Orphan Grey (4/?)
A/N: Hey, gang! I know it’s been a loooooong time since I updated. I would suggest rereading the first 3 chapters (they’re not very long!) if you’re still interested in the story. There is a small “previously on”, though, if you don’t want to.
Previously on Orphan Grey: Callie realized her stalker was actually a clone of herself. She was convinced to meet with Maria and Laura and discovered that there was a whole group of clones, two of whom were killed. She called her dad and found out that she was conceived through IVF. She decided to give Dr. Bailey and her genome mapping project a visit. Oh yeah, and she had a lovely night with Arizona and she realized that she was falling for the girl…quickly.
Chapter 4
“What the hell are you saying?” Miranda Bailey whispered feverishly.
Callie scowled and crossed over to the table on which three petri dishes sat. “I’m saying,” she said in a clipped tone, “that these three samples are all from different people!”
Bailey shook her head, beyond frustrated with their conversation. She opened her mouth to argue, but was interrupted by someone turning the knob.
“Dr. Bailey? I had paged you for a consult about an hour ago, and - ” A timid April Kepner stuck her head through the door.
“I’m busy, Kepner!” “Go away!” Bailey and Callie shouted at the same time.
“Oh, uh, okay,” April replied, her face flushing a bright red.
“Sorry, Kepner, I’ll be with you in a few minutes,” Bailey amended, while Callie gave the resident a sheepish smile.
When the door shut behind April, Bailey turned back to Callie. “There’s something I haven’t shown you about these DNA sequences.”
Callie stepped forward to look more carefully at the slides Bailey had. “What is it?” she asked breathlessly.
“Well, they’re all identical up to where a normal DNA sequence would end. But they each have a tail added on, with more chromosomes than normal DNA would have.” As she said this, she slid a piece of paper down, uncovering rows 24-27. “Each of those is different.”
“What? But that’s not possible.” Callie remarked.
“Callie, I’ve given you leeway. I haven’t asked questions, because we’re friends and I do trust you. But you need to tell me what the hell is going on.”
Callie sighed, wondering how she had ever thought she could get Bailey to do this without asking questions. “I guess I should tell you that one of those is my DNA.”
“And you have two identical twins I don’t know about?” Bailey asked with a small laugh. Surely this was all some weird prank.
“Kind of,” Callie answered, completely seriously. She nearly had to laugh herself when the smile on Bailey’s face fell. “I met these women the other day. They look exactly like me, Bailey. But…but we’re not sisters.”
“Callie…this isn’t possible.”
“Someone cloned me, Bailey. I am a clone.” Callie’s voice was strained, the effort it was taking to hold back her tears was restricting her vocal chords and making it hard for her to breathe. This was the first time she’d admitted to anyone what she had learned in Room 213 of The Archfield. That forced the idea from the recesses of her mind to her lips, making it a reality. She was a clone.
Bailey’s mouth dropped open ever so slightly, but she was clearly trying her damnedest not to react. She knew Callie was a terrible liar and an even worse actress. What Callie was saying therefore must have been true, or at the very least, Callie must have believed it to be true.
Callie’s words hung in the dark lab, echoing in both of their minds, as the two women stared futilely at the three mapped DNA sequences.
“What do the extra pairs mean, Bailey? Please tell me you know,” Callie pleaded after a long silence.
“I really don’t. They couldn’t have occurred naturally. They’re man-made. I know that for sure.”
“And we each have different ones?” Callie asked, even though she could clearly see that they were different.
“They’re each different,” Bailey repeated. “Like, like a marker.”
“A marker…something to differentiate us.” Callie turned to Bailey. “Do you think it’s their way of keeping us separated? To tell the difference between us, scientifically?”
“Whose way?”
“The clone maker people!” Callie said, exasperation evident in her voice. She wasn’t frustrated with Bailey - in fact, her friend had provided her with far more information than she ever could have figured out on her own - but the more answers she got, the further away she felt from the truth.
