.5 Weeks

Author: nerdfightergirl /librarynerd

Pairing: Callie/Arizona

Rating: G/K

Summary: Arizona updates Morgan on her newborn and doles out some advice. Post-815

Disclaimer: I am very glad to say that I don't own Grey's Anatomy or these characters. This is purely for enjoyment and I am not making any money from it.

Arizona took a deep breath and walked confidently into Morgan's hospital room.

"Dr. Robbins. Hey," Morgan called weakly from the bed.

"Hello, Dr. Peterson. I was just about to head out for the day, but I thought I'd come see you and give you an update before I go. The intestinal perf repair was successful and he's now stable in the NICU." Arizona schooled her reactions as Morgan started to cry. "Do you know what you're going to name him?"

Morgan shook her head. "We hadn't talked about names yet. We still had time."

"That's okay. You can figure it out later. You have time." Arizona tried to be reassuring as she saw the tears forming in Morgan's eyes.

"It was too soon. He's too little." Morgan cried.

Arizona stepped closer to the side of Morgan's bed. "We are taking really good care of your son, and we'll keep taking care of him for as long as he needs."

"Dr. Robbins?" Morgan asked tentatively.

"Yes, Dr. Peterson?"

"When you were taking me into surgery, you said your baby was born at 23 weeks..." Morgan let the thought trail off there.

"She was." Arizona blinked back the tears that formed involuntarily at the memories.

"How do you deal with something like this? One day you're pregnant and everything's fine and the next you have a baby fighting for his life while you fight for yours. Does the empty feeling ever go away?"

"You haven't heard what happened?" Arizona was simultaneously fearful of having to repeat the story and grateful that at least the interns didn't seem to know all of the drama of last year.

"No. What happened?"

Arizona settled into the chair by the bed before starting her story. "Well, first off: I wasn't pregnant. My wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, was pregnant. And we got in a really bad car accident. Ran into the back of a truck. She...wasn't wearing her seat belt." Arizona's voice cracked as she relayed this part of the story. "She was thrown through the windshield. She was rushed into surgery when we arrived here at the hospital. They stabilized her for a while, but they had to take her back in, and they delivered Sofia during her second surgery."

Arizona tried to remind herself that she was a professional and that breaking down in front of Morgan wasn't going to help anything.

Morgan seemed hesitant to ask, "Dr. Robbins, I've...um, I've been to the NICU and I've seen the grad wall tree you have in there. I don't remember a Robbins baby being on there. Did she...?"

"Sofia's not on the wall, but she is a NICU grad. And her last name is Torres."

"So she made it?" Morgan asked, a glimmer of hope passing through her eyes.

"She did. She's almost a year old now." Arizona was finally able to smile at the thought of Sofia.

"Why isn't she on the wall, then?"

"I like to keep my home life separate from my work life as much as possible. Sofia is a part of my home life. Including her in my work life makes it harder for me to do my job. If I think about her every time I'm in the NICU, I'll end up compromising patient care and I can't let that happen. Sofia's picture doesn't belong anywhere in this hospital but in picture frames on her parents' desks. I have her 'grad wall' picture in my office, with the other pictures of our family."

Arizona pulled her phone out of her lab coat pocket. She unlocked the screen and opened up a picture of Sofia to show to Morgan.

"She's pretty."

"Thank you. I'll tell Callie you said that."

Morgan fell silent for a minute, and Arizona contemplated leaving. Just as she braced herself to stand, Morgan spoke.

"Can you...tell me what I should expect? Is my son going to make it?"

Arizona pulled the chair closer to Morgan's hospital and sat back down. "He has a good chance. We have a high success rate here with preemies. We have excellent NICU nurses. We're all taking good care of him. I'm not going to lie and say it'll be easy, because it'll be the hardest time of your life. He won't be able to leave the hospital for a while. You have a very long road ahead of you. We generally try to gauge it against the 40-week due date, but he may end up staying longer than that. Or he could be released before that. Sofia was."

