Confessions, Concessions & Cures Chapters 1 & 2
Title: Confession, Concessions and Cures
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to SR and ABC. I make no profit from these stories and also? No copy right infringement intended.
Rating:T
Summary:Every scary little thing that rattled inside her mind and heart, that came in the way of her loving Callie with everything she ever was - it was all becoming apparent. It became violent and almost tangible in every electrifying touch she'd shared with Lauren.
There was this all consuming burn Arizona felt in Lauren's presence; she was suddenly younger, everything was momentarily brighter and so she gave into it. It felt like jumping off a high rise; the fall creating a hollow in her stomach, the wind tickling her exposed skin, rushing all over her. It was beautiful and exciting until it wasn't, until the ground became visible. And, then it all came rushing in, who she was; a mother, a wife, brilliant, married to someone who didn't think to question why she loved her, or how she loved her, someone who only knew that she loved Arizona and everything else was inconsequential.
Yes, she was sure. She was sure that it happened - she was sure that she'd just hit the ground, they all had.
"Yes, Callie. It happened."
Pairing: C/A
Onward
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"So, you're sure?" She asks, finally looking up from her lap. In the last half hour, her lap had become insanely interesting, and not in a fun sexy way; it was more in that she couldn't look into those blue eyes which were sure to be pleading with her brown ones. Those eyes would do their own talking, never to be denied, but Callie was hoping this was one of those rare moments where the definition of what a joke is was evading her otherwise brilliant wife.
If this wasn't what it was, if t this very moment she wasn't stuck in an almost Ibsonian play, convincing her partner that she did in fact give herself over in the most intimate way to an almost stranger, if she were on the outside looking in, Arizona was sure there would be something painfully comical about the whole thing. But, there she was, there they were, stuck in an expressionistic storm.
Every scary little thing that rattled inside her mind and heart, that came in the way of her loving Callie with everything she ever was - it was all becoming apparent. It became violent and almost tangible in every electrifying touch she'd shared with Lauren.
There was this all consuming burn Arizona felt in Lauren's presence; she was suddenly younger, everything was momentarily brighter and so she gave into it. It felt like jumping off a high rise; the fall creating a hollow in her stomach, the wind tickling her exposed skin, rushing all over her. It was beautiful and exciting until it wasn't, until the ground became visible. And, then it all came rushing in, who she was; a mother, a wife, brilliant, married to someone who didn't think to question why she loved her, or how she loved her, someone who only knew that she loved Arizona and everything else was inconsequential.
Yes, she was sure. She was sure that it happened - she was sure that she'd just hit the ground, they all had.
"Yes, Callie. It happened." She sounded calm. Arizona sounded calm, almost... cold. She should be saying more, shouldn't she? But Arizona didn't quite know what to say. 'Sorry' seemed so trite, 'I love you', 'it meant nothing'? Which stinking flower was she supposed to present to her wife out of this rather impressive bouquet of rotting old cliches? The truth of it was that Arizona did love Callie, but in everything that had happened something between them had shifted and they never stopped to fix it, she never stopped to fix it.
How many times could they do that, really? And she was ashamed to have to acknowledge it all the time, 'I'm broken, we're broken, I'm damaged goods' - She was afraid to lean into these feelings. When would she live if she was always stuck in her head?! So, she ignored it, and put on a beautiful show until it all became too thin to endear to the naked eye and too heavy for her to keep at it.
Someone pulled in a shuddering breath. At this point, it could be any one of the two women sitting in the tiny office. Callie was going to have to look at Arizona at some point, she decided to rip it all off like a nasty band-aid.
She giggled a little to herself. She laugh-scoffed at the fact that now they would have to talk incessantly, which they could have done if Arizona had come to her before she 'mistakenly' decided to give into her attraction for the other blonde minted in the shiny brilliance of Hopkins-acquired-awesomeness. They would be good together, annoyingly trailing rainbows behind them in the halls when they'd passed through; giant shapely barbies. Callie wished she wasn't so irrevocably, irredeemably, stupidly in love with one of them.
The ball was in Callie's court, at least that's what it felt like, but really she despised being bullied into playing at all by her wife, by the 'wife steeling baby fixer', by the freaking situation! She dared to look at Arizona a second time in all the time that had gone on since this entire thing started.
"So, what do you want to do now?" asked Callie. "Do you want to be with her now?" Her voice cracked on that particular question; god, a yes on that one would be like a cold spike through Callie's warm fluttering heart.
"NO" came the answer, prompt and firm.
"Do you still want to be with me?" This all seemed wrong, to her, to Arizona too, really. Should not Arizona be asking that question? Should she not be begging her wife to stay? But, the question was followed by a silence that inked the air around them with a slow poison.
