Fish Are Friends, Not Food (1/1)
Fish are Friends, Not Food (1/1)
Author: Faith kennedysbitch
Pairing: Callie/Arizona
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer
Word Count: 10, 000
Summary: Arizona brings home a new addition to the Robbins/Torres household, much to Callie’s dismay.
Thanks to kye9 for the helping me write a few parts. <3 You is the best.
A/N: This could be considered a future installment of the Choices series, although reading that first is not necessary - this is a stand-alone. Pure fluff and somewhat ridiculous fun.
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“I don’t eat things that come from the water.”
That had been Arizona’s mantra growing up, each and every time her parents tried to force-feed her seafood.
If they smelled that bad when they were alive, they likely didn’t taste any better dead.
Until she was twelve, Arizona never tried so much as a single piece of shrimp. The stench of any kind of seafood made her nauseous and like most kids when it came to broccoli, she would rather sit at the dinner table all night and not eat a single thing than give in to her parents’ incessant nagging.
Colonel Robbins might have been a high-ranking military officer that commanded respect and obedience from his men, but his stubborn streak was matched only by his daughter’s. She was the only person aside from her mother that could ever win an argument with him just by glaring long enough and refusing to budge.
Despite her dislike for eating that stuff, Arizona always loved the fishing trips she took with her dad and brother while growing up. They’d moved around nine or ten times by the time she was fourteen, and the vast majority of locations had a nearby fishing area. Her favourite had been when they were stationed out of Quantico, Virginia for two full years. Her dad had bought an actual boat and they took it out on fishing expeditions every other weekend.
Arizona had been an odd mix of tomboy and girly-girl growing up. She liked pink, frills, and hosting tea parties with her stuffed animals from a very young age. At the same time, she wasn’t afraid to jump in the mud to save a family of earthworms from drowning during a rainstorm, or go digging for treasure with her bare hands in a nearby grove of trees. She knew how to throw her hair into a ponytail and beat up the obnoxious army brats that always thought they were such hot stuff. Her dad outranked most of their parents and she was perfectly happy to remind them of that when they got a little too snarky for their own good.
She didn’t go looking for trouble, yet she could be scrappy when the circumstances required it.
Which, given her name, was often enough for her to have learned a few tricks over the years.
Her partner in crime growing up had been Aaron, her brother. They were twins and the only children of Daniel and Maria Robbins. The constant moving around was tough on both of them but they always had each other to lean on.
Occasionally that ‘leaning’ involved shoving one another out of their father’s fishing boat.
Arizona remembered one time in particular when she and Aaron were ten years old and having an off day, fighting over something that seemed important at the time. It was probably about who got to use the television that night or which Ninja Turtle was cooler, Michelangelo or Leonardo - Leonardo, of course - but regardless of the subject matter, she was furious with him.
Aaron took after their dad’s lighter side, the non-military portion with a sharp sense of humor and a real way with the ladies. Her stupid brother could charm his way out of anything. He could work that innocent little smile and those bright blue eyes and make whomever the angered party was re-think their reasons for being pissed off in the first place. He’d probably walk away with a cookie and an affectionate pat on the head for lighting up a pile of dog poop in their backyard fire pit.
Arizona, on the other hand, was a terrible liar and not very good at sucking up. She was usually too honest for her own good and her mouth got her into a lot of trouble as a child.
However he managed it, that day Aaron had schmoozed their parents into getting his way and Arizona was pissed about it. Despite World War III between the siblings, the Colonel refused to call off their Saturday afternoon fishing expedition. He ended up stranding himself in the middle of a small boat with two bickering ten-year-olds for three and a half hours, likely a decision he found himself regretting about twenty minutes after they started floating down the river.
Arizona usually liked to fish, content to give whatever she caught to her dad so he could do with it as he pleased. The process of catching their dinner was a lot of fun - she just didn’t care much for the actual eating part.
On this particular day, Arizona had been cranky with Aaron and refused to pick up her reel. She sat in the back of the boat with her puffy lifejacket strapped around her chest, arms crossed indignantly over top of the bright orange foam.
Aaron even had the nerve to use her fishing rod, the one their dad had bought specifically for her as a birthday present. When she’d protested, the Colonel had been too exasperated with their behavior to do anything other than tell her, “You’re not using it, so let your brother have a turn”.
Ugh. Boys. They just didn’t get it sometimes.
Arizona couldn’t even remember how it happened - somehow she ended up in a tug-of-war with her brother over the rod. The two ten-year-olds screamed and bickered at each other, no doubt scaring away every marine life form within a three-mile radius and rocking the boat in the process.
Their dad had yelled at them to sit down and shut up, only managing to get them to do the latter. They continue to struggle with it and Arizona was very close to winning when Aaron suddenly peered over the side of the boat.
“Look, Zona, a fish!” he’d called, pointing excitedly into the water next to them.
Arizona was a smart girl. She didn’t fall for traps and could usually smell one coming from a mile away.
Which was why it was all the more surprising when she actually twisted around and peered over.
Stupid.
He’d probably only meant for it to be a playful push, something to make her teeter in the other direction and let go of the fishing rod so she could catch herself on the ledge.
That didn’t happen.
Arizona had been poorly balanced on one foot to begin with and was too much of a natural klutz for her own good. Even on dry, flat land she managed to have two left feet, let alone on a rocking boat in the middle of a moving river.
So he pushed and she flailed over the side, plunging face-first into the freezing water and swallowing a lungful upon opening her mouth to scream.
The orange lifejacket did its job and the water wasn’t moving particularly fast; not to mention her father was right there when it all happened. Still, at the time she’d been convinced she was going to die and that her stupid, idiotic brother was going to get his ass kicked by a girl-ghost the moment she came back to haunt him.
Arizona had struggled for a short time before her father managed to reach out and grab her by the back of the lifejacket. He’d hauled her into the boat with one hand, depositing her with ease on the center seat where she sat shivering and completely soaked from head to toe.
At least they’d stopped fighting after that.
She’d spent the whole trip back to shore wrapped in a ratty old blanket, shivering underneath with a death-glare situated on her brother’s fearful form.
To his credit, Aaron didn’t laugh. He genuinely felt bad and tried to apologize a few times for pushing her overboard.
Arizona didn’t care if he was sorry. She was going to make him eat dirt when they got back to dry land, if it was the last thing she ever did.
***
Somewhere along the way, she started to eat seafood. Arizona actually liked fish and other types of creatures now, despite her childhood aversion. Living in Seattle, fresh seafood was readily available and she’d developed quite a taste for lobster and crab among other things. Both her and Callie enjoyed the occasional fresh meal after stopping by the local market along the wharf. Callie was an amazing cook and could usually throw something together off of the top of her head.
On this particular evening, that’s exactly what the brunette was expecting to happen when she arrived home from work.
A part of Callie really missed living directly across from the hospital. The commute back then to and from work was so short, she barely had time to yawn between putting things away in her office and falling into bed after an exhausting day full of surgeries.
The house she and Arizona lived in now was amazing, though. The neighborhood was relatively close to Seattle Grace - Mercy West, it was near some good schools, and there was a playground down the block. It was quiet, too, which was nice after a long day in an E.R. filled with screaming patients and all-around chaos.
Callie opened the front door to their big house and immediately had a three-and-a-half year old rebound off of her shins.
“Oof!” She reached down to steady the toddler, not wanting any wipeouts that could potentially result in tears. “Careful, mija. Mira lo que haces.” [Watch where you’re going.]
The mess of light brown curls blinked innocently up at her from knee-level, a set of small arms wrapping around her left leg and holding on tightly. “Hi, Mommy!”
Despite the exhausting amount of surgeries she’d been involved in that day, Callie found herself grinning down at her second oldest child. “C’mere, squirt,” she chuckled, leaning down and scooping the toddler into her arms. She planted a firm kiss on her cheek and sighed at the big hug she received in return.
“Hayley Raine Robbins, you get your tiny little butt back here right this-”
Arizona rounded the corner from the kitchen, looking frazzled. She relaxed upon seeing the missing culprit in her mother’s arms, cuddling like the little snuggle-bug she was.
“Mommy’s home!” the little girl exclaimed.
“Sorry,” Arizona continued sheepishly, heading over and placing a quick kiss on her wife’s cheek. “She got away from Mark when it was his turn to play Jack on the Wii. Here,” she said, reaching out and letting Callie transfer their middle child over.
“We’re gonna have to watch out for this one,” Callie chuckled, taking a moment to remove her jacket and kick off her shoes now that both arms were free. “She’s already a little wanderer. I’m dreading the day you and I try to take the three stooges out at the same time. At least before there was one kid per set of arms, but now...”
“Issac’s not a stooge,” Arizona pointed out, adjusting Hayley in her grasp and letting the little girl play with her hair. “He’s too sweet and innocent to be a stooge. Besides, he won’t be wandering for a few months yet.”
“We’ll see about that,” Callie mused, thinking fondly of their two-month-old son. “He’s gonna be a curly-haired blonde just like you. And you’re totally a stooge.”
Arizona playfully stuck her tongue out as the two women headed into the living room.
“What’s all the noise about, anyway?”
“Mark’s video gaming with Little Man - sorry, Jack,” Arizona corrected, unable to help the affectionate term every adult in Jackson Sloan’s life referred to him by. He was five-and-a-half, nearly six, and didn’t appreciate being referred to as ‘little’ anymore.
He was a sweet boy. All past issues with Mark aside, Arizona loved his son almost like he was her own. She’d delivered him, even had to operate on him once, and enjoyed being Auntie Zona to all of the Sloan children.
She and Mark had buried the hatchet years ago. Callie now complained that Mark probably liked Arizona more than he liked her. Which the blonde knew wasn’t true, but at least their mutual torture of one another came out of affection instead of malice.
“Issac’s sleeping?” Callie inquired.
“In theory,” Arizona replied as they entered the living room. “Though if the men keep squabbling like a pair of girls, he might not be for long.”
“We heard that,” Sloan objected from his spot in front of the TV. He never took his eyes away from the on-screen character that was sword fighting with Jack’s.
Mark’s miniature clone was kicking his dad’s ass. Arizona had an inkling that Mark wasn’t even letting him do it, though she’d never say it out loud. Sloan had a fragile man-ego to hold up, after all.
At least until he pissed her off the next time, then she’d gladly remind him that he was regularly whooped by a six-year-old.
“How was the fishing trip with the Colonel?” Callie asked casually, flipping through the mail she’d picked up on the way inside. Her father-in-law was in town for a week to visit the grandbabies and help with a few minor renovations in the basement.
“It was, uh, good. We just got back twenty minutes ago, actually. I’m gonna go start Hayley’s bath,” Arizona added abruptly, leaning in for a quick peck on the lips. She disappeared, causing the brunette to watch her escape with a curious frown.
“Hi Aunt Callie!” Jack called over distractedly, flicking his wrist and severing Mark’s on-screen head. He let out a yelp of joy and bounced on the couch cushion beneath his feet. “Yes!”
“What’s up, Little Ma - d’uh, Jack,” Callie corrected, smiling at the slip up she’d almost made. “Are you handing your daddy his butt on a silver platter for me just like you promised?”
“Yup,” Jack grinned, hoping down from the couch and handing his dad the remote control. Mark started to pack up while Callie pulled Jack into her arms for a quick hug.
“Thanks for babysitting today, bub,” she said with an affectionate ruffle of Jack’s messy hair.
The little boy shook his head, which only made the blonde mop even more of a disaster. Lexie was always exasperated at how her oldest child had hair that was immune to the powers of a comb.
“You’re welcome. Dad and Auntie Blondie and J.R.’s grandpa helped.”
“Mark,” Callie chastised, glancing over at her best friend and narrowing her eyes. “How many times do I have to ask you not to tell the children to call her Blondie?”
Mark simply shrugged as he put away the pile of video games and picked up various piles of garbage lying around the coffee table. “I wouldn’t stick up for her just yet,” he commented, though gave no further explanation as he disappeared into the kitchen.
Frowning, Callie glanced down at Jack. “Do you know what he’s talking about?”
With a happy grin, Jack opened his mouth to inform her of the days events, only to be interrupted by the ringing of the telephone.
“Hold that thought,” Callie instructed Mark’s son, setting him back down on his feet and going over to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Calliope, you’re home,” Daniel Robbins’ warm voice carried over the line. “Excellent timing. I was wondering if Arizona had the proper dimensions for me yet?”
“Dimensions?” Callie echoed, furrowing her brow. “What dimensions?”
