The More Things Change: Chapter Ten
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
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Disclaimer: All characters and the show belong to SR and ABC. I make no profit. No copyright infringement intended.
A/N: Thoughts, sarcastic comments, Calliesque word jumbles are in 'single quotes.'
Dreams and Flashbacks (& sometimes tonal emphasis in narrative and dialogue) are in Italics.
Some spellings may differ on account of me being Indian and growing up with the Queen's English.
All mistakes on this one are mine.
Read, Review and Enjoy! - No reviews = Boredom, which makes me blah about writing, so reviews please!?
Also, double feature right?! I mean, two chapters in one day?! How awesome am I?!
Onward
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She had been thinking to herself. The only way she found she could do that was by, well, keeping to herself. Callie walked the halls of the hospital hurriedly with a bundle of files cradled in her arms. Her mind alternated, buzzing with thoughts of cases and case files, research and paper work, the joint meetings with Colonel Powell from and the FDA, and that speech… and Arizona. She was thinking about the blonde and herself, and expectations. All those coffees and the friendly walks around the hospital and outside on the grounds; she had thought they were a no strings deal, because she didn't have the foresight, even with the foreknowledge that Cristina so rudely threw in her face. The coffees were so not without strings! They were totally strung, like a freaking instrument; an instrument of the long-gamed-slow-sweet-sweet-seduction. The coffee was insidious… it was evil coffee with an agenda. She had been having agenda coffee for weeks, without even thinking about it! The coffee was -
- "Hot!" - The cheery call came from behind the brunette.
- "Crap!" - Callie jumped a little, dropping all her files, startled by the voice in her ear.
Arizona rounded the other woman, now facing her; she was crouching down with a sheepish look on her face as she set the coffees down and made quick work of trying to help Callie set her files straight - "Cal!" - The blonde gave a sorry huff - "I'm… sorry, I was just trying to offer you some coffee… I didn't know you'd" -
- "It's fine!" - Came the sharp reply, startlingly acerbic - "Arizona…" - the brunette sighed, frustrated - "leave it!" - She pushed her hand away a little - "I can do it myself!"
"Callie, I'm just trying to help you…" - Arizona regarded the other woman with momentary apprehension and surprised confusion. 'Things had been better between them for the past few weeks hadn't they?'
The bustle of the four hands fighting in a confused frenzy on the floor trying to right the papers led to a conclusion that was almost inevitable. One of the Styrofoam coffee cups fell over spilling hot coffee on the papers and brunette's hand. Callie retracted her hand with a surprised screech as she flung her it inwards, clutching it to her chest and cradling it like a baby bird.
"Damnnit, Arizona!" - she barked at the blonde, bitter passion written all over her face as Arizona looked on perfunctorily, her mind acknowledging only that she hadn't seen the brunette this animated and agitated in a long while.
"Fuck! I have a surgery in like…" - Callie stopped to see her wrist watch - "twenty goddamn minutes! And my hand is scalded, I…" -
- "Callie…" - the other woman's tone had an apology written right into it as she scurried to right the rest of the brunette's papers - "I'm really sorry, I just" -
- "Save it! I…uh…" - the brunette began losing steam as she went back to collecting the papers and shaking the coffee off of them- "it's…uh… it's fine, really…I" -
- "We'll… I'll get it sorted, okay?! I promise you!" - Arizona insisted with a slight and thin smile as she nodded vigorously at the brunette. She leaned forward her hand slowly sailing towards Callie's injured one - "just… just let me take a look?" - She asked tentatively.
Callie reeled back, standing up ram-rod straight - "don't touch me!" - She hissed as the other woman followed her lead, standing up.
The blonde looked stricken, but tried approaching the other woman once again - "Callie… look I'm sorry… just let me…" -
The brunette took another step back, and put up a hand between them, silently asking Arizona to stop in her tracks. She brought the other hand up to her face, covering her eyes as she shook - "just…" - her voice cracked; Callie was losing it, and she was losing it fast - "…just please leave it alone, okay?"
The brunette looked up, meeting Arizona's concerned and waiting eyes - "Callie… I don't' understand…" - she cut herself off as her mouth hung agape at the sight in front of her. Callie's eyes were bleary and red and barely holding in the tears. It became blatantly apparent that the brunette was trying to keep in the raging emotions that knocked her about on the inside; she felt tight and wound up like a clock.
Worst of all, Callie felt naked and exposed in front of Arizona, to whom her mental state was no longer a mystery. The aberrant nature of whom or what she'd become was suddenly taking a bow, centre stage. She looked at the toddling coffee cup on the floor despairingly, as she thought to herself - 'fucking agenda coffee!'
