The More Things Change: Chapter Eight, Part I
Title: The More Things Change
Rating: T
Summary: “Hours later Callie felt her best friend slip away silently into the cold and inexorable night while they were all still trapped amidst the wilderness. She held onto him, tighter now; somewhere a slight distance away Kepner was being mauled by the sinister gifts of the wild.” In a world where Arizona wasn't in Seattle when the plane crashed. Three years & PTSD, can she get Callie back?
Author: Pasha
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to SR and ABC. I make not profit. No copyright infringement intended.
Canon Till: 7 x 07
Pairing: C/A
Read, Enjoy and Review. It's nice to get a few reviews once in a while, otherwise it feels a little like writing into a void. Which is a very lousy feeling.
Onward
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Right, so you” - Arizona loosely pointed at the woman in front of her, both of them now on the stools at the breakfast bar, facing one another over it - “remember the drive.”
“I was like a tiny” - the blonde set her forefinger and thumb apart, leaving a miniscule gap between them - “like a short drive” -
- “I know what tiny means, Arizona” the brunette talked over the other woman, her impatience and growing exasperation becoming abundantly clear in her voice.
“Right” - the blonde said, now more sombre - “of course you do. I just meant… I mean” -
- “Jesus, Arizona! What do you want to say? Whatever it is, just say it! I think we’ve established that I may have gotten” - the brunette momentarily hesitated, her confusion with the events of last night making itself obvious in her voice - “Blackout drunk? I think…” Callie slowly began losing steam, the harshness in her voice dissipating as she became increasingly cognisant of the slight fear and disappointment in the other woman’s eyes. “Can, you just…” - Callie sighed, shaking her head trying to tarry her leaping mind that fed her only bits of information on last night - “just tell me what happened, and” -
“You scare me, Callie” - the blonde admitted, meek and vulnerable, her hands folded in and on her lap as she slumped over, unable to meet the brunette’s eyes.
The brunette felt a cold dread claw itself into her stomach and her chest. She was entirely unsure of what had happened last night; she hadn’t been this out of it since college. When she’d first realised exactly how much of last night had escaped her, she’d felt embarrassed for having been that out of it. But, she hadn’t apologised, because ‘Callie Torres was, for the most part, done with apologies.’
She’d lived on her own terms for some time now; she’d been her own keeper. She had been, and on most days, still was a good person; kind, gentle, may be even generous. It was only the letting go and loving hard or letting people truly, genuinely care about her, something she’d done freely and expected in kind, that was suddenly so difficult; that part of herself was now somehow inaccessible to her. Some days, its appearance and its buried presence would surprise her, like right now when she was looking at Arizona. The fear of hurting this woman had come from a place hidden inside her; it housed the kind of love that stretched her soul into an infinite lightness. She felt it in jarring and discordant flashes that were no longer in keeping with the person she was slowly becoming.
“Scare you?” - She asked, almost apprehensively, unsure as to if she really wanted an answer to her next question - “Arizona, did I… I mean… did something” - the blonde looked up at her, confusion etched on her face. Whatever it was that had let them read each-other so clearly, with muted excitement and in vivid detail - something that usually evolved between people who had been together for decades - it had snapped. The doubt, the uncertainty, it crowded every inch that lay between them, singing its existence in silent and blank spaces.
The blonde held her gaze, gently encouraging Callie to finish asking her question.
“Arizona, did I do something last night? Did I hurt you?”
“Hurt me?!” - A laugh bubbled from the blonde chest. She was laughing at a joke all of her own, but the look of incredulity on the brunette’s face soon sobered her into a short silence.
“Wait, wait…” - the blonde stopped abruptly, her expression quickly becoming serious as she searched Callie’s face ‘for something’ she couldn’t quite explain, but whatever it was it was unsettling - “No, Callie! God no!” - she nodded vigorously.
“Of course you didn’t hurt me” - her voice emphasising just precisely how true that statement was. Callie’s want for a reply pushed her into a nervous state of worry. In these moments of uncertainty, Arizona still thoughtlessly did what came naturally to her. She reached for the brunette’s hands and took it in hers. A simple touch, just Callie’s hands in hers; it was, they realised, completely different from before.
In that moment, Callie had realised something so basic and unbeknownst to her, something so pertinent to where they would be in the future. She had realised that she and Arizona had always had one thing. It was this thick, near palpable, living, breathing chemistry. Skin on skin, fast and sweating, slow and torturous, in the bed, across the room - it had always been there. But, the essence of it all was something entirely different, almost polemic in the sheer fact that at its root was something platonic. They were, she realised, ‘friends, and after all that she has…they had been through? This was just so god damn odd!’ Its simplicity made recognise the paradox that had suddenly revealed itself to her.
