Picture Perfect
Title: Picture Perfect
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not for profit. Not mine. Sadly.
Summary: Even after all the years of strength and good fortune, Arizona still has nightmares about the day she almost lost it all. Lucky for her, rainy Sundays with her favorite girls always seem to make it better.
A/N: So hi! I feel like I haven't written in a long time. This happened at work--scratched it all into a notebook during some dead time. It's a little different than my usual stuff, but I felt like it was necessary. It's still pretty fluffy and fun, and I was aching to write something like this. I hope you'll all like it. Oh! And happy premiere-eve.
Beta: foreverleyton awesome as always. Thank you sooo much.
Rain pounds relentlessly against the picture window in the living room where Sofia sits, coloring a picture on a large scrap of construction paper. The little one is humming a mash-up of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and “Old MacDonald” that she affectionately refers to as Twinkle Farm. Callie, admittedly, has been known to sing Twinkle Farm while breaking bones. Arizona has brought it to the Peds Wing-now a well-accepted remix amongst her tiny humans.
Arizona, previously dozing in her wife’s lap, wakes with a start. Maybe she could blame her panic on the large scrape of their oak against the window, but she knows better. A nightmare teases her semi-consciousness, challenging her to accept the dream as reality. She scrubs fists over her eyes, blinking as she feels the calming presence of Callie’s fingertips moving through her hair, accompanied by the melodic rift of Twinkle Farm from the area rug in front of them. The combination makes Arizona sigh with relief as she moves to sit up. Callie sips from her juice box and peers over her medical journal, a smile sprawling across that perfect face.
Arizona breathes again.
“Hi Mama,” Sofia chirps, looking up from her drawing with a smile.
“Hi, baby,” Arizona replies, grinning despite the dream at the gorgeous little face in front of her.
“You fell asleep. I’m coloring and singing Twinkle Farm,” Sofia reminds, warranting a chuckle from Callie and a surge of safety from Arizona.
“I was going to wake you anyhow, sleepyhead. I wanted to make dinner. But then I got caught up. This research on meachondromatsis is absolutely, insanely incredible,” Callie beams in that way she has. Excited, kind of nerdy. Though she’d never admit it.
“Bad dream,” Arizona rasps as a reply, swallowing the lump in her throat. “I’m okay.”
Callie sobers, smile fading into a tight line. “What about?”
“The… accident,” Arizona almost whispers, eyeing the chattering (and blissfully unaware) Sofia.
Callie trembles.
Arizona rubs her hands against the denim of her jeans, the scratchy, familiar sensation bringing her back to reality. She remembers when these dreams were crippling, affecting every aspect of her life with so much fear that it staggered her, made it hard to breathe.
Closing her medical journal and depositing her reading glasses onto the coffee table, Callie shifts, grabbing Arizona by the shoulders. She pulls her wife into a hug, sighing as Arizona’s fingers wind in the faded blue of her vintage Marino jersey. After all, lazy football Sunday just wouldn’t be the same without it.
“It’s okay, Arizona,” Callie soothes, smiling into those soft blonde locks. She spots a grey hair, which only makes her smile more. She’s always wondered if she’d be with Arizona when they started going grey, getting older, needing reading glasses.
And, here they were.
“I know, it’s just… difficult.” Arizona’s censoring herself, trying hard not to let Sofia onto her distress. Like her mother, the baby empathizes, which makes Arizona worry.
“We’re okay. Look at our Sof, all grown up. Big and strong,” Callie reminds, pressing a kiss to Arizona’s temple.
“Big and strong,” Sofia parrots and then resumes her humming.
Unable to dwell for one more second in the presence of their baby, Arizona tilts her chin toward the floor. “What are you drawing, mi cariña?”
“It’s a surprise, Mama!” Sofia defends, covering the picture with her hands. “No peeking.”
“Okay my little Picasso, we’ll leave you to your masterpiece. We’ll be in the kitchen cooking so come in when we call you, okay? No whining,” Callie warns.
“Vale, Mami,” Sofia chirps, fishing for her yellow crayon.
Callie makes her way out of the living room first, reaching for Arizona’s hands. Both sets of stocking feet slide on the freshly polished wood floors, through the dining room and finally into the kitchen.
Dutifully, Arizona hops onto the counter while Callie visits the fridge, collecting ingredients. This was their routine after all. Callie cooked while Arizona sat; taste tester, kiss taker, jack of all beautiful trades.