Arizona seemed to have woken up from a haze, as she witnessed Callie run a gamut of emotions, fast, and discreetly and respectfully worked to decipher each and every one of them - "Callie… look I'm sorry… I'll just… You go, and I'll bring this all to you in your office, Okay?" Before the brunette could protest, Arizona cut in again - "You have to tend to you hand and shift your surgeries… that was really scalding coffee right there" - she pointed to the floor -
- "I know how hot it was, Arizona!" - Callie retorted, bating the other woman.
"Okay…" - the blonde nodded tentatively, conversationally and mentally stepping over that bear trap - "then you know that you have to take care of it, right?"
Callie for her part looked mad as hell; all she really needed was cartoony puffs of billowy smoke and fire overhead. But she nodded reluctantly.
"Okay then!" - Arizona slowly began her descent, crouching on the floor as she began to gather the papers. She looked up to see Callie's feet still planted firmly in front of her. Her eyes travelled to the brunette's face - "come on Callie, get a move on…" - she pleaded.
"An intern could do that you know?" - Callie's voice was a mix of curiosity and anger.
"I know." - Arizona's reply was succinct enough to let Callie know the impending danger of her forced participation in another 'conversation.'
"So… why don't you let an intern do it, then?!"
"Callie…" - Arizona looked up from the floor and into her eyes again - "just go, okay?"
"Fine!" - The brunette barked, executing a crisp one-eighty on her feet as she began her staccato march to her office - 'fucking agenda coffee!'
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As Arizona walked the passage way to Callie's office, she could see the brunette looking out the glass wall of her office that looked on the grounds below. Arizona came in, unceremoniously dumping Callie's files on her office desk. The loud thump jolted the other woman out of her pensive state. She turned around with a look of fear coupled with surprise; her hand on her chest as she sucked in a long breath.
The blonde looked up at her, a little taken aback by how jittery Callie had become. She put her hands up in a gesture implicitly indicative of surrender - "I'm sorry Calliope… I just can't seem to get anything right today."
Callie motioned for Arizona to close the door behind her as she took her seat at the desk a little too officiously for Arizona's liking. The blonde needed the other woman to openly tell her whatever it was that was bothering her. Callie seemed to have developed a very short fuse and she seemed really high strung, and this in turn made the blonde uncomfortable.
"I'm sorry" - Callie began, sounding business like - "for my behaviour outside…" - she leant forward on the desk with a professional, almost determined look; steeling away her emotions - "I shouldn't have…" -
- "What's going on Callie?" - Arizona cut her off, not at all happy with how this, whatever it was, was going - "It was entirely my fault. I mean, we both know I was just trying to be friendly with the coffee, but… yeah! I made it worse. You have nothing to apologise for! But…" - she hesitated - "we both know that this" - she waved her hand between the two of them - "whatever this is? Is not about spilt coffee. So?" - Sighed the blonde - "what is this really about?"
"I think we should stop." - Came the brunette's placid reply; if ice could burn, that is what Arizona felt at that moment.
"I'm sorry… I'm a little confused… stop what exactly?"
"The…the … the coffee thing…" - the brunette said as she looked at Arizona expectedly; she hoped that that was enough for the blonde to catch her meaning.
"Ooookay…" - Arizona smiled cautiously - "so? We had a bad experience with coffee" - she said with put on nonchalance - "we can switch beverages… something cold… You know I'm a spiller… I've always been a" -
- "Arizona…" - Callie's sigh cut her off. The brunette looked into her eyes; Callie's eyes had a sudden quality to them, they were soft, but foreboding - "You know what I meant."
"Callie… come on!" - Pleaded the blonde.
"Just for a while… I need to stop… it's messing with me, Arizona. I need to stop."
"Yeah?" - The blonde almost goaded Callie with the sudden harsh tenor of her voice and the hardness in her eyes - "and what's the alternative Callie?"
"Please… Just hear me out…" -
- "Callie…" - Arizona cut her off with a soft sigh - "I want to help you!" - She said, her hand thumping her chest with insistence - "I do! And we'll do this your way, but" -
- "Then leave me alone!" - Callie cried - "that's my way! That's what I need!"
"No." - Plain as day and clear as water.
