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“I guess all that skating today really wore Sofia out,” Arizona smiles softly as she enters the room. “We didn’t even finish her book… Calliope?” She pauses, noticing for the first time that Callie is standing with her coat on, in the middle of winding her scarf around her neck. “Where’re you going?”
“April called. Some guy decided to pick tonight to total his car and shatter his pelvis. Seems like it’s up to me to go put him back together. I’m sorry, Arizona,” Callie sighs.
“No, yeah, of course you have to go,” Arizona nods, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice. “I’ll get Sofia’s cookies done.”
“Just try not to burn the house down,” Callie smiles, leaning in to place a kiss to Arizona’s lips.
“Hey! I’m not Meredith, you know,” Arizona jokes as she pulls away, reminding Callie of the events of Zola’s last birthday that nearly did result in a fire at Meredith’s house.
“That’s true,” Callie smiles, though a little sadly. She feels bad leaving it all to Arizona.
“I’ll be home soon,” she promises, grazing her thumb across Arizona’s cheek, though they both knew how long Callie would be gone.
“I know, I was just kinda looking forward to tonight.” It was hard, the both of them being surgeons, trying to find a night off they shared. And when their schedules did align, all too often their hopes were dashed by one trauma or another.
“Me too,” hums Callie. “But y’know, just because we were baking these tonight for Sofia’s class, it doesn’t mean we can’t do it again another night. For us.”
“I’d like that, Calliope Torres,” Arizona says, fixing her wife with a grin that Callie returns, squeezing Arizona’s hand one last time before heading out the door. Arizona watches as she makes her way to the car.
The first snowflakes were beginning to fall.
Shivering, Arizona makes her way back toward the warmth of the kitchen moving about and setting out the various ingredients on the countertop. Accompanied by a glass of red she had poured for herself to help pass the time, Arizona is just beginning to weigh out flour into a mixing bowl when her phone pings.
It’s Teddy.
what are you up to ?
About to bake cookies for a billion kids. You?
Three dots appear, showing that Teddy is typing, and then a photo comes through. It’s Henry, clearly asleep on the sofa, sheets of wrapping paper laid across his lap.
Just got Allison down and came to find this. He said he was going to wrap the presents while he was watching the game. Neither is happening
I guess it’s the thought that counts, right?
Arizona smiles to herself.
Maybe, comes Teddy’s unconvincing reply.
Want some help with the cookies? It’s not like I’m doing anything else
Well when you put it that way
So you don’t want help?
Teddy
I’m kidding. I’ll be there in 10 :)
Arizona smiles at the way Teddy uses punctuation marks in place of emojis. She’s grateful, truly, for Teddy volunteering to come over and help, because even though Sofia is asleep upstairs, the house without Calliope feels empty.
It’s while she is hunting down their collection of cookie cutters that Arizona is reminded of the first time her and Callie had made Christmas cookies with Sofia, when she was two, and how she had sat in her chair at the breakfast bar, pushing down with her chubby fists over the cookie cutters and laughing when Callie had removed the cutter to show her the star-shaped gingerbread cookie she had made. There’s a photo of that, one that Arizona had snapped, on the shelf in the living room, put out especially for Christmas, amongst dozens of other memories from festive seasons past.
Arizona is drawn out of her trip down memory lane by the sound of the doorbell ringing. Teddy really did mean she would be here in ten minutes, then, she shakes her head.
“Hey,” Arizona greets, finding Teddy at her doorstep, looking up at the snow-filled sky, three bottles balanced precariously in her arms.
“I didn’t know what the occasion called for so I bought tequila and two kinds of cider we got from the Christmas market today.”
“You know we’re baking cookies for five-year-olds, right?” Arizona takes the bottles from her.
“Yeah? The drinks aren’t for them, silly. They’re for us. Also, have you seen the snow, Arizona!” Teddy grabs ahold of Arizona’s shoulders, shaking her. Arizona laughs, knowing how much Teddy loves the snow. She’s grateful she had the presence of mind to place the bottles on the hall table, otherwise they’d be faced with a very different problem right about now.
“I have. But I’d prefer for the snow to stay outside,” she says shutting the door behind Teddy, who unwinds her scarf and hangs her coat over the bannister.