Callie went to work on the cutting board adjacent to Arizona’s counter, slicing peppers and onions with a quick precision that Arizona loved to watch. It was methodic and sporadic all at once, but always yielding the same results-very Calliope in that way.
Proffering a strip of orange pepper, Callie grins at Arizona who munches the veggie quietly, holding it between her thumb and forefinger until it disappears. “Delicious.”
“I’m okay, you know,” Callie says softly over the rhythmic clip-clip of the knife against the wooden board.
“I know,” Arizona replies automatically. “I know,” she repeats, more convinced.
“I have them, too. The nightmares. Still. Sofia dies. You die. I live. It’s miserable. But, Arizona, we’re here. Sofia is turning 5 next month. Zola is still coming over next weekend for a play date. You’re still going to yell at me for not putting my running shoes away. And guess what? I still love you.”
Chuckling, a real, airy chuckle, Arizona shakes her head. “Cheesy. Good thing I like you so much.”
“Cheesy,” Callie agrees stoically before setting her knife down and tossing a piece of pepper into the air, catching it in her mouth. “But true,” she adds, grinning.
Arizona, feet first, wraps her legs around Callie and pulls her in, fingers hooking into her jersey as she pulls her wife in between her knees.
Callie abandons her peppers and onions, sliding her hands up Arizona’s thighs and over her hips, around her back where her fingers tangle to hold her wife there. She loves this; feeling Arizona around her while the blonde explores, fingers pulling the elastic from Callie’s hair, raking through the waves.
“I think something’s wrong, that I’m still this scared,” Arizona whispers, not wanting the ever-inquisitive Sofia to hear her fears.
“Arizona,” Callie murmurs, understanding. Her brows knit together as she drops a kiss to her wife’s brow. “You almost lost us, that’s a scary thought. It’s probably never going to go away. But, hey, neither are we.”
Arizona closes her eyes. “Thank you,” she says reverently.
“Would it help if I told you that you are great?” Callie offers. “That used to work at one time.”
Smiling, the blonde loops her arms loosely around her wife’s waist. “It couldn’t hurt.”
“You’re great,” Callie breathes, leaning in for a kiss. Just a hair shy, lips brushing against those full pink ones. “You…are great.”
Arizona presses her mouth to Callie’s before the brunette pulls back, tugging Arizona into a hug. The rain picks up, wind whipping the dying leaves clinging desperately to their branches, having survived this far into October with so much of the trappings of spring.
“Cook, Callie. Go ahead,” Arizona urges, pushing gently on Callie’s shoulders.
Callie pulls back from the hug, opening her mouth to protest.
“I’m okay, I promise.”
Callie smiles.
Then the silence comes, the comfortable kind that lends itself to the rainy Sunday evenings of people in love; the kind that settles into cracks of insecurity and fortifies against icy drafts of doubt. It’s a silence that makes Arizona realize she really is okay. That the quietness says it all.
Callie hums through the quiet, throwing in an occasional rift of the lyrics she remembers. Arizona loves to listen to her wife sing, remembering the first time they took a trip to visit her parents and Callie serenaded her with Feist until the blonde thought she’d marry her on the spot. The onions are tossed into one of the immense frying pans in Callie’s fleets, beckoning the simple, comforting aroma of home. Arizona likes watching Callie cook: her shoulders underneath that baggy jersey, the occasional wiggle of her ass, the grace with which she moves throughout the kitchen.
In a separate pan, Callie’s browning chicken, flipping it with a fork while occasionally stirring a pot of boiling rice. Arizona doesn’t realize all of this has gotten started. She’s been zoned out-staring at the deep gash in the hardwood floor from when Sofia dressed Mark’s dog-a blue pit bull named Vesuvius-in her Ariel costume last year. Vesuvius had tried skittering away like a frightened rabbit, clawing at the floor enough to gouge it. Arizona laughs, remembering the shaking blue dog hiding his face in her armpit as she removed his fish tail and sea shell bra.
“What?” Callie says, interrupting her solo of “King of Anything,” mouth quirking half a smile as she glances at her wife.
“Vesuvius,” Arizona smirks. “I was looking at the scratch in the wood.”
“Poor dog,” Callie clucks. “Mark still has to carry him in here.”