There was a brief pause before the Colonel spoke again. “Ah, I see. Well, never mind. Just have Arizona call me back when she’s ready, I’ll be at the store in ten minutes. If not, I’ll make my best guess.”
“What store? Guess what?” Callie asked again, only to find herself listening to a dial tone.
Okay, she was missing something here and she had the sneaking suspicion it had to do with the guilty look she’d seen flash across Arizona’s face moments ago.
But before she could bellow out her partner’s name and demand an explanation for all the secrecy, Mark reappeared in the living room.
“Okay, Little Dude,” he instructed his son, who had been pacing in circles around the living room while Callie was on the phone. “Time to go check on your mom and the twins.”
Callie still couldn’t believe that Mark and his wife’s desperate ‘last try’ for a third child had resulted in a grand total of four. She was pretty sure when they’d found out she was carrying twins, Lexie had made Mark sleep on the couch for an entire week.
“MerDer had Jayden for the day?” Callie inquired, referring to Mark’s other daughter, the second oldest of the Sloan Clan. She followed them into the front hallway as they prepared to leave.
“Yep. Lexie said she could barely tackle the twins on her own, so Shepherd and the Missus took Jay with their gang to that new Disney movie.” Mark helped Jack shrug into his jacket and waited while the boy plopped down on the floor to put on his Transformer-themed shoes.
The Sloan household and the Robbins/Torres family resided right next door to each other in a somewhat posh neighborhood smack in the middle of Seattle. Mark’s house was sizably bigger and had been purchased first, while the house next door just happened to go up for sale right around the time Callie and Arizona were looking to move. It hadn’t been an automatic decision, but it really was the nicest house out of all the ones they’d looked at.
Things had worked out pretty nicely; between the four adults, they were able to manage schedules and babysitting without too much trouble. Though with the four Sloan children and the three Robbinses, things could get pretty hairy some days.
“Bye Auntie Zona!” Jack started to bellow, only to have Mark clamp a hand over his mouth.
“Don’t wake the baby,” he chided.
“Sorry,” Jack mumbled from behind Mark’s fingers, looking sheepish when his dad eventually freed him. “Tell her I said bye, okay?” he told Callie, looking up at her expectantly.
Callie grinned and held out a fist, waiting until he bumped it. “Will do.”
She adored the fact that Arizona and Jack had a special bond. They were like kindred spirits from two different families. The little guy worshipped the ground his Aunt walked on, almost as much as he did his father.
It wasn’t too surprising. Arizona was ‘the baby whisperer’, after all.
Over the years, Arizona had been mistaken for Jack’s mom more than once, not to mention Mark’s wife by extension. Both Lexie and Callie found it hilarious, while Mark would just blush profusely and Arizona would bitch under her breath. But the kid had bright blue eyes and blonde hair, what did they expect? If Callie hadn’t been there herself to see her partner deliver the kid in the middle of the night, she might’ve been a tiny bit suspicious of his true parentage.
Callie gave Mark a quick hug. “Thanks for watching Hayley and Issac today. I know it meant a lot to Arizona that she got to take J.R. out with the Colonel. It’s like some sort of weird Robbins bonding ritual or something; she was excited about it.”
Mark was suddenly wearing the biggest shit-eating grin she’d ever seen him with. “Don’t thank me yet,” he replied smugly.
Callie just knew she was the only one not in on the joke. “Sloan, what did you do?”
“Oh, this time it wasn’t me,” he protested, holding up a hand in defense.
“What am I missing?” Callie whined, too tired to play guessing games. She really couldn’t handle cleaning up someone else’s mess right now.
Again, Jack opened his mouth to inform his aunt of the situation, but Mark re-covered it with his hand.
“Enjoy dinner, Torres,” he said with a secretive wink. “Tell Robbins my couch is always open if she needs a place to sleep.”
With that, they were gone.
“Arizona,” Callie growled dangerously under her breath, locking the door behind the departing guests and turning on her heels to stomp back into the living room.
The blonde had something up her sleeve.
Come to think of it, she hadn’t caught a single glimpse of their oldest child, either. Jordana Robbins was anything but quiet and subdued; usually she’d be playing video games right alongside Mark and Jack, or at the very least sitting in the room where the action was.
Something fishy was going on here.
“Arizona, I swear to God, woman,” Callie mumbled under her breath, the threat menacing enough even without anyone around to hear it.
Her wife and their first born, Jordana Riley Robbins - J.R. for short; pronounced with the letters, not ‘junior’ - were two peas shelled from the same pod. They were inseparable from the very beginning and usually when one got into trouble, the other wasn’t far behind.
Some days it felt like Callie had four kids instead of three.
She debated peeking upstairs to see what had J.R. locked up in her room, possibly pouting that adorably cute pout of her Mama’s, but decided to leave it alone for now. She owed Arizona the benefit of the doubt and besides, she’d figure out the problem sooner or later.
Arizona sucked at lying. One flash of the stink-eye from Callie and she’d fold like a house of cards.
Callie decided that starting dinner took priority over whatever else was going on, so she headed straight for the kitchen. It was the main selling point of the house when they’d bought it; spacious and open with plenty of cupboard and counter space. The windows let in a ton of natural light and made it a joy to cook in.
After washing her hands and pulling a few cutting boards out, Callie inspected the fridge for the necessary ingredients. She wanted to get started before any of her three little monsters decided to arrive on scene and began terrorizing one another.
She rooted around the fridge but came up empty as far as the main entree went.
Okay, so either the Robbins clan sucked at bringing home the fish-bacon, or said fish-bacon had crawled out of the fridge and flopped away.
Callie closed the swinging door and looked around, spotting a giant cooler sitting open against the far wall. She approached with a slight frown, peering inside.
There it was.
Figuring that they wanted to keep it fresh or something, Callie leaned in further and debated how she was supposed to get the damn thing out. Daniel had offered to do the cleaning and prep work, so maybe she was just supposed to leave it there until he came back. Then again, cleaning a fish couldn’t be too difficult, she’d seen it done before. There was only one, she could manage it alone.
Shrugging, the brunette reached into the cooler, submersing her hand.
The fish jumped.
Freaking jumped.
And splashed a wave of water in her face.
Callie shrieked - loudly - and stumbled backward, heart now permanently lodged in the back of her vocal chords.
The fish wiggled around for a moment before going back to playing dead.
***
Arizona had just finished bathing Hayley and was settling her down for a nap when she heard the scream come from downstairs.
“Arizona Michelle Robbins!”
Crap. That probably meant Calliope had found the fish.
Grimacing, Arizona quickly soothed Hayley and leaned in to kiss her on the forehead. “It’s okay, sweetie. You had a long day with Uncle Mark; try to get some sleep before dinner. I’ll come and get you when it’s ready.”
Mumbling tiredly, Hayley snuck her little arms around Arizona’s neck and hugged her loosely. “Love you, Mama.”
Arizona’s heart melted and she hugged her daughter in return, pressing another kiss to the crown of her head. “Love you, too, munchkin. Get some sleep.”
Hayley, like all of their children, was a Torres through and through. She rolled onto her side, facing the wall, and passed out cold before she even got settled.
Arizona adored all of her mini-Calliope’s. She couldn’t ask for a better woman to mother her children - she made such cute babies.
Of course, said woman was now going to rip her a new one after discovering the little ‘surprise’ downstairs.
After a quick peek in Issac’s nursery to make sure he was still sleeping, Arizona resigned herself to her fate and trudged down into the kitchen.
As expected, Callie was sitting at the table, drumming her fingers impatiently along the surface.
Arizona stopped in the archway and leaned against the frame, trying her best to look completely casual and innocent.
And failing miserably.
“Care to explain to me why there’s a fish sitting in our travel cooler? Alive?”
“Um...”
Callie cocked an eyebrow.
Arizona didn’t know how to go about explaining this one without sounding like she was trying to blame it on their five-year-old. “J.R. wouldn’t let us kill it.”
Callie shot Arizona a pointed look. “Zona, she’s a kid. You’re her mother. Do the math.”
“She’s the one who caught it,” Arizona objected. “She was all proud of herself when I helped her reel it in. My dad has the rest of the fish in the basement fridge ready to eat, but she started crying when he got to hers.”
Callie sighed, exasperated. “Did you explain what the whole purpose of fishing is?”
“Yes. That’s when she freaked out. She thinks it’s like eating Nemo.”
“How is that like eating Nemo?” Callie glanced down at the trout, shaking her head.
Arizona held up a hand as if to ward off any further blame. “Hey, she’s your daughter, Calliope. You deal with it. I already tried to diplomatically explain that fish are mostly meant to be eaten and that he’s totally different from the ones in her aquarium.”
“Right, I’m so sure you helpfully explained fish-murder to our five-year-old,” Callie grumbled under her breath, closing her eyes and rubbing the bridge of her nose. “You, who can’t even be present in the room when we make lobster for dinner.”
“Because they scream,” Arizona hissed quietly, casting a look over her shoulder just in case any tiny ears were listening in.
“It’s air releasing from underneath the shell,” Callie deadpanned, “and that’s my point. She gets her bleeding heart from you; you’re hardly one to try and tell her to eat it.”
“I didn’t know this was gonna happen,” Arizona whined, shooting the fish a nasty look. “I never got attached to the things when my dad and I used to go. It’s not like I expected her to decide it’s her new best friend.”
Callie rolled her eyes. Arizona was a good parent, she really was, but sometimes she let J.R. get away with things she shouldn’t. Their first-born had her Mama wrapped around her tiny little finger and everyone knew it.
Ever since her first trip to the Seattle zoo at age one, Jordana had loved fish. She could sit and stare at a tank for hours, her blue eyes following the creatures inside back and forth, never once getting bored or distracted. Arizona had bought the then-infant a fish of her own shortly after, which J.R. had promptly named ‘Mama’ - her only spoken word at the time.
One of their daughter’s favourite movies was Finding Nemo and for a stretch of time from age one-and-a-half to three, that’s all she would watch. This, of course, had lead to Callie coming home from work one day to find the entire freaking cast of the movie in a giant, newly-installed tank in Jordana’s bedroom. They were a pain in the ass to take care of, but Arizona managed it as her own personal project, somehow keeping the things alive and thriving.
And now they had a trout.
“Arizona, what are we supposed to do with it? It’s probably about to die.”
“It is not!” Arizona countered. “There are - there’s lots of good lake water in there, a-and it’s only been, like, less than half an hour since we brought it home. Dad said if we hurry, we can still-”
She stopped talking just a little bit too late.
“We can what, exactly?” Callie demanded, narrowing her eyes into dangerous slits.
The blonde swallowed. “Um...”
Callie thought back to the phone call from her father-in-law. “Where’s your dad?”
“He, um...” Arizona forced out a shaky, terrified-looking smile. “H-he went to get a tank.”
Callie’s eyes widened. “Arizona! We are not adopting a trout!”
“You wanna be known as the fish-murderer to our daughter? Be my guest!”
“We are not keeping it!”
“Fine! Then go upstairs and tell her that!”
“Oh no, I am not gonna be on the hook for this one.”
As soon as the words left Callie’s mouth, she closed her eyes while Arizona snickered, unable to help herself.
She abruptly stopped when Callie leveled her with a wicked glare.
“I will not be labeled the bad guy for this,” the brunette tried again, nostrils flaring dangerously. “You go up there and tell her that, that...just, tell her grandpa went to release it back into the wild or something.”
“And then what, she finds out midway through dinner that she’s eating her new friend? That’ll scar her for life!”
“I swear to God, I’m going to kill you,” Callie growled in exasperation, dropping her head into her hands.
Arizona winced. “I’m sorry,” she offered sincerely, straightening up and shuffling across the kitchen to pull out the chair next to her wife. “She started crying and was so upset at the prospect of Mr. Fishie having to die, I didn’t have the heart to tell her otherwise.”
Callie relented a little. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t have been able to traumatize their daughter by killing the thing, either.
But she sure as hell wouldn’t have brought it home with her.
“Increible, Si no te querria, yo estrangularia, con mis manos. If I wasn’t so damn fond of you, I’d throttle you with my bare hands.” [Unbelievable, just unbelievable. Only you would do this.]
Arizona quivered. It was usually pretty bad if she got the Spanglish treatment.
Callie fixed her wife with a bemused stare. “So now what do we do?”
Arizona sighed, slumping forward. She tilted her head down in order to gain maximum cuteness before glancing up at Callie from under her eyelashes, bottom lip protruding in that infamous pout of hers.