"Arizona! Please… I can't deal with your…your expectations…" - the blonde's determined look was moving towards one of recrimination - "don't!" - Callie barked, now wagging a finger in Arizona's face - "don't look at me like that! The coffee, the small lunches, the calls at the beginning and at the end of the day, the walks?! You're doing all this because you're expecting us to get back together! You want us to get back together! You" -
- "Huh!" - The blonde scoffed - "of course I want that!" - She said matter of factly - "anyone would want you back, Callie, you - "
- "Don't!" - Callie's voice cracked in a whisper; she cleared her throat, venturing to speak again - "don't make me into some ideal lover bullshit! Don't you fucking do that!"
"Ideal?!" - The blonde raised her voice for the first time in a long time - "I know this isn't ideal! What, are you joking?! I'm the bitch that just dropped you like a hot frigging potato at an airport without a job and an apartment, and then I didn't even call you when they brought you back from a" - her voice broke as she rubbed her stinging eyes with the heels of her palms - "a fucking plane crash! There are no heroes here! And no bloody fairy tales… Just some really fucked up people trying to make things right!" - She panted, having poured her heart out.
"You never swore so much when we were together…" - the brunette said, sounding meek and completely at a loss.
Arizona smirked - "that's what you got?" - She raised her eyebrows at the brunette - "from all that?"
"I still think" -
- "Callie?" - The blonde huffed - "Whatever it is… you can… no you know what?! You should tell me! Whatever has you scared or riled up? You should tell me. I can help, and if I can't… I can listen…" -
- "Arizona please just let it" -
- The blonde cut her off, shaking her head as if to say 'no' - "I'm not letting this go."
'I'm not letting you go…'
"Arizona…" - She looked up to see the blonde nod her encouragement - "You want things from me, right? Or am I nuts? Or… or am I being full of myself here? Presumptuous, even?" - She stopped, looking at the blonde expectantly.
The blonde sighed; frustrated - "I'm going to need a little more to go on Callie" - she looked at her askance.
"You said that day that you…uh" - the brunette hesitate - "that you wanted everything? Or did I imagine that?"
"I did." - The blonde answered her in a calm, matter of fact fashion.
"But, I can't be with you… I can't really be with anyone…" - Callie said with a nervous smile - "You know that right? I can't"-
- "Maybe not right now, Callie, but…" -
"No! Arizona, maybe not ever… What if I can't give myself to you like a normal girlfriend, or wife?! Or heck! Even just a friend?! I can't take it! I can't take not being able to give myself, and promise myself and be the person you need me to be. That person is gone… I can't" -
"That's what this is about? That's what's got you freaking out? And writing me off?"
"Don't dismiss my shit!" - Callie cut her to the quick.
"'M not… I didn't mean to…huh!" - The blonde stopped and took in a big gulp of air, readying herself for whatever Callie would throw at her next - "just because I want those things? Doesn't mean I expect them, Callie… I'm not some devolved Neanderthal…" -
Callie looked confused - "but" -
- "Shush! I'm talking" -
- "Did you just shush me?!" - The brunette asked with an amused sort of incredulity.
"Yes…" - Arizona smirked - "yes I did! Now, I'm talking…"
Callie nodded her consent but otherwise remained quiet.
"Okay… awesome… so I…uh… I want you. Every way possible, all the bad ways and the good ways, and the" - she smiled with a flirtatious glint in her eyes, making Callie hot and uncomfortable all at once - "really, really bad ways" -
- "Arizona" - The brunette chided.
"Okay… okay… and so yes" - she shrugged her shoulders and gave her an almost crooked smile - "I want you, but that doesn't mean that I'm expecting anything! And" -
"But… I don't" - Callie sighed - "I can't watch you like that… looking at me like that, and… I don't want to be the person that holds you back, I don't want to" -
- "Anyone ever tell you, you worry too much?" - Arizona laughed mirthfully, but there was a muted sadness in her eyes.
"Arizona, please… just be serious? Don't laugh this off! Let's just …" -
- "I'm not dismissing anything, Cal!" - She shot back, as she nervously ran her hand through her hair - "look? If you want me to lie and tell you that I don't want you, or that I'm not in love with you? You'll just have to wait all your life, okay?" - and just like that, the blonde had surprised them both, she'd said it like stating what time it was or what day of the weak it was - that plain, that simple, and just that obvious.
"But, it also doesn't mean that I'll hate you for not giving me what I want… And…" -
- "You won't?!" - Callie asked; a note of surprise and vulnerability in her voice.