“So what type of cookies are we making?”
“Gingerbread. Kids love them,” Arizona nods wisely as the two head into the kitchen.
“Christmas baking requires Christmas music,” Teddy announces, fishing her phone out of her pocket and scrolling, before hitting play, Ella Fitzgerald’s crooning voice filling the space.
Oh, the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful
And since we've no place to go
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!
Teddy hums along, and Arizona can’t help but join in.
Because of course this is Teddy Altman’s favourite Christmas song.
And soon, the room is filled with the warming smell of ginger and golden syrup and cinnamon, the Christmas lights twinkling away, and glasses that had already been filled and emptied more than a few times stand on the worktop, beside half-emptied bottles. By all accounts, it was shaping up to a much better evening than the one Arizona had been planning on passing alone in the kitchen.
“So,” Arizona begins, shutting the oven door and setting the timer on the last batch. “While we’re waiting for the cookies to bake and cool, we should start on the icing.”
“We’re making icing?” Teddy asks, downing the rest of her drink. “Can’t we just, you know, use the store bought variety?”
“Nope. Homemade icing shows you care,” Arizona singsongs in response. “At least, that’s what Sofia tells me.”
“Huh,” Teddy ponders, staring into the bottom of her now-empty glass.
Arizona shakes her head, taking a sip from her own drink. “I thought we could do red, green, white, a pale blue and a pink,” she suggests, producing four bottles of food colouring along with icing sugar and the other necessary ingredients, before handing Teddy the whisk.
“Arizona that is far too much food colouring!” Teddy yells, snatching the bowl away, which may or may not have been the best idea, since it sends red food colouring dribbling across the countertop.
“You’re only supposed to use like a teaspoon full or so! And now your kitchen counter looks like a crime scene!”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
Teddy snorts. “Well, if you were planning on making pale blue icing, let me add the food colouring, alright.”
“Fine,” Arizona grumbles, switching places and taking the bowl and whisk from Teddy.
By all accounts, they’ll both later look back in amazement at the fact that they had managed to successfully make icing at all.
-
“You think they’re cool enough yet?”
“I’d say so,” shrugs Teddy, using the backs of her knuckles to test the temperature on one of the star-shaped gingerbread cookie.
“Let’s do this then,” Arizona grins, handing over a piping bag and picking up one of the Christmas tree shaped cookies, making a grab for the green icing.
“I’m not even sure that can be considered a cookie anymore,” Teddy wrinkles her nose after some time, pointing at Arizona’s entirely sprinkle-covered creation.
“Kids love hundreds and thousands,” Arizona argues.
“Well their parents won’t love it when they’re climbing the walls.”
“Kill joy.” Arizona swats Teddy with a dish cloth.
“Hey!”
“Serves you right.”
“Meanie,” Teddy declares.
“Did the great Major Theodora Altman just call me a ‘meanie?’”
“What can I say, all your paeds stuff is getting to me,” Teddy punctuates her words by gesturing in Arizona’s general direction.
“I’ll have you in Heelys soon,” Arizona promises.
“I don’t think so.”
“We’ll see about that,” Arizona mutters. “Hah! Hey look this one’s you!” She laughs, pointing at the gingerbread man she had just finished decorating.
“How is that me?”
“Look, you’ve got your stethoscope and white coat and you’re holding a heart!”
“That’s a heart?” Teddy squints, closely studying the red blob in the gingerbread-Teddy’s hand.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Bet I can ice a better, more scientifically accurate heart onto a cookie.”
“Really now?”
“Yep.”
“We’ll see,” Arizona narrows her eyes, reaching for the red icing as Teddy does the same. (Luckily for them, there are two piping bags filled with red icing).
“Done! I’m done!” Teddy shouts, minutes later, holding up her cookie, triumphant.
“Wait, I’m almost finished. Okay— done!”
“Arizona, where is the aorta?” Teddy asks, frowning.
“There,” Arizona points, as if it is completely obvious.”
“Oh… I thought that was the right atrium.”
“No, that’s here,” Arizona insists.
“I think it’s fair to say I win that one,” Teddy grins.
