Disclaimer: I don't own Grey's Anatomy, I just borrowed the name of the characters for entertaining, no intention to violate any copyrights.
A/N : This story was inspired by a short story that I read from somewhere else. I may probably copy a few scenarios but will do my best to put in as many of my own creations as possible. This one is going to be light, and short. Short chapters so I can update more frequently (I guess).
Let me know if you like this story.
And oh, all mistakes are mine. I know, I should have found a beta but I don't want to bother the nice people to redo my stupid work, so... please bear with me, okay ;-)
Stepping out of the elevator with 2 cups of coffee in my hands, I have arrived on the Peds floor.
It's strange for the chief of Ortho surgery department to be in here so early in the morning, especially that I don't have any patient on this floor right now. But one of my best friends in this Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital skipped our routine coffee date because the Head of the Peds department got call in early this morning. So, I'm going to deliver it to her.
It doesn't take long for me to find the blonde woman. She has her back to my direction, a hand on her hip talking to one of the interns.
"Hey, I brought you some coffee." My voice startles her. As she turns around, I can see that she already had a cup in her hand. "Oh, you already had one."
"Oh no, I want your coffee. I need your coffee." Arizona gives me a dimpled smile whilst taking a cup from me, and passes the other one to the nameless intern. Quickly, she gives out instructions to send the light blue scrub wearing doctor away.
"Long night?" I ask, watching her gulps down the coffee that I just gave her.
"You have no idea." She makes a wry face before taking another sip of the vanilla latte. "On top of that, that intern got me a black coffee. A black coffee, Calliope. Who'd drink that?"
I say nothing but smile. How could that poor boy know that the perky surgeon not just like her coffee sweet, she actually asks for an extra pump of syrup in her drink?
Arizona lets out a satisfied little sigh after getting her morning dose of sugar intake. The sparkle finds the way to her bright eyes and her adorable dimples pop, but I can't help to notice the dark circles under her eyes.
"You look tired. I'll leave you to get some rest." I give her a sympathetic smile before turning to leave, but she grips my arm stopping me.
"Hey Calliope, do you have a second?" She asks me, with a hint of bashfulness.
"Sure." I answer. I have about an hour free time before the rounds. "Something's wrong?"
"No... Yes... kind of." She shrugs a shoulder uncomfortably. Apparently, something is bothering her. So I suggest to going to the attending's lounge, where has more privacy, and a comfortable couch that she can rest.
"So... I had a call with my mom last night." Arizona says as soon as we sit down on the couch. It seems that it is a busy morning, none of our peers are there with us in this cozy lounge.
"And...?" I raise my eyebrows waiting. Arizona has come to work in here for over two years, and we have been close friends for half of the time. We've known a lot of things about the others. It isn't a surprise that she talked to her mother yesterday. They talk on the phone almost every day.
"Do you remember Nick?" She asks, and I nod my head.
"Your childhood friend who came here with bone cancer about two years ago? Yeah, I remember him." I smile genuinely. Of course I remember Nick. The incredibly pretty new doctor that caught my attention from time to time, who I had only nodding acquaintance with walked up to me one day, asking me to help with her friend. That was the beginning of our friendship.
"Mom said that Nick broke up with his girlfriend." Arizona sighs with a twitch of her lips. I squint at her and then it hits me.
"Please don't tell me that you're thinking to match me with him."
"No! Of course not!" Her lips curled in disgust. A little excessive if I may add. "I wouldn't do that to you."
"So? What is the problem?" I find myself feeling relieved. Not that I don't find Nick an attractive man, he's just not who I want to be with. Heaving back in the couch, tucking a leg under myself so I can face her directly, I give her a questioning look.
"I've told you that Nick is very close to my family, right? He is like a second son to my mom, especially after Tim..." Her blue eyes clouded slightly. The death of her brother is always a sore spot in her heart, she doesn't like to bring it up and I am the few in the work place that know about him. "Well, it is no secret that mom wants Nick in our family."