"No!" - Arizona replied promptly - "No, Callie, of course not! This is… we are different now, okay?! I won't ever demand anything of you, ever again!" - She breathed heavily; a soul wrenching reverence in her words - "I won't push you, but I won't stop asking either" -
- "I don't" -
- "You'll tell me if you want…when you want… and if you decide you don't want to be with me, then I'll… we'll… I'll let go… but you have to make me believe it… because otherwise…" -
The brunette looked at her curiously as she asked - "otherwise what?"
"Otherwise, I'm never leaving you, ever again… I'll stay here, and be your partner, your lover, your friend… anything you want… all you have to do is ask me, and maybe answer me when you're ready to?"
Callie quirked an eyebrow, as she thought it over - "so that's it? Just talk, and be friends…" -
- "Only if you want…" - the blonde answered quickly.
"And you won't be upset if we…" -
- "Not with you… Callie, never with you… You… this was a trauma… I'd never blame you for something that happened to you. You didn't ask for this, and I've been naïve; it's ludicrous to think that you should just tell me everything or magically get over it… I get that now… I'll" -
- "You'll earn it?" - Callie asked as if it were a foreign concept.
"Yes…as long as you're being fair… it's a" -
- "…two way street…" - Callie finished for Arizona.
"Yeah!" - Arizona smiled a reassuring smile. She was rewarded with Callie's smile in return.
"You know I'm a mess, right?" - Callie asked with a huffy laugh that ended in a choked cry.
"Yeah, but you're never boring…" - Arizona laughed as well; her eyes though were pinched shut as she tried to keep from crying.
"Oh-khay…" - Callie sighed, nodding her head.
"Yeah… and you won't…" -
- "No Arizona, I won't wimp out!" - The brunette finished.
"Callie, come on, I'd never say that…" - She insisted, pleadingly almost - "I'd never…" -
- "I know!" - Callie cut her off.
They both hung around a little longer till Arizona remembered she had an elective in fifteen minutes, and got up to leave.
"Arizona?" - The brunette called her back with the detectable notes of hesitance and panic in her voice.
"Yeah?"- The blonde turned back towards her, her hand poised on the door, almost as if she was bracing herself for the impact of whatever it was that Callie was about to say.
"I'll tell you… some of the stuff… slowly…" - Callie took in a deep breath and shuddered as she nervously pulled her hair into a bun. Arizona knew it was part of her ritual when she was readying herself for tedious and mind numbing paper work.
The blonde gave her a weak smile - "yeah?"
"Yes" - Callie nodded - "but, I'm afraid..." -
- "of what?!" - Arizona cut her off.
Callie gave her a plaintive look, even though a small, almost invisible smile hung loosely on her gorgeous lips - "I did things… out there, when we crashed, and then when I got back… things I wouldn't have done if…" -
- "Whatever you did out there?" - Said the blonde - "It got you back to me…" - she cleared her throat as she caught herself, 'way to not put pressure on her superstar!' - "to us! So I'm not even going to…" - she sighed, letting that though hang in the air.
"And as far as everything else goes? I love you… and I know you don't believe me right now? But I love you, whoever you are now… so I'll trust that you had your reasons when you did these things… Okay?"
The brunette, unable to choke back her tears any longer, finally gave in. She hunched over, her elbows on the table and arms taut as she buried her face in her palms and shook with silent cries. Arizona stood there, watching, unsure if it would be okay to offer physical comfort to the brunette yet even though she was dying to give it. They'd have to figure all that out as they went along.
Callie looked up as she took a big gulp of air while rubbing her face - "okay…" - she nodded, giving the blonde an almost imperceptible smile.
"Yes?" - The blonde enquired.
"Yeah" - Callie answered. They both kept looking at one another as a moment of mutual understanding slowly mutated to one of awkwardness, till the blonde's pager started up - "oh! Callie, I should…" -
- "Yes, of course… and I have…" - she pointed at the piles of files on her desk as she gave the blonde a casual shrug.
Later that evening, as Arizona scrubbed out of her last surgery of the day, she saw a text from Callie asking her to dinner at Tie#92 with a promise of a free sandwich on the house. She agreed immediately because her mama had taught her that it was impolite to leave your friends hanging.
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A/N: I was hoping to set clearer boundaries for the two women to be able to navigate what is to come next, and also shed a little light on where Callie's apprehensions lay. I hope I did that justice. Next chapter will see a solid time leap, otherwise I'll keep writing this fic well into the next month! Which I'm sure will be just 'yikes' for a lot of you.
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Okay, so I feel like sharing some music, so check out Stephanie Nilles, also her 'Eggs over easy' is pretty good too. Truly all of her performances are.