“Well, not really fair because you’re a cardio surgeon, but sure,” huffs Arizona, never one to take losing very well.
“What ever you say, ’zona.”
“Okay, new competition. There are…” Arizona trails off, counting the number of cookies left on the tray, “forty two cookies left. Whoever ices the most in the next fifteen minutes— and they have to be iced well— wins.”
“You’re on, Robbins.”
It may not have been the wisest decision, the two inebriated as they are, but somehow, the cookies come out just fine, none looking the worse for wear. Though the same cannot quite be said for Teddy, who has distinctly green icing smudged into her hair, or Arizona, whose left cheek is slathered in red icing.
“Yippee Ki-yay, motherfucker!”
“No, no, no!”
“I win! I win! I win!” Teddy shouts, just as Callie happens to walk in. Whatever she had been expecting to find, it is not this. The kitchen is in complete disarray, with what seems like every mixing bowl her and Arizona own currently being in use, icing covering the worktops and the faces and hands of the two women in front of her.
“Hey Teddy,” Callie smiles, biting back the hundred things she could have said instead, none of them exactly quite polite. (Though they may be justified when you come home late and find your kitchen looking like a hurricane tore through it). “What did you win?”
“We were seeing who could ice the most cookies. I won,” Teddy supplies helpfully when Arizona doesn’t respond. (Instead she appears rather distracted following Callie’s every move.
“I see,” Callie nods, coming over to kiss Arizona.
“Aww, Callie’s in love,” Teddy chants, breaking off into laughter.
“Altman, are you drunk?” Callie raises an eyebrow, though really, it’s a rhetorical question, one with a blindingly obvious answer.
Arizona, meanwhile, is still staring intently at Callie, as though deep in thought. After a while, she sniffs, and still looking Callie dead in the eyes, in a very serious manner, makes an announcement: “You know, you have such a pretty face, you should be on a Christmas card,” punctuating her words by prodding Callie on the nose, leaving behind a smear of red icing.
“Thank you?” Callie frowns, stifling a laugh at the solemn look on her wife’s face.
“You’re welcome Calliope,” Arizona hums, still with a far away look in her eyes.
Callie shakes her head in amusement, focusing her attention instead on the rows and rows of cookies laid out across the counter.
“This is a lot of cookies, you know,” she looks between the two.
Teddy purses her lips. “We may have gotten carried away.”
“May?”
Teddy just shrugs. “Arizona did say we’d need a billion.”
“I didn’t mean literally!” Arizona interjects, indignantly.
“Well you should be specific then.”
“So it’s my fault now?”
“It is your kitchen. And you did suggest the competition.”
“You started it.”
“Did not!”
“Did too! With the heart, remember?”
“Oh! Hey Callie, which looks more like a heart?” Teddy holds up the two iced cookies.
“Oh I thought that one was a flower,” Callie points at the cookie in Teddy’s left hand— the one Arizona had decorated.
“Traitor,” Arizona grumbles crossly, folding her arms.
“Well it’s very artistic,” Callie tries to console her.
“Hah! Yeah, right,” Teddy huffs.
“Yeah, we’ll you’re—“
“Okay!” Callie cuts in, noticing the look in Arizona’s eyes and knowing that continuing this would not be fruitful for any of them. “I think it’s fair to say you two should not be allowed to bake alone together again. I’m not quite sure the kitchen could handle it,” she gestures at the mess around them.
“At least we didn’t burn anything down.”
“There is that,” Callie nods at Arizona. “But this is going to be a nightmare to clean up.”
“Well, I’d better get going” Teddy grabs a cookie, taking a large bite.
“You’re not going anywhere like that,” Callie says firmly, fixing her with a look Arizona recognises as the one she gives Sofia when she refuses to have a bath.
“Like what?” Teddy asks, voice muffled with a mouthful of gingerbread
“Drunk!”
“Oh, right.”
“Yeah,” Callie says pointedly. This already long night was going to be even longer.
“I’ll get the broom, then,” Teddy offers meekly.
“I’ll start wiping down the counters,” Arizona puts in as Callie begins tidying away the ingredients.
“Don’t think this changes anything, though. You’re both still banned from baking together,” Callie assures.