Title: And I’m leaving out the courtesy (of admitting I was wrong)
Title: And I’m leaving out the courtesy (of admitting I was wrong)
Author: Boldpapermate
Pairing: Callie/Arizona
Length: 4,934
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Everything through 7x16 (unfortunately).
Summary: Arizona’s reaction to her initial reaction. I suck at summaries, so just read it and you won’t be disappointed. Promise. This is the sequel to You’ve Never Been More Divine (In Accepting Your Defeat) which is the sequel to Allow Me to Exaggerate a Memory or Two. You technically don’t have to read those stories to understand this one, but it’d probably help.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the sadness in this story. The characters and the storyline are all property of Shonda and ABC. If I did own it, they’d be all over each other ALL the time.
A/N: This is as always, dedicated to the two same people. The first is my wonderful beta, istillam , who fixes all the mistakes and makes this readable. The second is my best buddy in the Callie/Arizona universe savache27 . Love you beebs, I hope this makes your day a little brighter. Also, COMMENTS=LOVE
A/N 2: So…here is the final installment of this story! I think I’m pretty much done with it unless people really, really, really want another installment. (Hint: If you comment/list some ideas for the next part, I might be swayed to continue this). I really hope that people enjoy this and that it isn’t like a complete fail in the whole Callie/Arizona universe. I really tried with this. So without further ado,
Arizona held a lot of pride in her honesty.
She had always been taught that even in the worst of situations, honesty was the thing that’d set her free, metaphorically speaking of course. Granted, Arizona wasn’t always completely honest about her opinions, but eventually she did get around to it. At the end of the day, Arizona could always count on her honesty to shine through and be one of her consistent qualities.
That was before her life decided to become its own version of Three’s Company.
Seriously, shit was just that fucked up.
After a short amount of time to mope and collect her thoughts, Calliope basically ambushed Arizona with her ideas of the future and her deadlines and crap. Okay, so maybe Arizona was being a little much with her summary, but still. Arizona had told Callie she needed time. She needed time to process, time to breathe, time to adjust and time to be angry. But shortly after their discussion in the hallway, Callie just barged into her apartment and demanded that Arizona give her an honest answer on the whole baby mama drama.
Arizona was confident with the fact that Callie wouldn’t want to hear her honest opinion.
Not just that, but it was hard to ignore someone who lived across the hall. Even more so when that person was the ex-girlfriend that she wanted back, the ex-girlfriend who slept with her ex-boyfriend/best friend and was pregnant with his child. It was a lot to take in.
The whole situation really wasn’t as terrible as it sounded.
It was worse.
But at the time she didn’t really have much of a choice. Callie wasn’t budging on her ultimatum--not that she ever really had, if Arizona was being honest. It was either all or nothing for Callie and as much as Arizona hated the situation she was in, she hated having nothing more. So she gritted her teeth and did the only thing she figured she could do.
Arizona lied.
She told Callie that she would be okay; she told Callie that she was in it for the long haul. But as the words kept spilling from her mouth she just kept thinking that she wasn’t okay and she didn’t think that she wanted to be in it for the long haul. This wasn’t what she wanted. This wasn’t her dream. But she sucked it up and she took one for the team.
The big, fat, lesbian team.
Arizona figured that eventually she’d start to feel okay. She figured that it was okay if she wasn’t honest this time around because in the end her love for Callie would win and all the resentment would just disappear. She figured that eventually the idea of co-parenting a baby Sloan would grow on her. She thought that somewhere down the road it would become her dream.
She didn’t, it couldn’t and it hasn’t.
In fact, if anything, she was just getting angrier. And the angrier Arizona got, the less honest she started being, especially to Callie. It started off with small things. Sometimes it was eating Mark’s favorite bagels from the break room-she was still a little bitter. Other times it was forgetting to set the alarm clock or pretending to have surgery when Arizona didn’t so that she could just get some time to breathe. But as time went on, it all got steadily worse and Arizona noticed that she wasn’t just angry about the situation anymore, she was angry about Mark and she was angry about Callie.
That kind of resentment just couldn’t be good for her personal character.
Everything just started bubbling under the surface and kept growing with each order from Mark or each sentence of praise from Callie. Arizona just felt the truths slipping through her fingers and felt the walls starting to build up around her. She wasn’t trying to push Callie away; it wasn’t Arizona’s intention to be irritated by this whole mess of a situation. It just kind of worked out that way.
It seemed like the longer Arizona tried to go along with the whole ridiculous Jerry Springer situation, the harder it was for her to feel okay and the angrier she started to feel.
She was so past angry these days she was practically Charlie Sheen.
It just felt like Arizona was losing the things that made her tick. It felt like she was losing bits of herself to the man-whore and Callie’s demands. And the more she lost the less okay she was about her current surroundings. The longer she let herself listen to Callie’s words of praise about how Mark’s “changing,” the more she wanted to kick him somewhere that could use a little less changing.
In fact, Arizona was starting to become increasingly suspicious that Callie and Mark were the selfish ones here, not her. The more she thought about it all, the more it just didn’t seem fair. Mark was given the choice on whether or not he wanted to be involved in the baby’s life. He got an option. Callie didn’t dare give him an ultimatum, not that Mark would’ve bothered listening to one.
Then there was Callie. Callie with all her words and her preaching about treating everyone fairly and yet Callie had the choice on whether or not she wanted to keep the baby. She had a choice on whether or not she’d tell everyone who the father was. Callie even got to decide if she wanted to go at it alone or if she wanted to have either her man-whore or lady friend.
Callie got both. She got everything she wanted. Everything.
But at the end of the day, what choice was Arizona really given? Was it to be alone or suffer through this sham of a family? Arizona couldn’t even figure out how that was even a choice. She couldn’t figure out how Callie could demand so much from Arizona and yet give her so little.
Arizona couldn’t figure out why she ever thought this would be a good idea.