“Remember how worried we were when Mark said pit bull and coming near Sofia?” Arizona grins. “And then we met that wiggly little blue guy. Oh, Callie can-”
“Arizona, no puppies. Vesuvius and Sofia are enough rambunctious,” Callie chuckles.
“I have a say so in this too, you know,” Arizona crosses her arm across her Fitzgerald jersey that’s drowning her in red nylon.
“Sure, you can quit your job and raise a baby and a puppy. And we’re not getting one of those ridiculous puppy sitters like Mark.”
Arizona huffs.
Callie walks over to her with a wooden spoon; peppers, onions, mushrooms and her sweet and sour sauce are concentrated near the front.
Arizona takes a bite, glaring, but then softens. “Mm.”
“Better?” Callie chuckles, enjoying the dimples that have popped in her wife’s face as she chews, feet swinging idly. “It’s almost ready.”
As Callie sets the spoon on its rest and turns the ranges down to simmering heat Arizona tugs her closer by the large sleeve of her jersey. “C’mere.”
“Roughing the cooker,” Callie smirks, steadying her wobbly gait on Arizona’s knees as she finds herself between them again. “Tough loss by the way.”
“Stupid Steelers,” Arizona groans.
“Next time,” Callie assures, hands wrapping around Arizona’s waist. “Maybe,” she says with half as much conviction. “Actually, probably not.”
Playfully Arizona sighs, wistfully. “Probably never.”
Callie’s fingertips slip under the fabric of her wife’s jersey, enjoying the subtle curvature underneath. She loves this about Arizona-the curves. It’s like a surprise every time she touches her. “I still have another Marino jersey you can wear…”
Arizona grimaces, pulling Callie by the middle of her jersey, the orange cross-stitching of the predominately white 13 scratchy beneath her fingertips. That familiar moment before a kiss with Callie’s eyes hooding and her smile slowly inching across her face. “Never.”
And then they’re kissing. Arizona’s fingers winding in deliciously long waves, the soft strands wrapping around her like vines intent on holding her hostage. Callie’s tongue teases across Arizona’s bottom lip before gaining entrance, eliciting the groan it always does. At this, Arizona scoots forward on the counter, precariously close to the edge. Callie’s there though, acting like an anchor, all the while encouraging her wife to wrap her legs around her hips.
“Calliope,” Arizona groans as an afterthought. “Don’t burn dinner,” she finishes, back arching toward her wife when those capable hands skirt around the cups of her bra.
“Won’t,” Callie mumbles against Arizona’s mouth.
Their kiss is relatively chaste. Callie knows that if this were a few years ago (or, hell, a weekend that Sofia was with her dad) she would have turned off the stove and enjoyed a different kind of delicacy right there on the counter. But right now she’s content in making out with her wife, maybe rounding second base. Maybe.
Arizona’s second groan reminds both women that they could have an audience at any moment. Callie pulls away, feeling Arizona tense as the blonde whispers: “Later?”
“You bet,” Callie winks.
As if on cue (and making Callie believe she may have been blessed with motherly ESP) Sofia comes bounding into the kitchen, skidding to a halt when she sees Arizona on the counter. “Mama! You’re not supposed to be up there!”
Arizona gasps playfully in reply. “I snuck up here while Mami wasn’t looking.”
Callie turns around. “Hey! Sofia, what are we going to do with your mama loca?”
“No se!” Sofia giggles, her own mini-Marino jersey swishing in its oversized yet still tiny adorableness on top of her jeans.
“What’s that, Sof? All finished with your picture?” Callie asks as she flips another chicken breast. “Can we finally see?”
“Yep!” Sofia grins proudly.
Swooping in, Callie picks the toddler up and sets her on the counter before taking a seat herself. Sofia looks shocked,but before she can talk, Arizona wraps a securing arm around her hips.
“Only ‘cause you’re up with us. And you have a picture to show us, and that’s important business,” Arizona grins.
“Okay, ready?” She asks before setting the picture in her lap, splaying it out so that her moms can see it.
They take a second, each drinking in the details of the picture that took Sofia most of the afternoon to complete. There’s an obvious Callie, the shock of long, dark hair unmistakable no matter how crude the drawing. Arizona, with her pretty yellow curls and exaggerated dimples. Mark and Lexie holding hands in the corner, a bright cobalt puppy at their feet.