“I guess it could be,” Bailey replied, her face scrunched up. None of this made sense. Everything went completely against the science she had researched and been taught. “It doesn’t seem to be having a physical affect on you, so it could be a kind of…code, I suppose.”
o0o0o0o
“Hey!” Arizona said brightly as Callie shut the door to Bailey’s lab behind her.
Callie jerked her head to where Arizona was standing. “Oh, hey, you been there long?”
“Nope, just passing through,” Arizona replied with a smile. “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Callie scoffed. “No…no ghost.”
“Ooookay,” Arizona said, her grin widening. “I know I said I would take you out on a date this Friday, but that seems like too long to wait, doesn’t it? I get off at 6 tonight. What do you say to me coming by your apartment with a pizza or two?” she asked with a wink.
Despite the grave news Callie had just heard, she laughed at the cute girl in front of her. “We’re going to eat a whole pizza each?”
Leaning in just a little closer, Arizona smirked. “You might need the food to build up your energy after I’m done with you.”
Moaning softly, Callie realized that Arizona was the one person who could almost make her forget all of clone nonsense she found herself in. Glancing at her watch, she knew she wouldn’t quite have time to meet up with the other clones and still get back for 6. “Make it 7?”
“It’s a date,” Arizona grinned.
Grinning back, Callie gazed unabashedly at Arizona. The two stared at each other stupidly, forgetting they were in their workplace and were supposed to be professionals. A clearing of a throat from behind Arizona snapped them both out of their reverie.
“Well, hello, lovebirds,” Mark said with a somewhat lecherous smile on his lips.
Arizona rolled her eyes; she supposed she’d have to get used to Mark if she wanted to be with Callie. “Hi, Sloan.”
“Mind if I steal Callie for lunch?”
Still silently staring at Arizona, Callie said nothing.
“Steal away! I have a surgery I need to prep for anyway,” Arizona answered. She leant forward and whispered in Callie’s ear, “I’ll see you at 7, beautiful.”
Shivering, Callie watched as Arizona walked it way.
Mark let out a low whistle. “You have it so bad.”
“Shut up,” she grumbled as she absent-mindedly followed Mark to the cafeteria. She sent a quick text to Laura and Maria to meet up later that afternoon.
As the two prepared their trays, Mark sighed and turned to face his friend. “You know, Cal, I know you don’t want to hear this, but with the new Arizona thing and the,” he glanced around before lowering his voice, “clone thing, I worry about your career. You’re on a path to be the head of the Ortho department in a few years. That’s incredible at your age, and something you should be focused on.”
“I am focused,” Callie said immediately, hackles raised.
“You’re not, Cal. I wouldn’t be either in your situation. You have this life-changing thing happening to you. I know for a fact you begged off a pretty cool surgery this afternoon so that you could go talk to your twins or whatever. And now you’re diving, pretty quickly if you ask me, into a new relationship?”
“Leave Arizona out of this. I know what I’m doing.”
“I love you, Cal. I really do. And Arizona seems great. Any other time, I’d be really happy for you. It’s just a lot to take on.”
Callie sighed and looked down at her food. She idly moved pieces of lettuce around her plate with her fork. “I know, and you’re right. I’m struggling. I have clones and someone might be trying to kill me and I’m still trying to figure out whether or not I even believe it all. But Arizona, she’s…it feels right with her, Mark. It feels right and good and she takes away all the confusion and panic I feel. I know I’ve only known her for a short time, but it’s so easy with her. So please stop. I don’t need you questioning every decision I make.”
“What do you need, then?”
“I need you to be my friend. I need you to support me.”
Taking a bite out of his apple, Mark smiled and winked at his friend. “I can do that.”
o0o0o0o
As soon as Callie began to knock on the door of room 213 at the Archfield, it opened to reveal an uncharacteristically frazzled Laura. “Thank god you’re here, come in.”