At first she had figured that she could get over it. Because underneath all the questions and hurt, Arizona really loved Calliope and she knew that Calliope was the woman she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. It just seemed that the more Arizona tried to focus on getting over everything, the less she understood what she was trying to get over.
It felt like there just wasn’t one thing Arizona could forgive to make all of her discomfort go away. It felt like there were multiple things. Multiple discrepancies that Mark and Callie didn’t even give her a chance to acknowledge. It’s like they all just skipped over the climax of the movie and expected her to absorb the end without having any questions as to how the movie even got there.
If Arizona were given the opportunity to share her feelings from the beginning, she would have told Callie exactly how she felt. Arizona would have admitted that she was angry because Callie had jumped into bed with a man when Arizona had barely been gone for three months. She would have admitted that she was even angrier that the person was Mark.
Arizona would have told Callie that she was hurt because Callie had felt physically ready to cheat on her-and okay, maybe they weren’t together at the time, but in Arizona’s head it still counted-when Arizona hadn’t even felt emotionally ready to look at another woman. Arizona was hurt because Callie had done so with Mark, when she knew about all of Arizona’s insecurities and discomfort surrounding the man. She was angry because Callie decided to keep it. Like it was okay for women who were in committed relationships to get knocked up by their “best friends” and keep it without anyone batting a freaking eyelash.
So Arizona was more than a little bitter.
It’s just that she felt so cheated. She was the only one who was forced to give up her dreams time and time again. She felt cheated for having to lie because she wasn’t really given much of a choice to do otherwise. Whether it was from her dreams, her aspirations, or even her current situation, she felt screwed over and forgotten each time. So maybe Arizona wasn’t being completely honest anymore.
Arizona was just so stuck and she was just so angry. She was just so hopeless.
It wasn’t because for once Arizona wasn’t getting what she wanted. No, she could deal with Callie being pregnant. She even figured that in time she could be okay with the fact that the baby belonged to the hospital’s token player. The fact that irked her to no extent was that Callie could look her in the face day in and day out and literally tell Arizona about all the progress Mark was supposedly making, like Arizona actually cared. Or what’s worse, like she should actually care.
What about all the progress Arizona was making?
She was completely set with the idea of receiving some sort of award for her accomplishments. She had resisted all urges to mar that pretty face of his with bruises and scars. If anyone knew just how many times during the day she felt the physical need to just stick out her hand and give Mark what was coming to him, they would have given her a freaking Nobel Prize.
That’s right. She said it, a freaking Nobel Prize.
But it wasn’t just the fact that she was being completely generous with her lack of violence towards the man. It was also the fact that she allowed him to be included on the day to day processes with Callie and the baby. If it had been up to her she would have shoved him in a box loaded with bricks, stuck it in the middle of the ocean and just watched as it sank to the bottom of the never-ending sea.
Okay, so maybe she wouldn’t have done that. But she had thought of scenarios like that on more than one occasion.
This whole situation wasn’t just making her crazy. It was also making her freaking homicidal. She was seriously beginning to feel a little like Mike Tyson or something.
But all that stuff wasn’t the half of it. Along with all those glorious new factors involved in Arizona’s steadily complicating life, she’s also had to endure the shift in her relationship. What Arizona meant was that now instead of asking Arizona about her day, Callie talked about Mark.
Mark this and Mark that. It was a daily intake of Mark with a side of, guess who? Mark.
It wasn’t Calliope’s and Arizona’s relationship anymore. It was Calliope, Arizona and Mark. And they both expected her to be okay with it, like it had always been Arizona’s secret dream to be in a committed relationship with two other people.
Honestly, Arizona knew that the people at Seattle Grace were a little freaky-they have far too many sexual relationships for normal people-but who would consider a three-way relationship their ideal future? Even Meredith had enough sanity to get married and that woman was far beyond healthy.
All of a sudden Arizona shifted from being this woman who only had to worry for herself and her very, very attractive significant other (and on occasion her somewhat obnoxious bestie) to being this woman who had to worry about herself, Calliope, a baby, that baby’s daddy…the baby’s doctor, her sanity, etc.
Arizona had so many worries that sometimes it felt a lot like drowning. And sometimes, just sometimes, Arizona was almost sure she wouldn’t be able to keep herself afloat long enough for someone to save her. These days, worry was a muchness of Arizona.
The strange thing was, these days, it sort of felt a lot like salvation.
----------
Arizona was annoyed. She was annoyed and she was aggravated. She had spent most of the day in an internal (as well as mental) battle of sorts with Mark. He just had to question her opinion on everything, like it wasn’t nearly as good as his or something. Arizona was so…tired of Mark and her current situation that she just picked up a Seattle Times, some wine and a package of the mini Reese’s peanut butter cups, fully intent on forgetting about her troubles. Arizona literally could not wait to sit down with her wonderful purchases and just focus on someone else in the world. Some other places issues.
After entering her apartment, Arizona placed the wine on the counter-right next to Callie’s empty glass of milk-and headed towards the couch to settle herself down for the night. She barely got through seating her butt on the comfy side of the couch when Callie came into the living room from the bedroom.
“You’re finally home.”
Arizona grunted in acknowledgement and she started to open her paper. Boy did it ever feel good to be home in her apartment, sitting on her couch, talking to her girlfriend. All of this being done with no mention of her least favorite person these days.
It’s not like she hated Mark or anything. It was just so aggravating. And the worst part of it was that it was hard for others to understand unless they were in the same kind of situation. Arizona almost had the gall to demand every person to add a third person to their intimate relationships and then come tell her if they literally enjoyed it.
Arizona noticed out of the corner of her eye how Callie carefully poured the wine and some milk into the glasses that rested on the kitchen counter before she turned around and started heading back towards the couch. “I gotta tell you, I was impressed with Mark today. He-he is really being an adult about all this. I think, I think he’s going to be a great dad.”
