Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Arizona Robbins was excited. Today was the day she would get to see her baby girl again. Callie and Sofia had been on vacation in Miami for 3 weeks and now they were back. Callie was scheduled to be at work today, therefore, Sofia would be at daycare.
Arizona was finishing up a chart when she heard Callie’s name amongst a group of gossiping interns.
“Hey, did you see Torres today?” She recognized the intern who spoke as the idiot who took off Joan’s neck brace.
“Oh yeah! She looks amazing. She was hot before, but wow!” Hot, hot boss intern spoke up.
“You know, if I was inclined that way, it would be for her. Especially now.” Girl intern spoke up, and then started to laugh at the looks on the others’ faces. “Just kidding guys, but she does look amazing. That vacation did her wonders.”
Arizona’s eyebrows rose. What were they talking about? She knew Callie was stunning, but they’d seen her before she left so where were these interns coming from?
“Dr. Robbins? Dr. Torres came by earlier looking for you, but you were in surgery.” A nurse came up to her, interrupting her thoughts.
“What did she want, Ann?”
“She mentioned that Sofia is at the daycare now if you wanted to go down.” Ann responded.
“Thanks for the message. I am going down right now!”
Arizona raced down to the daycare and as she looked up she came to a standstill, her mouth falling open. There was Callie, smiling, watching Sofia through the window. Miami had been very good to Callie. Callie’s tan was amazing; she was almost glowing. Even though her hair was in a ponytail, Arizona could see it had been straightened. She also had bangs. The whole package was amazing and Arizona knew if she didn’t close her mouth she would start drooling soon. Callie chose that moment to look up. She smiled at Arizona and Arizona lost the ability to breathe for a moment.
“Hey! I see you couldn’t get here fast enough.” Callie spoke up.
“Uh, um…yeah. I missed her so much, I just rushed down as soon as I found out she was here.”
“She missed you too. She asked why you didn’t come with us a couple of times.” Callie replied with a hint of sadness in her voice.
“What did you tell her?” Arizona hadn’t expected her question to come out with an edge, but it did and she saw Callie’s eyebrows rise.
“I told her the only thing I could, Arizona. I told her like we have separate houses, we take her on separate vacations now.”
“Right.” Arizona was closing herself off to this conversation. Even though it had been awhile since they split, she still blamed Callie.
Callie sighed heavily. “Look, I just wanted to thank you for agreeing to let me take her for 3 weeks. We had a great time and I really needed the time away.”
“Uh huh. I’m going in to see her.” Arizona knew she was being dismissive and she couldn’t help it.
“Okay, well see you around.” Callie walked away shaking her head.
Arizona thought about going after Callie and apologizing but decided to head into the daycare to spend time with her little girl.
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It was later in her shift and she was feeling a little guilty, so Arizona headed to Callie’s office to apologize for being standoffish. She could tell Callie had been actively avoiding her after their encounter. Arizona had paged Ortho for a patient and Callie sent the other Ortho attending to answer the page. She knocked and waited for a response.
“Come in.” She heard Callie’s muffled voice.
Arizona opened the door and stepped in. Callie looked up and Arizona saw a flash of irritation cross her face.
“Hey.” Callie said cautiously.
“Hey. I just wanted to come by and apologize.” Arizona responded.
Callie regarded her for a second and then her shoulders slumped.
“I’ve been thinking we should only speak when we need to talk about Sofia. I know we were trying to be a bit friendlier with each other, but I can’t deal with not knowing what I might say to cause you disappointment.” It came out quiet, but Arizona heard it clearly.
“Callie…I’m sorry. I let my anger get to me and I shouldn’t have. I had no reason to be angry. You told her the right thing.” Arizona tried to reason.
“We always come back to this place Arizona. I can’t do it anymore.”
“We were doing better. We were getting along. How could you go from that to this decision after something so small?” Arizona argued.
“It’s just…never mind. Fine, we’ll keep getting along.” Callie said resigned.
“No, you were going to say something. Say it.” Arizona snapped; she was tired of avoiding conversations.
“Arizona, I don’t think you really want to know. You haven’t wanted to for a long time.” The last sentence was said almost in a whisper, but it was loud enough.