"I... I don't know. I want you, I want us, you Calliope, and Sophia. But, what if we try, I try and you can't forgive me? You have to try with me." Now she pleaded, tiny cracks in the stoicism that let Arizona breathe, they were becoming visibly apparent to them both. "Could you do that? Eventually? Could you forgive this? Me? Could you forgive me?"
Could she?
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Could she?
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Everything inside Callie was screaming for her to say yes. She wanted to be with Arizona, despite everything, because of everything, she just wanted to be with her. But, this, this was different. She wasn't going to just neatly sweep it all under the rug and then have them both trip over said rug and fall flat on their faces. Clearly, rug stuffing wasn't working for them.
She looked at Arizona for a bit. The woman was steely and professional in everything, and when she was unsure of herself around the people that mattered most, the distancing (?), it took hold everywhere, their home, their marriage… Everything became strained and polite. But, right now, Arizona was her rare hidden self, she would never beg, but she was; she was pleading with her eyes, asking for forgiveness and giving Callie an out all at once. But, she still wasn't saying it and that scared Callie, it pissed her off and it somehow saddened her too. Wasn't she worth it being said?! Where was the loud echoing remorse? It should have been there, right? Choking apologies galore?
Arizona was hoping for clean, surgical preciseness and calculated outcomes, even now, with Callie, and about their lives. But Callie was built differently. Everything about her was big, and messy, and loud and close, involved and beautiful; it's what let her keep caring for George after their divorce. Once you had Callie - she was there to stay. Where most people mistook Callie for someone who succumbed to childish naivety, a trap Arizona too often fell into of late, she had once known that Callie's love was deep rooted, binding and wherever it took seat…it was solid. And even after, for whatever reason, you chipped away at that love, piece by piece, its dust settled there forever. It's what made Arizona both afraid and hopeful. It's what Arizona was banking on.
Every thought Callie was having circled to this blank moment filled with white noise and this lingering nausea. 'Did Arizona really expect an answer right now? This very instance? Should she not be afforded the time at least to digest this unpalatable piece of information?'
It bubbled up inside her and made its way to her lips in a half chocked sob-whisper -"Oh my god! You cheated on me!" Louder now. "You did! You slept with someone else, and no snoring was involved and…" it seemed to die down.
Arizona looked at Callie with this terrible curiosity. She could see her wife weave in and out of this blankness - places where her mind sped up and then everything from her thoughts to her soul came to a grinding halt; as if the news of the betrayal was cyclically stale and then fresh. It was like watching a beautiful monument being demolished or coming undone; Arizona wanted to look away, but she couldn't bring herself to do it.
"…and you what? You want an answer right now?" Yes, she was now speaking in a loud angry whisper. Anger and pain, that was what Callie's voice carried in it. "I can't give you an answer right now! This? Us?! We're not a fast track court or whatever! Give me a goddamn moment, Arizona! I can't just… just soldier on! And, after everything, this question of yours?! It's selfish! And I'm over you being selfish!"
"So what?" The question came out in ragged breaths as Arizona felt the tight squeeze of dread in her chest. "What are you saying?! You won't even consider giving me, us, a chance?" The next thing out of her mouth was a terribly convoluted thought; a hail Mary, something to win the argument, to level the playing field, or cut Callie's leg off, (just the one) from under her - "Because I did! When… when I came back from Africa and…" She stopped; the look on Callie's face made her stop.
"Do you hear yourself right now Arizona?! We decided not to do this! You bring up Africa?!" Arizona had expected Callie to be louder, outraged, wailing again the shit storm that she'd finally and so perfectly brought home to them, between them. But, this, the way her wife talked right now? It didn't satisfy how Arizona had seen, almost hoped Callie would react. She should have been angrier, but here she was; a picture of quiet calm passion, anger and love and sadness and something about her eyes seemed to look like Callie wanted to understand the 'why' beyond the 'what' of what had happened between her and Lauren.
"We'd decided a long time ago… the day we were getting married in fact - that we wouldn't do this! I don't want to use of Africa and neither should you Arizona…" Callie sighed her name, like she did in that Callie way, and it hit Arizona just right; it made her feel like a mad little child, yes they'd agreed to that, but it didn't stop how she's felt about it… how she still felt about it.
"And what is the point here?! I mean you know what we'll say right?" Callie waited for a nod of confirmation, anything really that made her think Arizona was going to stop hiding behind the continental debacle, but it never came. Callie paused for a bit, then - "Arizona, we were broken up!" She did Arizona's voice next "No we weren't, I thought about you, there were sick kids and I funded the new luxury boat the guys at Kleenex bought themselves that Christmas!"
That got Arizona to smirk-smile a little.