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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
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Disclaimer: All characters and the show belong to SR and ABC. I make no profit. No copyright infringement intended.
A/N: Thoughts, sarcastic comments, Calliesque word jumbles are in 'single quotes.'
Dreams and Flashbacks (& sometimes tonal emphasis in narrative and dialogue) are in Italics.
Some spellings may differ on account of me being Indian and growing up with the Queen's English.
All mistakes on this one are mine.
Read, Review and Enjoy! - No reviews = Boredom, which makes me blah about writing, so reviews please!?
Also, double feature right?! I mean, two chapters in one day?! How awesome am I?!
Onward
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
She had been thinking to herself. The only way she found she could do that was by, well, keeping to herself. Callie walked the halls of the hospital hurriedly with a bundle of files cradled in her arms. Her mind alternated, buzzing with thoughts of cases and case files, research and paper work, the joint meetings with Colonel Powell from and the FDA, and that speech… and Arizona. She was thinking about the blonde and herself, and expectations. All those coffees and the friendly walks around the hospital and outside on the grounds; she had thought they were a no strings deal, because she didn't have the foresight, even with the foreknowledge that Cristina so rudely threw in her face. The coffees were so not without strings! They were totally strung, like a freaking instrument; an instrument of the long-gamed-slow-sweet-sweet-seduction. The coffee was insidious… it was evil coffee with an agenda. She had been having agenda coffee for weeks, without even thinking about it! The coffee was -
- "Hot!" - The cheery call came from behind the brunette.
- "Crap!" - Callie jumped a little, dropping all her files, startled by the voice in her ear.
Arizona rounded the other woman, now facing her; she was crouching down with a sheepish look on her face as she set the coffees down and made quick work of trying to help Callie set her files straight - "Cal!" - The blonde gave a sorry huff - "I'm… sorry, I was just trying to offer you some coffee… I didn't know you'd" -
- "It's fine!" - Came the sharp reply, startlingly acerbic - "Arizona…" - the brunette sighed, frustrated - "leave it!" - She pushed her hand away a little - "I can do it myself!"
"Callie, I'm just trying to help you…" - Arizona regarded the other woman with momentary apprehension and surprised confusion. 'Things had been better between them for the past few weeks hadn't they?'
The bustle of the four hands fighting in a confused frenzy on the floor trying to right the papers led to a conclusion that was almost inevitable. One of the Styrofoam coffee cups fell over spilling hot coffee on the papers and brunette's hand. Callie retracted her hand with a surprised screech as she flung her it inwards, clutching it to her chest and cradling it like a baby bird.
"Damnnit, Arizona!" - she barked at the blonde, bitter passion written all over her face as Arizona looked on perfunctorily, her mind acknowledging only that she hadn't seen the brunette this animated and agitated in a long while.
"Fuck! I have a surgery in like…" - Callie stopped to see her wrist watch - "twenty goddamn minutes! And my hand is scalded, I…" -
- "Callie…" - the other woman's tone had an apology written right into it as she scurried to right the rest of the brunette's papers - "I'm really sorry, I just" -
- "Save it! I…uh…" - the brunette began losing steam as she went back to collecting the papers and shaking the coffee off of them- "it's…uh… it's fine, really…I" -
- "We'll… I'll get it sorted, okay?! I promise you!" - Arizona insisted with a slight and thin smile as she nodded vigorously at the brunette. She leaned forward her hand slowly sailing towards Callie's injured one - "just… just let me take a look?" - She asked tentatively.
Callie reeled back, standing up ram-rod straight - "don't touch me!" - She hissed as the other woman followed her lead, standing up.
The blonde looked stricken, but tried approaching the other woman once again - "Callie… look I'm sorry… just let me…" -
The brunette took another step back, and put up a hand between them, silently asking Arizona to stop in her tracks. She brought the other hand up to her face, covering her eyes as she shook - "just…" - her voice cracked; Callie was losing it, and she was losing it fast - "…just please leave it alone, okay?"
The brunette looked up, meeting Arizona's concerned and waiting eyes - "Callie… I don't' understand…" - she cut herself off as her mouth hung agape at the sight in front of her. Callie's eyes were bleary and red and barely holding in the tears. It became blatantly apparent that the brunette was trying to keep in the raging emotions that knocked her about on the inside; she felt tight and wound up like a clock.
Worst of all, Callie felt naked and exposed in front of Arizona, to whom her mental state was no longer a mystery. The aberrant nature of whom or what she'd become was suddenly taking a bow, centre stage. She looked at the toddling coffee cup on the floor despairingly, as she thought to herself - 'fucking agenda coffee!'