"You're joking, right? You and Nick?" The idea of gold star lesbian Arizona Robbins being with a man is ridiculous. I throw my head back laughing out at the top of my lungs, but the laugher dies in my throat when I catch the grimace on her face. "I thought that your mom knows you don't like men?"
"She knows, and she acknowledges it, but that doesn't stop her for hoping..." Arizona puts her face in her palms and groans out aloud. "In her logic, I don't like most men but I love Nick."
"Oh my god, I like your mother." I can't help myself. Despite of the displeased glare that she darts at me between her fingers, I just keep laughing. "I really wish that I'd meet her someday."
"It's not funny, Calliope." She is practically stamping on the floor. It makes me laugh even harder.
"Then what? How did the call end?"
"It didn't end well... I kept telling her that I like women and I date women, but she pointed out that I don't date much." She rolls her eyes skyward, no doubt that both to her mother's comment and my smirk.
"Well, if I am correct, you haven't had a date in months." Not that I keep track of her love life - we don't really talk about that. Gorgeous women around her come and go like a revolving door, but I haven't seen her going out with anyone in a while.
"It isn't the point." Arizona looks a little shock, maybe surprise of me noticing that. "My mom doesn't know what I'm doing in here. She has no idea if I'm dating someone or not."
"But you're not dating anyone." I point out, and she gives me a wry face.
"You sound just like my mother. She kept on and on telling me that I'm at that age. Marriage, babies... settle down with someone." She pauses briefly and then continues with her voice an octave higher, apparently mimicking her mother. "Nick is a nice guy. He would be a good husband and father. Maybe the reason you don't have a serious relationship because subconsciously, you're waiting for him."
I just smile at her, making no effort to hide my amusement.
"I have no choice but to tell her that I'm actually in a very serious relationship." Arizona twists her lips and then looks down at her feet.
"You're dating someone?" My smile freezes, as if someone has thrown a bucket of cold water on me. She is in a very serious relationship?
"I am not. That's the problem." She shots me a quick glance. I don't know if she has caught my sigh of relief. "She was ecstatic, asking me all type of questions. She wanted name, where we met, what my girlfriend is doing for a living, how long we have been together..."
"Did you invent an imaginary girlfriend?" I can't suppress my chuckle. I just find the whole situation hilarious.
"Not entirely invented." She glanced at me once again, with the same bashful expression on her face like earlier. "Your name came up in my head and I kinda blurted it out."
"What?" I almost fall off of the couch. "What... how... why... why me? You have all those beautiful women that you went out with. You even have that... that dating app on your phone that can get you an emergency girlfriend anytime you want."
Her head hangs lower, and I can see a dusty blush rises on her cheek.
"I don't mean... I'm not saying..." I don't mean to slut shame her. I am not. Seeing the embarrassment on her face, I curse myself for putting my foot in my mouth. "I just don't understand, why me?"
"Your name came up." Arizona shrugs her shoulders nonchalantly, but the blush on her face is getting redder. "I... I need someone I can trust, and who I actually like, and who I know my parents will love... My mom already knew you because you fixed Nick, that she knows you're a real person."
It feels like I don't know how to control my face anymore. I don't know I should laugh or frown or... I don't know. I just stare at her blankly.
"It's stupid, I know." She gives me an awkward smile, obviously couldn't read my mind either. "But you know how mothers can go. I just... I was trying to get her off my back. And you know I'm not a quick thinker."
"Okay..." I say slowly, taking a few deep breaths while looking at her eyes. Her damn blue eyes. I wonder if she knows that whenever she looks at me like that, with her bright piercing blue eyes fixating on me, like she can reach into my soul, I can never say no to her. "Fine, it's not like I'll have to travel to Boston to meet with them."
"About that..." She tilts her head to one side, eyes drift to somewhere behind me. I know that thoughtful look. Likes she's trying to find a way to break the bad news to the parents of her patients.
"Arizona...?" I trail off, and she put her gaze back on me.