Arizona was dumbfounded. She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times.
Finally she spoke, “Tell me what you want me to know.”
Callie contemplated Arizona, as if trying to decide whether what she had to say was a good idea. After, a pause, she finally started talking.
“Going away for a while gave me time to really ponder where I’m at in my life. I started thinking about us.” Callie paused as though she was gathering her thoughts.
“You know, I remember a lot of things you’ve said to me in the past. They stick with me. I remember you once telling me I was in love with love. It bothered me, but I didn’t dwell on it. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, though. What were the examples you gave? George, Erica, Mark, and the Coffee Cart Girl. I never had a chance to love Erica. She left before we could actually get that far. The Coffee Cart Girl, I loved her coffee, not her. I did love Mark.”
Arizona flinched and she could tell Callie saw it.
“Arizona, I did love Mark, but I wasn’t in love with Mark. You knew that deep down. He was my family. He is the only person in my life who provided me with unconditional love and now he’s gone. My father had to be convinced, ironically by you, that I was still worth loving, and my mother and sister still don’t speak to me.”
Arizona was starting to realize that maybe Callie was right and she didn’t want to hear what she had to say.
“Callie…” Arizona started.
“I have only ever loved two people and I married both of them and they both cheated on me.” Callie continued on.
Arizona felt like she had been punched in the gut. She went to speak but Callie raised her hand up to stop her.
“Underneath it all I knew George didn’t love me, but I thought maybe he would see how much I loved him and maybe he would start to feel the same way. I know now how naïve I was. Throughout the marriage, I knew I didn’t matter to him, even though I wanted to so badly.”
Callie paused and was looking off in the distance.
“With you, when we were first together I felt how much you loved me, but then it was one thing after another for us. Babies, Africa, pregnancy, Mark, car crash and then the plane crash. I know I made mistakes. I’m not perfect and I was in over my head, but I loved you. That never changed. The thing is Arizona, towards the end of our marriage I started to feel like I felt in my marriage to George. I didn’t matter to you anymore. After the plane crash everything was understandably about you, but even when we started to move past that not once did you ask me about how I felt and what I went through. You didn’t care and I realized I couldn’t be married to another person that didn’t love me.”
Arizona stood there in shock.
“How could you say that Callie? I loved you. You were the one who walked away, not me!” Arizona yelled.
“I walked away because you didn’t want to stay together out of love; you wanted to stay together out of fear. You latched on to me so you wouldn’t have to deal, just like George did after his father died.” Callie responded.
“Arizona, everything I did was the wrong thing. I could do nothing right because you never told me what you needed. I was guilty of the same thing. You couldn’t do right by me because I never told you what I needed or felt. Do you know why I made the robotic leg? Not because I was trying to fix you. I thought if I could give you a leg to control, almost like a real one, that maybe you would love me again.”
Arizona inhaled sharply.
“But it just led to another misunderstanding. Somewhere along the way we became too scared to tell each other how we really felt and what we needed from each other because we were afraid to lose each other. Look at us now. We lost each other anyway.” Callie said, wiping some tears from her eyes.
“I’ve been burying my pain for so long. That’s why I needed to get away. Being in Miami gave me some distance and allowed me to think about some things. I was thinking about leaving all together, but the vacation was what I really needed to put things in perspective.”
“I want to be friends with you Arizona, but we never were friends to begin with. So we try to be civil, we try to be friendly and then I say something wrong or you say something and we end up back at square one and I start to remember the hurts. I don’t want that anymore. I want to move forward, so I think the only way that can happen is if we only speak about Sofia from now on. Schedule, school, vacation plans, et cetera. I hope you’re okay with that because it’s all I can offer you now.”
Arizona stared at Callie, tears gathering in her eyes. She was afraid to speak for fear of breaking down. She opened her mouth but nothing came out.
“Arizona, I’m not trying to hurt you, but I wanted you to understand where I’m coming from.” Callie said almost as a plea.
Arizona reached behind herself for the door knob.
“Fine.” She mumbled to Callie and then quickly ran out of the office.