“Oh, do not pull that crap with me,” Callie chastised, pointing an accusing finger. “You do not get to do that. Not for this.”
This was not Callie’s fault. She wasn’t about to go down for it when she’d spent the entire day in the O.R. putting people back together only two months after giving birth to their son.
Her extra-special vagina vote was still in play here.
“This is your mess, baby,” she added, “you gotta be the one to clean it up.”
Arizona very slowly blinked up at the other woman, continuing to stare at her with that soulful lost-puppy look of hers.
It took a moment, but Callie eventually closed her eyes and released a ragged sigh. “Fine. Fine. I’ll come with you.”
***
Paused outside of their daughter’s bedroom door, both Callie and Arizona listened for any sounds coming from within, something to give them an idea of what their oldest was up to.
Nothing.
Sharing a look with her partner, Arizona rapped quietly on the door with her knuckles. “Jordana?” She waited three full seconds before slowly turning the handle and peeking her head in.
“Hey, missy,” she called over, smiling when the tiny brunette looked up from her bed. “Can we come in?”
J.R. shrugged and went back to the Fish and Friends colouring book her Mama had brought home the weekend before.
Both parents noticed the subject heading. Callie cast a pointed glare at her wife and quirked an eyebrow, leaning over and speaking quietly.
“And you thought that a fishing trip would be a good idea because...?”
Arizona grunted under her breath, already feeling pretty horrible for the should-have-been-obvious mix-up.
Stepping over to Jordana’s bed, Arizona sat down and scooted back against the wall, feet stretched out in front of her. “Can we talk now?”
J.R. didn’t take her eyes away from the colouring book, shrugging half-heartedly.
“Jordana,” Callie warned softly as she stepped further into the girl’s bedroom and took a seat on her other side. “Your Mama told me what happened today. You want to tell me about it?”
For a moment, it seemed as though the tiny brunette was refusing to speak to them. But soon enough she set down her crayons and looked up at her mothers with watery blue eyes.
“I don’t want to eat him,” she pleaded with a perfect reenactment of Callie’s lip-quiver. “Mama told me he was special when I caught him.”
Callie glanced at her partner.
Arizona grimaced, feeling rather sheepish. “I may have said something along those lines,” she murmured under her breath.
Crap.
“Honey, if you don’t want to eat the fish, we’re not going to force you to,” she started.
Jordana sniffled loudly and stared at Arizona. “So I can keep him?”
“Keep him?” Callie echoed, cocking an eyebrow. She hadn’t been in on that part of the discussion.
Sighing, Arizona started to shake her head, reaching over to lightly brush her fingers through J.R.’s wavy brown hair. “No, sweetie. He’s a river fishie, they don’t like living inside.”
She hated, hated seeing her baby girl cry. Even if she was the oldest of three and hardly an infant anymore, Jordana would always be Arizona’s little princess. It pulled on her heart strings to see her so upset, especially from a situation that was pretty much her Mama’s fault in the first place.
Jordana burst into tears. “Why can’t I keep him? Papa said he could get him some water so he could breathe and live like my other fishies,” she cried, causing both of her parents to glance toward the large tank lining the opposite wall of Jordana’s room.
Callie shot Arizona another sharp look, causing the blonde to shrink back.
“He’s not like your other fishies, honey,” Callie explained carefully as she, too, ran her fingers affectionately through Jordana’s brown hair. “He needs a really big pond to live in ‘cause he’s too big and floppy for a tank.”
“But Papa said he’d get a big one!” J.R. rebutted, not easily deterred.
“Honey,” Arizona interrupted, trying to reason with her. “I’m so sorry that we can’t keep him, I really am. But he’s not an indoor pet, he’s not like your other fish. Grandpa can’t find a tank big enough to keep him happy.”
Once again her eyes flickered over to the mega aquarium in the corner. Nemo and Dory were visible in the foreground, while Gill kept disappearing behind the underwater castle.
Arizona was still chastising herself for not seeing how wrong a simple fishing trip could go sooner. Her daughter loved fish, she always had, and yet for some reason her idiot mother had decided to take her out to catch some. She really had no reason to be surprised at Jordana’s reaction to the proposed fish-murder that followed, yet somehow she found herself caught off-guard anyway.
She doubted J.R. would ever look back fondly on her one and only fishing expedition with her Mama and grandfather. While the process itself had been amazing and felt like a real bonding experience for the three of them, the messy aftermath would undoubtedly overshadow everything else in the child’s memory.
“We’ll release him back into the lake,” Arizona offered after a moment of scrambling for ideas. “He can go back to his friends.”
Now she was just lying, because Mr. Fish wouldn’t make it back to the lake in time, even if she could convince her dad to drive all the way over there.
Jordana, who had just started to calm down, immediately burst into tears once more. “Mommy, I don’t want him to get eaten!” she sobbed, crawling into Callie’s lap and latching onto her stomach.
Arizona watched helplessly as Callie gathered their five-year-old in her arms and hugged her closely, rubbing a soothing hand up and down her back and whispering softly-spoken reassurances against her ear.
“It’s okay, sweetie. Shh, it’ll be okay”
Despite her words, Callie shot Arizona a sharp look.
The blonde was gonna owe her for this one later.
“We won’t eat him, honey,” she added as the little girl cried into her shirt. “I promise we won’t eat him. But he has to go back to the lake.”
J.R. sniffled loudly and shook her head. “He’s me and Mama’s special fishie!”
Arizona felt her heart break a little more at the plea. Reeling the thing in together had been a highlight for her, personally. J.R. had been so happy at their success.
Before she’d learned the fate of their new-found buddy.
“I know he is,” Callie soothed, dropping a loving kiss to the crown of her daughter’s head. “He’ll always be your special fishie with Mama. And you can...you can go visit him a-and stuff, once in a while,” she added, desperate to make Jordana a little less sad about the whole thing.
The look she leveled on her partner read either “This is all your fault” or “I’m going to kill you”. Possibly even “You’re sleeping on the couch for the next three days”. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between Callie’s unimpressed glowers.
At this point, Arizona highly doubted Mr. Fishie was even going to survive. He’d been in the cooler of water for about forty minutes and even if they attempted to drive back to the lake, he probably wouldn’t make it that far.
The trick now was convincing J.R. that he was going back to be with his friends, while grandpa Daniel either threw him in the garbage out back or secretly gutted and cleaned him for dinner without J.R. ever finding out.
And that just seemed way too freakin’ morbid.
Best case scenario? They made it to the lake, dumped Mr. Fishie in, and watched him float lifelessly back to the surface.
Yeah. Like that wasn’t about to scar Jordana for life.
With a heavy sigh, Arizona scooted closer to her girls. “We can take a picture before he goes back home,” she suggested, grasping at straws.
A picture of a half-dead floating trout in a giant cooler full of grubby lake water was not particularly something she wanted sitting in a frame at their daughter’s bedside, but if it made her happy, she’d be willing to suck it up.
Callie released a dejected sigh of her own, but any response she had to her wife’s idea was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening downstairs. Muffled voices carried through and the shuffling of boxes drifted up the staircase.
Arizona frowned. “I thought Mark left for the night?”
“He did,” Callie replied, listening to the unmistakable sound of her best friend’s voice, followed by Arizona’s father’s. “Sounds like he’s back.”
***
Mark grunted under his breath and hefted an over-sized and heavy cardboard box higher into his arms, carrying it over the threshold and into the front hall of Callie and Arizona’s house.
“Set it inside the study,” Daniel instructed, following him in with a small armload of lighter boxes.
Lexie trailed the men inside, balancing their youngest daughter in her arms as she watched them unload the gear. “Someone’s been working out,” she teased, flashing her husband a smile with a suggestive wiggle of her eyebrows. “You’re lookin’ kinda hot as a blue-collar worker boy.”
Mark puffed out his chest and tried to look casual as he subtly flexed his arms. “Wanna take me home and show me how much you love me?”
“Hey, none of that,” Daniel cut in. He fixed Mark with an unimpressed, almost dismissive stare. “Have some respect; your child is in the room.”
Mark instantly shrank down and lowered his eyes. “Yes, sir,” he muttered apologetically.
Blondie’s dad was kind of intense. The guy could probably still snap him like a twig without trying too hard, even though he was almost twice Mark’s age.
After pushing the first box against the wall, he glanced at the Colonel and offered a polite smile. “Got anything else, sir?”
Daniel smirked and beckoned Mark back out to the truck. “I hope you stretched beforehand, son. Now it’s time to really show off.”
***
Jordana didn’t want anything to do with Arizona right now. She clung to Callie, legs around her waist and arms around her neck, remaining silent as they headed down the main staircase and out into the front hall.
“Dad?” Arizona’s eyes widened when she saw the sheer amount of boxes in various different sizes littering the floor of her office. One giant box in particular caught her attention. “What the heck?”
“This’ll take some time to set up,” the Colonel explained, then abruptly waved the girls to the side of the door.
Mark appeared a moment later, huffing and puffing and red in the face. He was carrying a four-by-two fish tank full of water and looked as though his heart was about to explode in his chest.
“Lift with your knees,” Daniel barked.
“Yes, sir,” Mark wheezed, stumbling over to the stand set up in the corner and setting it down before his spine snapped in two. He tried to stand up straight again and immediately seized up, hunching over with a strangled groan.
“When I asked you to fill the tank with water, I didn’t mean throw your back out in the process,” Daniel pointed out, nodding to the plastic bucket he’d purchased at the store for such purposes.
Lexie winced, bouncing baby Spencer in her arms and watching her husband sympathetically.
Callie stayed silent, holding Jordana closely as the five-year-old sniffled quietly and watched the commotion around them.
Arizona glanced between the tank Mark brought in and the enormous one her dad appeared to be unpacking. It was almost bigger than their dining room table. “How many trout are we adopting, exactly?”
“The smaller unit is to keep him alive until we fully assemble and clean this one here,” Daniel replied, tapping the big box hosting the one-hundred-fifty gallon tank. “Son, go and get the cooler with the fish after you plug in the air pump,” he added with an immediate nod to Mark.
Mark moaned pitifully, clearly still in pain. “Yes, sir,” he repeated, slouching off towards the kitchen.
Lexie grinned. “I kinda like it when you’re around, Colonel.”
Daniel flashed the younger brunette a classic Robbins smile and winked. “I’m still waiting for you to come to your senses and run off to Hawaii with me, dear.”
Lexie blushed and immediately giggled.
“Dad, stop it,” Arizona whined. “I told you, it grosses me out when you flirt with her.”
Daniel merely chuckled at his daughter and went back to unpacking. Mark appeared back in the room moments later, pushing the cooler with the trout in front of him.
“Where do you want this?” he grunted, shoving it across the carpeted floor.
“Over there,” Colonel Robbins instructed, jerking his head toward the smaller tank. “We need to get him in the oxygenated water as soon as possible.”
Mark dragged the cooler over and looked around, as if expecting a net to appear out of thin air. “Uh-”
“Would you like come assistance?” Daniel asked, brow ticking impatiently.
Mark swallowed back. “No, sir.” He rolled up his sleeves and stared down at the listless, barely-moving sea creature.
The thing was basically dead. As far as he was concerned, they should just chop its head off and throw it on the barbeque.
“Is he gonna be okay?” Jordana asked Mark in a tentative voice, wiggling in Callie’s arms and clinging to her even tighter. Her lower lip protruded and another tear streaked down her right cheek.
Mark instantly put on a smile and nodded to his niece. “Mr. Fish is gonna be just fine,” he lied with ease.
Fuck, he had no idea if the thing was gonna live another five seconds, much less days or even years.
But that didn’t stop him from turning back to the cooler and plunging his hands into the cold water, immediately involving himself in a game of cat-and-mouse - or Mark-and-fish, to be more exact.
Despite appearing nearly dead moments before, the animal flailed several times and managed to elude Mark’s enormous hands, splashing dirty lake water all over his shirt and the carpet.
Lexie grimaced. “You’re showering before bed tonight, FYI.”
J.R. perked up and watched with fascination from her mom’s arms as her uncle finally nabbed the fishie and stood up triumphantly with it flailing around in his hands.
“Gotcha,” he announced to the room, grinning for a moment before the thing nearly flopped out of his grip entirely. He turned and dropped it in the fish tank with a loud ‘plop’, splashing himself again.
“Is he okay, Uncle Mark?” Jordana demanded, squirming in Callie’s arms until her mother set her back down. She immediately took hold of her hand and squeezed tightly, her bright, wide blue eyes fixated on her uncle.
