Change of State (1/1)
Title: Change of State
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Arizona
Rating: PG (sorry!)
Word Count: 575
Author's Note: I haven't written any fic since Grey's threw Erica/Callie into a tailspin and I abandoned the "Cycling" series. Consider this getting back on the horse. Also, writing this was therapeutic - it helped me get over the fact that Arizona's name is kinda dumb.
Summary: Pre-5x11. An Arizona character study, before we know much of anything about Arizona. Just a little experiment.
In a way, she and Lori had broken up at the perfect time, for the most logical reasons. Arizona was a year out of her residency and antsy to leave the bleak Midwestern landscape. She’d spent seven solid years at Cleveland Clinic and never truly adapted to the grey city’s endless grid of cars and strip malls, its ugly concrete highrises. Even weekends off never seemed like an escape, especially after she’d had to give up biking for fear of being taken out by the drivers. Arizona and Ohio - they didn’t work.
On the other hand, after three years of juggling part-time office jobs and culinary school, Lori was finally turning a small profit from her catering business. She was finally getting happy again. Moving the whole enterprise to a new city was out of the question.
Someone had to bend, and neither could find it in themselves to ask it of the other.
A year ago, Lori had been talking about setting aside some money for a house with a big kitchen and space to entertain. Even though she knew she had a pretty great thing going, Arizona couldn’t convince herself that was what she wanted. In her gut, she knew she didn’t want to buy a house with Lori. Because as wonderful as her girlfriend was, as comfortable as their life together was, when Arizona thought about buying rings, or planting flowerbeds in a backyard, when she imagined trying to assemble a flat-pack IKEA crib, or visiting families around the holidays, she couldn’t see Lori in the picture. It wasn’t sweet Lori she was coming home to after another double shift.
When she admitted it to herself, Arizona knew why she had written Lori out of her future, and it wasn’t because staying with Lori meant staying in Cleveland.
But telling Lori the real reason - that she wasn’t the one, that Arizona knew Lori would never be able to break her heart - that was out of the question. Who wants to have their heart broken? What kind of reason is that?
Then Todd told her about the opening at Seattle Grace, that he had batted around the idea of applying until his wife put her foot down, and something fell into place. And then Arizona was placing calls and flying out to Washington, then coming home and crying over the decision she had made the minute after stepping off the plane, before setting a foot in Seattle Grace. She was crying over leaving Lori to have her own new life that Arizona wouldn’t know about. Crying over saying goodbye to the hospital friends she’d acquired in her time at CC. Crying over having to give the dog to Lori because how could she leave her entirely on her own? Arizona’d made the decision for them.
So for the first time in four years, she was single, and living in an unknown city, and having to make friends and establish their trust and her reputation all over again. And she didn’t doubt that she’d be able to do it, not even for a second. Not even on her own, in an empty, white-walled apartment, lying on a mattress on the floor because she’d left the bed frame in Cleveland, with Lori.
There was something solid in her, she couldn’t quite name it, that told her it had been the right choice to make. It was something like bravery, and something like fate.
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Characters/Pairings: Arizona
Rating: PG (sorry!)
Word Count: 575
Author's Note: I haven't written any fic since Grey's threw Erica/Callie into a tailspin and I abandoned the "Cycling" series. Consider this getting back on the horse. Also, writing this was therapeutic - it helped me get over the fact that Arizona's name is kinda dumb.
Summary: Pre-5x11. An Arizona character study, before we know much of anything about Arizona. Just a little experiment.
In a way, she and Lori had broken up at the perfect time, for the most logical reasons. Arizona was a year out of her residency and antsy to leave the bleak Midwestern landscape. She’d spent seven solid years at Cleveland Clinic and never truly adapted to the grey city’s endless grid of cars and strip malls, its ugly concrete highrises. Even weekends off never seemed like an escape, especially after she’d had to give up biking for fear of being taken out by the drivers. Arizona and Ohio - they didn’t work.
On the other hand, after three years of juggling part-time office jobs and culinary school, Lori was finally turning a small profit from her catering business. She was finally getting happy again. Moving the whole enterprise to a new city was out of the question.
Someone had to bend, and neither could find it in themselves to ask it of the other.
A year ago, Lori had been talking about setting aside some money for a house with a big kitchen and space to entertain. Even though she knew she had a pretty great thing going, Arizona couldn’t convince herself that was what she wanted. In her gut, she knew she didn’t want to buy a house with Lori. Because as wonderful as her girlfriend was, as comfortable as their life together was, when Arizona thought about buying rings, or planting flowerbeds in a backyard, when she imagined trying to assemble a flat-pack IKEA crib, or visiting families around the holidays, she couldn’t see Lori in the picture. It wasn’t sweet Lori she was coming home to after another double shift.
When she admitted it to herself, Arizona knew why she had written Lori out of her future, and it wasn’t because staying with Lori meant staying in Cleveland.
But telling Lori the real reason - that she wasn’t the one, that Arizona knew Lori would never be able to break her heart - that was out of the question. Who wants to have their heart broken? What kind of reason is that?
Then Todd told her about the opening at Seattle Grace, that he had batted around the idea of applying until his wife put her foot down, and something fell into place. And then Arizona was placing calls and flying out to Washington, then coming home and crying over the decision she had made the minute after stepping off the plane, before setting a foot in Seattle Grace. She was crying over leaving Lori to have her own new life that Arizona wouldn’t know about. Crying over saying goodbye to the hospital friends she’d acquired in her time at CC. Crying over having to give the dog to Lori because how could she leave her entirely on her own? Arizona’d made the decision for them.
So for the first time in four years, she was single, and living in an unknown city, and having to make friends and establish their trust and her reputation all over again. And she didn’t doubt that she’d be able to do it, not even for a second. Not even on her own, in an empty, white-walled apartment, lying on a mattress on the floor because she’d left the bed frame in Cleveland, with Lori.
There was something solid in her, she couldn’t quite name it, that told her it had been the right choice to make. It was something like bravery, and something like fate.