Arizona winced. Apparently she spoke too soon. Leave it to Mark to even intrude on her personal time. Arizona glanced over towards Callie and tried to smile. Her girlfriend really did look beautiful, even when she was dressed in something so simple as pajama pants and a black top. Arizona bit her tongue and forced herself to try and give an encouraging response. “Yeah.”
Well she said she’d try.
Callie didn’t seem to notice the shift in Arizona’s tone. Instead of commenting Callie just sat down and handed the wine to Arizona. “Right?”
“That’ll work.” Arizona replied. She grabbed the wine and quickly put it in front of her lips. Trying to quench all the vicious words and realities that she really wanted to tell Callie.
Callie let her hand hang for a couple of seconds as a result of Arizona’s reaction. She pulled her hand back and settled it on one of the couch pillows, rearranging it slightly. Arizona placed her glass on the table next to her as Callie moved her gaze. “You didn’t think it was…that impressive.”
Arizona continued to stare at the paper in her hands, focusing all her strength on letters in front of her instead of this sickening feeling that was crawling underneath her skin. “Um, sure, he handled it. And not like a four year old. Is that supposed to make me excited?”
“I thought I was supposed to be the cranky hormonal one?”
Well, there went that plan. Arizona placed the paper down in her lap, “Oh, I’m not cranky.”
“Mmmm,” Callie agreed condescendingly.
Normally Arizona would let Callie’s response slide. After all, she had done a lot of personal growth lately and having to prove someone wrong would certainly not help her character. But she was just so…insulted by the tone that Callie took that she let a little of her resolve slip and a little of the secrets slip out with it.
Arizona turned a quirked a brow at her girlfriend. “I don’t excited by Mark. I’m not delighted by Mark. I love you and I can honestly say that I’m going to love this baby, but Mark? I somehow ended up agreeing to a lifetime with…Mark, a lifetime of decisions. Bottle or sippy cup? Basketball or tap? Dartmouth or Berkeley?”
“Hmm,” Callie grunted.
Arizona shuffled the paper in her lap. She knew that now was not the time to start an argument. As far as Callie was concerned this argument was pretty much done with. Except that Arizona never got to put in her two-sense on whether or not it was done. These days it was getting harder and harder to push the feelings down. It was harder to bury her dreams, opinions and ideals when Mark and Callie were so clear with theirs. Arizona tried, she really, really did. But even that wasn’t enough to prevent her from letting a few more words slide out with complete ease. “Christmas morning…with…Mark.”
“Okay.”
Except that it wasn’t okay. None of this was okay. Surely Calliope could see that. Surely she could see the feelings swirling around Arizona, trying to become actual words of truth. At first Arizona was okay with pretending that all of this so-called life was okay, but now, now she was just set on showing Callie how un-okay it all was.
Arizona glanced back at Callie. “I never picked him and I don’t hate him. But, I don’t want a life with him. And yet somehow, that’s what I got.”
“What am I supposed to do? Kick him out? I mean, it’s his kid.” Callie replied defensively.
Arizona looked back down at the paper as she felt the crawling underneath her skin start to move towards her heart. Sometimes Callie was just so thickheaded. Arizona would liken it to beating a nail over the head sometimes. Callie was just that hard to budge once she settled on a decision. But Arizona needed her to see how messed up all of this was, how it was messing up Arizona. “Yeah, you don’t need to remind me of that. I never, ever forget that.”
Callie rolled her eyes. “Wow. Okay, we’re gonna go down that road again.”
Something in Arizona snapped at that moment. It was like all this time there had been this dam. A dam holding up water or secrets or something inside her and it she was fine as long as that dam stayed in place. But in that moment Callie’s words just made it snap and before she knew what she was saying, the words just started tumbling out of her mouth. The words to a secret that she had tried to bury a long, long, time ago. Words that Arizona wished she could pretend weren’t true in her mind. “Okay. Can we just be honest about the fact that this is some kind of bi-dream come true? I mean, you get the woman that you love and the-the guy best friend, who’s also a great lay, and then you get a baby. I mean, you get it all. And me? This is not my dream; my dream doesn’t look like this.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Arizona took a breath as a means to slow down the words that she had been afraid to speak. “I want you. I’ve always wanted you. But I never wanted this.” Arizona finished as she gestured at Callie’s stomach.
It was true. All of it, it was so true. But in that moment Arizona wished that it wasn’t. She wished that she was the type of person to be okay with living like this as long as she ended up with the girl. Arizona wished that she could pretend like all these words didn’t eat her up at night, keeping her awake as the doubts, fears and anger laid heavy on her heart.
Callie’s facial features stilled as she turned to completely face Arizona. “I’m sorry my life is such an inconvenience for you.”
“Don’t--don’t do that. You don’t get to spin things around on me. You get to listen, okay?” Arizona demanded.
Callie’s face flushed in anger. “Maybe I don’t want to li-“
“Woman! Listen!” Arizona shrieked loudly.
Arizona felt her chest rise quickly and she worked slowly to calm her breathing. Arizona contemplated for a moment whether or not it was worth it to continue. She glanced at Callie’s unreadable expression and decided to just plow through it. If that wasn’t an almost direct representation of her life these days, Arizona didn’t know what was.
“Calliope,” Arizona began slowly, standing up from the couch to put a little needed space between Callie and her. “I didn’t mean to yell, it’s just that these days all our relationship revolves around is this baby and Mark. Instead of revolving around the two most important people involved…in case I’m not being clear, it’s us. The people are us, Calliope.”
Almost as if on cue, Arizona heard a loud banging at the door.
“Hey, Reading Rainbow and Grouch. I heard yelling from across the hall and I figured I’d come over and check it out. Is everything okay? You know yelling isn’t good for baby Sloan.”
Arizona rolled her eyes at Mark’s interruption. Of course he would hear her the one time she decided to actually stand up for herself. That’s just the way her life seemed to be going these days.
And she had had enough.
“Not now, man-whore!”
“Arizona,” Callie scolded, narrowing her eyes at Arizona.