Callie shifted to her own voice "I'm having a baby? That's what was next, right?"
That wiped the smirk off Arizona's face.
"Things happened…" Callie continued acting herself out "and you said you'd be Sophia's mom, and you are! And, we were both wrong." That got the blonde's attention, what was Callie saying? Was she now going to tell her that she was going to keep her kid from her?
Callie saw where Arizona's mind was going, she'd clinched her fists, her nails digging into her palms and she looked about ready to launch a verbal assault on the women standing in front of her. Callie spoke quickly, calmly and clearly - "No, that's not what I meant. I meant then, we were wrong not to talk, you were wrong to leave like that, and I was wrong in not having supported you - good and proper."
She huffed a little, exasperated with the blonde, but she continued nonetheless. "Let me be clear right now. Whatever happens with us, you are Sophia's mother and I see how dedicated you are to her. I won't…" She sighed, "this is tiring Arizona, and it feels wrong. I'm constantly defending myself and even now, I'm the one fighting for us. Don't you see how weird this is? How absurd all this is?! YOU sleep with someone else and somehow I have to defend the choices I made those many years ago, and maybe even the ones I'll be making right now… Does that seem fair to you?"
She could see it. Callie could see Arizona vacillating between opening up and leaning into the pain and the guilt or shutting down. She knew her wife, or maybe right now? She didn't so much, but she knew what Arizona would do. The guilt would drown her wife and that fear of drowning was what was stopping Arizona from feeling or showing her guilt, her anger at herself and her remorse.
The truth of it was that Arizona was so, so, sorry, but she was also so afraid that that wouldn't be enough for Callie, for them. And what would happen then? But, in that moment Arizona recognised what Callie meant. Yes, this was absurd and wrong in so many ways; she was grilling Callie.
"Look at me, Arizona. I… ugh! I don't want to say this now, you don't deserve it and I'm always risking myself… my self-worth, my heart, and I shouldn't have to, not after everything, not after five years, and a kid and marriage. But, I do…love you, still." She could hear Arizona's sharp intake of breath, a slight hitch; Callie heard and read relief there, and she hated that she was making Arizona feel better. It just felt wrong all over again.
"And I wish I didn't, and that it'd just stop! And that it'd just go away and leave me be, but it won't, and I can't not know why, and it can't just be empty references to what has happened and loaded things like 'my leg made me do it.'" She stopped. Waiting for Arizona to bulldoze her entire argument, a little sheepish at the insensitive comment about the leg, but it never came. She cleared her throat, pausing to think what to say next, but then she though against it; 'let her suffer' she thought, 'see what being left in the dust feels like' - and with that Callie began to exit the room.
Arizona, a little taken aback, went to take hold of Callie's wrist and stop her, but she couldn't handle being jerked away by her wife, so she went for and successfully caught her doctor's coat. "Callie, don't."
"This isn't you, the walking away. And, I know you want to punish me and you should, but please, please, please don't not be you about it. I couldn't… I don't want to change you. I know it sounds presumptuous but, you are not me, and you're not cynical and silent and the room leaving type. Don't be me, don't become this hard person…" She was crying now, Arizona was honest to god crying and Callie was constantly fighting herself in wanting to comfort her.
"Yeah, well" Callie choked out, embarrassed at how 'badass hard-core I hate you right now' that was meant to be and how 'I miss you like a love sick loser' it actually came out as. She sniffled… 'God! She freaking sniffled! She was sucking at this!' She had to speak, "You don't deserve me right now, so…." An awkward silence followed as Callie slowly continued towards the door.
Arizona let go of the coat, but not of her own volition, Callie had dragged herself away from her grasp, slowly, heavily but sure footedly moving towards the exit. She couldn't watch Callie walk away so she zoned in on the linoleum floors looking at the slight grime that made her think to approach the board for readjusting the budget or of talking to the cleaning staff or something that was not about her and Callie.
"No…" That broke the blonde's floor watching-cleaning obsessed reverie. She looked up to see Callie facing her, incensed and angry; yes, this was Callie again, the one that she recognised. "This is what is going to happen… I'll move out and you have two weeks…"
Arizona's heart sped up, a humming bird in her chest "Callie, please don't…"
"Stop! Alright? Can you just… Jesus! Arizona! Just… just let me talk; let me finish!"