Arizona seemed to have woken up from a haze, as she witnessed Callie run a gamut of emotions, fast, and discreetly and respectfully worked to decipher each and every one of them - "Callie… look I'm sorry… I'll just… You go, and I'll bring this all to you in your office, Okay?" Before the brunette could protest, Arizona cut in again - "You have to tend to you hand and shift your surgeries… that was really scalding coffee right there" - she pointed to the floor -
- "I know how hot it was, Arizona!" - Callie retorted, bating the other woman.
"Okay…" - the blonde nodded tentatively, conversationally and mentally stepping over that bear trap - "then you know that you have to take care of it, right?"
Callie for her part looked mad as hell; all she really needed was cartoony puffs of billowy smoke and fire overhead. But she nodded reluctantly.
"Okay then!" - Arizona slowly began her descent, crouching on the floor as she began to gather the papers. She looked up to see Callie's feet still planted firmly in front of her. Her eyes travelled to the brunette's face - "come on Callie, get a move on…" - she pleaded.
"An intern could do that you know?" - Callie's voice was a mix of curiosity and anger.
"I know." - Arizona's reply was succinct enough to let Callie know the impending danger of her forced participation in another 'conversation.'
"So… why don't you let an intern do it, then?!"
"Callie…" - Arizona looked up from the floor and into her eyes again - "just go, okay?"
"Fine!" - The brunette barked, executing a crisp one-eighty on her feet as she began her staccato march to her office - 'fucking agenda coffee!'
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As Arizona walked the passage way to Callie's office, she could see the brunette looking out the glass wall of her office that looked on the grounds below. Arizona came in, unceremoniously dumping Callie's files on her office desk. The loud thump jolted the other woman out of her pensive state. She turned around with a look of fear coupled with surprise; her hand on her chest as she sucked in a long breath.
The blonde looked up at her, a little taken aback by how jittery Callie had become. She put her hands up in a gesture implicitly indicative of surrender - "I'm sorry Calliope… I just can't seem to get anything right today."
Callie motioned for Arizona to close the door behind her as she took her seat at the desk a little too officiously for Arizona's liking. The blonde needed the other woman to openly tell her whatever it was that was bothering her. Callie seemed to have developed a very short fuse and she seemed really high strung, and this in turn made the blonde uncomfortable.
"I'm sorry" - Callie began, sounding business like - "for my behaviour outside…" - she leant forward on the desk with a professional, almost determined look; steeling away her emotions - "I shouldn't have…" -
- "What's going on Callie?" - Arizona cut her off, not at all happy with how this, whatever it was, was going - "It was entirely my fault. I mean, we both know I was just trying to be friendly with the coffee, but… yeah! I made it worse. You have nothing to apologise for! But…" - she hesitated - "we both know that this" - she waved her hand between the two of them - "whatever this is? Is not about spilt coffee. So?" - Sighed the blonde - "what is this really about?"
"I think we should stop." - Came the brunette's placid reply; if ice could burn, that is what Arizona felt at that moment.
"I'm sorry… I'm a little confused… stop what exactly?"
"The…the … the coffee thing…" - the brunette said as she looked at Arizona expectedly; she hoped that that was enough for the blonde to catch her meaning.
"Ooookay…" - Arizona smiled cautiously - "so? We had a bad experience with coffee" - she said with put on nonchalance - "we can switch beverages… something cold… You know I'm a spiller… I've always been a" -
- "Arizona…" - Callie's sigh cut her off. The brunette looked into her eyes; Callie's eyes had a sudden quality to them, they were soft, but foreboding - "You know what I meant."
"Callie… come on!" - Pleaded the blonde.
"Just for a while… I need to stop… it's messing with me, Arizona. I need to stop."
"Yeah?" - The blonde almost goaded Callie with the sudden harsh tenor of her voice and the hardness in her eyes - "and what's the alternative Callie?"
"Please… Just hear me out…" -
- "Callie…" - Arizona cut her off with a soft sigh - "I want to help you!" - She said, her hand thumping her chest with insistence - "I do! And we'll do this your way, but" -
- "Then leave me alone!" - Callie cried - "that's my way! That's what I need!"
"No." - Plain as day and clear as water.