"How long was your daughter in the hospital?"

"12 weeks. But they let us take her home sooner than they normally would because we're all doctors. She and Callie-Dr. Torres-were released the same day."

"What should I expect? What happened with Sofia? Did she have to have a lot of surgery? Will my son have to have a lot of surgery?"

Arizona normally wouldn't divulge this much detail to a patient or the parent of a patient, but she knew and liked Morgan. "Well, she weighed 1 lb, 1 oz. when she was born. She had to be resuscitated in the OR before she was moved to the NICU. She only had to have one surgery after that, a PDA ligation when she was 5 weeks old. That was...not a good day. She also had some jaundice, apnea, and a brain bleed, among other things. After the PDA ligation, we mostly just had to wait for her to gain enough weight before she could go home. She went home with oxygen and an apnea monitor, but we don't have to use those anymore. We got pretty lucky with her.

"As far as your son goes, he'll probably need more surgery. But we have people watching him around the clock, taking care of everything he needs. You'll be able to go see him soon, once Dr. Altman clears you to get out of bed into a wheelchair. You'll have some difficult decisions to make about his care. But so far, he's stable, which is a good sign."

Arizona hesitated over what to say next, not wanting to overstep boundaries. "Morgan, this is going to be hard for you. There are people who can help, so you can feel less overwhelmed by it all. You shouldn't resist getting help just because you're a doctor. When it comes to your son, you're just a mom. My wife and I, we joined a support group after Sofia came home, for the parents of premature babies. We go together and we also have groups we attend separately. It's good to have as many people as you can get on your side, rooting for you and your son."

Morgan was openly sobbing by this point. Arizona blinked and looked down, before popping back up as an idea came to the front of her mind. "Morgan, I'll be right back."

Morgan looked up, confused, as Arizona made a quick exit.

Fifteen minutes later, Arizona reappeared in the doorway. Only this time, she was dressed in street clothes, had a smiling baby in her arms, and a woman Morgan recognized as Dr. Callie Torres was standing behind her. Dr. Torres waited in the doorway as Arizona walked back over to the chair she had previously occupied, and sat down with Sofia propped up on her lap. "This is Sofia. Sofia, this is Dr. Peterson. And you should know that I'm breaking one of my rules by bringing her up here. It's kind of a rule at our house that Sofia doesn't go into the patient areas of the hospital anymore."

"Separation of work life and home life."

"Exactly. But I think you needed to see the joy."

Sofia reached out for the stranger, exploring. Arizona moved to pull her back, but Morgan reached out to touch her, so Arizona carefully positioned Sofia so that Morgan could reach her. "She's big," Morgan declared as she held Sofia's tiny hand. Arizona laughed at the idea.

"Yes, she is. You'd never know that she started life weighing 17 ounces. Like I said, we got really lucky. Not every story ends well, but ours did. And yours can."

Arizona watched Sofia interact with Morgan for a few more minutes before glancing up at Callie, who smiled adoringly. "Well, Sofia and I have a date this evening with the very pretty lady standing in the doorway, so I'm afraid we need to go. Karev said he called your boyfriend, and he should be on his way. Karev will be here all night and he is monitoring your son as we speak."

Arizona pulled Sofia into her chest and pushed herself to her feet. Sofia whipped her head around to face Callie. "Ma," she called.

"That's right. We're going home with Mommy now. Let's go." Arizona turned back to face Morgan. "Good night, Dr. Peterson. I'll see you tomorrow. Say, 'bye-bye,' Sofia."

Sofia obliged with a small wave for Morgan, before turning her attention back to her mommy and reaching out for her.

"Okay. Okay. We're going." Arizona carried Sofia to the door, and transferred Sofia into Callie's arms before turning quickly back to Morgan. "It'll get easier. No matter what happens, you won't always feel this helpless."

"Thank you, Dr. Robbins. For everything."

Arizona smiled and turned back to her wife and daughter. With a quick kiss on the cheek for each of her girls, they turned and walked down the hall to go home.