Arizona pursed her lips, eyes wide and nodded, rocking on her heels, like a child. The sight almost made Callie smile, almost, until she remembered where they were and what this was…
Sighing and acknowledging Arizona's silent acceptance with a slight nod, she went on "I'll move out, and you have two weeks to find a new house or apartment or whatever, one that's not a five story walk-up with a mostly reliable lift…" She cut herself off when Arizona looked about ready to protest, but her glare in turn caused the blonde to stop herself, and they were left with a slight and audible squeak that emanated from the blonde's lips and died in the air. Callie huffed a bit, but then continued…"when you have it, the place, I'll come see it, and we'll make sure it is safe for you and Sophia, for when she's over with you…" That got her a sad sloppy smile from her wife, who was now silently crying and wheezing with shut eyes crinkled at the sides and grimace like smile, sad but relieved. At that moment, what was so thoroughly unattractive to so many people was so very endearing to Callie, but she had to shake it off and continue.
"Then, I'll move back to the apartment, which if we decide to separate, I will keep." That was again met with a slight nod. 'This is what Arizona wanted, right?' She was making it easy for the blonde, calling all the shots, taking on the burden of it all and moving out of the painful inaction they were otherwise destined to get stuck in. "I'm signing over my shares to you in a… a… deed of gift? Is that a thing?"
"Calliope, no…" there, Arizona broke some more, sighing her discontent at how final this all sounded.
"Yes. Your leg, your pain, your money!" Callie was getting loud now, "I don't want it! Put some of it in a trust for Sophia, buy yourself a harem, whatever! I don't want the money, but I will keep my trust fund."
"No, Callie." That sounded a lot more confident that Arizona felt. "You suffered too, with me and… and I'm not doing that! Taking the money or whatever, please!" 'Crazy! ' Arizona was feeling crazy right now, this was maddening! "And you said, IF we decide to separate, so why would you do this?! Divide our assets or whatever? When… when we're…" 'what? What were they? Were they still together?'
Callie put up her hands, stilling Arizona's string of ill articulated pleas. Her wife was scared, terrified of losing her, their life, their marriage, their family. That much was becoming apparent and that helped calm Callie, a lot. It chipped away at her reservations about the far, far away possibility of reconciliation.
"Look, Arizona. I won't let you do this. You… we… the married and maybe eventually together us, we will either learn to share everything or I refuse to do this again."
Arizona looked at her in that curious and confused fashion that made Callie sure of how blind the woman was sometimes. She laugh-scoffed and queried - "really?! You really don't know what I'm talking about?!" The blonde looked like she was scared to shake her head in a negative fashion, but Callie just went on. "I'm allowed the money and a seat on the board, and yeah that's great! And, sure, it matters some, because we are changing this place… but, here inside us", she waved her hands between then for emphasis and continued - "the two of us, our marriage? You never gave me the same consideration!"
"That is not true!" Before Arizona could continue with the verbal outpourings of outrage, Callie quickly cut her off - "yes it is… You never let me see you in recovery, even later on. I wasn't allowed to go to PT with you…" She could see the blonde was about to protest again - "yeah, you were scared and embarrassed, but you were also punishing me! Every other month I would get this jarringly different version of you, supposedly better than you were before, but I was never allowed to see you heal, and that? That was punishment for me. You know it was! 'cause then you were getting better and I wasn't a part of it. I'm constantly left with this job of breaking away pieces of you, and I can't not do it because that's what you need me to do! And then you hate me for it, and you're happy hating me, because then you don't have to hate yourself! And right now?! You're going to do it again…"
Every time they revealed a piece of their wounded selves it seemed to be chased by a fast and blank silence where the pain settled and it grew, but that seemed to be the cost of understanding one another… trying to understand one another.
"Okay." Arizona affirmed and that surprised Callie. But, that clipped affirmative reply was all the agreement she'd get from the blonde. The niggling feeling of not being loved and valued enough returned again, but Callie pushed it down and went on… "that's all I have to say right now. And we'll… we can try" the next word came out in a tired frustrated sigh "again. But, you'll have to come to me, because I'm done chasing you! However we got here, you're the one who slept with someone else, so let's not fool ourselves! You don't play the victim, and I won't play the martyr, and when we are ready to commit to recovering you will ask me. And we'll see what we'll do next…" She finished lamely, feeling spent.
"Now I'm going to go, and you are going to let me. There is a hospital full of people who need us, so we should…" she motioned towards the exit again and got a "yes", a defeated sigh of an affirmation. But she turned back again, "oh, and Arizona? Don't… don't tell anyone about this, the cheating. There's only about so much I can take without having to play the fool a second time around here, and they'd make your life hell too… So, don't…" And with that she walked out of the door, leaving behind a woman riddled with a heart that contradicted itself, questioning the drumming humming music inside her chest.
What was that bleeding into her veins?
Was it dread?
Was it remorse?
Or, was it that simple thing that lived underneath everything else, buried at the bottom, pulsing louder with every beat; making its existence known. Yes, it was that thing so hidden, it was lost to he own self for a while; it was hurt, but it was also hope, but most of all it was love.