“What’s up with her?” Callie asked Maria, who was seated on the couch, looking forlornly out the window. The two women were acting in completely different ways from how they were the first time they met. “Did you two switch bodies or something?” Callie joked. “You know, it’s funny…because we have the same bodies…but different personalities…”
When she received glares from both women, she stopped chuckling to herself. “Oooookay, not a time for jokes apparently.” Still met with silence, Callie plucked the manila envelope from her bag and laid it on the coffee table. This finally brought Maria out of her silence.
“Oh my god, you had them tested? Thank you!”
“Don’t thank me yet. So, as you guys predicted, we all share the same DNA,” Callie began, opening the folder to display their DNA patterns. “But what’s really unusual is that we all have extra DNA chromosome pairs, which could not occur naturally. Those are different. Bailey suggested they might be markers of some sort…a way to tell us all apart, genetically. “
Scoffing, Maria turned away. “So you told Bailey about us?”
“Not completely, but I had to tell her that one of them was mine, and so yeah, it’s safe to say she knows something weird is going on. How else was I supposed to use her lab?”
“Ignore her,” Laura suggested. “She’s just paranoid, because she found out her husband has been performing tests on her in her sleep.”
“What?” Callie asked in a frenzied whisper.
“My husband, Jim, most unassuming man on the planet - seriously, he’s a chubby, lazy, high school English teacher - and yet he’s been working with them, whoever they are. I knew I hated that fucking bastard.”
“Okay, calm down,” Callie tried. “Are you sure?”
“I thought at first I was crazy. I mean it’s Jim. Last night, he was making macaroni and cheese for the kids and he burnt the freaking macaroni. But anyway, after a few nights of having these weird dreams and waking up thinking something was completely off, I used our nanny cam teddy bear and found that he’s been hooking me up to some sort of equipment.”
Laura stood from where she was leaning against the wall. “Adrianna wrote about this. Before she died, Adrianna wrote that she thought she had what she called a monitor. It was a friend of hers, who was keeping close tabs on her and then reporting back to the clone-makers. I think we might all have one.”
“No,” Callie said immediately. “There is no way I have one.”
“Are you seeing anyone?” Laura asked. “I just got divorced, so I can’t figure out who mine is either.”
“I just started seeing someone. It’s…no, there’s no way it’s her.”
“What about that guy I saw you with when we met? You seem very close and he didn’t seem that weirded out by me.”
“That’s Mark, he’s been my best friend for, like, 5 years now. It can’t be him. Just drop it, guys. I don’t have one.”
Maria and Laura shared a look. They’d been as skeptical as Callie at one point, but they’d grown to realize just how dangerous and just how true everything about the cloning situation was.
“Okay, well while I’ve been here over the past few days, I’ve been continuing Adrianna’s research. She was doing research into a guy named Dr. Blake, and his - ”
“Dr. Blake? That was the doctor my parents went to to undergo IVF treatment,” Callie added.
“I wonder if he’s who started all of this. I was a foster kid and Laura was adopted. You’re the only one we know of who knows the woman who birthed her.”
Laura took out a photocopy of an old newspaper article and showed it to the other two. “Dr. Blake was doing cutting edge IVF and genetic engineering research in the 1970s.”
“Who is that?” Callie asked, gesturing to the picture in the article.
“Dr. Blake…” Maria answered as if the answer were obvious.
“No, the woman in the background!” Callie snapped, snatching the paper from Laura’s hand. “Holy shit…”
“What? What is it?”
“The woman in the background…it’s Ellis Grey. She’s the Chief of Surgery at my hospital.”
“Well, I guess we found your monitor.”
o0o0o0o
When she heard a knock on the door, Callie quickly closed her laptop, leaving her internet browser tabs open to websites and articles documenting Dr. Blake’s research, and more specifically on the role Ellis Grey played. It seemed that she wasn’t just a hapless assistant, but an integral partner in his projects.