Arizona opened her mouth to defend herself when she heard the key turning in the knob and instead she quickly snapped it shut. Arizona’s first thought was that it had to be an intruder, but she quickly shot down that theory because the intruder would have to have a key to get in and that’d be just plain awkward. Arizona stared at the door in confusion as it swung open, completely bewildered by the fact that someone would have a key to their apartment.
That is, until the door opened.
Mark grinned and nodded over at Arizona, standing by the open door. “Yo, Skittles, what’s with all the yelling?”
“Good news is that the spare key you gave me works, Torres. Bad news is you’ll have a lot more time to memorize my beautiful bone structure and less time to raise your freak flag or whatever.”
Arizona glared over at Callie, who at least had the common decency to look sheepish.
Mark’s smiled dimmed as he looked between Arizona (who almost exactly resembled that one time when he had decided to drink the last pot of coffee in the break room) and Torres (who kept shaking her head back and forth while waving her hands frantically, kind of like she had epilepsy or something).
“Uh, should I be ducking right now?"
Arizona’s head jerked in agreement. Callie placed the tips of her fingers on the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath. “One minute Mark, just…one minute.”
Mark raised his eyebrows questioningly in response, but he still began to back out of the apartment, slowly shutting the door behind him.
Callie licked her lips. She had intended to approach Arizona and try and calm her down after that train wreck of information. But one glance towards the blonde made Callie change her mind and stay in her current place. Arizona had a look on her face that Callie had never seen before. She wasn’t really sure if that was a bad thing or not considering Arizona was her girlfriend and had been for a long time. Regardless, Callie decided that now would be as a good a time as any to try and get a handle on the situation before Arizona completely flipped out.
“Ari, listen. I was going to tell you about the key, I swear. It’s just, I think it’s important to Mark for him to have a key; it makes him feel involved you know? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner but you understand, right?”
Arizona was done. She was fuming. She couldn’t believe that Calliope would even entertain the thought of giving that sad excuse of a man, a key to their apartment. Let alone actually do it. She just couldn’t believe that this is the place her world rested now. Arizona couldn’t believe that her life these days was a life without opinions, it was a life without honesty and it was a life without choices.
Arizona felt the blood rush to her head as all these realizations started settling in.
Just because Callie had decided that it would be a good idea to give Mark a key it didn’t make it right. Just because Callie had basically decided what was going to happen with this baby, didn’t mean that it should. But most of all, just because Callie decided that this was how they would be happy, didn’t mean that they would.
Just because Callie had decided that Arizona should be second, didn’t mean that she was.
Happiness comes with truth and honesty. If Callie couldn’t take that then she obviously had some of her own personal growing to do, because Arizona? Well she was done. She was tired of being walked all over on. She was done with having her personal opinions squandered. She was over being ignored.
If Callie really believed that they had it in them as a couple to make it through something like this, then they can damn well make it through Arizona’s opinions. She was tired of trying to keep things bubbly, sparkly, fresh and new. Good things come with growth and a part of growth in relationships can be contributed to changing as an individual and as a whole.
So screw whatever logic and reasoning that Callie had, it was Arizona’s turn to make a fucking point.
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about! I get that Mark’s a part of your life now, Calliope. Even though it’s ridiculously hard I think I can deal with that. But what I can’t handle? It’s this constant presence that he has with us all the time. Dinners, breakfasts…and okay, he’s the baby’s dad, I get that. But I’m your girlfriend, you’re dating me, you are with me and you chose me. Not Mark or his freaking sorbet, so it’d be nice if you actually started acting like it because I deserve a part of happiness in this relationship as much as you two.”
The apartment was eerily quiet after Arizona finished. Callie didn’t say anything, she just looked at her and all Arizona could do was hold her breath. Hold her breath and hope that this one time Callie would see someone else’s side instead of just seeing her pain. Arizona could only hope that Callie would see how much she was trying here and try to stop punishing her for Africa because that’s what a lot of these days felt like.
Punishment for Arizona’s mistakes.
Callie stared at Arizona for a few minutes. Barely breathing and definitely not moving. Finally, after what felt like ages, Callie’s defensive posture crumbled. “What do you want me to do?”
Arizona released a huge breath of relief. For a second there she had almost been certain that Callie was going to leave her. Leave her and her opinions for that man so they could go ride off into the rainbows together. But Callie didn’t and that mattered.
“Not to sound too much like Meredith Grey but choose me, pick me, love me.”
Callie smiled at Arizona’s reuse of the speech. She had to admit that when those words were focused on her, it was actually rather charming. Callie walked towards Arizona and grabbed her hand once she was in reach.
“Okay.”
Arizona swallowed and looked down at their hands. The anger was quickly disappearing and she was finding it much harder to keep her resolve. “I’m not saying get rid of Mark, I’m just suggesting that you try and make this threesome a twosome because it’s getting incredibly crowded.”
“Arizona. Look at me.”
Arizona lifted her eyes to meet Callie’s soft brown eyes.
“I said okay.”
Arizona didn’t think that the world had anything more or less to offer her these days. She didn’t think that love was eternal or that even honesty was her only survival tool. She didn’t think that Mark was a fantastic person and she didn’t think that Seattle Grace focused enough time on medicine instead of all those sexual encounters. She didn’t think that this was the life plan that she had always imagined for herself, she didn’t think that this was the future that she had wanted.
She didn’t think that this was supposed to be her story and she most certainly didn’t think that this would be its ending. But what she did think was that she was changing. And somehow, that was really all that mattered.
Because stories changed with the people. Happy endings changed with time. People changed when reality set in and maybe Arizona wasn’t okay with Mark. Maybe Arizona would never be okay with Mark or okay with baby Sloan. Maybe this wasn’t the happy ending that Arizona (or anyone else for that matter) envisioned. But at the end of the day Arizona was changing. At the end of the day Arizona was willing to try as well as Callie, and maybe that was all that mattered. Arizona figured she could maybe learn to live with that as long as she and Callie always tried.