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to SR and ABC. I make no profit from these stories and also? No copy right infringement intended.
Rating:T
Summary:Every scary little thing that rattled inside her mind and heart, that came in the way of her loving Callie with everything she ever was - it was all becoming apparent. It became violent and almost tangible in every electrifying touch she'd shared with Lauren.
There was this all consuming burn Arizona felt in Lauren's presence; she was suddenly younger, everything was momentarily brighter and so she gave into it. It felt like jumping off a high rise; the fall creating a hollow in her stomach, the wind tickling her exposed skin, rushing all over her. It was beautiful and exciting until it wasn't, until the ground became visible. And, then it all came rushing in, who she was; a mother, a wife, brilliant, married to someone who didn't think to question why she loved her, or how she loved her, someone who only knew that she loved Arizona and everything else was inconsequential.
Yes, she was sure. She was sure that it happened - she was sure that she'd just hit the ground, they all had.
"Yes, Callie. It happened."
Pairing: C/A
Onward
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"So, you're sure?" She asks, finally looking up from her lap. In the last half hour, her lap had become insanely interesting, and not in a fun sexy way; it was more in that she couldn't look into those blue eyes which were sure to be pleading with her brown ones. Those eyes would do their own talking, never to be denied, but Callie was hoping this was one of those rare moments where the definition of what a joke is was evading her otherwise brilliant wife.
If this wasn't what it was, if t this very moment she wasn't stuck in an almost Ibsonian play, convincing her partner that she did in fact give herself over in the most intimate way to an almost stranger, if she were on the outside looking in, Arizona was sure there would be something painfully comical about the whole thing. But, there she was, there they were, stuck in an expressionistic storm.
Every scary little thing that rattled inside her mind and heart, that came in the way of her loving Callie with everything she ever was - it was all becoming apparent. It became violent and almost tangible in every electrifying touch she'd shared with Lauren.
There was this all consuming burn Arizona felt in Lauren's presence; she was suddenly younger, everything was momentarily brighter and so she gave into it. It felt like jumping off a high rise; the fall creating a hollow in her stomach, the wind tickling her exposed skin, rushing all over her. It was beautiful and exciting until it wasn't, until the ground became visible. And, then it all came rushing in, who she was; a mother, a wife, brilliant, married to someone who didn't think to question why she loved her, or how she loved her, someone who only knew that she loved Arizona and everything else was inconsequential.
Yes, she was sure. She was sure that it happened - she was sure that she'd just hit the ground, they all had.
"Yes, Callie. It happened." She sounded calm. Arizona sounded calm, almost... cold. She should be saying more, shouldn't she? But Arizona didn't quite know what to say. 'Sorry' seemed so trite, 'I love you', 'it meant nothing'? Which stinking flower was she supposed to present to her wife out of this rather impressive bouquet of rotting old cliches? The truth of it was that Arizona did love Callie, but in everything that had happened something between them had shifted and they never stopped to fix it, she never stopped to fix it.
How many times could they do that, really? And she was ashamed to have to acknowledge it all the time, 'I'm broken, we're broken, I'm damaged goods' - She was afraid to lean into these feelings. When would she live if she was always stuck in her head?! So, she ignored it, and put on a beautiful show until it all became too thin to endear to the naked eye and too heavy for her to keep at it.
Someone pulled in a shuddering breath. At this point, it could be any one of the two women sitting in the tiny office. Callie was going to have to look at Arizona at some point, she decided to rip it all off like a nasty band-aid.
She giggled a little to herself. She laugh-scoffed at the fact that now they would have to talk incessantly, which they could have done if Arizona had come to her before she 'mistakenly' decided to give into her attraction for the other blonde minted in the shiny brilliance of Hopkins-acquired-awesomeness. They would be good together, annoyingly trailing rainbows behind them in the halls when they'd passed through; giant shapely barbies. Callie wished she wasn't so irrevocably, irredeemably, stupidly in love with one of them.
The ball was in Callie's court, at least that's what it felt like, but really she despised being bullied into playing at all by her wife, by the 'wife steeling baby fixer', by the freaking situation! She dared to look at Arizona a second time in all the time that had gone on since this entire thing started.
"So, what do you want to do now?" asked Callie. "Do you want to be with her now?" Her voice cracked on that particular question; god, a yes on that one would be like a cold spike through Callie's warm fluttering heart.
"NO" came the answer, prompt and firm.
"Do you still want to be with me?" This all seemed wrong, to her, to Arizona too, really. Should not Arizona be asking that question? Should she not be begging her wife to stay? But, the question was followed by a silence that inked the air around them with a slow poison.