She swung open the door and grinned when she saw Arizona on the other side holding the two promised pizzas. “So, it occurred to me as I was calling in the order that I don’t know what you like, so I got one pizza half boring plain cheese and half cheese and onion, and then this one is half sausage and peppers and half pepperoni.”
“You really thought of everything, didn’t you?”
Arizona grinned and walked past Callie to put the pizzas on her counter. “I figured with two pizzas we’d have more variety. You can just keep whatever we don’t eat. Or maybe feed it to Mark.”
“You make him sound like a dog,” Callie laughed, while reaching up to grab two plates from her cupboard.
“Would I be wrong in that assessment?”
Shrugging, Callie placed the plates on the counter and grabbed a slice of pizza. “Nope.”
The two mindlessly watched a movie as they ate their pizza, chatting idly throughout. About halfway through the movie, Callie set her plate down on the coffee table and announced that she had to use the bathroom. She grinned to herself as she made her way through her bedroom to the attached bathroom. She had half expected this date to be terribly awkward, without the alcohol and now that their first time was out of the way, but it wasn’t at all. In fact, it was totally comfortable; it was something that both thrilled and scared her.
Callie stopped on her way out to touch up her make up and spritz on some extra cologne. Even though the date was going well, she saw no reason not to look and smell as good as possible.
As she re-entered the living room, she found Arizona guiltily looking back at her over the lid of her laptop.
“I’m sorry. I know I should have asked first, but I just got a text from Alex saying the surgery schedule had changed and I wanted to look it up to see if I needed to be at work in the morning. I really need to get a smartphone,” she rambled, gesturing to her old flip phone. “I swear I didn’t look at anything or read your emails.”
“Oh, um, that’s okay. You just used the internet?”
“Yeah, I saw you had something open so I used a different window. I’m sorry. I know we’re so not at that point yet.”
Shaking away her paranoia, Callie sat back down in her spot on the couch. “Don’t worry about it. It’s totally not a problem.”
As if trying to convince both of them not to worry, Callie wrapped an arm around Arizona, pulling the smaller woman into her side, as they watched the rest of the movie.
Previously on Orphan Grey: Callie realized her stalker was actually a clone of herself. She was convinced to meet with Maria and Laura and discovered that there was a whole group of clones, two of whom were killed. She called her dad and found out that she was conceived through IVF. She decided to give Dr. Bailey and her genome mapping project a visit. Oh yeah, and she had a lovely night with Arizona and she realized that she was falling for the girl…quickly.
Chapter 4
“What the hell are you saying?” Miranda Bailey whispered feverishly.
Callie scowled and crossed over to the table on which three petri dishes sat. “I’m saying,” she said in a clipped tone, “that these three samples are all from different people!”
Bailey shook her head, beyond frustrated with their conversation. She opened her mouth to argue, but was interrupted by someone turning the knob.
“Dr. Bailey? I had paged you for a consult about an hour ago, and - ” A timid April Kepner stuck her head through the door.
“I’m busy, Kepner!” “Go away!” Bailey and Callie shouted at the same time.
“Oh, uh, okay,” April replied, her face flushing a bright red.
“Sorry, Kepner, I’ll be with you in a few minutes,” Bailey amended, while Callie gave the resident a sheepish smile.
When the door shut behind April, Bailey turned back to Callie. “There’s something I haven’t shown you about these DNA sequences.”
Callie stepped forward to look more carefully at the slides Bailey had. “What is it?” she asked breathlessly.
“Well, they’re all identical up to where a normal DNA sequence would end. But they each have a tail added on, with more chromosomes than normal DNA would have.” As she said this, she slid a piece of paper down, uncovering rows 24-27. “Each of those is different.”
“What? But that’s not possible.” Callie remarked.
“Callie, I’ve given you leeway. I haven’t asked questions, because we’re friends and I do trust you. But you need to tell me what the hell is going on.”
