911 (1/?)
Title: 911
Author: Neolithicdream
Pairing/Character: Do you need to ask? Calzona.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: They are not together. And that is fine. Callie has her girlfriend, Arizona has hers. They aren't friends. All that binds them is their daughter. But the correct response to a 911 page is to run. That much hasn't changed.
A/N: I don't watch the show anymore. So this isn't canon past their final breakup. I don't expect anything from the show and I'm not even sure I'd want a Calzona reunion on the show. BUT my little fangirl heart beats on in fanfic. This is one of my many fantasy takes on how they come together. There will be significant others mentioned and harsh words exchanged but this is still pure Calzona.
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libellous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Instinctively she'd broken into a run. Well,after all, that's what you do when you get a 911 page,right?
She remembered explaining that to a hapless member of a documentary crew once just after they'd asked her to slow down to facilitate the camera operator. Arizona shook her head at the memory. God, that felt like a lifetime ago now and, in a way it was. What, four, no five years ago? After the shooting and before...well before everything else.
Before planes and trucks, before Africa and pregnancies, before a baby and a miscarriage. Before a marriage that wasn't fully legal and a dissolution that most certainly was.
She remembered another urgent page too, on her first full day back after her amputation. Karev ran, so did Kepner and some intern or other. She hadn't run though, hadn't ever imagined she'd walk steadily without her cane again never mind break into a sprint. That felt like a lifetime ago too. She could run now, fast sprints or slow leisurely jogs. Which reminded her that she'd signed up to run a 10k for charity in three months time. How on earth had she let Lucy convince her of that? And when would she have time to train for it?
Anyway she'd sort out her girlfriend and her running woes some other time. now she had an urgent page to answer, or did she? When she'd got it she just ran. Because it was 911, not because it was Callie. Not because her ex-wife sent her a page and certainly not because her ex-wife had paged her to an OnCall room. Well she could honestly say that that part was true anyway because the very last place she would ever want to see Calliope Torres was in an OnCall room.
No, these days Callie plus 911 page meant emergency, urgent and probably Sofia. They avoided paging each other like the plague these days. Avoided each other full stop these days except where it was unavoidable. They'd tried, or Arizona thought she had tried to be friends but, at the end of the day she didn't want to be Callie's friend. Once upon a time she'd desired to be her best friend but that position never became available, not really. And by the time Mark's death created a vacancy she and Callie had already started down the path to their inevitable destruction. They seemed to both realise around the same time that they couldn't, shouldn't, wouldn't be friends. So they co-parented and they co-owned a hospital and that was pretty much it. They were civil, sickeningly so, when in each others company but as they were only ever in each others company when their mutual friends were around,the civility was out of respect for their friends rather than each other. Or so Arizona thought and she had plenty of time to think in the slow tortuous elevator ascent to the 12th floor on call room.
No-one took the second elevator on the right when they were in a hurry. It was the elevator from hell, far slower than any other in the hospital. It also was quite notorious for stopping between floors for no good reason before jolting into movement again. The elevator technicians assured the Board it was perfectly safe just temperamental and as the cost of fixing it outweighed any benefit the elevator from hell ( also known as the elevator of romance) was avoided by Doctors in a hurry but frequently used by Doctors in love or at least in lust. God knows she and Callie had had their fair share of sweet moments in that elevator. The memory brought a brief smile followed by a deep lasting frown.
But when this page came she had panicked. Because Callie hadn't paged her directly for a medical reason in months so it had to be about Sofia, or her parents so she'd hopped in the elevator without even looking which one it was and now she was stuck, moving at the speed of treacle giving her plenty of time to think. To think and relax, to think some more and get annoyed. Sofia was at school, safe. So the page couldn't be about her. And if it had been then it wouldn't be to the most out of the way OnCall room in the entire hospital. It was beside Dermatology and let's face it the Doctors in Dermatology who pretty much worked 9 to 5 had no need for OnCall rooms. Her parents? But that made no sense for she'd had the talk with both Barbara and Daniel. In case of emergency contact her pa Charlotte, her right hand woman in the Department of Fetal and Paediatric Surgery or Dr. Alex Karev or The Chief of Surgery Dr. Bailey or, if she wasn't working, her neighbours Mr. & Mrs. Peters or if really desperate her girlfriend of the last few months, Dr. Lucy Hansen, Deputy Chief of Veterinary Medicine at Seattle Zoo. No Dr. Callie Torres did not even make it into her top 5 emergency contacts these days.