“It’s us,” Sofia says. “There’s Mami singing and fixing a bone,” Sofia points. “And Mama on her skatey shoes,” she taps the hilariously huge wheelies. “And daddy with Aunt Lexie taking Soovius for a walk. But he’s shy,” she points first to her dad and then pets the puppy’s head with her fingertip.
Callie and Arizona share a knowing look about the “shy” puppy.
“It’s beautiful, my Sofita” Callie says, proud of her baby’s artistic abilities.
Arizona’s masking her overwhelming urge to cry with a sudden onslaught of kisses to the side of her baby’s face. Sofia squeals, squirming into her Mami’s side who only does the same from her angle.
“I can’t wait to show your daddy this picture. He’ll love all the grey hair you gave him,” Arizona teases. “And Aunt Lexie looks so pretty.”
“Will Soovius be happy?” Sofia asks.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Callie teases with another quick peck to Sofia’s head. She gets down, setting her toddler on the floor beside her. “Go wash up, please?
“Kay!” Sofia says before hightailing it out of the room again.
Arizona watches her daughter scamper off toward the powder room with a grin as Callie makes room on the fridge for their latest piece of art. She smiles, sighing as she gets down off the counter to set the table. Taking three plates from the cupboard, she puts them in their proper places.
“You okay?” Callie asks, watching Arizona’s far off expression. It looks a whole lot like her cry face.
“Oh. Mm. Perfect,” Arizona purrs, feeling Callie’s arms come around her from behind.
“Good,” Callie murmurs against the back of Arizona’s neck.
“Mami?” Sofia says tentatively from a few rooms away.
“Yes?”
“I dropped your watch in the drain.”
Callie tugs her arms from around Arizona’s waist as she races toward the lost watch. “Sofia Robbin Sloan Torres, what have I told you about playing in the sink?”
It’s times like these. The insignificant times where she knows that everything will be okay. The simple moments that make her happy she hadn’t settled for sangria over Sofia; chickens over chupos; bikinis over bibs. Arizona giggles as she hears Sofia’s ringing out of “Just kidding!” before the rapid-fire Spanish of her wife. Glancing one last time at the picture tacked on the fridge, she realized it’s perfect. But never too perfect.
It’s home.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not for profit. Not mine. Sadly.
Summary: Even after all the years of strength and good fortune, Arizona still has nightmares about the day she almost lost it all. Lucky for her, rainy Sundays with her favorite girls always seem to make it better.
A/N: So hi! I feel like I haven't written in a long time. This happened at work--scratched it all into a notebook during some dead time. It's a little different than my usual stuff, but I felt like it was necessary. It's still pretty fluffy and fun, and I was aching to write something like this. I hope you'll all like it. Oh! And happy premiere-eve.
Beta: foreverleyton awesome as always. Thank you sooo much.
Rain pounds relentlessly against the picture window in the living room where Sofia sits, coloring a picture on a large scrap of construction paper. The little one is humming a mash-up of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and “Old MacDonald” that she affectionately refers to as Twinkle Farm. Callie, admittedly, has been known to sing Twinkle Farm while breaking bones. Arizona has brought it to the Peds Wing-now a well-accepted remix amongst her tiny humans.
Arizona, previously dozing in her wife’s lap, wakes with a start. Maybe she could blame her panic on the large scrape of their oak against the window, but she knows better. A nightmare teases her semi-consciousness, challenging her to accept the dream as reality. She scrubs fists over her eyes, blinking as she feels the calming presence of Callie’s fingertips moving through her hair, accompanied by the melodic rift of Twinkle Farm from the area rug in front of them. The combination makes Arizona sigh with relief as she moves to sit up. Callie sips from her juice box and peers over her medical journal, a smile sprawling across that perfect face.
Arizona breathes again.
“Hi Mama,” Sofia chirps, looking up from her drawing with a smile.
“Hi, baby,” Arizona replies, grinning despite the dream at the gorgeous little face in front of her.
“You fell asleep. I’m coloring and singing Twinkle Farm,” Sofia reminds, warranting a chuckle from Callie and a surge of safety from Arizona.
“I was going to wake you anyhow, sleepyhead. I wanted to make dinner. But then I got caught up. This research on meachondromatsis is absolutely, insanely incredible,” Callie beams in that way she has. Excited, kind of nerdy. Though she’d never admit it.