Callie sighed, wondering how she had ever thought she could get Bailey to do this without asking questions. “I guess I should tell you that one of those is my DNA.”
“And you have two identical twins I don’t know about?” Bailey asked with a small laugh. Surely this was all some weird prank.
“Kind of,” Callie answered, completely seriously. She nearly had to laugh herself when the smile on Bailey’s face fell. “I met these women the other day. They look exactly like me, Bailey. But…but we’re not sisters.”
“Callie…this isn’t possible.”
“Someone cloned me, Bailey. I am a clone.” Callie’s voice was strained, the effort it was taking to hold back her tears was restricting her vocal chords and making it hard for her to breathe. This was the first time she’d admitted to anyone what she had learned in Room 213 of The Archfield. That forced the idea from the recesses of her mind to her lips, making it a reality. She was a clone.
Bailey’s mouth dropped open ever so slightly, but she was clearly trying her damnedest not to react. She knew Callie was a terrible liar and an even worse actress. What Callie was saying therefore must have been true, or at the very least, Callie must have believed it to be true.
Callie’s words hung in the dark lab, echoing in both of their minds, as the two women stared futilely at the three mapped DNA sequences.
“What do the extra pairs mean, Bailey? Please tell me you know,” Callie pleaded after a long silence.
“I really don’t. They couldn’t have occurred naturally. They’re man-made. I know that for sure.”
“And we each have different ones?” Callie asked, even though she could clearly see that they were different.
“They’re each different,” Bailey repeated. “Like, like a marker.”
“A marker…something to differentiate us.” Callie turned to Bailey. “Do you think it’s their way of keeping us separated? To tell the difference between us, scientifically?”
“Whose way?”
“The clone maker people!” Callie said, exasperation evident in her voice. She wasn’t frustrated with Bailey - in fact, her friend had provided her with far more information than she ever could have figured out on her own - but the more answers she got, the further away she felt from the truth.
“I guess it could be,” Bailey replied, her face scrunched up. None of this made sense. Everything went completely against the science she had researched and been taught. “It doesn’t seem to be having a physical affect on you, so it could be a kind of…code, I suppose.”
o0o0o0o
“Hey!” Arizona said brightly as Callie shut the door to Bailey’s lab behind her.
Callie jerked her head to where Arizona was standing. “Oh, hey, you been there long?”
“Nope, just passing through,” Arizona replied with a smile. “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Callie scoffed. “No…no ghost.”
“Ooookay,” Arizona said, her grin widening. “I know I said I would take you out on a date this Friday, but that seems like too long to wait, doesn’t it? I get off at 6 tonight. What do you say to me coming by your apartment with a pizza or two?” she asked with a wink.
Despite the grave news Callie had just heard, she laughed at the cute girl in front of her. “We’re going to eat a whole pizza each?”
Leaning in just a little closer, Arizona smirked. “You might need the food to build up your energy after I’m done with you.”
Moaning softly, Callie realized that Arizona was the one person who could almost make her forget all of clone nonsense she found herself in. Glancing at her watch, she knew she wouldn’t quite have time to meet up with the other clones and still get back for 6. “Make it 7?”
“It’s a date,” Arizona grinned.
Grinning back, Callie gazed unabashedly at Arizona. The two stared at each other stupidly, forgetting they were in their workplace and were supposed to be professionals. A clearing of a throat from behind Arizona snapped them both out of their reverie.
“Well, hello, lovebirds,” Mark said with a somewhat lecherous smile on his lips.
Arizona rolled her eyes; she supposed she’d have to get used to Mark if she wanted to be with Callie. “Hi, Sloan.”
“Mind if I steal Callie for lunch?”
Still silently staring at Arizona, Callie said nothing.
“Steal away! I have a surgery I need to prep for anyway,” Arizona answered. She leant forward and whispered in Callie’s ear, “I’ll see you at 7, beautiful.”
Shivering, Callie watched as Arizona walked it way.