Callie had all these things to say, about Arizona, about her and Arizona, about Mark and herself, about the crash, and as much as she wanted to right now, she couldn’t hate Arizona.
Arizona, who she knew had comeback more than a year after the crash as a calculative attempt to let her cool down or whatever. ‘She just knew.’ A woman who had always been so bull headed, she wouldn’t know what a compromise is if it kicked her in the ass with a steel pointed boot.
Callie wanted to tell her everything, despite all those things, but she couldn’t, because even though she wasn’t ready to admit it to herself, she was still in love with the woman. As much in love as she could allow herself to be, allow herself to feel. But, she also didn’t trust the woman, and she wasn’t really sure if she ever really could.
“So? What is it about me?”
The question marred her voice with a cadence that did little to hide the brunette’s shyly expressed emotion and uncertainty. The sudden rawness in Callie’s voice gave the blonde pause before she spoke - “you, ummm… you’re so, different? I don’t know.”
Before Callie could stop her or cut her off Arizona tightened her grip and spoke in a more rushed manner - “I just… there are pieces of you that aren’t you, and I am still…I still…” -
- “You’re still looking for me?” - Callie whispered. She understood I t. She’d felt herself search the deep recesses of her mind, her soul, her memory; her sense of self was convoluted, she had always been complex, but she had never felt so lost. She was lost within herself and to the people outside her. She understood it.
“Callie, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it, I…” - the blonde rambled on, a look of guilt and fear for having hurt the woman in front of her blatantly apparent on her face.
Callie gave her a small smile, a look to reassure her - “it’s okay” - she shrugged her shoulders - “I get it. But, I’m not …’m not ready to talk about it.”
“Okay” - The blonde nodded her affirmation.
“Arizona, I…uh… I may never be ready to talk about it.”
“You will be” - Arizona replied, her eyes were determined and radiating a kindness and compassion, the weight of which made the brunette feel like she was sinking, drowning. But, Callie fought the urge to snap, to ruin the moment.
“You don’t know that” - She whispered.
“Stick with me kid…” - Arizona joked with a playful lilt in her voice; she was trying to bring some levity to the situation, managing to coax another small smile from the brunette.
They stayed like that, hand in hand, and as astonishing as it was, there was no hesitance or withdrawal. There was only a silence, comfort and perhaps an almost tenuous understanding. It took them to the brink of something till Callie forced them to step back.
“Alright” - Sighed the brunette, slowly but deliberately extricating her hands from Arizona’s - “I’ll just… uh” - she’d suddenly become a little flustered; bothered by their closeness, by what she had felt, and much more by how she wanted to feel it. Callie scurried to the stove to make some tea as the rest of her sentence hung in the air, unspoken.
Arizona, now a self-aware horn-dog, took to silently staring at Callie’s back as the woman got to making them some good ol’ fashioned tea and simple scrambled eggs for breakfast.
“You should probably tell me the rest then…”
“Huh?” - Arizona replied, fairing a little better than the recent grape in the face incident.
“What happened last night… you were going to, you know?”
“Hmmm… right” - the blonde sighed - “last night...”
She could feel Arizona’s eyes on the back of her person. Callie’s concentration was shot to hell as she picked a spot on the wall in front to stare at and mentally latch on to. Beginning to feel her skin prickle with a heat of an altogether different kind, she sought to make a move before things got too uncomfortable.
“Are you looking at me again?!”
“What?! Huh! No!” - the blonde scoffed nervously. ‘Awesome Robbins! Convincing as hell! Broadway, here I come!’
“Then how’s about you fill me in on last night’s details?” - asked the brunette as she executed a smooth one-eighty, now facing Arizona with a pan full of cheesy scrambles eggs with a drizzle of Tabasco sauce. She turned around again, fishing out two plates from the over-head cabinets. Having set everything down and having poured the tea, she sat down at the breakfast bar with elegance unbecoming of a woman expected to be hungover.
All the while Arizona, almost as if against her will, kept tracing her every movement. It was odd, the things she realised she’d missed. Three years ago their morning routine had been something like this, save she’d be behind the counter right beside Callie arguing about the amount of Tabasco her girlfriend put on their scrambled eggs while she stole quick and slow kisses. On some mornings, Cristina would storm in and tell them how unsanitary it was and steel their food.
“So?” - Callie asked, quirking an eyebrow - “last night?” - She asked, with ‘what was that a smirk?! Was Callie smirking?!’
“Right” - said the blonde - “last night was interesting…” - Arizona, never one to be left out, had a smirk of her own.