Mark flipped the air pump on and took a step back, watching the thing kind of drift around for a moment.
So did every other pair of eyes in the room.
While the fish didn’t turn on its side and float to the top, it didn’t exactly spring to life, either. It kind of twitched and suspended itself mid-water level.
Arizona stole a quick look at her father for some kind of a hint as to the fish’s status, but the Colonel had always owned the world’s greatest poker-face. His non-reaction gave her nothing and he simply went back to assembling the bigger tank.
“Give him some time,” Daniel instructed the viewers. “He might need a couple of hours to recuperate.”
“Hear that, sweetie?” Callie said to J.R., looking down and forcing a smile for the child’s sake. “Why don’t we leave Mr. Fishie alone for a little while and let him rest? In the meantime, we can make a snack and get dinner ready.”
Jordana looked frightened.
“Pasta,” Callie amended. “You can help me make a macaroni dish.”
Jordana visibly relaxed, although she cast a sad glance in the direction of the tank. “Can’t I sit with him until he gets better?”
Callie sighed and squeezed J.R.’s hand. “He needs his rest and it’ll be easier for him to get better if he’s alone.” She gave the little girl a nudge toward the door of Arizona’s office. “Why don’t you go get the ingredients out of the fridge and I’ll be right there?”
“What if fishie’s hungry?”
“I’m sure Papa Robbins got trout food at the store, didn’t you, Papa Robbins?”
For once it was Daniel who found himself squirming under the hard glare emanating from his daughter-in-law. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.” Callie nudged Jordana along. “Scoot; I’ll be right there.” She waited until J.R. was out of ear-shot before turning around and grabbing Arizona by the scruff of her shirt.
“If it dies, I want it removed before our daughter sees,” she instructed in a dangerous voice. “You are then to dispose of it in an un-discoverable location before driving your skinny little butt back out to the nearest body of water and bringing home a replacement.”
Arizona’s mouth fell open. “But-”
“Oh no,” Callie cut her off, squishing a finger to her wife’s lips. “This is not up for discussion. If you fail to do either of those things or think you are above doing what I ask of you, then be well aware that you will be sleeping on Mark Sloan’s couch for the duration of the week.”
Arizona scoffed, crossing her arms with a cranky pout.
“Calliope, it’s not all her fault,” Daniel said, trying to reason with the brunette.
Her fierce brown eyes met his and immediately halted him in his verbal tracks. “Don’t think you’re off the hook for this, Mister. I will be calling Mrs. Robbins if things don’t go according to plan.”
Daniel mirrored Arizona’s open-mouthed stutter. “You wouldn’t.”
“Oh,” Callie mused with a humorless laugh. “Try me.”
She gave one more sharp tug on the scruff of her wife’s collar before releasing her and stalking after their daughter.
Both Arizona and Colonel Robbins watched her go while Mark shared a frightened look with Lexie.
“Maybe we should-”
“Oh, don’t even think about it, Sloan,” Arizona cut in sharply, pointing a finger in his direction. “You are staying right there until this thing either moves or dies, or so help me God...”
Lexie didn’t particularly want to mess with either Callie or Arizona right now. “I, um...I-I left Jack and the other kids with Mer and Derek, so I should probably...”
“Go,” Arizona confirmed with a nod.
Lexie disappeared as fast as her legs could carry her.
Arizona turned back to Mark, who was still covered in lake water and looking rather helpless.
“You and I are sitting vigil until this thing either croaks or starts singing ‘The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music’, so don’t even think about going anywhere.”
***
Callie didn’t know when she agreed to adopt a trout, but somewhere along the way she found herself just going with it. She didn’t want her animal-loving daughter to spend the next thirty years mourning some lake fish she’d discovered to be her soul mate, so she accepted the fact that somehow this was the best solution for everyone involved.
Besides, the tank was in Arizona’s office, which meant it was her responsibility to look after the thing. She could be the one to stare into those beady, almost lifeless eyes while filling out paperwork on a nightly basis. Callie wanted nothing to do with it, other than to see Jordana happy.
To her credit, she managed to keep J.R. distracted for two whole hours between the kitchen and living room. First they put together a homemade mac and cheese dish - which Arizona and Mark were specifically banned from eating until the fish started showing signs of life - and then they sat in the living room watching Finding Nemo with Hayley and Colonel Robbins.
Daniel managed to keep the two girls happy and distracted while Callie fetched Issac from his nursery and brought him downstairs. When she arrived back in the living room, Daniel was returning from the kitchen with Hayley curled up in his arms, head lazing sleepily on her grandpa’s shoulder.
“Where’s J.R.?” Callie asked, shifting Issac to her other arm and frowning at the empty couch.
“This one needed a drink,” Daniel replied, sitting down again. “Last time I checked, her sister was sleeping through the movie.”
“She was playing pretend,” Hayley offered in her most pointed three-year-old ‘duh’ voice.
Callie sighed and immediately looked out into the hall. She had a pretty good idea where the little faker had scampered off to the first chance she got.
In the office, Mark was staring at the fish about as lifelessly as the thing looked. He had just finished setting up the large tank and was in the process of cleaning the inside, readying it to be filled with water when the time came. Arizona had settled in behind her desk and was attempting to get some work done, but Mark’s constant sighing was starting to grate on her nerves.
“Would you knock it off?” she snapped after the fifteenth time he’d exhaled loudly in the last ten minutes. She looked up and glared at him through her reading glasses.
“I don’t even know why I’m here,” Mark shot back, looking equally as grumpy. “All I did was babysit; you’re the one who brought home Nemo.”
“Nemo’s upstairs in her bedroom.”
“Whatever. Spongebob, then.”
“Spongebob wasn’t a fish,” Arizona pointed out, rolling her eyes.
Scowling, Mark was this close to snarking back and no doubt starting up a new war of words between them when tiny feet suddenly scampered into the room. Both adults had to bite their tongues and hold back any further remarks.
“Is Mr. Fishie okay now? Can I play with him?”
Arizona could hardly bear the hopeful, over-zealous look on her daughter’s face. “Not yet, sweetie,” she said slowly, standing up and moving around the front of her desk.
Jordana’s face fell and she turned toward the fish tank, staying rooted in spot just inside of the doorway.
Callie appeared a moment later with Issac in her arms, the Colonel following closely behind and leading Hayley in by the hand.
The middle child rubbed her eyes and clung to her grandpa’s arm. “Sleepy,” she stated, mimicking her Mama’s pout. “Can we go play with Snorkel now?”
“His name’s not Snorkel!” Jordana scolded, glowering at her sister and ignoring the calming hand Callie placed on her shoulder. “It’s Flounder!”
“Flounder’s stupid,” Hayley grumbled, leaning heavily into her grandpa’s leg.
“Is not!”
“Is too!”
“Hey!” Callie interjected, shooting both girls a look that instantly shut them up. They knew better than to argue when their Mami mean business. “Enough, chicas. Behave.”
Callie was tired and grumpy from a long day at work and the near-disaster she’d walked in to the moment she came home. Arizona just knew that if this situation didn’t end well, she’d be spending the next seven days on the couch.
Mark’s couch, as Callie had already forewarned her. And it was lumpy.
Shooting him a slightly panicked look, Arizona shuffled over to the front of the fish tank and stooped down, resting both hands on her knees and peering into the bubbling water. Mark did the same.
The fish continued to float, suspended in mid-water.
Arizona shared a brief glance with the man. She didn’t want J.R. scarred for the rest of her life because her mean old Mama let her pet fishie perish right before her very eyes.
Something had to work here.
“Turn up the O-2,” Arizona suddenly barked at Mark.
He looked at her like she was crazy. “What?”
“I said turn up his oxygen!” Arizona repeated. “The air pump, Mark. Crank it.”
He blinked at the woman to see if she was joking, but when it became apparent that she wasn’t, he reached behind the tank and did so. Just to oblige the oldest mini-Torres, who was looking at him with those damn watery eyes again.
Arizona cocked her head to the side, waiting to see if something changed. It didn’t.
“Are his pupils dilated? Maybe he has brain damage,” she murmured under her breath.
“Do fish even have dilating pupils?” Mark hissed back.
“Maybe we should shock him.”
Mark stared at the blonde incredulously. “What are we supposed to do, plug in the toaster and drop it in?”
Arizona whimpered and snuck a glance over to where her wife was comforting their distraught children. “I can’t be the evil witch that let her poor, defenseless fish-friend die. I can’t.”
Mark shifted his gaze back to the tank and took a moment to consider their options.
Either this thing was about to die a slow, painful death that would greatly upset his niece, or...
“Hey!” he suddenly shouted into the silent room, reaching up and slapping a hand hard against the side of the tank. “Swim!”
Against all odds, the fish’s tail gave a hard, almost wild swish and he shot off in a hard circle around the tank. Suddenly his gills were working twice as fast as before and he darted from side-to-side, either disoriented by his down-sized surroundings or still coming out of a coma.
The room let out a collective sigh, punctuated with a loud “Yay!” from Jordana.
She ran up and practically tackled Mark’s leg. “You did it, Uncle Mark! You saved him!”
Mark grinned triumphantly and ruffled her hair. “See? He’s gonna be just fine.”
His momentary elation faltered when he caught the hard glower Arizona was fixing him with. Apparently she wasn’t as pleased about his last-minute heroics - seeing how he was now her daughter’s hero instead of her.
Oops.
At least the thing was alive, which was all that mattered, Arizona decided after a moment. She smiled in relief now that Jordana’s possibly traumatizing fishing trip had morphed into something slightly less horrible.
She stepped back over to Callie and watched as J.R. and Hayley both scurried over to the miniature fish tank, letting Mark scoop them up into his arms so they could get a better look.
Callie was shaking her head, bouncing an awake Issac in her arms as Arizona approached somewhat tentatively.
“You’re a dork, you know that?” Callie muttered affectionately.
Arizona offered her wife a lopsided grin, relief evident in her features. “But a dork with a big heart and many-many bonus points for saving the day, right?”
“I think technically Mark saved the day,” Callie pointed out, smirking. “You just caused it.”
At Arizona’s huff, the brunette laughed and snagged her around the back of the neck, pulling her into a brief kiss. “But lucky for you, I’m not really into the heroic type. Dorks are much more my style.”
Arizona giggled and stole another kiss before slipping an arm around Callie’s waist and resting her cheek against her shoulder. She gazed down at their newest edition with a happy smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
“You and I make dorky babies with big hearts. My favourite kind.”
“Mine, too,” Callie chuckled, turning her head just enough to plant a kiss on the top of Arizona’s head.
The blonde sighed contently. “So. We’ve adopted a trout.”
“We’ve adopted a trout,” Callie confirmed.
“At least she’s not asking for a pony yet.”
“You realize this means you’re now banned from any and all future fishing expeditions with your father and our babies, right?”
“What about with you? Pretty sure you won’t adopt a stray fish; you’d be a safe bet to take along.”
“I’d be too tempted to push you in. You’re adorable when you’re wet.”
“Calliope Iphigenia Torres!” Arizona mock-covered Issac’s ears and grinned when the baby boy blinked innocently up at her.
“You’re such a perv, Robbins. Now I’d really have to dunk you in just to prove my point.”
“First I’m a dork, now I’m a perv? Can’t believe I’m stuck in such an abusive marriage.” Arizona pursed her lips and shook her head.
“At least I’m letting you sleep inside tonight.”
“There’s the silver lining I was looking for.” Arizona tugged Callie in with the arm wrapped snugly around her midsection and planted a big, wet smooch on the corner of her mouth, earning a playful giggle from her wife. “Knew I loved you for a reason.”
“Bleh, see? Dork.”
“But you love me anyway?”
“Yes, Arizona. I love you in all your dorky glory.” Callie gave the blonde an affectionate pat on the rump. “Now go start filling that monstrous tank with water . Mr. Fishie will need his new ‘crib’ to be ready before you come to bed tonight.”
Arizona’s happy bubble immediately burst. Her brow slowly furrowed.
Callie smiled at her wife and turned on her heels, adjusting Issac in her arms and sashaying from the room.
Arizona caught sight of Mark trying to sneak out after Callie and her son. “Hey!”
He froze mid-step.
“Don’t even think about it.”
Sighing, Mark hung his head dejectedly and backtracked into the room
“Looks like we’re in for a long night,” Arizona grumbled, scratching the back of her neck.