Mark let out a low whistle. “You have it so bad.”
“Shut up,” she grumbled as she absent-mindedly followed Mark to the cafeteria. She sent a quick text to Laura and Maria to meet up later that afternoon.
As the two prepared their trays, Mark sighed and turned to face his friend. “You know, Cal, I know you don’t want to hear this, but with the new Arizona thing and the,” he glanced around before lowering his voice, “clone thing, I worry about your career. You’re on a path to be the head of the Ortho department in a few years. That’s incredible at your age, and something you should be focused on.”
“I am focused,” Callie said immediately, hackles raised.
“You’re not, Cal. I wouldn’t be either in your situation. You have this life-changing thing happening to you. I know for a fact you begged off a pretty cool surgery this afternoon so that you could go talk to your twins or whatever. And now you’re diving, pretty quickly if you ask me, into a new relationship?”
“Leave Arizona out of this. I know what I’m doing.”
“I love you, Cal. I really do. And Arizona seems great. Any other time, I’d be really happy for you. It’s just a lot to take on.”
Callie sighed and looked down at her food. She idly moved pieces of lettuce around her plate with her fork. “I know, and you’re right. I’m struggling. I have clones and someone might be trying to kill me and I’m still trying to figure out whether or not I even believe it all. But Arizona, she’s…it feels right with her, Mark. It feels right and good and she takes away all the confusion and panic I feel. I know I’ve only known her for a short time, but it’s so easy with her. So please stop. I don’t need you questioning every decision I make.”
“What do you need, then?”
“I need you to be my friend. I need you to support me.”
Taking a bite out of his apple, Mark smiled and winked at his friend. “I can do that.”
o0o0o0o
As soon as Callie began to knock on the door of room 213 at the Archfield, it opened to reveal an uncharacteristically frazzled Laura. “Thank god you’re here, come in.”
“What’s up with her?” Callie asked Maria, who was seated on the couch, looking forlornly out the window. The two women were acting in completely different ways from how they were the first time they met. “Did you two switch bodies or something?” Callie joked. “You know, it’s funny…because we have the same bodies…but different personalities…”
When she received glares from both women, she stopped chuckling to herself. “Oooookay, not a time for jokes apparently.” Still met with silence, Callie plucked the manila envelope from her bag and laid it on the coffee table. This finally brought Maria out of her silence.
“Oh my god, you had them tested? Thank you!”
“Don’t thank me yet. So, as you guys predicted, we all share the same DNA,” Callie began, opening the folder to display their DNA patterns. “But what’s really unusual is that we all have extra DNA chromosome pairs, which could not occur naturally. Those are different. Bailey suggested they might be markers of some sort…a way to tell us all apart, genetically. “
Scoffing, Maria turned away. “So you told Bailey about us?”
“Not completely, but I had to tell her that one of them was mine, and so yeah, it’s safe to say she knows something weird is going on. How else was I supposed to use her lab?”
“Ignore her,” Laura suggested. “She’s just paranoid, because she found out her husband has been performing tests on her in her sleep.”
“What?” Callie asked in a frenzied whisper.
“My husband, Jim, most unassuming man on the planet - seriously, he’s a chubby, lazy, high school English teacher - and yet he’s been working with them, whoever they are. I knew I hated that fucking bastard.”
“Okay, calm down,” Callie tried. “Are you sure?”
“I thought at first I was crazy. I mean it’s Jim. Last night, he was making macaroni and cheese for the kids and he burnt the freaking macaroni. But anyway, after a few nights of having these weird dreams and waking up thinking something was completely off, I used our nanny cam teddy bear and found that he’s been hooking me up to some sort of equipment.”
Laura stood from where she was leaning against the wall. “Adrianna wrote about this. Before she died, Adrianna wrote that she thought she had what she called a monitor. It was a friend of hers, who was keeping close tabs on her and then reporting back to the clone-makers. I think we might all have one.”
“No,” Callie said immediately. “There is no way I have one.”