So what possible reason could Callie have to summon her with a 911 to outer Siberia? Arizona, finally now released by the elevator , strode angrily down the hall towards the room. her anger was to protect herself, she just knew that whatever Callie had to say it wouldn't be good, at least not for her. Dragging her to a part of the Hospital on the pretence of an emergency page could mean only one thing. Callie had news, news she knew Arizona wouldn't like, wouldn't take well so she had dragged her here so that none of their friends would overhear. So that no one important might see Callie in anything other than a perfect light. She was the devoted wife who had nursed her ungrateful wife back to health, the martyr who had worked so hard to perfect a better prosthetic for the woman who repaid her by sleeping with a practical stranger. She was the cuckolded wife who forgave. The wife who left her home because her unhappy wife wanted to move only to find that moving made her no happier. Callie was the one who just wanted another little baby to love married to the woman who just loved to operate on little babies.
Callie was the good wife, Arizona was the bad one. It was black and white, no shades of grey. Arizona was fairly sure that's how most of their friends saw it, saw them. She certainly hadn't ever felt inundated with understanding or concern from any of their mutual friends. And at a time when she barely had the energy to fight for anything other than Sofia she certainly hadn't ether time nor energy to spend cultivating sympathy from colleagues. She didn't cry in Joes, didn't emerge puffy eyed from storerooms after loud crying jags. Didn't complain either about being alone, or the lack of sex. No Arizona had done her crying alone for the most part. April and Alex being amongst the few exceptions. Her parents being the others.
And eventually she'd gotten over it. Gotten over everything. Her misplaced anger. The loss of her leg, of her friends; of her belief in joy and her ability to see it. The loss of the tiniest of tiny humans that had lived but briefly inside of her. The baby that might have saved them. And the ultimate loss, her Calliope. She'd survived that too.
And now here she was. Thriving as a Double Board certified Fetal and Pediatric surgeon. A new relationship, the girlfriend word casually dropped without fuss into the conversation a few weeks ago. Her parents visited more often than before, anxious to spend time with their beloved Sofia. She'd even moved to a small but perfectly formed 3 bedroomed house a few months ago.
Life was good.
She had survived and life was good.
It was.
Was Callie about to destroy that? Was she going to announce that she was leaving Seattle? Taking Sofia from her? Her heart clenched at the thought as did her fists. They had just returned from Miami, Sofia had talked endlessly about the beach and Tia Aria's chihuahua and Abuelo's really really big boat and most of all she'd talked about her Abuela. "I have an AH - BWEH -LAH, Mama. Did you know that, Mama? She's like Abuelo except she's a girl!!! She's Mami's Mami! " And it was all Abuela said this, and Abuela did that.
Was that why Callie wanted to see her now? To tell her that now that Lucia had somehow gotten over her bigoted homophobic self Callie was going to move closer to her family?
Or was she going to tell her that she had decided to take the next step with whatshername? Tiffany. That was her name. She seemed a perfectly nice, if somewhat vacuous, girl. She was thirty,looked younger; worked in PR for the Seattle Seahawks and Callie and her had been dating for several months now.
And that was fine.
Absolutely fine.
Callie had moved on a long,long time ago.
And so had she. She had moved on. She had Lucy now and Callie had whatshername.
Which was fine.
But was that it? Was she moving Tiffany into their home? Was she engaged? Getting Married? Fists and heart clenched involuntarily again, this time Arizona shook her head as if berating her heart for such foolishness.