Inside the working tank, a medium-sized trout swam in lazy circles.
---
Author: Faith kennedysbitch
Pairing: Callie/Arizona
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer
Word Count: 10, 000
Summary: Arizona brings home a new addition to the Robbins/Torres household, much to Callie’s dismay.
Thanks to kye9 for the helping me write a few parts. <3 You is the best.
A/N: This could be considered a future installment of the Choices series, although reading that first is not necessary - this is a stand-alone. Pure fluff and somewhat ridiculous fun.
---
“I don’t eat things that come from the water.”
That had been Arizona’s mantra growing up, each and every time her parents tried to force-feed her seafood.
If they smelled that bad when they were alive, they likely didn’t taste any better dead.
Until she was twelve, Arizona never tried so much as a single piece of shrimp. The stench of any kind of seafood made her nauseous and like most kids when it came to broccoli, she would rather sit at the dinner table all night and not eat a single thing than give in to her parents’ incessant nagging.
Colonel Robbins might have been a high-ranking military officer that commanded respect and obedience from his men, but his stubborn streak was matched only by his daughter’s. She was the only person aside from her mother that could ever win an argument with him just by glaring long enough and refusing to budge.
Despite her dislike for eating that stuff, Arizona always loved the fishing trips she took with her dad and brother while growing up. They’d moved around nine or ten times by the time she was fourteen, and the vast majority of locations had a nearby fishing area. Her favourite had been when they were stationed out of Quantico, Virginia for two full years. Her dad had bought an actual boat and they took it out on fishing expeditions every other weekend.
Arizona had been an odd mix of tomboy and girly-girl growing up. She liked pink, frills, and hosting tea parties with her stuffed animals from a very young age. At the same time, she wasn’t afraid to jump in the mud to save a family of earthworms from drowning during a rainstorm, or go digging for treasure with her bare hands in a nearby grove of trees. She knew how to throw her hair into a ponytail and beat up the obnoxious army brats that always thought they were such hot stuff. Her dad outranked most of their parents and she was perfectly happy to remind them of that when they got a little too snarky for their own good.
She didn’t go looking for trouble, yet she could be scrappy when the circumstances required it.
Which, given her name, was often enough for her to have learned a few tricks over the years.
Her partner in crime growing up had been Aaron, her brother. They were twins and the only children of Daniel and Maria Robbins. The constant moving around was tough on both of them but they always had each other to lean on.
Occasionally that ‘leaning’ involved shoving one another out of their father’s fishing boat.
Arizona remembered one time in particular when she and Aaron were ten years old and having an off day, fighting over something that seemed important at the time. It was probably about who got to use the television that night or which Ninja Turtle was cooler, Michelangelo or Leonardo - Leonardo, of course - but regardless of the subject matter, she was furious with him.
Aaron took after their dad’s lighter side, the non-military portion with a sharp sense of humor and a real way with the ladies. Her stupid brother could charm his way out of anything. He could work that innocent little smile and those bright blue eyes and make whomever the angered party was re-think their reasons for being pissed off in the first place. He’d probably walk away with a cookie and an affectionate pat on the head for lighting up a pile of dog poop in their backyard fire pit.
Arizona, on the other hand, was a terrible liar and not very good at sucking up. She was usually too honest for her own good and her mouth got her into a lot of trouble as a child.
However he managed it, that day Aaron had schmoozed their parents into getting his way and Arizona was pissed about it. Despite World War III between the siblings, the Colonel refused to call off their Saturday afternoon fishing expedition. He ended up stranding himself in the middle of a small boat with two bickering ten-year-olds for three and a half hours, likely a decision he found himself regretting about twenty minutes after they started floating down the river.
Arizona usually liked to fish, content to give whatever she caught to her dad so he could do with it as he pleased. The process of catching their dinner was a lot of fun - she just didn’t care much for the actual eating part.
On this particular day, Arizona had been cranky with Aaron and refused to pick up her reel. She sat in the back of the boat with her puffy lifejacket strapped around her chest, arms crossed indignantly over top of the bright orange foam.
Aaron even had the nerve to use her fishing rod, the one their dad had bought specifically for her as a birthday present. When she’d protested, the Colonel had been too exasperated with their behavior to do anything other than tell her, “You’re not using it, so let your brother have a turn”.
Ugh. Boys. They just didn’t get it sometimes.
Arizona couldn’t even remember how it happened - somehow she ended up in a tug-of-war with her brother over the rod. The two ten-year-olds screamed and bickered at each other, no doubt scaring away every marine life form within a three-mile radius and rocking the boat in the process.
Their dad had yelled at them to sit down and shut up, only managing to get them to do the latter. They continue to struggle with it and Arizona was very close to winning when Aaron suddenly peered over the side of the boat.
“Look, Zona, a fish!” he’d called, pointing excitedly into the water next to them.
Arizona was a smart girl. She didn’t fall for traps and could usually smell one coming from a mile away.
Which was why it was all the more surprising when she actually twisted around and peered over.
Stupid.
He’d probably only meant for it to be a playful push, something to make her teeter in the other direction and let go of the fishing rod so she could catch herself on the ledge.
That didn’t happen.
Arizona had been poorly balanced on one foot to begin with and was too much of a natural klutz for her own good. Even on dry, flat land she managed to have two left feet, let alone on a rocking boat in the middle of a moving river.
So he pushed and she flailed over the side, plunging face-first into the freezing water and swallowing a lungful upon opening her mouth to scream.
The orange lifejacket did its job and the water wasn’t moving particularly fast; not to mention her father was right there when it all happened. Still, at the time she’d been convinced she was going to die and that her stupid, idiotic brother was going to get his ass kicked by a girl-ghost the moment she came back to haunt him.
Arizona had struggled for a short time before her father managed to reach out and grab her by the back of the lifejacket. He’d hauled her into the boat with one hand, depositing her with ease on the center seat where she sat shivering and completely soaked from head to toe.
At least they’d stopped fighting after that.
She’d spent the whole trip back to shore wrapped in a ratty old blanket, shivering underneath with a death-glare situated on her brother’s fearful form.
To his credit, Aaron didn’t laugh. He genuinely felt bad and tried to apologize a few times for pushing her overboard.
Arizona didn’t care if he was sorry. She was going to make him eat dirt when they got back to dry land, if it was the last thing she ever did.
***
Somewhere along the way, she started to eat seafood. Arizona actually liked fish and other types of creatures now, despite her childhood aversion. Living in Seattle, fresh seafood was readily available and she’d developed quite a taste for lobster and crab among other things. Both her and Callie enjoyed the occasional fresh meal after stopping by the local market along the wharf. Callie was an amazing cook and could usually throw something together off of the top of her head.
On this particular evening, that’s exactly what the brunette was expecting to happen when she arrived home from work.
A part of Callie really missed living directly across from the hospital. The commute back then to and from work was so short, she barely had time to yawn between putting things away in her office and falling into bed after an exhausting day full of surgeries.
The house she and Arizona lived in now was amazing, though. The neighborhood was relatively close to Seattle Grace - Mercy West, it was near some good schools, and there was a playground down the block. It was quiet, too, which was nice after a long day in an E.R. filled with screaming patients and all-around chaos.
Callie opened the front door to their big house and immediately had a three-and-a-half year old rebound off of her shins.
“Oof!” She reached down to steady the toddler, not wanting any wipeouts that could potentially result in tears. “Careful, mija. Mira lo que haces.” [Watch where you’re going.]
The mess of light brown curls blinked innocently up at her from knee-level, a set of small arms wrapping around her left leg and holding on tightly. “Hi, Mommy!”
Despite the exhausting amount of surgeries she’d been involved in that day, Callie found herself grinning down at her second oldest child. “C’mere, squirt,” she chuckled, leaning down and scooping the toddler into her arms. She planted a firm kiss on her cheek and sighed at the big hug she received in return.
“Hayley Raine Robbins, you get your tiny little butt back here right this-”
Arizona rounded the corner from the kitchen, looking frazzled. She relaxed upon seeing the missing culprit in her mother’s arms, cuddling like the little snuggle-bug she was.
“Mommy’s home!” the little girl exclaimed.
“Sorry,” Arizona continued sheepishly, heading over and placing a quick kiss on her wife’s cheek. “She got away from Mark when it was his turn to play Jack on the Wii. Here,” she said, reaching out and letting Callie transfer their middle child over.
“We’re gonna have to watch out for this one,” Callie chuckled, taking a moment to remove her jacket and kick off her shoes now that both arms were free. “She’s already a little wanderer. I’m dreading the day you and I try to take the three stooges out at the same time. At least before there was one kid per set of arms, but now...”
“Issac’s not a stooge,” Arizona pointed out, adjusting Hayley in her grasp and letting the little girl play with her hair. “He’s too sweet and innocent to be a stooge. Besides, he won’t be wandering for a few months yet.”
“We’ll see about that,” Callie mused, thinking fondly of their two-month-old son. “He’s gonna be a curly-haired blonde just like you. And you’re totally a stooge.”
Arizona playfully stuck her tongue out as the two women headed into the living room.
“What’s all the noise about, anyway?”
“Mark’s video gaming with Little Man - sorry, Jack,” Arizona corrected, unable to help the affectionate term every adult in Jackson Sloan’s life referred to him by. He was five-and-a-half, nearly six, and didn’t appreciate being referred to as ‘little’ anymore.
He was a sweet boy. All past issues with Mark aside, Arizona loved his son almost like he was her own. She’d delivered him, even had to operate on him once, and enjoyed being Auntie Zona to all of the Sloan children.
She and Mark had buried the hatchet years ago. Callie now complained that Mark probably liked Arizona more than he liked her. Which the blonde knew wasn’t true, but at least their mutual torture of one another came out of affection instead of malice.
“Issac’s sleeping?” Callie inquired.
“In theory,” Arizona replied as they entered the living room. “Though if the men keep squabbling like a pair of girls, he might not be for long.”
“We heard that,” Sloan objected from his spot in front of the TV. He never took his eyes away from the on-screen character that was sword fighting with Jack’s.
Mark’s miniature clone was kicking his dad’s ass. Arizona had an inkling that Mark wasn’t even letting him do it, though she’d never say it out loud. Sloan had a fragile man-ego to hold up, after all.
At least until he pissed her off the next time, then she’d gladly remind him that he was regularly whooped by a six-year-old.
“How was the fishing trip with the Colonel?” Callie asked casually, flipping through the mail she’d picked up on the way inside. Her father-in-law was in town for a week to visit the grandbabies and help with a few minor renovations in the basement.
“It was, uh, good. We just got back twenty minutes ago, actually. I’m gonna go start Hayley’s bath,” Arizona added abruptly, leaning in for a quick peck on the lips. She disappeared, causing the brunette to watch her escape with a curious frown.
“Hi Aunt Callie!” Jack called over distractedly, flicking his wrist and severing Mark’s on-screen head. He let out a yelp of joy and bounced on the couch cushion beneath his feet. “Yes!”
“What’s up, Little Ma - d’uh, Jack,” Callie corrected, smiling at the slip up she’d almost made. “Are you handing your daddy his butt on a silver platter for me just like you promised?”
“Yup,” Jack grinned, hoping down from the couch and handing his dad the remote control. Mark started to pack up while Callie pulled Jack into her arms for a quick hug.
“Thanks for babysitting today, bub,” she said with an affectionate ruffle of Jack’s messy hair.
The little boy shook his head, which only made the blonde mop even more of a disaster. Lexie was always exasperated at how her oldest child had hair that was immune to the powers of a comb.
“You’re welcome. Dad and Auntie Blondie and J.R.’s grandpa helped.”
“Mark,” Callie chastised, glancing over at her best friend and narrowing her eyes. “How many times do I have to ask you not to tell the children to call her Blondie?”
Mark simply shrugged as he put away the pile of video games and picked up various piles of garbage lying around the coffee table. “I wouldn’t stick up for her just yet,” he commented, though gave no further explanation as he disappeared into the kitchen.
Frowning, Callie glanced down at Jack. “Do you know what he’s talking about?”
With a happy grin, Jack opened his mouth to inform her of the days events, only to be interrupted by the ringing of the telephone.
“Hold that thought,” Callie instructed Mark’s son, setting him back down on his feet and going over to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Calliope, you’re home,” Daniel Robbins’ warm voice carried over the line. “Excellent timing. I was wondering if Arizona had the proper dimensions for me yet?”
“Dimensions?” Callie echoed, furrowing her brow. “What dimensions?”