“Bad dream,” Arizona rasps as a reply, swallowing the lump in her throat. “I’m okay.”
Callie sobers, smile fading into a tight line. “What about?”
“The… accident,” Arizona almost whispers, eyeing the chattering (and blissfully unaware) Sofia.
Callie trembles.
Arizona rubs her hands against the denim of her jeans, the scratchy, familiar sensation bringing her back to reality. She remembers when these dreams were crippling, affecting every aspect of her life with so much fear that it staggered her, made it hard to breathe.
Closing her medical journal and depositing her reading glasses onto the coffee table, Callie shifts, grabbing Arizona by the shoulders. She pulls her wife into a hug, sighing as Arizona’s fingers wind in the faded blue of her vintage Marino jersey. After all, lazy football Sunday just wouldn’t be the same without it.
“It’s okay, Arizona,” Callie soothes, smiling into those soft blonde locks. She spots a grey hair, which only makes her smile more. She’s always wondered if she’d be with Arizona when they started going grey, getting older, needing reading glasses.
And, here they were.
“I know, it’s just… difficult.” Arizona’s censoring herself, trying hard not to let Sofia onto her distress. Like her mother, the baby empathizes, which makes Arizona worry.
“We’re okay. Look at our Sof, all grown up. Big and strong,” Callie reminds, pressing a kiss to Arizona’s temple.
“Big and strong,” Sofia parrots and then resumes her humming.
Unable to dwell for one more second in the presence of their baby, Arizona tilts her chin toward the floor. “What are you drawing, mi cariña?”
“It’s a surprise, Mama!” Sofia defends, covering the picture with her hands. “No peeking.”
“Okay my little Picasso, we’ll leave you to your masterpiece. We’ll be in the kitchen cooking so come in when we call you, okay? No whining,” Callie warns.
“Vale, Mami,” Sofia chirps, fishing for her yellow crayon.
Callie makes her way out of the living room first, reaching for Arizona’s hands. Both sets of stocking feet slide on the freshly polished wood floors, through the dining room and finally into the kitchen.
Dutifully, Arizona hops onto the counter while Callie visits the fridge, collecting ingredients. This was their routine after all. Callie cooked while Arizona sat; taste tester, kiss taker, jack of all beautiful trades.
Callie went to work on the cutting board adjacent to Arizona’s counter, slicing peppers and onions with a quick precision that Arizona loved to watch. It was methodic and sporadic all at once, but always yielding the same results-very Calliope in that way.
Proffering a strip of orange pepper, Callie grins at Arizona who munches the veggie quietly, holding it between her thumb and forefinger until it disappears. “Delicious.”
“I’m okay, you know,” Callie says softly over the rhythmic clip-clip of the knife against the wooden board.
“I know,” Arizona replies automatically. “I know,” she repeats, more convinced.
“I have them, too. The nightmares. Still. Sofia dies. You die. I live. It’s miserable. But, Arizona, we’re here. Sofia is turning 5 next month. Zola is still coming over next weekend for a play date. You’re still going to yell at me for not putting my running shoes away. And guess what? I still love you.”
Chuckling, a real, airy chuckle, Arizona shakes her head. “Cheesy. Good thing I like you so much.”
“Cheesy,” Callie agrees stoically before setting her knife down and tossing a piece of pepper into the air, catching it in her mouth. “But true,” she adds, grinning.
Arizona, feet first, wraps her legs around Callie and pulls her in, fingers hooking into her jersey as she pulls her wife in between her knees.
Callie abandons her peppers and onions, sliding her hands up Arizona’s thighs and over her hips, around her back where her fingers tangle to hold her wife there. She loves this; feeling Arizona around her while the blonde explores, fingers pulling the elastic from Callie’s hair, raking through the waves.
“I think something’s wrong, that I’m still this scared,” Arizona whispers, not wanting the ever-inquisitive Sofia to hear her fears.
“Arizona,” Callie murmurs, understanding. Her brows knit together as she drops a kiss to her wife’s brow. “You almost lost us, that’s a scary thought. It’s probably never going to go away. But, hey, neither are we.”
Arizona closes her eyes. “Thank you,” she says reverently.
“Would it help if I told you that you are great?” Callie offers. “That used to work at one time.”
Smiling, the blonde loops her arms loosely around her wife’s waist. “It couldn’t hurt.”