She breathed deeply, steadying her emotions. Whatever the bombshell she had to remain calm. Reminding herself she had rights over Sofia, Callie could not take her without a fight but it would be a fight Arizona would have to fight with her head. Losing her temper would help no one.
And the other thing? Well if Callie wanted to jump into the shark infested waters of matrimony again well that was her problem. If someone else got to be the wife of Callie Torres so what? She didn't even like Callie anymore, never mind love.
Tiffany could have her, lock stock and wedding ring.
Right?
She knocked firmly on the OnCall room before entering. She was ready for whatever her ex would throw at her.
One glance upwards by Callie as Arizona entered was all it took. One fear etched glance and Arizona was undone. Anger dissipated in under an instant. The low level ever constant annoyance she carried with her gone too. Something was wrong. Callie was upset, that much was clear. A barely visible track of tears stained her cheeks. But it was more than just upset, more than nervousness too... was it fear?
And that was all it took. All it had ever taken for Arizona. Seeing Callie cry, upset, worried? It stirred something in her, always had, probably always would. Maybe that was all that would tie them in the end. When all the love was gone, when even the memory of that love would fade eventually, when Sofia was all grown up and an adult, maybe all that would tie them together were their tears, their fears.
So be it. She realised in that moment. She never ever wanted to not be affected by Callie's tears. She never wanted to not care enough to be there for her when needed. She didn't have to love or even like Callie but she would always have to care. She really hoped Callie would always care too.
"Callie?" she whispered, "...what's wrong?"
Callie just stared at her momentarily, "You came?" She shook her head, a tiny smile ghosted passed her lips "...I wasn't sure you would, I mean..."
"911..." Arizona's smile was fleeting, hesitant, "... You don't ignore 911, right."
Callie's smile disappeared, nodding in understanding, in realisation. Arizona came because it was a 911 page. That was all. That knowledge surprised her by the hurt that accompanied it. And yet she was surprised that she was surprised.
"Im sorry, I shouldn't have...I mean technically it's not...there's no fire, no emergency, it's not..." Her words trailed off, her head shook almost imperceptibly.
Author: Neolithicdream
Pairing/Character: Do you need to ask? Calzona.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: They are not together. And that is fine. Callie has her girlfriend, Arizona has hers. They aren't friends. All that binds them is their daughter. But the correct response to a 911 page is to run. That much hasn't changed.
A/N: I don't watch the show anymore. So this isn't canon past their final breakup. I don't expect anything from the show and I'm not even sure I'd want a Calzona reunion on the show. BUT my little fangirl heart beats on in fanfic. This is one of my many fantasy takes on how they come together. There will be significant others mentioned and harsh words exchanged but this is still pure Calzona.
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libellous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Instinctively she'd broken into a run. Well,after all, that's what you do when you get a 911 page,right?
She remembered explaining that to a hapless member of a documentary crew once just after they'd asked her to slow down to facilitate the camera operator. Arizona shook her head at the memory. God, that felt like a lifetime ago now and, in a way it was. What, four, no five years ago? After the shooting and before...well before everything else.
Before planes and trucks, before Africa and pregnancies, before a baby and a miscarriage. Before a marriage that wasn't fully legal and a dissolution that most certainly was.
She remembered another urgent page too, on her first full day back after her amputation. Karev ran, so did Kepner and some intern or other. She hadn't run though, hadn't ever imagined she'd walk steadily without her cane again never mind break into a sprint. That felt like a lifetime ago too. She could run now, fast sprints or slow leisurely jogs. Which reminded her that she'd signed up to run a 10k for charity in three months time. How on earth had she let Lucy convince her of that? And when would she have time to train for it?
Anyway she'd sort out her girlfriend and her running woes some other time. now she had an urgent page to answer, or did she? When she'd got it she just ran. Because it was 911, not because it was Callie. Not because her ex-wife sent her a page and certainly not because her ex-wife had paged her to an OnCall room. Well she could honestly say that that part was true anyway because the very last place she would ever want to see Calliope Torres was in an OnCall room.