There was a brief pause before the Colonel spoke again. “Ah, I see. Well, never mind. Just have Arizona call me back when she’s ready, I’ll be at the store in ten minutes. If not, I’ll make my best guess.”
“What store? Guess what?” Callie asked again, only to find herself listening to a dial tone.
Okay, she was missing something here and she had the sneaking suspicion it had to do with the guilty look she’d seen flash across Arizona’s face moments ago.
But before she could bellow out her partner’s name and demand an explanation for all the secrecy, Mark reappeared in the living room.
“Okay, Little Dude,” he instructed his son, who had been pacing in circles around the living room while Callie was on the phone. “Time to go check on your mom and the twins.”
Callie still couldn’t believe that Mark and his wife’s desperate ‘last try’ for a third child had resulted in a grand total of four. She was pretty sure when they’d found out she was carrying twins, Lexie had made Mark sleep on the couch for an entire week.
“MerDer had Jayden for the day?” Callie inquired, referring to Mark’s other daughter, the second oldest of the Sloan Clan. She followed them into the front hallway as they prepared to leave.
“Yep. Lexie said she could barely tackle the twins on her own, so Shepherd and the Missus took Jay with their gang to that new Disney movie.” Mark helped Jack shrug into his jacket and waited while the boy plopped down on the floor to put on his Transformer-themed shoes.
The Sloan household and the Robbins/Torres family resided right next door to each other in a somewhat posh neighborhood smack in the middle of Seattle. Mark’s house was sizably bigger and had been purchased first, while the house next door just happened to go up for sale right around the time Callie and Arizona were looking to move. It hadn’t been an automatic decision, but it really was the nicest house out of all the ones they’d looked at.
Things had worked out pretty nicely; between the four adults, they were able to manage schedules and babysitting without too much trouble. Though with the four Sloan children and the three Robbinses, things could get pretty hairy some days.
“Bye Auntie Zona!” Jack started to bellow, only to have Mark clamp a hand over his mouth.
“Don’t wake the baby,” he chided.
“Sorry,” Jack mumbled from behind Mark’s fingers, looking sheepish when his dad eventually freed him. “Tell her I said bye, okay?” he told Callie, looking up at her expectantly.
Callie grinned and held out a fist, waiting until he bumped it. “Will do.”
She adored the fact that Arizona and Jack had a special bond. They were like kindred spirits from two different families. The little guy worshipped the ground his Aunt walked on, almost as much as he did his father.
It wasn’t too surprising. Arizona was ‘the baby whisperer’, after all.
Over the years, Arizona had been mistaken for Jack’s mom more than once, not to mention Mark’s wife by extension. Both Lexie and Callie found it hilarious, while Mark would just blush profusely and Arizona would bitch under her breath. But the kid had bright blue eyes and blonde hair, what did they expect? If Callie hadn’t been there herself to see her partner deliver the kid in the middle of the night, she might’ve been a tiny bit suspicious of his true parentage.
Callie gave Mark a quick hug. “Thanks for watching Hayley and Issac today. I know it meant a lot to Arizona that she got to take J.R. out with the Colonel. It’s like some sort of weird Robbins bonding ritual or something; she was excited about it.”
Mark was suddenly wearing the biggest shit-eating grin she’d ever seen him with. “Don’t thank me yet,” he replied smugly.
Callie just knew she was the only one not in on the joke. “Sloan, what did you do?”
“Oh, this time it wasn’t me,” he protested, holding up a hand in defense.
“What am I missing?” Callie whined, too tired to play guessing games. She really couldn’t handle cleaning up someone else’s mess right now.
Again, Jack opened his mouth to inform his aunt of the situation, but Mark re-covered it with his hand.
“Enjoy dinner, Torres,” he said with a secretive wink. “Tell Robbins my couch is always open if she needs a place to sleep.”
With that, they were gone.
“Arizona,” Callie growled dangerously under her breath, locking the door behind the departing guests and turning on her heels to stomp back into the living room.
The blonde had something up her sleeve.
Come to think of it, she hadn’t caught a single glimpse of their oldest child, either. Jordana Robbins was anything but quiet and subdued; usually she’d be playing video games right alongside Mark and Jack, or at the very least sitting in the room where the action was.
Something fishy was going on here.
“Arizona, I swear to God, woman,” Callie mumbled under her breath, the threat menacing enough even without anyone around to hear it.
Her wife and their first born, Jordana Riley Robbins - J.R. for short; pronounced with the letters, not ‘junior’ - were two peas shelled from the same pod. They were inseparable from the very beginning and usually when one got into trouble, the other wasn’t far behind.
Some days it felt like Callie had four kids instead of three.
She debated peeking upstairs to see what had J.R. locked up in her room, possibly pouting that adorably cute pout of her Mama’s, but decided to leave it alone for now. She owed Arizona the benefit of the doubt and besides, she’d figure out the problem sooner or later.
Arizona sucked at lying. One flash of the stink-eye from Callie and she’d fold like a house of cards.
Callie decided that starting dinner took priority over whatever else was going on, so she headed straight for the kitchen. It was the main selling point of the house when they’d bought it; spacious and open with plenty of cupboard and counter space. The windows let in a ton of natural light and made it a joy to cook in.
After washing her hands and pulling a few cutting boards out, Callie inspected the fridge for the necessary ingredients. She wanted to get started before any of her three little monsters decided to arrive on scene and began terrorizing one another.
She rooted around the fridge but came up empty as far as the main entree went.
Okay, so either the Robbins clan sucked at bringing home the fish-bacon, or said fish-bacon had crawled out of the fridge and flopped away.
Callie closed the swinging door and looked around, spotting a giant cooler sitting open against the far wall. She approached with a slight frown, peering inside.
There it was.
Figuring that they wanted to keep it fresh or something, Callie leaned in further and debated how she was supposed to get the damn thing out. Daniel had offered to do the cleaning and prep work, so maybe she was just supposed to leave it there until he came back. Then again, cleaning a fish couldn’t be too difficult, she’d seen it done before. There was only one, she could manage it alone.
Shrugging, the brunette reached into the cooler, submersing her hand.
The fish jumped.
Freaking jumped.
And splashed a wave of water in her face.
Callie shrieked - loudly - and stumbled backward, heart now permanently lodged in the back of her vocal chords.
The fish wiggled around for a moment before going back to playing dead.
***
Arizona had just finished bathing Hayley and was settling her down for a nap when she heard the scream come from downstairs.
“Arizona Michelle Robbins!”
Crap. That probably meant Calliope had found the fish.
Grimacing, Arizona quickly soothed Hayley and leaned in to kiss her on the forehead. “It’s okay, sweetie. You had a long day with Uncle Mark; try to get some sleep before dinner. I’ll come and get you when it’s ready.”
Mumbling tiredly, Hayley snuck her little arms around Arizona’s neck and hugged her loosely. “Love you, Mama.”
Arizona’s heart melted and she hugged her daughter in return, pressing another kiss to the crown of her head. “Love you, too, munchkin. Get some sleep.”
Hayley, like all of their children, was a Torres through and through. She rolled onto her side, facing the wall, and passed out cold before she even got settled.
Arizona adored all of her mini-Calliope’s. She couldn’t ask for a better woman to mother her children - she made such cute babies.
Of course, said woman was now going to rip her a new one after discovering the little ‘surprise’ downstairs.
After a quick peek in Issac’s nursery to make sure he was still sleeping, Arizona resigned herself to her fate and trudged down into the kitchen.
As expected, Callie was sitting at the table, drumming her fingers impatiently along the surface.
Arizona stopped in the archway and leaned against the frame, trying her best to look completely casual and innocent.
And failing miserably.
“Care to explain to me why there’s a fish sitting in our travel cooler? Alive?”
“Um...”
Callie cocked an eyebrow.
Arizona didn’t know how to go about explaining this one without sounding like she was trying to blame it on their five-year-old. “J.R. wouldn’t let us kill it.”
Callie shot Arizona a pointed look. “Zona, she’s a kid. You’re her mother. Do the math.”
“She’s the one who caught it,” Arizona objected. “She was all proud of herself when I helped her reel it in. My dad has the rest of the fish in the basement fridge ready to eat, but she started crying when he got to hers.”
Callie sighed, exasperated. “Did you explain what the whole purpose of fishing is?”
“Yes. That’s when she freaked out. She thinks it’s like eating Nemo.”
“How is that like eating Nemo?” Callie glanced down at the trout, shaking her head.
Arizona held up a hand as if to ward off any further blame. “Hey, she’s your daughter, Calliope. You deal with it. I already tried to diplomatically explain that fish are mostly meant to be eaten and that he’s totally different from the ones in her aquarium.”
“Right, I’m so sure you helpfully explained fish-murder to our five-year-old,” Callie grumbled under her breath, closing her eyes and rubbing the bridge of her nose. “You, who can’t even be present in the room when we make lobster for dinner.”
“Because they scream,” Arizona hissed quietly, casting a look over her shoulder just in case any tiny ears were listening in.
“It’s air releasing from underneath the shell,” Callie deadpanned, “and that’s my point. She gets her bleeding heart from you; you’re hardly one to try and tell her to eat it.”
“I didn’t know this was gonna happen,” Arizona whined, shooting the fish a nasty look. “I never got attached to the things when my dad and I used to go. It’s not like I expected her to decide it’s her new best friend.”
Callie rolled her eyes. Arizona was a good parent, she really was, but sometimes she let J.R. get away with things she shouldn’t. Their first-born had her Mama wrapped around her tiny little finger and everyone knew it.
Ever since her first trip to the Seattle zoo at age one, Jordana had loved fish. She could sit and stare at a tank for hours, her blue eyes following the creatures inside back and forth, never once getting bored or distracted. Arizona had bought the then-infant a fish of her own shortly after, which J.R. had promptly named ‘Mama’ - her only spoken word at the time.
One of their daughter’s favourite movies was Finding Nemo and for a stretch of time from age one-and-a-half to three, that’s all she would watch. This, of course, had lead to Callie coming home from work one day to find the entire freaking cast of the movie in a giant, newly-installed tank in Jordana’s bedroom. They were a pain in the ass to take care of, but Arizona managed it as her own personal project, somehow keeping the things alive and thriving.
And now they had a trout.
“Arizona, what are we supposed to do with it? It’s probably about to die.”
“It is not!” Arizona countered. “There are - there’s lots of good lake water in there, a-and it’s only been, like, less than half an hour since we brought it home. Dad said if we hurry, we can still-”
She stopped talking just a little bit too late.
“We can what, exactly?” Callie demanded, narrowing her eyes into dangerous slits.
The blonde swallowed. “Um...”
Callie thought back to the phone call from her father-in-law. “Where’s your dad?”
“He, um...” Arizona forced out a shaky, terrified-looking smile. “H-he went to get a tank.”
Callie’s eyes widened. “Arizona! We are not adopting a trout!”
“You wanna be known as the fish-murderer to our daughter? Be my guest!”
“We are not keeping it!”
“Fine! Then go upstairs and tell her that!”
“Oh no, I am not gonna be on the hook for this one.”
As soon as the words left Callie’s mouth, she closed her eyes while Arizona snickered, unable to help herself.
She abruptly stopped when Callie leveled her with a wicked glare.
“I will not be labeled the bad guy for this,” the brunette tried again, nostrils flaring dangerously. “You go up there and tell her that, that...just, tell her grandpa went to release it back into the wild or something.”
“And then what, she finds out midway through dinner that she’s eating her new friend? That’ll scar her for life!”
“I swear to God, I’m going to kill you,” Callie growled in exasperation, dropping her head into her hands.
Arizona winced. “I’m sorry,” she offered sincerely, straightening up and shuffling across the kitchen to pull out the chair next to her wife. “She started crying and was so upset at the prospect of Mr. Fishie having to die, I didn’t have the heart to tell her otherwise.”
Callie relented a little. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t have been able to traumatize their daughter by killing the thing, either.
But she sure as hell wouldn’t have brought it home with her.
“Increible, Si no te querria, yo estrangularia, con mis manos. If I wasn’t so damn fond of you, I’d throttle you with my bare hands.” [Unbelievable, just unbelievable. Only you would do this.]
Arizona quivered. It was usually pretty bad if she got the Spanglish treatment.
Callie fixed her wife with a bemused stare. “So now what do we do?”
Arizona sighed, slumping forward. She tilted her head down in order to gain maximum cuteness before glancing up at Callie from under her eyelashes, bottom lip protruding in that infamous pout of hers.