Rating: T
Summary: “Hours later Callie felt her best friend slip away silently into the cold and inexorable night while they were all still trapped amidst the wilderness. She held onto him, tighter now; somewhere a slight distance away Kepner was being mauled by the sinister gifts of the wild.” In a world where Arizona wasn't in Seattle when the plane crashed. Three years & PTSD, can she get Callie back?
Author: Pasha
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to SR and ABC. I make not profit. No copyright infringement intended.
Canon Till: 7 x 07
Pairing: C/A
Read, Enjoy and Review. It's nice to get a few reviews once in a while, otherwise it feels a little like writing into a void. Which is a very lousy feeling.
Onward
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Right, so you” - Arizona loosely pointed at the woman in front of her, both of them now on the stools at the breakfast bar, facing one another over it - “remember the drive.”
“I was like a tiny” - the blonde set her forefinger and thumb apart, leaving a miniscule gap between them - “like a short drive” -
- “I know what tiny means, Arizona” the brunette talked over the other woman, her impatience and growing exasperation becoming abundantly clear in her voice.
“Right” - the blonde said, now more sombre - “of course you do. I just meant… I mean” -
- “Jesus, Arizona! What do you want to say? Whatever it is, just say it! I think we’ve established that I may have gotten” - the brunette momentarily hesitated, her confusion with the events of last night making itself obvious in her voice - “Blackout drunk? I think…” Callie slowly began losing steam, the harshness in her voice dissipating as she became increasingly cognisant of the slight fear and disappointment in the other woman’s eyes. “Can, you just…” - Callie sighed, shaking her head trying to tarry her leaping mind that fed her only bits of information on last night - “just tell me what happened, and” -
“You scare me, Callie” - the blonde admitted, meek and vulnerable, her hands folded in and on her lap as she slumped over, unable to meet the brunette’s eyes.
The brunette felt a cold dread claw itself into her stomach and her chest. She was entirely unsure of what had happened last night; she hadn’t been this out of it since college. When she’d first realised exactly how much of last night had escaped her, she’d felt embarrassed for having been that out of it. But, she hadn’t apologised, because ‘Callie Torres was, for the most part, done with apologies.’
She’d lived on her own terms for some time now; she’d been her own keeper. She had been, and on most days, still was a good person; kind, gentle, may be even generous. It was only the letting go and loving hard or letting people truly, genuinely care about her, something she’d done freely and expected in kind, that was suddenly so difficult; that part of herself was now somehow inaccessible to her. Some days, its appearance and its buried presence would surprise her, like right now when she was looking at Arizona. The fear of hurting this woman had come from a place hidden inside her; it housed the kind of love that stretched her soul into an infinite lightness. She felt it in jarring and discordant flashes that were no longer in keeping with the person she was slowly becoming.
“Scare you?” - She asked, almost apprehensively, unsure as to if she really wanted an answer to her next question - “Arizona, did I… I mean… did something” - the blonde looked up at her, confusion etched on her face. Whatever it was that had let them read each-other so clearly, with muted excitement and in vivid detail - something that usually evolved between people who had been together for decades - it had snapped. The doubt, the uncertainty, it crowded every inch that lay between them, singing its existence in silent and blank spaces.
The blonde held her gaze, gently encouraging Callie to finish asking her question.
“Arizona, did I do something last night? Did I hurt you?”
“Hurt me?!” - A laugh bubbled from the blonde chest. She was laughing at a joke all of her own, but the look of incredulity on the brunette’s face soon sobered her into a short silence.
“Wait, wait…” - the blonde stopped abruptly, her expression quickly becoming serious as she searched Callie’s face ‘for something’ she couldn’t quite explain, but whatever it was it was unsettling - “No, Callie! God no!” - she nodded vigorously.
“Of course you didn’t hurt me” - her voice emphasising just precisely how true that statement was. Callie’s want for a reply pushed her into a nervous state of worry. In these moments of uncertainty, Arizona still thoughtlessly did what came naturally to her. She reached for the brunette’s hands and took it in hers. A simple touch, just Callie’s hands in hers; it was, they realised, completely different from before.
In that moment, Callie had realised something so basic and unbeknownst to her, something so pertinent to where they would be in the future. She had realised that she and Arizona had always had one thing. It was this thick, near palpable, living, breathing chemistry. Skin on skin, fast and sweating, slow and torturous, in the bed, across the room - it had always been there. But, the essence of it all was something entirely different, almost polemic in the sheer fact that at its root was something platonic. They were, she realised, ‘friends, and after all that she has…they had been through? This was just so god damn odd!’ Its simplicity made recognise the paradox that had suddenly revealed itself to her.