"Arizona! Please… I can't deal with your…your expectations…" - the blonde's determined look was moving towards one of recrimination - "don't!" - Callie barked, now wagging a finger in Arizona's face - "don't look at me like that! The coffee, the small lunches, the calls at the beginning and at the end of the day, the walks?! You're doing all this because you're expecting us to get back together! You want us to get back together! You" -
- "Huh!" - The blonde scoffed - "of course I want that!" - She said matter of factly - "anyone would want you back, Callie, you - "
- "Don't!" - Callie's voice cracked in a whisper; she cleared her throat, venturing to speak again - "don't make me into some ideal lover bullshit! Don't you fucking do that!"
"Ideal?!" - The blonde raised her voice for the first time in a long time - "I know this isn't ideal! What, are you joking?! I'm the bitch that just dropped you like a hot frigging potato at an airport without a job and an apartment, and then I didn't even call you when they brought you back from a" - her voice broke as she rubbed her stinging eyes with the heels of her palms - "a fucking plane crash! There are no heroes here! And no bloody fairy tales… Just some really fucked up people trying to make things right!" - She panted, having poured her heart out.
"You never swore so much when we were together…" - the brunette said, sounding meek and completely at a loss.
Arizona smirked - "that's what you got?" - She raised her eyebrows at the brunette - "from all that?"
"I still think" -
- "Callie?" - The blonde huffed - "Whatever it is… you can… no you know what?! You should tell me! Whatever has you scared or riled up? You should tell me. I can help, and if I can't… I can listen…" -
- "Arizona please just let it" -
- The blonde cut her off, shaking her head as if to say 'no' - "I'm not letting this go."
'I'm not letting you go…'
"Arizona…" - She looked up to see the blonde nod her encouragement - "You want things from me, right? Or am I nuts? Or… or am I being full of myself here? Presumptuous, even?" - She stopped, looking at the blonde expectantly.
The blonde sighed; frustrated - "I'm going to need a little more to go on Callie" - she looked at her askance.
"You said that day that you…uh" - the brunette hesitate - "that you wanted everything? Or did I imagine that?"
"I did." - The blonde answered her in a calm, matter of fact fashion.
"But, I can't be with you… I can't really be with anyone…" - Callie said with a nervous smile - "You know that right? I can't"-
- "Maybe not right now, Callie, but…" -
"No! Arizona, maybe not ever… What if I can't give myself to you like a normal girlfriend, or wife?! Or heck! Even just a friend?! I can't take it! I can't take not being able to give myself, and promise myself and be the person you need me to be. That person is gone… I can't" -
"That's what this is about? That's what's got you freaking out? And writing me off?"
"Don't dismiss my shit!" - Callie cut her to the quick.
"'M not… I didn't mean to…huh!" - The blonde stopped and took in a big gulp of air, readying herself for whatever Callie would throw at her next - "just because I want those things? Doesn't mean I expect them, Callie… I'm not some devolved Neanderthal…" -
Callie looked confused - "but" -
- "Shush! I'm talking" -
- "Did you just shush me?!" - The brunette asked with an amused sort of incredulity.
"Yes…" - Arizona smirked - "yes I did! Now, I'm talking…"
Callie nodded her consent but otherwise remained quiet.
"Okay… awesome… so I…uh… I want you. Every way possible, all the bad ways and the good ways, and the" - she smiled with a flirtatious glint in her eyes, making Callie hot and uncomfortable all at once - "really, really bad ways" -
- "Arizona" - The brunette chided.
"Okay… okay… and so yes" - she shrugged her shoulders and gave her an almost crooked smile - "I want you, but that doesn't mean that I'm expecting anything! And" -
"But… I don't" - Callie sighed - "I can't watch you like that… looking at me like that, and… I don't want to be the person that holds you back, I don't want to" -
- "Anyone ever tell you, you worry too much?" - Arizona laughed mirthfully, but there was a muted sadness in her eyes.
"Arizona, please… just be serious? Don't laugh this off! Let's just …" -
- "I'm not dismissing anything, Cal!" - She shot back, as she nervously ran her hand through her hair - "look? If you want me to lie and tell you that I don't want you, or that I'm not in love with you? You'll just have to wait all your life, okay?" - and just like that, the blonde had surprised them both, she'd said it like stating what time it was or what day of the weak it was - that plain, that simple, and just that obvious.
"But, it also doesn't mean that I'll hate you for not giving me what I want… And…" -
- "You won't?!" - Callie asked; a note of surprise and vulnerability in her voice.