"I... I don't know. I want you, I want us, you Calliope, and Sophia. But, what if we try, I try and you can't forgive me? You have to try with me." Now she pleaded, tiny cracks in the stoicism that let Arizona breathe, they were becoming visibly apparent to them both. "Could you do that? Eventually? Could you forgive this? Me? Could you forgive me?"
Could she?
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Could she?
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Everything inside Callie was screaming for her to say yes. She wanted to be with Arizona, despite everything, because of everything, she just wanted to be with her. But, this, this was different. She wasn't going to just neatly sweep it all under the rug and then have them both trip over said rug and fall flat on their faces. Clearly, rug stuffing wasn't working for them.
She looked at Arizona for a bit. The woman was steely and professional in everything, and when she was unsure of herself around the people that mattered most, the distancing (?), it took hold everywhere, their home, their marriage… Everything became strained and polite. But, right now, Arizona was her rare hidden self, she would never beg, but she was; she was pleading with her eyes, asking for forgiveness and giving Callie an out all at once. But, she still wasn't saying it and that scared Callie, it pissed her off and it somehow saddened her too. Wasn't she worth it being said?! Where was the loud echoing remorse? It should have been there, right? Choking apologies galore?
Arizona was hoping for clean, surgical preciseness and calculated outcomes, even now, with Callie, and about their lives. But Callie was built differently. Everything about her was big, and messy, and loud and close, involved and beautiful; it's what let her keep caring for George after their divorce. Once you had Callie - she was there to stay. Where most people mistook Callie for someone who succumbed to childish naivety, a trap Arizona too often fell into of late, she had once known that Callie's love was deep rooted, binding and wherever it took seat…it was solid. And even after, for whatever reason, you chipped away at that love, piece by piece, its dust settled there forever. It's what made Arizona both afraid and hopeful. It's what Arizona was banking on.
Every thought Callie was having circled to this blank moment filled with white noise and this lingering nausea. 'Did Arizona really expect an answer right now? This very instance? Should she not be afforded the time at least to digest this unpalatable piece of information?'
It bubbled up inside her and made its way to her lips in a half chocked sob-whisper -"Oh my god! You cheated on me!" Louder now. "You did! You slept with someone else, and no snoring was involved and…" it seemed to die down.
Arizona looked at Callie with this terrible curiosity. She could see her wife weave in and out of this blankness - places where her mind sped up and then everything from her thoughts to her soul came to a grinding halt; as if the news of the betrayal was cyclically stale and then fresh. It was like watching a beautiful monument being demolished or coming undone; Arizona wanted to look away, but she couldn't bring herself to do it.
"…and you what? You want an answer right now?" Yes, she was now speaking in a loud angry whisper. Anger and pain, that was what Callie's voice carried in it. "I can't give you an answer right now! This? Us?! We're not a fast track court or whatever! Give me a goddamn moment, Arizona! I can't just… just soldier on! And, after everything, this question of yours?! It's selfish! And I'm over you being selfish!"
"So what?" The question came out in ragged breaths as Arizona felt the tight squeeze of dread in her chest. "What are you saying?! You won't even consider giving me, us, a chance?" The next thing out of her mouth was a terribly convoluted thought; a hail Mary, something to win the argument, to level the playing field, or cut Callie's leg off, (just the one) from under her - "Because I did! When… when I came back from Africa and…" She stopped; the look on Callie's face made her stop.
"Do you hear yourself right now Arizona?! We decided not to do this! You bring up Africa?!" Arizona had expected Callie to be louder, outraged, wailing again the shit storm that she'd finally and so perfectly brought home to them, between them. But, this, the way her wife talked right now? It didn't satisfy how Arizona had seen, almost hoped Callie would react. She should have been angrier, but here she was; a picture of quiet calm passion, anger and love and sadness and something about her eyes seemed to look like Callie wanted to understand the 'why' beyond the 'what' of what had happened between her and Lauren.
"We'd decided a long time ago… the day we were getting married in fact - that we wouldn't do this! I don't want to use of Africa and neither should you Arizona…" Callie sighed her name, like she did in that Callie way, and it hit Arizona just right; it made her feel like a mad little child, yes they'd agreed to that, but it didn't stop how she's felt about it… how she still felt about it.
"And what is the point here?! I mean you know what we'll say right?" Callie waited for a nod of confirmation, anything really that made her think Arizona was going to stop hiding behind the continental debacle, but it never came. Callie paused for a bit, then - "Arizona, we were broken up!" She did Arizona's voice next "No we weren't, I thought about you, there were sick kids and I funded the new luxury boat the guys at Kleenex bought themselves that Christmas!"
That got Arizona to smirk-smile a little.
