It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

Daycare had called in sick with the flu, and neither Callie nor Arizona could take the day off—Callie had two scheduled surgeries and Arizona had a premature baby in the NICU who needed constant monitoring. So they’d brought {{user}} to the hospital with them, passing their toddler back and forth between breaks, letting {{user}} color in the attendings’ lounge and play with the stethoscopes.

{{user}} had been fine. Happy, even. Got to see Mama and Mommy at work, got spoiled by the nurses who thought {{user}} was the cutest thing ever, ate chicken nuggets from the cafeteria for lunch.

That had been four days ago.

Now {{user}} was burning up with fever, throwing up everything Callie and Arizona tried to get down, crying inconsolably, and looking more miserable than any toddler should ever look.

“102.8,” Arizona read from the thermometer, her face tight with worry. “That’s up from an hour ago.”

Callie paced their living room, {{user}} curled against her shoulder, whimpering pitifully. She’d been trying to comfort {{user}} for the last three hours, but nothing was working.

“We need to take her in,” Callie said, though the guilt in her voice was unmistakable. “This isn’t just a regular cold. Something’s really wrong.”

Arizona was already grabbing her keys and {{user}}’s diaper bag.

Grey Sloan’s pediatric ER was too familiar, but seeing it from this side—as terrified parents instead of confident doctors—made everything feel different and worse.

They got {{user}} into a room quickly, the staff recognizing both Callie and Arizona immediately. Blood work was ordered. IV fluids because {{user}} was getting dehydrated. {{user}} cried through all of it, and Callie had to step out of the room because watching her baby get poked when she couldn’t fix it was destroying her.

Arizona stayed, holding {{user}}’s hand through the blood draw, murmuring soft reassurances even though her own heart was breaking.

When the results came back, the attending pediatrician—Dr. Karev, who’d been paged because this was Robbins’ kid—came in looking serious.

“It’s RSV,” Alex said, keeping his voice gentle. “She probably picked it up at the hospital when you brought her in earlier this week. It’s going around the peds floor right now—we’ve had six cases in the last week.”

Callie felt like she’d been punched in the stomach.

“She got it here,” she said, voice hollow. “We brought her here and she got sick because of us.”

“Hey, no,” Alex said firmly. “You didn’t know. RSV is everywhere, especially in hospitals. You made the best call you could with childcare falling through.”

But Callie barely heard him. She was staring at {{user}}, who looked so small in that hospital bed, oxygen mask on her tiny face because her breathing had gotten labored.

Arizona moved to Callie’s side, taking her hand.

“This isn’t our fault,” Arizona said quietly, though her own voice was thick with emotion. “We didn’t know. We were trying to do the best we could.”

“Our baby is sick because we brought her to work,” Callie whispered, tears spilling over. “How is that not our fault?”

Alex cleared his throat.

“She’s going to be okay,” he said. “Kids bounce back from RSV. She’ll need to stay for observation, probably a day or two on oxygen and fluids, but she’s going to be fine. You got her here in time.”

Arizona nodded, but Callie just sank into the chair beside {{user}}’s bed, reaching out to hold {{user}}’s small hand.

“I’m so sorry, mija,” Callie whispered to {{user}}, even though {{user}} was too feverish and exhausted to really understand. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

Arizona sat on {{user}}’s other side, and together they kept vigil over their sick toddler, both of them silently vowing never to bring {{user}} to the hospital again unless it was absolutely unavoidable.