No, these days Callie plus 911 page meant emergency, urgent and probably Sofia. They avoided paging each other like the plague these days. Avoided each other full stop these days except where it was unavoidable. They'd tried, or Arizona thought she had tried to be friends but, at the end of the day she didn't want to be Callie's friend. Once upon a time she'd desired to be her best friend but that position never became available, not really. And by the time Mark's death created a vacancy she and Callie had already started down the path to their inevitable destruction. They seemed to both realise around the same time that they couldn't, shouldn't, wouldn't be friends. So they co-parented and they co-owned a hospital and that was pretty much it. They were civil, sickeningly so, when in each others company but as they were only ever in each others company when their mutual friends were around,the civility was out of respect for their friends rather than each other. Or so Arizona thought and she had plenty of time to think in the slow tortuous elevator ascent to the 12th floor on call room.
No-one took the second elevator on the right when they were in a hurry. It was the elevator from hell, far slower than any other in the hospital. It also was quite notorious for stopping between floors for no good reason before jolting into movement again. The elevator technicians assured the Board it was perfectly safe just temperamental and as the cost of fixing it outweighed any benefit the elevator from hell ( also known as the elevator of romance) was avoided by Doctors in a hurry but frequently used by Doctors in love or at least in lust. God knows she and Callie had had their fair share of sweet moments in that elevator. The memory brought a brief smile followed by a deep lasting frown.
But when this page came she had panicked. Because Callie hadn't paged her directly for a medical reason in months so it had to be about Sofia, or her parents so she'd hopped in the elevator without even looking which one it was and now she was stuck, moving at the speed of treacle giving her plenty of time to think. To think and relax, to think some more and get annoyed. Sofia was at school, safe. So the page couldn't be about her. And if it had been then it wouldn't be to the most out of the way OnCall room in the entire hospital. It was beside Dermatology and let's face it the Doctors in Dermatology who pretty much worked 9 to 5 had no need for OnCall rooms. Her parents? But that made no sense for she'd had the talk with both Barbara and Daniel. In case of emergency contact her pa Charlotte, her right hand woman in the Department of Fetal and Paediatric Surgery or Dr. Alex Karev or The Chief of Surgery Dr. Bailey or, if she wasn't working, her neighbours Mr. & Mrs. Peters or if really desperate her girlfriend of the last few months, Dr. Lucy Hansen, Deputy Chief of Veterinary Medicine at Seattle Zoo. No Dr. Callie Torres did not even make it into her top 5 emergency contacts these days.
So what possible reason could Callie have to summon her with a 911 to outer Siberia? Arizona, finally now released by the elevator , strode angrily down the hall towards the room. her anger was to protect herself, she just knew that whatever Callie had to say it wouldn't be good, at least not for her. Dragging her to a part of the Hospital on the pretence of an emergency page could mean only one thing. Callie had news, news she knew Arizona wouldn't like, wouldn't take well so she had dragged her here so that none of their friends would overhear. So that no one important might see Callie in anything other than a perfect light. She was the devoted wife who had nursed her ungrateful wife back to health, the martyr who had worked so hard to perfect a better prosthetic for the woman who repaid her by sleeping with a practical stranger. She was the cuckolded wife who forgave. The wife who left her home because her unhappy wife wanted to move only to find that moving made her no happier. Callie was the one who just wanted another little baby to love married to the woman who just loved to operate on little babies.
Callie was the good wife, Arizona was the bad one. It was black and white, no shades of grey. Arizona was fairly sure that's how most of their friends saw it, saw them. She certainly hadn't ever felt inundated with understanding or concern from any of their mutual friends. And at a time when she barely had the energy to fight for anything other than Sofia she certainly hadn't ether time nor energy to spend cultivating sympathy from colleagues. She didn't cry in Joes, didn't emerge puffy eyed from storerooms after loud crying jags. Didn't complain either about being alone, or the lack of sex. No Arizona had done her crying alone for the most part. April and Alex being amongst the few exceptions. Her parents being the others.