Callie shifted to her own voice "I'm having a baby? That's what was next, right?"
That wiped the smirk off Arizona's face.
"Things happened…" Callie continued acting herself out "and you said you'd be Sophia's mom, and you are! And, we were both wrong." That got the blonde's attention, what was Callie saying? Was she now going to tell her that she was going to keep her kid from her?
Callie saw where Arizona's mind was going, she'd clinched her fists, her nails digging into her palms and she looked about ready to launch a verbal assault on the women standing in front of her. Callie spoke quickly, calmly and clearly - "No, that's not what I meant. I meant then, we were wrong not to talk, you were wrong to leave like that, and I was wrong in not having supported you - good and proper."
She huffed a little, exasperated with the blonde, but she continued nonetheless. "Let me be clear right now. Whatever happens with us, you are Sophia's mother and I see how dedicated you are to her. I won't…" She sighed, "this is tiring Arizona, and it feels wrong. I'm constantly defending myself and even now, I'm the one fighting for us. Don't you see how weird this is? How absurd all this is?! YOU sleep with someone else and somehow I have to defend the choices I made those many years ago, and maybe even the ones I'll be making right now… Does that seem fair to you?"
She could see it. Callie could see Arizona vacillating between opening up and leaning into the pain and the guilt or shutting down. She knew her wife, or maybe right now? She didn't so much, but she knew what Arizona would do. The guilt would drown her wife and that fear of drowning was what was stopping Arizona from feeling or showing her guilt, her anger at herself and her remorse.
The truth of it was that Arizona was so, so, sorry, but she was also so afraid that that wouldn't be enough for Callie, for them. And what would happen then? But, in that moment Arizona recognised what Callie meant. Yes, this was absurd and wrong in so many ways; she was grilling Callie.
"Look at me, Arizona. I… ugh! I don't want to say this now, you don't deserve it and I'm always risking myself… my self-worth, my heart, and I shouldn't have to, not after everything, not after five years, and a kid and marriage. But, I do…love you, still." She could hear Arizona's sharp intake of breath, a slight hitch; Callie heard and read relief there, and she hated that she was making Arizona feel better. It just felt wrong all over again.
"And I wish I didn't, and that it'd just stop! And that it'd just go away and leave me be, but it won't, and I can't not know why, and it can't just be empty references to what has happened and loaded things like 'my leg made me do it.'" She stopped. Waiting for Arizona to bulldoze her entire argument, a little sheepish at the insensitive comment about the leg, but it never came. She cleared her throat, pausing to think what to say next, but then she though against it; 'let her suffer' she thought, 'see what being left in the dust feels like' - and with that Callie began to exit the room.
Arizona, a little taken aback, went to take hold of Callie's wrist and stop her, but she couldn't handle being jerked away by her wife, so she went for and successfully caught her doctor's coat. "Callie, don't."
"This isn't you, the walking away. And, I know you want to punish me and you should, but please, please, please don't not be you about it. I couldn't… I don't want to change you. I know it sounds presumptuous but, you are not me, and you're not cynical and silent and the room leaving type. Don't be me, don't become this hard person…" She was crying now, Arizona was honest to god crying and Callie was constantly fighting herself in wanting to comfort her.
"Yeah, well" Callie choked out, embarrassed at how 'badass hard-core I hate you right now' that was meant to be and how 'I miss you like a love sick loser' it actually came out as. She sniffled… 'God! She freaking sniffled! She was sucking at this!' She had to speak, "You don't deserve me right now, so…." An awkward silence followed as Callie slowly continued towards the door.
Arizona let go of the coat, but not of her own volition, Callie had dragged herself away from her grasp, slowly, heavily but sure footedly moving towards the exit. She couldn't watch Callie walk away so she zoned in on the linoleum floors looking at the slight grime that made her think to approach the board for readjusting the budget or of talking to the cleaning staff or something that was not about her and Callie.
"No…" That broke the blonde's floor watching-cleaning obsessed reverie. She looked up to see Callie facing her, incensed and angry; yes, this was Callie again, the one that she recognised. "This is what is going to happen… I'll move out and you have two weeks…"
Arizona's heart sped up, a humming bird in her chest "Callie, please don't…"
"Stop! Alright? Can you just… Jesus! Arizona! Just… just let me talk; let me finish!"