Well, that along the promise that she wouldn’t have to spend Christmas morning with Mark.
Author: Boldpapermate
Pairing: Callie/Arizona
Length: 4,934
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Everything through 7x16 (unfortunately).
Summary: Arizona’s reaction to her initial reaction. I suck at summaries, so just read it and you won’t be disappointed. Promise. This is the sequel to You’ve Never Been More Divine (In Accepting Your Defeat) which is the sequel to Allow Me to Exaggerate a Memory or Two. You technically don’t have to read those stories to understand this one, but it’d probably help.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the sadness in this story. The characters and the storyline are all property of Shonda and ABC. If I did own it, they’d be all over each other ALL the time.
A/N: This is as always, dedicated to the two same people. The first is my wonderful beta, istillam , who fixes all the mistakes and makes this readable. The second is my best buddy in the Callie/Arizona universe savache27 . Love you beebs, I hope this makes your day a little brighter. Also, COMMENTS=LOVE
A/N 2: So…here is the final installment of this story! I think I’m pretty much done with it unless people really, really, really want another installment. (Hint: If you comment/list some ideas for the next part, I might be swayed to continue this). I really hope that people enjoy this and that it isn’t like a complete fail in the whole Callie/Arizona universe. I really tried with this. So without further ado,
Arizona held a lot of pride in her honesty.
She had always been taught that even in the worst of situations, honesty was the thing that’d set her free, metaphorically speaking of course. Granted, Arizona wasn’t always completely honest about her opinions, but eventually she did get around to it. At the end of the day, Arizona could always count on her honesty to shine through and be one of her consistent qualities.
That was before her life decided to become its own version of Three’s Company.
Seriously, shit was just that fucked up.
After a short amount of time to mope and collect her thoughts, Calliope basically ambushed Arizona with her ideas of the future and her deadlines and crap. Okay, so maybe Arizona was being a little much with her summary, but still. Arizona had told Callie she needed time. She needed time to process, time to breathe, time to adjust and time to be angry. But shortly after their discussion in the hallway, Callie just barged into her apartment and demanded that Arizona give her an honest answer on the whole baby mama drama.
Arizona was confident with the fact that Callie wouldn’t want to hear her honest opinion.
Not just that, but it was hard to ignore someone who lived across the hall. Even more so when that person was the ex-girlfriend that she wanted back, the ex-girlfriend who slept with her ex-boyfriend/best friend and was pregnant with his child. It was a lot to take in.
The whole situation really wasn’t as terrible as it sounded.
It was worse.
But at the time she didn’t really have much of a choice. Callie wasn’t budging on her ultimatum--not that she ever really had, if Arizona was being honest. It was either all or nothing for Callie and as much as Arizona hated the situation she was in, she hated having nothing more. So she gritted her teeth and did the only thing she figured she could do.
Arizona lied.
She told Callie that she would be okay; she told Callie that she was in it for the long haul. But as the words kept spilling from her mouth she just kept thinking that she wasn’t okay and she didn’t think that she wanted to be in it for the long haul. This wasn’t what she wanted. This wasn’t her dream. But she sucked it up and she took one for the team.
The big, fat, lesbian team.
Arizona figured that eventually she’d start to feel okay. She figured that it was okay if she wasn’t honest this time around because in the end her love for Callie would win and all the resentment would just disappear. She figured that eventually the idea of co-parenting a baby Sloan would grow on her. She thought that somewhere down the road it would become her dream.
She didn’t, it couldn’t and it hasn’t.
In fact, if anything, she was just getting angrier. And the angrier Arizona got, the less honest she started being, especially to Callie. It started off with small things. Sometimes it was eating Mark’s favorite bagels from the break room-she was still a little bitter. Other times it was forgetting to set the alarm clock or pretending to have surgery when Arizona didn’t so that she could just get some time to breathe. But as time went on, it all got steadily worse and Arizona noticed that she wasn’t just angry about the situation anymore, she was angry about Mark and she was angry about Callie.
That kind of resentment just couldn’t be good for her personal character.
Everything just started bubbling under the surface and kept growing with each order from Mark or each sentence of praise from Callie. Arizona just felt the truths slipping through her fingers and felt the walls starting to build up around her. She wasn’t trying to push Callie away; it wasn’t Arizona’s intention to be irritated by this whole mess of a situation. It just kind of worked out that way.
It seemed like the longer Arizona tried to go along with the whole ridiculous Jerry Springer situation, the harder it was for her to feel okay and the angrier she started to feel.
She was so past angry these days she was practically Charlie Sheen.
It just felt like Arizona was losing the things that made her tick. It felt like she was losing bits of herself to the man-whore and Callie’s demands. And the more she lost the less okay she was about her current surroundings. The longer she let herself listen to Callie’s words of praise about how Mark’s “changing,” the more she wanted to kick him somewhere that could use a little less changing.
In fact, Arizona was starting to become increasingly suspicious that Callie and Mark were the selfish ones here, not her. The more she thought about it all, the more it just didn’t seem fair. Mark was given the choice on whether or not he wanted to be involved in the baby’s life. He got an option. Callie didn’t dare give him an ultimatum, not that Mark would’ve bothered listening to one.
Then there was Callie. Callie with all her words and her preaching about treating everyone fairly and yet Callie had the choice on whether or not she wanted to keep the baby. She had a choice on whether or not she’d tell everyone who the father was. Callie even got to decide if she wanted to go at it alone or if she wanted to have either her man-whore or lady friend.
Callie got both. She got everything she wanted. Everything.
But at the end of the day, what choice was Arizona really given? Was it to be alone or suffer through this sham of a family? Arizona couldn’t even figure out how that was even a choice. She couldn’t figure out how Callie could demand so much from Arizona and yet give her so little.
Arizona couldn’t figure out why she ever thought this would be a good idea.
At first she had figured that she could get over it. Because underneath all the questions and hurt, Arizona really loved Calliope and she knew that Calliope was the woman she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. It just seemed that the more Arizona tried to focus on getting over everything, the less she understood what she was trying to get over.