“Are you seeing anyone?” Laura asked. “I just got divorced, so I can’t figure out who mine is either.”
“I just started seeing someone. It’s…no, there’s no way it’s her.”
“What about that guy I saw you with when we met? You seem very close and he didn’t seem that weirded out by me.”
“That’s Mark, he’s been my best friend for, like, 5 years now. It can’t be him. Just drop it, guys. I don’t have one.”
Maria and Laura shared a look. They’d been as skeptical as Callie at one point, but they’d grown to realize just how dangerous and just how true everything about the cloning situation was.
“Okay, well while I’ve been here over the past few days, I’ve been continuing Adrianna’s research. She was doing research into a guy named Dr. Blake, and his - ”
“Dr. Blake? That was the doctor my parents went to to undergo IVF treatment,” Callie added.
“I wonder if he’s who started all of this. I was a foster kid and Laura was adopted. You’re the only one we know of who knows the woman who birthed her.”
Laura took out a photocopy of an old newspaper article and showed it to the other two. “Dr. Blake was doing cutting edge IVF and genetic engineering research in the 1970s.”
“Who is that?” Callie asked, gesturing to the picture in the article.
“Dr. Blake…” Maria answered as if the answer were obvious.
“No, the woman in the background!” Callie snapped, snatching the paper from Laura’s hand. “Holy shit…”
“What? What is it?”
“The woman in the background…it’s Ellis Grey. She’s the Chief of Surgery at my hospital.”
“Well, I guess we found your monitor.”
o0o0o0o
When she heard a knock on the door, Callie quickly closed her laptop, leaving her internet browser tabs open to websites and articles documenting Dr. Blake’s research, and more specifically on the role Ellis Grey played. It seemed that she wasn’t just a hapless assistant, but an integral partner in his projects.
She swung open the door and grinned when she saw Arizona on the other side holding the two promised pizzas. “So, it occurred to me as I was calling in the order that I don’t know what you like, so I got one pizza half boring plain cheese and half cheese and onion, and then this one is half sausage and peppers and half pepperoni.”
“You really thought of everything, didn’t you?”
Arizona grinned and walked past Callie to put the pizzas on her counter. “I figured with two pizzas we’d have more variety. You can just keep whatever we don’t eat. Or maybe feed it to Mark.”
“You make him sound like a dog,” Callie laughed, while reaching up to grab two plates from her cupboard.
“Would I be wrong in that assessment?”
Shrugging, Callie placed the plates on the counter and grabbed a slice of pizza. “Nope.”
The two mindlessly watched a movie as they ate their pizza, chatting idly throughout. About halfway through the movie, Callie set her plate down on the coffee table and announced that she had to use the bathroom. She grinned to herself as she made her way through her bedroom to the attached bathroom. She had half expected this date to be terribly awkward, without the alcohol and now that their first time was out of the way, but it wasn’t at all. In fact, it was totally comfortable; it was something that both thrilled and scared her.
Callie stopped on her way out to touch up her make up and spritz on some extra cologne. Even though the date was going well, she saw no reason not to look and smell as good as possible.
As she re-entered the living room, she found Arizona guiltily looking back at her over the lid of her laptop.
“I’m sorry. I know I should have asked first, but I just got a text from Alex saying the surgery schedule had changed and I wanted to look it up to see if I needed to be at work in the morning. I really need to get a smartphone,” she rambled, gesturing to her old flip phone. “I swear I didn’t look at anything or read your emails.”
“Oh, um, that’s okay. You just used the internet?”
“Yeah, I saw you had something open so I used a different window. I’m sorry. I know we’re so not at that point yet.”
Shaking away her paranoia, Callie sat back down in her spot on the couch. “Don’t worry about it. It’s totally not a problem.”
As if trying to convince both of them not to worry, Callie wrapped an arm around Arizona, pulling the smaller woman into her side, as they watched the rest of the movie.