“Oh, do not pull that crap with me,” Callie chastised, pointing an accusing finger. “You do not get to do that. Not for this.”
This was not Callie’s fault. She wasn’t about to go down for it when she’d spent the entire day in the O.R. putting people back together only two months after giving birth to their son.
Her extra-special vagina vote was still in play here.
“This is your mess, baby,” she added, “you gotta be the one to clean it up.”
Arizona very slowly blinked up at the other woman, continuing to stare at her with that soulful lost-puppy look of hers.
It took a moment, but Callie eventually closed her eyes and released a ragged sigh. “Fine. Fine. I’ll come with you.”
***
Paused outside of their daughter’s bedroom door, both Callie and Arizona listened for any sounds coming from within, something to give them an idea of what their oldest was up to.
Nothing.
Sharing a look with her partner, Arizona rapped quietly on the door with her knuckles. “Jordana?” She waited three full seconds before slowly turning the handle and peeking her head in.
“Hey, missy,” she called over, smiling when the tiny brunette looked up from her bed. “Can we come in?”
J.R. shrugged and went back to the Fish and Friends colouring book her Mama had brought home the weekend before.
Both parents noticed the subject heading. Callie cast a pointed glare at her wife and quirked an eyebrow, leaning over and speaking quietly.
“And you thought that a fishing trip would be a good idea because...?”
Arizona grunted under her breath, already feeling pretty horrible for the should-have-been-obvious mix-up.
Stepping over to Jordana’s bed, Arizona sat down and scooted back against the wall, feet stretched out in front of her. “Can we talk now?”
J.R. didn’t take her eyes away from the colouring book, shrugging half-heartedly.
“Jordana,” Callie warned softly as she stepped further into the girl’s bedroom and took a seat on her other side. “Your Mama told me what happened today. You want to tell me about it?”
For a moment, it seemed as though the tiny brunette was refusing to speak to them. But soon enough she set down her crayons and looked up at her mothers with watery blue eyes.
“I don’t want to eat him,” she pleaded with a perfect reenactment of Callie’s lip-quiver. “Mama told me he was special when I caught him.”
Callie glanced at her partner.
Arizona grimaced, feeling rather sheepish. “I may have said something along those lines,” she murmured under her breath.
Crap.
“Honey, if you don’t want to eat the fish, we’re not going to force you to,” she started.
Jordana sniffled loudly and stared at Arizona. “So I can keep him?”
“Keep him?” Callie echoed, cocking an eyebrow. She hadn’t been in on that part of the discussion.
Sighing, Arizona started to shake her head, reaching over to lightly brush her fingers through J.R.’s wavy brown hair. “No, sweetie. He’s a river fishie, they don’t like living inside.”
She hated, hated seeing her baby girl cry. Even if she was the oldest of three and hardly an infant anymore, Jordana would always be Arizona’s little princess. It pulled on her heart strings to see her so upset, especially from a situation that was pretty much her Mama’s fault in the first place.
Jordana burst into tears. “Why can’t I keep him? Papa said he could get him some water so he could breathe and live like my other fishies,” she cried, causing both of her parents to glance toward the large tank lining the opposite wall of Jordana’s room.
Callie shot Arizona another sharp look, causing the blonde to shrink back.
“He’s not like your other fishies, honey,” Callie explained carefully as she, too, ran her fingers affectionately through Jordana’s brown hair. “He needs a really big pond to live in ‘cause he’s too big and floppy for a tank.”
“But Papa said he’d get a big one!” J.R. rebutted, not easily deterred.
“Honey,” Arizona interrupted, trying to reason with her. “I’m so sorry that we can’t keep him, I really am. But he’s not an indoor pet, he’s not like your other fish. Grandpa can’t find a tank big enough to keep him happy.”
Once again her eyes flickered over to the mega aquarium in the corner. Nemo and Dory were visible in the foreground, while Gill kept disappearing behind the underwater castle.
Arizona was still chastising herself for not seeing how wrong a simple fishing trip could go sooner. Her daughter loved fish, she always had, and yet for some reason her idiot mother had decided to take her out to catch some. She really had no reason to be surprised at Jordana’s reaction to the proposed fish-murder that followed, yet somehow she found herself caught off-guard anyway.
She doubted J.R. would ever look back fondly on her one and only fishing expedition with her Mama and grandfather. While the process itself had been amazing and felt like a real bonding experience for the three of them, the messy aftermath would undoubtedly overshadow everything else in the child’s memory.
“We’ll release him back into the lake,” Arizona offered after a moment of scrambling for ideas. “He can go back to his friends.”
Now she was just lying, because Mr. Fish wouldn’t make it back to the lake in time, even if she could convince her dad to drive all the way over there.
Jordana, who had just started to calm down, immediately burst into tears once more. “Mommy, I don’t want him to get eaten!” she sobbed, crawling into Callie’s lap and latching onto her stomach.
Arizona watched helplessly as Callie gathered their five-year-old in her arms and hugged her closely, rubbing a soothing hand up and down her back and whispering softly-spoken reassurances against her ear.
“It’s okay, sweetie. Shh, it’ll be okay”
Despite her words, Callie shot Arizona a sharp look.
The blonde was gonna owe her for this one later.
“We won’t eat him, honey,” she added as the little girl cried into her shirt. “I promise we won’t eat him. But he has to go back to the lake.”
J.R. sniffled loudly and shook her head. “He’s me and Mama’s special fishie!”
Arizona felt her heart break a little more at the plea. Reeling the thing in together had been a highlight for her, personally. J.R. had been so happy at their success.
Before she’d learned the fate of their new-found buddy.
“I know he is,” Callie soothed, dropping a loving kiss to the crown of her daughter’s head. “He’ll always be your special fishie with Mama. And you can...you can go visit him a-and stuff, once in a while,” she added, desperate to make Jordana a little less sad about the whole thing.
The look she leveled on her partner read either “This is all your fault” or “I’m going to kill you”. Possibly even “You’re sleeping on the couch for the next three days”. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between Callie’s unimpressed glowers.
At this point, Arizona highly doubted Mr. Fishie was even going to survive. He’d been in the cooler of water for about forty minutes and even if they attempted to drive back to the lake, he probably wouldn’t make it that far.
The trick now was convincing J.R. that he was going back to be with his friends, while grandpa Daniel either threw him in the garbage out back or secretly gutted and cleaned him for dinner without J.R. ever finding out.
And that just seemed way too freakin’ morbid.
Best case scenario? They made it to the lake, dumped Mr. Fishie in, and watched him float lifelessly back to the surface.
Yeah. Like that wasn’t about to scar Jordana for life.
With a heavy sigh, Arizona scooted closer to her girls. “We can take a picture before he goes back home,” she suggested, grasping at straws.
A picture of a half-dead floating trout in a giant cooler full of grubby lake water was not particularly something she wanted sitting in a frame at their daughter’s bedside, but if it made her happy, she’d be willing to suck it up.
Callie released a dejected sigh of her own, but any response she had to her wife’s idea was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening downstairs. Muffled voices carried through and the shuffling of boxes drifted up the staircase.
Arizona frowned. “I thought Mark left for the night?”
“He did,” Callie replied, listening to the unmistakable sound of her best friend’s voice, followed by Arizona’s father’s. “Sounds like he’s back.”
***
Mark grunted under his breath and hefted an over-sized and heavy cardboard box higher into his arms, carrying it over the threshold and into the front hall of Callie and Arizona’s house.
“Set it inside the study,” Daniel instructed, following him in with a small armload of lighter boxes.
Lexie trailed the men inside, balancing their youngest daughter in her arms as she watched them unload the gear. “Someone’s been working out,” she teased, flashing her husband a smile with a suggestive wiggle of her eyebrows. “You’re lookin’ kinda hot as a blue-collar worker boy.”
Mark puffed out his chest and tried to look casual as he subtly flexed his arms. “Wanna take me home and show me how much you love me?”
“Hey, none of that,” Daniel cut in. He fixed Mark with an unimpressed, almost dismissive stare. “Have some respect; your child is in the room.”
Mark instantly shrank down and lowered his eyes. “Yes, sir,” he muttered apologetically.
Blondie’s dad was kind of intense. The guy could probably still snap him like a twig without trying too hard, even though he was almost twice Mark’s age.
After pushing the first box against the wall, he glanced at the Colonel and offered a polite smile. “Got anything else, sir?”
Daniel smirked and beckoned Mark back out to the truck. “I hope you stretched beforehand, son. Now it’s time to really show off.”
***
Jordana didn’t want anything to do with Arizona right now. She clung to Callie, legs around her waist and arms around her neck, remaining silent as they headed down the main staircase and out into the front hall.
“Dad?” Arizona’s eyes widened when she saw the sheer amount of boxes in various different sizes littering the floor of her office. One giant box in particular caught her attention. “What the heck?”
“This’ll take some time to set up,” the Colonel explained, then abruptly waved the girls to the side of the door.
Mark appeared a moment later, huffing and puffing and red in the face. He was carrying a four-by-two fish tank full of water and looked as though his heart was about to explode in his chest.
“Lift with your knees,” Daniel barked.
“Yes, sir,” Mark wheezed, stumbling over to the stand set up in the corner and setting it down before his spine snapped in two. He tried to stand up straight again and immediately seized up, hunching over with a strangled groan.
“When I asked you to fill the tank with water, I didn’t mean throw your back out in the process,” Daniel pointed out, nodding to the plastic bucket he’d purchased at the store for such purposes.
Lexie winced, bouncing baby Spencer in her arms and watching her husband sympathetically.
Callie stayed silent, holding Jordana closely as the five-year-old sniffled quietly and watched the commotion around them.
Arizona glanced between the tank Mark brought in and the enormous one her dad appeared to be unpacking. It was almost bigger than their dining room table. “How many trout are we adopting, exactly?”
“The smaller unit is to keep him alive until we fully assemble and clean this one here,” Daniel replied, tapping the big box hosting the one-hundred-fifty gallon tank. “Son, go and get the cooler with the fish after you plug in the air pump,” he added with an immediate nod to Mark.
Mark moaned pitifully, clearly still in pain. “Yes, sir,” he repeated, slouching off towards the kitchen.
Lexie grinned. “I kinda like it when you’re around, Colonel.”
Daniel flashed the younger brunette a classic Robbins smile and winked. “I’m still waiting for you to come to your senses and run off to Hawaii with me, dear.”
Lexie blushed and immediately giggled.
“Dad, stop it,” Arizona whined. “I told you, it grosses me out when you flirt with her.”
Daniel merely chuckled at his daughter and went back to unpacking. Mark appeared back in the room moments later, pushing the cooler with the trout in front of him.
“Where do you want this?” he grunted, shoving it across the carpeted floor.
“Over there,” Colonel Robbins instructed, jerking his head toward the smaller tank. “We need to get him in the oxygenated water as soon as possible.”
Mark dragged the cooler over and looked around, as if expecting a net to appear out of thin air. “Uh-”
“Would you like come assistance?” Daniel asked, brow ticking impatiently.
Mark swallowed back. “No, sir.” He rolled up his sleeves and stared down at the listless, barely-moving sea creature.
The thing was basically dead. As far as he was concerned, they should just chop its head off and throw it on the barbeque.
“Is he gonna be okay?” Jordana asked Mark in a tentative voice, wiggling in Callie’s arms and clinging to her even tighter. Her lower lip protruded and another tear streaked down her right cheek.
Mark instantly put on a smile and nodded to his niece. “Mr. Fish is gonna be just fine,” he lied with ease.
Fuck, he had no idea if the thing was gonna live another five seconds, much less days or even years.
But that didn’t stop him from turning back to the cooler and plunging his hands into the cold water, immediately involving himself in a game of cat-and-mouse - or Mark-and-fish, to be more exact.
Despite appearing nearly dead moments before, the animal flailed several times and managed to elude Mark’s enormous hands, splashing dirty lake water all over his shirt and the carpet.
Lexie grimaced. “You’re showering before bed tonight, FYI.”
J.R. perked up and watched with fascination from her mom’s arms as her uncle finally nabbed the fishie and stood up triumphantly with it flailing around in his hands.
“Gotcha,” he announced to the room, grinning for a moment before the thing nearly flopped out of his grip entirely. He turned and dropped it in the fish tank with a loud ‘plop’, splashing himself again.
“Is he okay, Uncle Mark?” Jordana demanded, squirming in Callie’s arms until her mother set her back down. She immediately took hold of her hand and squeezed tightly, her bright, wide blue eyes fixated on her uncle.