It felt like there just wasn’t one thing Arizona could forgive to make all of her discomfort go away. It felt like there were multiple things. Multiple discrepancies that Mark and Callie didn’t even give her a chance to acknowledge. It’s like they all just skipped over the climax of the movie and expected her to absorb the end without having any questions as to how the movie even got there.
If Arizona were given the opportunity to share her feelings from the beginning, she would have told Callie exactly how she felt. Arizona would have admitted that she was angry because Callie had jumped into bed with a man when Arizona had barely been gone for three months. She would have admitted that she was even angrier that the person was Mark.
Arizona would have told Callie that she was hurt because Callie had felt physically ready to cheat on her-and okay, maybe they weren’t together at the time, but in Arizona’s head it still counted-when Arizona hadn’t even felt emotionally ready to look at another woman. Arizona was hurt because Callie had done so with Mark, when she knew about all of Arizona’s insecurities and discomfort surrounding the man. She was angry because Callie decided to keep it. Like it was okay for women who were in committed relationships to get knocked up by their “best friends” and keep it without anyone batting a freaking eyelash.
So Arizona was more than a little bitter.
It’s just that she felt so cheated. She was the only one who was forced to give up her dreams time and time again. She felt cheated for having to lie because she wasn’t really given much of a choice to do otherwise. Whether it was from her dreams, her aspirations, or even her current situation, she felt screwed over and forgotten each time. So maybe Arizona wasn’t being completely honest anymore.
Arizona was just so stuck and she was just so angry. She was just so hopeless.
It wasn’t because for once Arizona wasn’t getting what she wanted. No, she could deal with Callie being pregnant. She even figured that in time she could be okay with the fact that the baby belonged to the hospital’s token player. The fact that irked her to no extent was that Callie could look her in the face day in and day out and literally tell Arizona about all the progress Mark was supposedly making, like Arizona actually cared. Or what’s worse, like she should actually care.
What about all the progress Arizona was making?
She was completely set with the idea of receiving some sort of award for her accomplishments. She had resisted all urges to mar that pretty face of his with bruises and scars. If anyone knew just how many times during the day she felt the physical need to just stick out her hand and give Mark what was coming to him, they would have given her a freaking Nobel Prize.
That’s right. She said it, a freaking Nobel Prize.
But it wasn’t just the fact that she was being completely generous with her lack of violence towards the man. It was also the fact that she allowed him to be included on the day to day processes with Callie and the baby. If it had been up to her she would have shoved him in a box loaded with bricks, stuck it in the middle of the ocean and just watched as it sank to the bottom of the never-ending sea.
Okay, so maybe she wouldn’t have done that. But she had thought of scenarios like that on more than one occasion.
This whole situation wasn’t just making her crazy. It was also making her freaking homicidal. She was seriously beginning to feel a little like Mike Tyson or something.
But all that stuff wasn’t the half of it. Along with all those glorious new factors involved in Arizona’s steadily complicating life, she’s also had to endure the shift in her relationship. What Arizona meant was that now instead of asking Arizona about her day, Callie talked about Mark.
Mark this and Mark that. It was a daily intake of Mark with a side of, guess who? Mark.
It wasn’t Calliope’s and Arizona’s relationship anymore. It was Calliope, Arizona and Mark. And they both expected her to be okay with it, like it had always been Arizona’s secret dream to be in a committed relationship with two other people.
Honestly, Arizona knew that the people at Seattle Grace were a little freaky-they have far too many sexual relationships for normal people-but who would consider a three-way relationship their ideal future? Even Meredith had enough sanity to get married and that woman was far beyond healthy.
All of a sudden Arizona shifted from being this woman who only had to worry for herself and her very, very attractive significant other (and on occasion her somewhat obnoxious bestie) to being this woman who had to worry about herself, Calliope, a baby, that baby’s daddy…the baby’s doctor, her sanity, etc.
Arizona had so many worries that sometimes it felt a lot like drowning. And sometimes, just sometimes, Arizona was almost sure she wouldn’t be able to keep herself afloat long enough for someone to save her. These days, worry was a muchness of Arizona.
The strange thing was, these days, it sort of felt a lot like salvation.
----------
Arizona was annoyed. She was annoyed and she was aggravated. She had spent most of the day in an internal (as well as mental) battle of sorts with Mark. He just had to question her opinion on everything, like it wasn’t nearly as good as his or something. Arizona was so…tired of Mark and her current situation that she just picked up a Seattle Times, some wine and a package of the mini Reese’s peanut butter cups, fully intent on forgetting about her troubles. Arizona literally could not wait to sit down with her wonderful purchases and just focus on someone else in the world. Some other places issues.
After entering her apartment, Arizona placed the wine on the counter-right next to Callie’s empty glass of milk-and headed towards the couch to settle herself down for the night. She barely got through seating her butt on the comfy side of the couch when Callie came into the living room from the bedroom.
“You’re finally home.”
Arizona grunted in acknowledgement and she started to open her paper. Boy did it ever feel good to be home in her apartment, sitting on her couch, talking to her girlfriend. All of this being done with no mention of her least favorite person these days.
It’s not like she hated Mark or anything. It was just so aggravating. And the worst part of it was that it was hard for others to understand unless they were in the same kind of situation. Arizona almost had the gall to demand every person to add a third person to their intimate relationships and then come tell her if they literally enjoyed it.
Arizona noticed out of the corner of her eye how Callie carefully poured the wine and some milk into the glasses that rested on the kitchen counter before she turned around and started heading back towards the couch. “I gotta tell you, I was impressed with Mark today. He-he is really being an adult about all this. I think, I think he’s going to be a great dad.”
Arizona winced. Apparently she spoke too soon. Leave it to Mark to even intrude on her personal time. Arizona glanced over towards Callie and tried to smile. Her girlfriend really did look beautiful, even when she was dressed in something so simple as pajama pants and a black top. Arizona bit her tongue and forced herself to try and give an encouraging response. “Yeah.”