And eventually she'd gotten over it. Gotten over everything. Her misplaced anger. The loss of her leg, of her friends; of her belief in joy and her ability to see it. The loss of the tiniest of tiny humans that had lived but briefly inside of her. The baby that might have saved them. And the ultimate loss, her Calliope. She'd survived that too.
And now here she was. Thriving as a Double Board certified Fetal and Pediatric surgeon. A new relationship, the girlfriend word casually dropped without fuss into the conversation a few weeks ago. Her parents visited more often than before, anxious to spend time with their beloved Sofia. She'd even moved to a small but perfectly formed 3 bedroomed house a few months ago.
Life was good.
She had survived and life was good.
It was.
Was Callie about to destroy that? Was she going to announce that she was leaving Seattle? Taking Sofia from her? Her heart clenched at the thought as did her fists. They had just returned from Miami, Sofia had talked endlessly about the beach and Tia Aria's chihuahua and Abuelo's really really big boat and most of all she'd talked about her Abuela. "I have an AH - BWEH -LAH, Mama. Did you know that, Mama? She's like Abuelo except she's a girl!!! She's Mami's Mami! " And it was all Abuela said this, and Abuela did that.
Was that why Callie wanted to see her now? To tell her that now that Lucia had somehow gotten over her bigoted homophobic self Callie was going to move closer to her family?
Or was she going to tell her that she had decided to take the next step with whatshername? Tiffany. That was her name. She seemed a perfectly nice, if somewhat vacuous, girl. She was thirty,looked younger; worked in PR for the Seattle Seahawks and Callie and her had been dating for several months now.
And that was fine.
Absolutely fine.
Callie had moved on a long,long time ago.
And so had she. She had moved on. She had Lucy now and Callie had whatshername.
Which was fine.
But was that it? Was she moving Tiffany into their home? Was she engaged? Getting Married? Fists and heart clenched involuntarily again, this time Arizona shook her head as if berating her heart for such foolishness.
She breathed deeply, steadying her emotions. Whatever the bombshell she had to remain calm. Reminding herself she had rights over Sofia, Callie could not take her without a fight but it would be a fight Arizona would have to fight with her head. Losing her temper would help no one.
And the other thing? Well if Callie wanted to jump into the shark infested waters of matrimony again well that was her problem. If someone else got to be the wife of Callie Torres so what? She didn't even like Callie anymore, never mind love.
Tiffany could have her, lock stock and wedding ring.
Right?
She knocked firmly on the OnCall room before entering. She was ready for whatever her ex would throw at her.
One glance upwards by Callie as Arizona entered was all it took. One fear etched glance and Arizona was undone. Anger dissipated in under an instant. The low level ever constant annoyance she carried with her gone too. Something was wrong. Callie was upset, that much was clear. A barely visible track of tears stained her cheeks. But it was more than just upset, more than nervousness too... was it fear?
And that was all it took. All it had ever taken for Arizona. Seeing Callie cry, upset, worried? It stirred something in her, always had, probably always would. Maybe that was all that would tie them in the end. When all the love was gone, when even the memory of that love would fade eventually, when Sofia was all grown up and an adult, maybe all that would tie them together were their tears, their fears.
So be it. She realised in that moment. She never ever wanted to not be affected by Callie's tears. She never wanted to not care enough to be there for her when needed. She didn't have to love or even like Callie but she would always have to care. She really hoped Callie would always care too.
"Callie?" she whispered, "...what's wrong?"
Callie just stared at her momentarily, "You came?" She shook her head, a tiny smile ghosted passed her lips "...I wasn't sure you would, I mean..."
"911..." Arizona's smile was fleeting, hesitant, "... You don't ignore 911, right."
Callie's smile disappeared, nodding in understanding, in realisation. Arizona came because it was a 911 page. That was all. That knowledge surprised her by the hurt that accompanied it. And yet she was surprised that she was surprised.
"Im sorry, I shouldn't have...I mean technically it's not...there's no fire, no emergency, it's not..." Her words trailed off, her head shook almost imperceptibly.