"No!" - Arizona replied promptly - "No, Callie, of course not! This is… we are different now, okay?! I won't ever demand anything of you, ever again!" - She breathed heavily; a soul wrenching reverence in her words - "I won't push you, but I won't stop asking either" -
- "I don't" -
- "You'll tell me if you want…when you want… and if you decide you don't want to be with me, then I'll… we'll… I'll let go… but you have to make me believe it… because otherwise…" -
The brunette looked at her curiously as she asked - "otherwise what?"
"Otherwise, I'm never leaving you, ever again… I'll stay here, and be your partner, your lover, your friend… anything you want… all you have to do is ask me, and maybe answer me when you're ready to?"
Callie quirked an eyebrow, as she thought it over - "so that's it? Just talk, and be friends…" -
- "Only if you want…" - the blonde answered quickly.
"And you won't be upset if we…" -
- "Not with you… Callie, never with you… You… this was a trauma… I'd never blame you for something that happened to you. You didn't ask for this, and I've been naïve; it's ludicrous to think that you should just tell me everything or magically get over it… I get that now… I'll" -
- "You'll earn it?" - Callie asked as if it were a foreign concept.
"Yes…as long as you're being fair… it's a" -
- "…two way street…" - Callie finished for Arizona.
"Yeah!" - Arizona smiled a reassuring smile. She was rewarded with Callie's smile in return.
"You know I'm a mess, right?" - Callie asked with a huffy laugh that ended in a choked cry.
"Yeah, but you're never boring…" - Arizona laughed as well; her eyes though were pinched shut as she tried to keep from crying.
"Oh-khay…" - Callie sighed, nodding her head.
"Yeah… and you won't…" -
- "No Arizona, I won't wimp out!" - The brunette finished.
"Callie, come on, I'd never say that…" - She insisted, pleadingly almost - "I'd never…" -
- "I know!" - Callie cut her off.
They both hung around a little longer till Arizona remembered she had an elective in fifteen minutes, and got up to leave.
"Arizona?" - The brunette called her back with the detectable notes of hesitance and panic in her voice.
"Yeah?"- The blonde turned back towards her, her hand poised on the door, almost as if she was bracing herself for the impact of whatever it was that Callie was about to say.
"I'll tell you… some of the stuff… slowly…" - Callie took in a deep breath and shuddered as she nervously pulled her hair into a bun. Arizona knew it was part of her ritual when she was readying herself for tedious and mind numbing paper work.
The blonde gave her a weak smile - "yeah?"
"Yes" - Callie nodded - "but, I'm afraid..." -
- "of what?!" - Arizona cut her off.
Callie gave her a plaintive look, even though a small, almost invisible smile hung loosely on her gorgeous lips - "I did things… out there, when we crashed, and then when I got back… things I wouldn't have done if…" -
- "Whatever you did out there?" - Said the blonde - "It got you back to me…" - she cleared her throat as she caught herself, 'way to not put pressure on her superstar!' - "to us! So I'm not even going to…" - she sighed, letting that though hang in the air.
"And as far as everything else goes? I love you… and I know you don't believe me right now? But I love you, whoever you are now… so I'll trust that you had your reasons when you did these things… Okay?"
The brunette, unable to choke back her tears any longer, finally gave in. She hunched over, her elbows on the table and arms taut as she buried her face in her palms and shook with silent cries. Arizona stood there, watching, unsure if it would be okay to offer physical comfort to the brunette yet even though she was dying to give it. They'd have to figure all that out as they went along.
Callie looked up as she took a big gulp of air while rubbing her face - "okay…" - she nodded, giving the blonde an almost imperceptible smile.
"Yes?" - The blonde enquired.
"Yeah" - Callie answered. They both kept looking at one another as a moment of mutual understanding slowly mutated to one of awkwardness, till the blonde's pager started up - "oh! Callie, I should…" -
- "Yes, of course… and I have…" - she pointed at the piles of files on her desk as she gave the blonde a casual shrug.
Later that evening, as Arizona scrubbed out of her last surgery of the day, she saw a text from Callie asking her to dinner at Tie#92 with a promise of a free sandwich on the house. She agreed immediately because her mama had taught her that it was impolite to leave your friends hanging.
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A/N: I was hoping to set clearer boundaries for the two women to be able to navigate what is to come next, and also shed a little light on where Callie's apprehensions lay. I hope I did that justice. Next chapter will see a solid time leap, otherwise I'll keep writing this fic well into the next month! Which I'm sure will be just 'yikes' for a lot of you.
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Okay, so I feel like sharing some music, so check out Stephanie Nilles, also her 'Eggs over easy' is pretty good too. Truly all of her performances are.
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