Well she said she’d try.
Callie didn’t seem to notice the shift in Arizona’s tone. Instead of commenting Callie just sat down and handed the wine to Arizona. “Right?”
“That’ll work.” Arizona replied. She grabbed the wine and quickly put it in front of her lips. Trying to quench all the vicious words and realities that she really wanted to tell Callie.
Callie let her hand hang for a couple of seconds as a result of Arizona’s reaction. She pulled her hand back and settled it on one of the couch pillows, rearranging it slightly. Arizona placed her glass on the table next to her as Callie moved her gaze. “You didn’t think it was…that impressive.”
Arizona continued to stare at the paper in her hands, focusing all her strength on letters in front of her instead of this sickening feeling that was crawling underneath her skin. “Um, sure, he handled it. And not like a four year old. Is that supposed to make me excited?”
“I thought I was supposed to be the cranky hormonal one?”
Well, there went that plan. Arizona placed the paper down in her lap, “Oh, I’m not cranky.”
“Mmmm,” Callie agreed condescendingly.
Normally Arizona would let Callie’s response slide. After all, she had done a lot of personal growth lately and having to prove someone wrong would certainly not help her character. But she was just so…insulted by the tone that Callie took that she let a little of her resolve slip and a little of the secrets slip out with it.
Arizona turned a quirked a brow at her girlfriend. “I don’t excited by Mark. I’m not delighted by Mark. I love you and I can honestly say that I’m going to love this baby, but Mark? I somehow ended up agreeing to a lifetime with…Mark, a lifetime of decisions. Bottle or sippy cup? Basketball or tap? Dartmouth or Berkeley?”
“Hmm,” Callie grunted.
Arizona shuffled the paper in her lap. She knew that now was not the time to start an argument. As far as Callie was concerned this argument was pretty much done with. Except that Arizona never got to put in her two-sense on whether or not it was done. These days it was getting harder and harder to push the feelings down. It was harder to bury her dreams, opinions and ideals when Mark and Callie were so clear with theirs. Arizona tried, she really, really did. But even that wasn’t enough to prevent her from letting a few more words slide out with complete ease. “Christmas morning…with…Mark.”
“Okay.”
Except that it wasn’t okay. None of this was okay. Surely Calliope could see that. Surely she could see the feelings swirling around Arizona, trying to become actual words of truth. At first Arizona was okay with pretending that all of this so-called life was okay, but now, now she was just set on showing Callie how un-okay it all was.
Arizona glanced back at Callie. “I never picked him and I don’t hate him. But, I don’t want a life with him. And yet somehow, that’s what I got.”
“What am I supposed to do? Kick him out? I mean, it’s his kid.” Callie replied defensively.
Arizona looked back down at the paper as she felt the crawling underneath her skin start to move towards her heart. Sometimes Callie was just so thickheaded. Arizona would liken it to beating a nail over the head sometimes. Callie was just that hard to budge once she settled on a decision. But Arizona needed her to see how messed up all of this was, how it was messing up Arizona. “Yeah, you don’t need to remind me of that. I never, ever forget that.”
Callie rolled her eyes. “Wow. Okay, we’re gonna go down that road again.”
Something in Arizona snapped at that moment. It was like all this time there had been this dam. A dam holding up water or secrets or something inside her and it she was fine as long as that dam stayed in place. But in that moment Callie’s words just made it snap and before she knew what she was saying, the words just started tumbling out of her mouth. The words to a secret that she had tried to bury a long, long, time ago. Words that Arizona wished she could pretend weren’t true in her mind. “Okay. Can we just be honest about the fact that this is some kind of bi-dream come true? I mean, you get the woman that you love and the-the guy best friend, who’s also a great lay, and then you get a baby. I mean, you get it all. And me? This is not my dream; my dream doesn’t look like this.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Arizona took a breath as a means to slow down the words that she had been afraid to speak. “I want you. I’ve always wanted you. But I never wanted this.” Arizona finished as she gestured at Callie’s stomach.
It was true. All of it, it was so true. But in that moment Arizona wished that it wasn’t. She wished that she was the type of person to be okay with living like this as long as she ended up with the girl. Arizona wished that she could pretend like all these words didn’t eat her up at night, keeping her awake as the doubts, fears and anger laid heavy on her heart.
Callie’s facial features stilled as she turned to completely face Arizona. “I’m sorry my life is such an inconvenience for you.”
“Don’t--don’t do that. You don’t get to spin things around on me. You get to listen, okay?” Arizona demanded.
Callie’s face flushed in anger. “Maybe I don’t want to li-“
“Woman! Listen!” Arizona shrieked loudly.
Arizona felt her chest rise quickly and she worked slowly to calm her breathing. Arizona contemplated for a moment whether or not it was worth it to continue. She glanced at Callie’s unreadable expression and decided to just plow through it. If that wasn’t an almost direct representation of her life these days, Arizona didn’t know what was.
“Calliope,” Arizona began slowly, standing up from the couch to put a little needed space between Callie and her. “I didn’t mean to yell, it’s just that these days all our relationship revolves around is this baby and Mark. Instead of revolving around the two most important people involved…in case I’m not being clear, it’s us. The people are us, Calliope.”
Almost as if on cue, Arizona heard a loud banging at the door.
“Hey, Reading Rainbow and Grouch. I heard yelling from across the hall and I figured I’d come over and check it out. Is everything okay? You know yelling isn’t good for baby Sloan.”
Arizona rolled her eyes at Mark’s interruption. Of course he would hear her the one time she decided to actually stand up for herself. That’s just the way her life seemed to be going these days.
And she had had enough.
“Not now, man-whore!”
“Arizona,” Callie scolded, narrowing her eyes at Arizona.