Mark flipped the air pump on and took a step back, watching the thing kind of drift around for a moment.
So did every other pair of eyes in the room.
While the fish didn’t turn on its side and float to the top, it didn’t exactly spring to life, either. It kind of twitched and suspended itself mid-water level.
Arizona stole a quick look at her father for some kind of a hint as to the fish’s status, but the Colonel had always owned the world’s greatest poker-face. His non-reaction gave her nothing and he simply went back to assembling the bigger tank.
“Give him some time,” Daniel instructed the viewers. “He might need a couple of hours to recuperate.”
“Hear that, sweetie?” Callie said to J.R., looking down and forcing a smile for the child’s sake. “Why don’t we leave Mr. Fishie alone for a little while and let him rest? In the meantime, we can make a snack and get dinner ready.”
Jordana looked frightened.
“Pasta,” Callie amended. “You can help me make a macaroni dish.”
Jordana visibly relaxed, although she cast a sad glance in the direction of the tank. “Can’t I sit with him until he gets better?”
Callie sighed and squeezed J.R.’s hand. “He needs his rest and it’ll be easier for him to get better if he’s alone.” She gave the little girl a nudge toward the door of Arizona’s office. “Why don’t you go get the ingredients out of the fridge and I’ll be right there?”
“What if fishie’s hungry?”
“I’m sure Papa Robbins got trout food at the store, didn’t you, Papa Robbins?”
For once it was Daniel who found himself squirming under the hard glare emanating from his daughter-in-law. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.” Callie nudged Jordana along. “Scoot; I’ll be right there.” She waited until J.R. was out of ear-shot before turning around and grabbing Arizona by the scruff of her shirt.
“If it dies, I want it removed before our daughter sees,” she instructed in a dangerous voice. “You are then to dispose of it in an un-discoverable location before driving your skinny little butt back out to the nearest body of water and bringing home a replacement.”
Arizona’s mouth fell open. “But-”
“Oh no,” Callie cut her off, squishing a finger to her wife’s lips. “This is not up for discussion. If you fail to do either of those things or think you are above doing what I ask of you, then be well aware that you will be sleeping on Mark Sloan’s couch for the duration of the week.”
Arizona scoffed, crossing her arms with a cranky pout.
“Calliope, it’s not all her fault,” Daniel said, trying to reason with the brunette.
Her fierce brown eyes met his and immediately halted him in his verbal tracks. “Don’t think you’re off the hook for this, Mister. I will be calling Mrs. Robbins if things don’t go according to plan.”
Daniel mirrored Arizona’s open-mouthed stutter. “You wouldn’t.”
“Oh,” Callie mused with a humorless laugh. “Try me.”
She gave one more sharp tug on the scruff of her wife’s collar before releasing her and stalking after their daughter.
Both Arizona and Colonel Robbins watched her go while Mark shared a frightened look with Lexie.
“Maybe we should-”
“Oh, don’t even think about it, Sloan,” Arizona cut in sharply, pointing a finger in his direction. “You are staying right there until this thing either moves or dies, or so help me God...”
Lexie didn’t particularly want to mess with either Callie or Arizona right now. “I, um...I-I left Jack and the other kids with Mer and Derek, so I should probably...”
“Go,” Arizona confirmed with a nod.
Lexie disappeared as fast as her legs could carry her.
Arizona turned back to Mark, who was still covered in lake water and looking rather helpless.
“You and I are sitting vigil until this thing either croaks or starts singing ‘The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music’, so don’t even think about going anywhere.”
***
Callie didn’t know when she agreed to adopt a trout, but somewhere along the way she found herself just going with it. She didn’t want her animal-loving daughter to spend the next thirty years mourning some lake fish she’d discovered to be her soul mate, so she accepted the fact that somehow this was the best solution for everyone involved.
Besides, the tank was in Arizona’s office, which meant it was her responsibility to look after the thing. She could be the one to stare into those beady, almost lifeless eyes while filling out paperwork on a nightly basis. Callie wanted nothing to do with it, other than to see Jordana happy.
To her credit, she managed to keep J.R. distracted for two whole hours between the kitchen and living room. First they put together a homemade mac and cheese dish - which Arizona and Mark were specifically banned from eating until the fish started showing signs of life - and then they sat in the living room watching Finding Nemo with Hayley and Colonel Robbins.
Daniel managed to keep the two girls happy and distracted while Callie fetched Issac from his nursery and brought him downstairs. When she arrived back in the living room, Daniel was returning from the kitchen with Hayley curled up in his arms, head lazing sleepily on her grandpa’s shoulder.
“Where’s J.R.?” Callie asked, shifting Issac to her other arm and frowning at the empty couch.
“This one needed a drink,” Daniel replied, sitting down again. “Last time I checked, her sister was sleeping through the movie.”
“She was playing pretend,” Hayley offered in her most pointed three-year-old ‘duh’ voice.
Callie sighed and immediately looked out into the hall. She had a pretty good idea where the little faker had scampered off to the first chance she got.
In the office, Mark was staring at the fish about as lifelessly as the thing looked. He had just finished setting up the large tank and was in the process of cleaning the inside, readying it to be filled with water when the time came. Arizona had settled in behind her desk and was attempting to get some work done, but Mark’s constant sighing was starting to grate on her nerves.
“Would you knock it off?” she snapped after the fifteenth time he’d exhaled loudly in the last ten minutes. She looked up and glared at him through her reading glasses.
“I don’t even know why I’m here,” Mark shot back, looking equally as grumpy. “All I did was babysit; you’re the one who brought home Nemo.”
“Nemo’s upstairs in her bedroom.”
“Whatever. Spongebob, then.”
“Spongebob wasn’t a fish,” Arizona pointed out, rolling her eyes.
Scowling, Mark was this close to snarking back and no doubt starting up a new war of words between them when tiny feet suddenly scampered into the room. Both adults had to bite their tongues and hold back any further remarks.
“Is Mr. Fishie okay now? Can I play with him?”
Arizona could hardly bear the hopeful, over-zealous look on her daughter’s face. “Not yet, sweetie,” she said slowly, standing up and moving around the front of her desk.
Jordana’s face fell and she turned toward the fish tank, staying rooted in spot just inside of the doorway.
Callie appeared a moment later with Issac in her arms, the Colonel following closely behind and leading Hayley in by the hand.
The middle child rubbed her eyes and clung to her grandpa’s arm. “Sleepy,” she stated, mimicking her Mama’s pout. “Can we go play with Snorkel now?”
“His name’s not Snorkel!” Jordana scolded, glowering at her sister and ignoring the calming hand Callie placed on her shoulder. “It’s Flounder!”
“Flounder’s stupid,” Hayley grumbled, leaning heavily into her grandpa’s leg.
“Is not!”
“Is too!”
“Hey!” Callie interjected, shooting both girls a look that instantly shut them up. They knew better than to argue when their Mami mean business. “Enough, chicas. Behave.”
Callie was tired and grumpy from a long day at work and the near-disaster she’d walked in to the moment she came home. Arizona just knew that if this situation didn’t end well, she’d be spending the next seven days on the couch.
Mark’s couch, as Callie had already forewarned her. And it was lumpy.
Shooting him a slightly panicked look, Arizona shuffled over to the front of the fish tank and stooped down, resting both hands on her knees and peering into the bubbling water. Mark did the same.
The fish continued to float, suspended in mid-water.
Arizona shared a brief glance with the man. She didn’t want J.R. scarred for the rest of her life because her mean old Mama let her pet fishie perish right before her very eyes.
Something had to work here.
“Turn up the O-2,” Arizona suddenly barked at Mark.
He looked at her like she was crazy. “What?”
“I said turn up his oxygen!” Arizona repeated. “The air pump, Mark. Crank it.”
He blinked at the woman to see if she was joking, but when it became apparent that she wasn’t, he reached behind the tank and did so. Just to oblige the oldest mini-Torres, who was looking at him with those damn watery eyes again.
Arizona cocked her head to the side, waiting to see if something changed. It didn’t.
“Are his pupils dilated? Maybe he has brain damage,” she murmured under her breath.
“Do fish even have dilating pupils?” Mark hissed back.
“Maybe we should shock him.”
Mark stared at the blonde incredulously. “What are we supposed to do, plug in the toaster and drop it in?”
Arizona whimpered and snuck a glance over to where her wife was comforting their distraught children. “I can’t be the evil witch that let her poor, defenseless fish-friend die. I can’t.”
Mark shifted his gaze back to the tank and took a moment to consider their options.
Either this thing was about to die a slow, painful death that would greatly upset his niece, or...
“Hey!” he suddenly shouted into the silent room, reaching up and slapping a hand hard against the side of the tank. “Swim!”
Against all odds, the fish’s tail gave a hard, almost wild swish and he shot off in a hard circle around the tank. Suddenly his gills were working twice as fast as before and he darted from side-to-side, either disoriented by his down-sized surroundings or still coming out of a coma.
The room let out a collective sigh, punctuated with a loud “Yay!” from Jordana.
She ran up and practically tackled Mark’s leg. “You did it, Uncle Mark! You saved him!”
Mark grinned triumphantly and ruffled her hair. “See? He’s gonna be just fine.”
His momentary elation faltered when he caught the hard glower Arizona was fixing him with. Apparently she wasn’t as pleased about his last-minute heroics - seeing how he was now her daughter’s hero instead of her.
Oops.
At least the thing was alive, which was all that mattered, Arizona decided after a moment. She smiled in relief now that Jordana’s possibly traumatizing fishing trip had morphed into something slightly less horrible.
She stepped back over to Callie and watched as J.R. and Hayley both scurried over to the miniature fish tank, letting Mark scoop them up into his arms so they could get a better look.
Callie was shaking her head, bouncing an awake Issac in her arms as Arizona approached somewhat tentatively.
“You’re a dork, you know that?” Callie muttered affectionately.
Arizona offered her wife a lopsided grin, relief evident in her features. “But a dork with a big heart and many-many bonus points for saving the day, right?”
“I think technically Mark saved the day,” Callie pointed out, smirking. “You just caused it.”
At Arizona’s huff, the brunette laughed and snagged her around the back of the neck, pulling her into a brief kiss. “But lucky for you, I’m not really into the heroic type. Dorks are much more my style.”
Arizona giggled and stole another kiss before slipping an arm around Callie’s waist and resting her cheek against her shoulder. She gazed down at their newest edition with a happy smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
“You and I make dorky babies with big hearts. My favourite kind.”
“Mine, too,” Callie chuckled, turning her head just enough to plant a kiss on the top of Arizona’s head.
The blonde sighed contently. “So. We’ve adopted a trout.”
“We’ve adopted a trout,” Callie confirmed.
“At least she’s not asking for a pony yet.”
“You realize this means you’re now banned from any and all future fishing expeditions with your father and our babies, right?”
“What about with you? Pretty sure you won’t adopt a stray fish; you’d be a safe bet to take along.”
“I’d be too tempted to push you in. You’re adorable when you’re wet.”
“Calliope Iphigenia Torres!” Arizona mock-covered Issac’s ears and grinned when the baby boy blinked innocently up at her.
“You’re such a perv, Robbins. Now I’d really have to dunk you in just to prove my point.”
“First I’m a dork, now I’m a perv? Can’t believe I’m stuck in such an abusive marriage.” Arizona pursed her lips and shook her head.
“At least I’m letting you sleep inside tonight.”
“There’s the silver lining I was looking for.” Arizona tugged Callie in with the arm wrapped snugly around her midsection and planted a big, wet smooch on the corner of her mouth, earning a playful giggle from her wife. “Knew I loved you for a reason.”
“Bleh, see? Dork.”
“But you love me anyway?”
“Yes, Arizona. I love you in all your dorky glory.” Callie gave the blonde an affectionate pat on the rump. “Now go start filling that monstrous tank with water . Mr. Fishie will need his new ‘crib’ to be ready before you come to bed tonight.”
Arizona’s happy bubble immediately burst. Her brow slowly furrowed.
Callie smiled at her wife and turned on her heels, adjusting Issac in her arms and sashaying from the room.
Arizona caught sight of Mark trying to sneak out after Callie and her son. “Hey!”
He froze mid-step.
“Don’t even think about it.”
Sighing, Mark hung his head dejectedly and backtracked into the room
“Looks like we’re in for a long night,” Arizona grumbled, scratching the back of her neck.
Inside the working tank, a medium-sized trout swam in lazy circles.
---