Chapter Text
Callie POV
“Okay so picture this I’m in New York and everything is great. Sofia is there, I’m continuing my research with new people and they’re all great, and I have Penny. But I’m crying like all the time and Penny finally asks me what’s wrong and I say that ‘I miss Seattle, like I really miss it.’ And so she asks me what I miss about Seattle if my life is here now? And I opened my mouth to say nothing but what comes out weirdly instead is Arizona. And so then we broke up. And then I came back.”
Meredith just stood there, stunned to silence by my presence and my admission. Her mouth was slightly agape as we stood in the doorway to her house, she looked a bit like she’d seen a ghost.
“Please say something, Mer.”
“Well, first, hi. Welcome back I think.”
“Okay you can skip the pleasantries and go straight to telling me I’m crazy. Because I am crazy. Right? Less than a year ago I put her through a custody battle which was horrifying and then she let me take Sofia with me anyway so that I could go be happy with Penny. And now I’m standing in your doorway telling you that I just dropped that whole life and moved back here because of Arizona. Sooooo, crazy, right?”
I studied Meredith after I finished speaking and I have to say, her expression was completely unreadable.
“You’re talking to the woman who stuck her hand on a bomb in a body cavity and told a gunman to shoot her instead of my now dead husband, I wouldn’t call this crazy by my standards.”
I probably should have felt relieved by that statement but since her tolerance for crazy was so high, it wasn’t terribly comforting.
“Well, have you told Arizona any of this?”
“Told her what? That I’ve lost my mind and I think I’m still in love with her? That I just dragged our seven year old back across the country because the life that I fought for in New York paled in comparison to the one I’d always imagined I’d have with her?”
“Wellllll... yeah pretty much.”
I should not have come here for advice, next time, I’ll go see Bailey or maybe Karev because clearly Meredith has lost her mind too.
Before I could begin again, she interrupted , “Callie, you said it yourself, you’re still in love with her. And now that you’ve acknowledged that, you need to do something about it. She is still here, she’s still alive. I would give anything to be able to have another chance with Derek but you have a real opportunity because Arizona is still here. Don’t you dare waste that because you’re afraid of what might happen.”
I mean. She was right. Arizona is alive and I’m pretty sure I’m still in love with her. No, I just flew across the country days after breaking up with Penny because of Arizona, so I’m definitely still in love with her. So what is the problem?
“Callie? You still in there?” I forgot I had to actually say words out loud for Meredith to hear them.
“Yeah yeah, sorry. It’s just, what if she says she doesn’t love me anymore? What if she was happier when I was gone and coming back will only make her miserable?”
“I can’t tell you that that won’t happen. Because honestly, I don’t know what she’ll say. But I do know what the answer is if you say nothing at all.” Ugh, here she goes, she’s going to be right again and I’m going to have no choice but to listen, damn Meredith Grey and her sage advice. “You’ll never know if she still loves you if you never give her the chance to tell you. Plus, I’d say she still does if I had to guess.”
“What? How? Why would you say that?” Had I missed something while I was gone? Were Arizona and Meredith hanging out and talking about me? Eating cheeseburgers?!
“Because, you dummy, the last thing that woman did was buy you plane tickets and send you off across the country with her daughter so that you could have your happy ending without her. If that’s not a woman in love, I don’t know what is.”
Well shit. Maybe coming to see Meredith wasn’t such a bad idea after all.