Arizona opened her mouth to defend herself when she heard the key turning in the knob and instead she quickly snapped it shut. Arizona’s first thought was that it had to be an intruder, but she quickly shot down that theory because the intruder would have to have a key to get in and that’d be just plain awkward. Arizona stared at the door in confusion as it swung open, completely bewildered by the fact that someone would have a key to their apartment.
That is, until the door opened.
Mark grinned and nodded over at Arizona, standing by the open door. “Yo, Skittles, what’s with all the yelling?”
“Good news is that the spare key you gave me works, Torres. Bad news is you’ll have a lot more time to memorize my beautiful bone structure and less time to raise your freak flag or whatever.”
Arizona glared over at Callie, who at least had the common decency to look sheepish.
Mark’s smiled dimmed as he looked between Arizona (who almost exactly resembled that one time when he had decided to drink the last pot of coffee in the break room) and Torres (who kept shaking her head back and forth while waving her hands frantically, kind of like she had epilepsy or something).
“Uh, should I be ducking right now?"
Arizona’s head jerked in agreement. Callie placed the tips of her fingers on the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath. “One minute Mark, just…one minute.”
Mark raised his eyebrows questioningly in response, but he still began to back out of the apartment, slowly shutting the door behind him.
Callie licked her lips. She had intended to approach Arizona and try and calm her down after that train wreck of information. But one glance towards the blonde made Callie change her mind and stay in her current place. Arizona had a look on her face that Callie had never seen before. She wasn’t really sure if that was a bad thing or not considering Arizona was her girlfriend and had been for a long time. Regardless, Callie decided that now would be as a good a time as any to try and get a handle on the situation before Arizona completely flipped out.
“Ari, listen. I was going to tell you about the key, I swear. It’s just, I think it’s important to Mark for him to have a key; it makes him feel involved you know? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner but you understand, right?”
Arizona was done. She was fuming. She couldn’t believe that Calliope would even entertain the thought of giving that sad excuse of a man, a key to their apartment. Let alone actually do it. She just couldn’t believe that this is the place her world rested now. Arizona couldn’t believe that her life these days was a life without opinions, it was a life without honesty and it was a life without choices.
Arizona felt the blood rush to her head as all these realizations started settling in.
Just because Callie had decided that it would be a good idea to give Mark a key it didn’t make it right. Just because Callie had basically decided what was going to happen with this baby, didn’t mean that it should. But most of all, just because Callie decided that this was how they would be happy, didn’t mean that they would.
Just because Callie had decided that Arizona should be second, didn’t mean that she was.
Happiness comes with truth and honesty. If Callie couldn’t take that then she obviously had some of her own personal growing to do, because Arizona? Well she was done. She was tired of being walked all over on. She was done with having her personal opinions squandered. She was over being ignored.
If Callie really believed that they had it in them as a couple to make it through something like this, then they can damn well make it through Arizona’s opinions. She was tired of trying to keep things bubbly, sparkly, fresh and new. Good things come with growth and a part of growth in relationships can be contributed to changing as an individual and as a whole.
So screw whatever logic and reasoning that Callie had, it was Arizona’s turn to make a fucking point.
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about! I get that Mark’s a part of your life now, Calliope. Even though it’s ridiculously hard I think I can deal with that. But what I can’t handle? It’s this constant presence that he has with us all the time. Dinners, breakfasts…and okay, he’s the baby’s dad, I get that. But I’m your girlfriend, you’re dating me, you are with me and you chose me. Not Mark or his freaking sorbet, so it’d be nice if you actually started acting like it because I deserve a part of happiness in this relationship as much as you two.”
The apartment was eerily quiet after Arizona finished. Callie didn’t say anything, she just looked at her and all Arizona could do was hold her breath. Hold her breath and hope that this one time Callie would see someone else’s side instead of just seeing her pain. Arizona could only hope that Callie would see how much she was trying here and try to stop punishing her for Africa because that’s what a lot of these days felt like.
Punishment for Arizona’s mistakes.
Callie stared at Arizona for a few minutes. Barely breathing and definitely not moving. Finally, after what felt like ages, Callie’s defensive posture crumbled. “What do you want me to do?”
Arizona released a huge breath of relief. For a second there she had almost been certain that Callie was going to leave her. Leave her and her opinions for that man so they could go ride off into the rainbows together. But Callie didn’t and that mattered.
“Not to sound too much like Meredith Grey but choose me, pick me, love me.”
Callie smiled at Arizona’s reuse of the speech. She had to admit that when those words were focused on her, it was actually rather charming. Callie walked towards Arizona and grabbed her hand once she was in reach.
“Okay.”
Arizona swallowed and looked down at their hands. The anger was quickly disappearing and she was finding it much harder to keep her resolve. “I’m not saying get rid of Mark, I’m just suggesting that you try and make this threesome a twosome because it’s getting incredibly crowded.”
“Arizona. Look at me.”
Arizona lifted her eyes to meet Callie’s soft brown eyes.
“I said okay.”
Arizona didn’t think that the world had anything more or less to offer her these days. She didn’t think that love was eternal or that even honesty was her only survival tool. She didn’t think that Mark was a fantastic person and she didn’t think that Seattle Grace focused enough time on medicine instead of all those sexual encounters. She didn’t think that this was the life plan that she had always imagined for herself, she didn’t think that this was the future that she had wanted.
She didn’t think that this was supposed to be her story and she most certainly didn’t think that this would be its ending. But what she did think was that she was changing. And somehow, that was really all that mattered.
Because stories changed with the people. Happy endings changed with time. People changed when reality set in and maybe Arizona wasn’t okay with Mark. Maybe Arizona would never be okay with Mark or okay with baby Sloan. Maybe this wasn’t the happy ending that Arizona (or anyone else for that matter) envisioned. But at the end of the day Arizona was changing. At the end of the day Arizona was willing to try as well as Callie, and maybe that was all that mattered. Arizona figured she could maybe learn to live with that as long as she and Callie always tried.
Well, that along the promise that she wouldn’t have to spend Christmas morning with Mark.