"Here's the thing. As I told you, my mom was ecstatic." A wary smile surfaces on her lips. "Next month is my Uncle Ted and Auntie Sandra's 50 years marriage anniversary. They're going to have a big party in San Diego..."
"You want me to go with you?" I interject her instantly. Staring at her with bug-eyes, my voice trembles. The idea of meeting her relatives as her girlfriend sends a shudder of panic through me again.
She waves her hand and then rests it on my knee, trying to calm me down.
"No no, you don't have to." Arizona says quickly. "I have promised to go with my parents, but you don't have to. I told her that you're too busy. I have applied of the holiday weeks ago. You won't be able to leave with such a short notice, I told her that."
"Okay...?" I breathe out. My voice somewhat shaky. I know there's more to come.
"My mom... she really wants to meet the woman that I'm dating. She decided to take a detour to Seattle before the party." She wets her lips. Apparently the look on my face is making her nervous. "She and my dad are coming to Seattle in a few days, staying with me for a while before heading together to San Diego."
"Your parents are coming to Seattle..." I say slowly, trying to grasp what she just told me.
"To meet my girlfriend." She finishes my sentence with a firm nod.
"Oh god..." I shot up from the couch, starting to pace back and forth in the lounge. "Oh god... oh god..."
"Calliope..." She calls my name helplessly.
"They'll be here for a whole month?" I come to a halt standing in front of her.
"Just three weeks." She puts on a small smile. Yeah, like it is gonna help. I resume to my pacing.
"And you want me to..." After a few laps, I stop right in front of her once again.
"Be my girlfriend." She has a weird sparkle in her eyes, but my mind is just too occupied to address that.
"This is crazy." I force a laugh to my shaking lips. And I can see that her face falls.
"Listen, Calliope. I know that you're not gay and maybe you think pretending to be in a lesbian relationship is... preposterous." Arizona's voice holds the flatness of defeat that makes my heart sinks. I'm her best friend. She needs help and I'm making it difficult. "But I... I ..."
"No! That's not what I'm thi..." I cut her off quickly, but she doesn't let me finish.
"I'm out of options in here. You don't know my mother. She gets into my head all the times." She drums her two sets of finger on her knees, clearly frustrated with my response to her request. "If she knows I have no one, and Nick is gonna be there in my uncle's party, she probably will just throw us a wedding behind my uncle's beach house. You know what would happen when I have a glass of wine too much."
I do know. She's a light weight. She has incredible self-control when it comes to alcohol, but the few times that we went out with Cristina and Meredith, after mixing wine with tequila, she would do things that she would never do, liked dancing on the coffee table, slowly unbuttoned her blouse and then threw that at me...
I can totally picture her pounding wine after wine while her mother sitting next to her, nagging her... next she knows, she would be standing before a priest with a massive hangover, about to marry the guy that she had once married when she was 7 years old.
"I promise you," Her voice pulls me out of my imagination. "I will make sure that they wouldn't come to the hospital. So no one, except maybe Teddy, knows about it. You don't have to worry that people think you're gay."
"Arizona, that's not what I'm worried about." I look right into her eyes and keep my back straight. How can she think that is the problem?
"Then why?" She asks desperately.
Why am I so worried? I'm worried that my secret will be exposed. The secret that I have had a crush on my best friend ever since I caught a glimpse of her in the ER 28 months ago. That's what I'm worried about.
When we're just best friends, I can still keep the distance. But pretending to be in love, in a very serious relationship with her? I don't know if I can handle that.
"Calliope, please...?" Arizona rises up from the couch, standing right in front of me just a foot away, pleading with her eyes. Her damn blue eyes.
"Fine, I'll do it." I sigh, half wonder if I'd really say no to her.
"Thank you thank you thank you!" As soon as my answer leaves my mouth, she pulls me in for a bone cracking hug. Her arms wrap around my neck, and my own have their own minds to wrap around her waist. "It's gonna be okay."
I tighten the hold, burying my nose in her hair, breathing in her scents.
I doubt that it's gonna be okay.