“You’re great,” Callie breathes, leaning in for a kiss. Just a hair shy, lips brushing against those full pink ones. “You…are great.”
Arizona presses her mouth to Callie’s before the brunette pulls back, tugging Arizona into a hug. The rain picks up, wind whipping the dying leaves clinging desperately to their branches, having survived this far into October with so much of the trappings of spring.
“Cook, Callie. Go ahead,” Arizona urges, pushing gently on Callie’s shoulders.
Callie pulls back from the hug, opening her mouth to protest.
“I’m okay, I promise.”
Callie smiles.
Then the silence comes, the comfortable kind that lends itself to the rainy Sunday evenings of people in love; the kind that settles into cracks of insecurity and fortifies against icy drafts of doubt. It’s a silence that makes Arizona realize she really is okay. That the quietness says it all.
Callie hums through the quiet, throwing in an occasional rift of the lyrics she remembers. Arizona loves to listen to her wife sing, remembering the first time they took a trip to visit her parents and Callie serenaded her with Feist until the blonde thought she’d marry her on the spot. The onions are tossed into one of the immense frying pans in Callie’s fleets, beckoning the simple, comforting aroma of home. Arizona likes watching Callie cook: her shoulders underneath that baggy jersey, the occasional wiggle of her ass, the grace with which she moves throughout the kitchen.
In a separate pan, Callie’s browning chicken, flipping it with a fork while occasionally stirring a pot of boiling rice. Arizona doesn’t realize all of this has gotten started. She’s been zoned out-staring at the deep gash in the hardwood floor from when Sofia dressed Mark’s dog-a blue pit bull named Vesuvius-in her Ariel costume last year. Vesuvius had tried skittering away like a frightened rabbit, clawing at the floor enough to gouge it. Arizona laughs, remembering the shaking blue dog hiding his face in her armpit as she removed his fish tail and sea shell bra.
“What?” Callie says, interrupting her solo of “King of Anything,” mouth quirking half a smile as she glances at her wife.
“Vesuvius,” Arizona smirks. “I was looking at the scratch in the wood.”
“Poor dog,” Callie clucks. “Mark still has to carry him in here.”
“Remember how worried we were when Mark said pit bull and coming near Sofia?” Arizona grins. “And then we met that wiggly little blue guy. Oh, Callie can-”
“Arizona, no puppies. Vesuvius and Sofia are enough rambunctious,” Callie chuckles.
“I have a say so in this too, you know,” Arizona crosses her arm across her Fitzgerald jersey that’s drowning her in red nylon.
“Sure, you can quit your job and raise a baby and a puppy. And we’re not getting one of those ridiculous puppy sitters like Mark.”
Arizona huffs.
Callie walks over to her with a wooden spoon; peppers, onions, mushrooms and her sweet and sour sauce are concentrated near the front.
Arizona takes a bite, glaring, but then softens. “Mm.”
“Better?” Callie chuckles, enjoying the dimples that have popped in her wife’s face as she chews, feet swinging idly. “It’s almost ready.”
As Callie sets the spoon on its rest and turns the ranges down to simmering heat Arizona tugs her closer by the large sleeve of her jersey. “C’mere.”
“Roughing the cooker,” Callie smirks, steadying her wobbly gait on Arizona’s knees as she finds herself between them again. “Tough loss by the way.”
“Stupid Steelers,” Arizona groans.
“Next time,” Callie assures, hands wrapping around Arizona’s waist. “Maybe,” she says with half as much conviction. “Actually, probably not.”
Playfully Arizona sighs, wistfully. “Probably never.”
Callie’s fingertips slip under the fabric of her wife’s jersey, enjoying the subtle curvature underneath. She loves this about Arizona-the curves. It’s like a surprise every time she touches her. “I still have another Marino jersey you can wear…”
Arizona grimaces, pulling Callie by the middle of her jersey, the orange cross-stitching of the predominately white 13 scratchy beneath her fingertips. That familiar moment before a kiss with Callie’s eyes hooding and her smile slowly inching across her face. “Never.”
And then they’re kissing. Arizona’s fingers winding in deliciously long waves, the soft strands wrapping around her like vines intent on holding her hostage. Callie’s tongue teases across Arizona’s bottom lip before gaining entrance, eliciting the groan it always does. At this, Arizona scoots forward on the counter, precariously close to the edge. Callie’s there though, acting like an anchor, all the while encouraging her wife to wrap her legs around her hips.