Callie had all these things to say, about Arizona, about her and Arizona, about Mark and herself, about the crash, and as much as she wanted to right now, she couldn’t hate Arizona.
Arizona, who she knew had comeback more than a year after the crash as a calculative attempt to let her cool down or whatever. ‘She just knew.’ A woman who had always been so bull headed, she wouldn’t know what a compromise is if it kicked her in the ass with a steel pointed boot.
Callie wanted to tell her everything, despite all those things, but she couldn’t, because even though she wasn’t ready to admit it to herself, she was still in love with the woman. As much in love as she could allow herself to be, allow herself to feel. But, she also didn’t trust the woman, and she wasn’t really sure if she ever really could.
“So? What is it about me?”
The question marred her voice with a cadence that did little to hide the brunette’s shyly expressed emotion and uncertainty. The sudden rawness in Callie’s voice gave the blonde pause before she spoke - “you, ummm… you’re so, different? I don’t know.”
Before Callie could stop her or cut her off Arizona tightened her grip and spoke in a more rushed manner - “I just… there are pieces of you that aren’t you, and I am still…I still…” -
- “You’re still looking for me?” - Callie whispered. She understood I t. She’d felt herself search the deep recesses of her mind, her soul, her memory; her sense of self was convoluted, she had always been complex, but she had never felt so lost. She was lost within herself and to the people outside her. She understood it.
“Callie, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it, I…” - the blonde rambled on, a look of guilt and fear for having hurt the woman in front of her blatantly apparent on her face.
Callie gave her a small smile, a look to reassure her - “it’s okay” - she shrugged her shoulders - “I get it. But, I’m not …’m not ready to talk about it.”
“Okay” - The blonde nodded her affirmation.
“Arizona, I…uh… I may never be ready to talk about it.”
“You will be” - Arizona replied, her eyes were determined and radiating a kindness and compassion, the weight of which made the brunette feel like she was sinking, drowning. But, Callie fought the urge to snap, to ruin the moment.
“You don’t know that” - She whispered.
“Stick with me kid…” - Arizona joked with a playful lilt in her voice; she was trying to bring some levity to the situation, managing to coax another small smile from the brunette.
They stayed like that, hand in hand, and as astonishing as it was, there was no hesitance or withdrawal. There was only a silence, comfort and perhaps an almost tenuous understanding. It took them to the brink of something till Callie forced them to step back.
“Alright” - Sighed the brunette, slowly but deliberately extricating her hands from Arizona’s - “I’ll just… uh” - she’d suddenly become a little flustered; bothered by their closeness, by what she had felt, and much more by how she wanted to feel it. Callie scurried to the stove to make some tea as the rest of her sentence hung in the air, unspoken.
Arizona, now a self-aware horn-dog, took to silently staring at Callie’s back as the woman got to making them some good ol’ fashioned tea and simple scrambled eggs for breakfast.
“You should probably tell me the rest then…”
“Huh?” - Arizona replied, fairing a little better than the recent grape in the face incident.
“What happened last night… you were going to, you know?”
“Hmmm… right” - the blonde sighed - “last night...”
She could feel Arizona’s eyes on the back of her person. Callie’s concentration was shot to hell as she picked a spot on the wall in front to stare at and mentally latch on to. Beginning to feel her skin prickle with a heat of an altogether different kind, she sought to make a move before things got too uncomfortable.
“Are you looking at me again?!”
“What?! Huh! No!” - the blonde scoffed nervously. ‘Awesome Robbins! Convincing as hell! Broadway, here I come!’
“Then how’s about you fill me in on last night’s details?” - asked the brunette as she executed a smooth one-eighty, now facing Arizona with a pan full of cheesy scrambles eggs with a drizzle of Tabasco sauce. She turned around again, fishing out two plates from the over-head cabinets. Having set everything down and having poured the tea, she sat down at the breakfast bar with elegance unbecoming of a woman expected to be hungover.
All the while Arizona, almost as if against her will, kept tracing her every movement. It was odd, the things she realised she’d missed. Three years ago their morning routine had been something like this, save she’d be behind the counter right beside Callie arguing about the amount of Tabasco her girlfriend put on their scrambled eggs while she stole quick and slow kisses. On some mornings, Cristina would storm in and tell them how unsanitary it was and steel their food.
“So?” - Callie asked, quirking an eyebrow - “last night?” - She asked, with ‘what was that a smirk?! Was Callie smirking?!’
“Right” - said the blonde - “last night was interesting…” - Arizona, never one to be left out, had a smirk of her own.