Arizona pursed her lips, eyes wide and nodded, rocking on her heels, like a child. The sight almost made Callie smile, almost, until she remembered where they were and what this was…
Sighing and acknowledging Arizona's silent acceptance with a slight nod, she went on "I'll move out, and you have two weeks to find a new house or apartment or whatever, one that's not a five story walk-up with a mostly reliable lift…" She cut herself off when Arizona looked about ready to protest, but her glare in turn caused the blonde to stop herself, and they were left with a slight and audible squeak that emanated from the blonde's lips and died in the air. Callie huffed a bit, but then continued…"when you have it, the place, I'll come see it, and we'll make sure it is safe for you and Sophia, for when she's over with you…" That got her a sad sloppy smile from her wife, who was now silently crying and wheezing with shut eyes crinkled at the sides and grimace like smile, sad but relieved. At that moment, what was so thoroughly unattractive to so many people was so very endearing to Callie, but she had to shake it off and continue.
"Then, I'll move back to the apartment, which if we decide to separate, I will keep." That was again met with a slight nod. 'This is what Arizona wanted, right?' She was making it easy for the blonde, calling all the shots, taking on the burden of it all and moving out of the painful inaction they were otherwise destined to get stuck in. "I'm signing over my shares to you in a… a… deed of gift? Is that a thing?"
"Calliope, no…" there, Arizona broke some more, sighing her discontent at how final this all sounded.
"Yes. Your leg, your pain, your money!" Callie was getting loud now, "I don't want it! Put some of it in a trust for Sophia, buy yourself a harem, whatever! I don't want the money, but I will keep my trust fund."
"No, Callie." That sounded a lot more confident that Arizona felt. "You suffered too, with me and… and I'm not doing that! Taking the money or whatever, please!" 'Crazy! ' Arizona was feeling crazy right now, this was maddening! "And you said, IF we decide to separate, so why would you do this?! Divide our assets or whatever? When… when we're…" 'what? What were they? Were they still together?'
Callie put up her hands, stilling Arizona's string of ill articulated pleas. Her wife was scared, terrified of losing her, their life, their marriage, their family. That much was becoming apparent and that helped calm Callie, a lot. It chipped away at her reservations about the far, far away possibility of reconciliation.
"Look, Arizona. I won't let you do this. You… we… the married and maybe eventually together us, we will either learn to share everything or I refuse to do this again."
Arizona looked at her in that curious and confused fashion that made Callie sure of how blind the woman was sometimes. She laugh-scoffed and queried - "really?! You really don't know what I'm talking about?!" The blonde looked like she was scared to shake her head in a negative fashion, but Callie just went on. "I'm allowed the money and a seat on the board, and yeah that's great! And, sure, it matters some, because we are changing this place… but, here inside us", she waved her hands between then for emphasis and continued - "the two of us, our marriage? You never gave me the same consideration!"
"That is not true!" Before Arizona could continue with the verbal outpourings of outrage, Callie quickly cut her off - "yes it is… You never let me see you in recovery, even later on. I wasn't allowed to go to PT with you…" She could see the blonde was about to protest again - "yeah, you were scared and embarrassed, but you were also punishing me! Every other month I would get this jarringly different version of you, supposedly better than you were before, but I was never allowed to see you heal, and that? That was punishment for me. You know it was! 'cause then you were getting better and I wasn't a part of it. I'm constantly left with this job of breaking away pieces of you, and I can't not do it because that's what you need me to do! And then you hate me for it, and you're happy hating me, because then you don't have to hate yourself! And right now?! You're going to do it again…"
Every time they revealed a piece of their wounded selves it seemed to be chased by a fast and blank silence where the pain settled and it grew, but that seemed to be the cost of understanding one another… trying to understand one another.
"Okay." Arizona affirmed and that surprised Callie. But, that clipped affirmative reply was all the agreement she'd get from the blonde. The niggling feeling of not being loved and valued enough returned again, but Callie pushed it down and went on… "that's all I have to say right now. And we'll… we can try" the next word came out in a tired frustrated sigh "again. But, you'll have to come to me, because I'm done chasing you! However we got here, you're the one who slept with someone else, so let's not fool ourselves! You don't play the victim, and I won't play the martyr, and when we are ready to commit to recovering you will ask me. And we'll see what we'll do next…" She finished lamely, feeling spent.
"Now I'm going to go, and you are going to let me. There is a hospital full of people who need us, so we should…" she motioned towards the exit again and got a "yes", a defeated sigh of an affirmation. But she turned back again, "oh, and Arizona? Don't… don't tell anyone about this, the cheating. There's only about so much I can take without having to play the fool a second time around here, and they'd make your life hell too… So, don't…" And with that she walked out of the door, leaving behind a woman riddled with a heart that contradicted itself, questioning the drumming humming music inside her chest.
What was that bleeding into her veins?
Was it dread?
Was it remorse?
Or, was it that simple thing that lived underneath everything else, buried at the bottom, pulsing louder with every beat; making its existence known. Yes, it was that thing so hidden, it was lost to he own self for a while; it was hurt, but it was also hope, but most of all it was love.