“Calliope,” Arizona groans as an afterthought. “Don’t burn dinner,” she finishes, back arching toward her wife when those capable hands skirt around the cups of her bra.
“Won’t,” Callie mumbles against Arizona’s mouth.
Their kiss is relatively chaste. Callie knows that if this were a few years ago (or, hell, a weekend that Sofia was with her dad) she would have turned off the stove and enjoyed a different kind of delicacy right there on the counter. But right now she’s content in making out with her wife, maybe rounding second base. Maybe.
Arizona’s second groan reminds both women that they could have an audience at any moment. Callie pulls away, feeling Arizona tense as the blonde whispers: “Later?”
“You bet,” Callie winks.
As if on cue (and making Callie believe she may have been blessed with motherly ESP) Sofia comes bounding into the kitchen, skidding to a halt when she sees Arizona on the counter. “Mama! You’re not supposed to be up there!”
Arizona gasps playfully in reply. “I snuck up here while Mami wasn’t looking.”
Callie turns around. “Hey! Sofia, what are we going to do with your mama loca?”
“No se!” Sofia giggles, her own mini-Marino jersey swishing in its oversized yet still tiny adorableness on top of her jeans.
“What’s that, Sof? All finished with your picture?” Callie asks as she flips another chicken breast. “Can we finally see?”
“Yep!” Sofia grins proudly.
Swooping in, Callie picks the toddler up and sets her on the counter before taking a seat herself. Sofia looks shocked,but before she can talk, Arizona wraps a securing arm around her hips.
“Only ‘cause you’re up with us. And you have a picture to show us, and that’s important business,” Arizona grins.
“Okay, ready?” She asks before setting the picture in her lap, splaying it out so that her moms can see it.
They take a second, each drinking in the details of the picture that took Sofia most of the afternoon to complete. There’s an obvious Callie, the shock of long, dark hair unmistakable no matter how crude the drawing. Arizona, with her pretty yellow curls and exaggerated dimples. Mark and Lexie holding hands in the corner, a bright cobalt puppy at their feet.
“It’s us,” Sofia says. “There’s Mami singing and fixing a bone,” Sofia points. “And Mama on her skatey shoes,” she taps the hilariously huge wheelies. “And daddy with Aunt Lexie taking Soovius for a walk. But he’s shy,” she points first to her dad and then pets the puppy’s head with her fingertip.
Callie and Arizona share a knowing look about the “shy” puppy.
“It’s beautiful, my Sofita” Callie says, proud of her baby’s artistic abilities.
Arizona’s masking her overwhelming urge to cry with a sudden onslaught of kisses to the side of her baby’s face. Sofia squeals, squirming into her Mami’s side who only does the same from her angle.
“I can’t wait to show your daddy this picture. He’ll love all the grey hair you gave him,” Arizona teases. “And Aunt Lexie looks so pretty.”
“Will Soovius be happy?” Sofia asks.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Callie teases with another quick peck to Sofia’s head. She gets down, setting her toddler on the floor beside her. “Go wash up, please?
“Kay!” Sofia says before hightailing it out of the room again.
Arizona watches her daughter scamper off toward the powder room with a grin as Callie makes room on the fridge for their latest piece of art. She smiles, sighing as she gets down off the counter to set the table. Taking three plates from the cupboard, she puts them in their proper places.
“You okay?” Callie asks, watching Arizona’s far off expression. It looks a whole lot like her cry face.
“Oh. Mm. Perfect,” Arizona purrs, feeling Callie’s arms come around her from behind.
“Good,” Callie murmurs against the back of Arizona’s neck.
“Mami?” Sofia says tentatively from a few rooms away.
“Yes?”
“I dropped your watch in the drain.”
Callie tugs her arms from around Arizona’s waist as she races toward the lost watch. “Sofia Robbin Sloan Torres, what have I told you about playing in the sink?”
It’s times like these. The insignificant times where she knows that everything will be okay. The simple moments that make her happy she hadn’t settled for sangria over Sofia; chickens over chupos; bikinis over bibs. Arizona giggles as she hears Sofia’s ringing out of “Just kidding!” before the rapid-fire Spanish of her wife. Glancing one last time at the picture tacked on the fridge, she realized it’s perfect. But never too perfect.
It’s home.