TITLE: For Old Time's Sake
AUTHOR: rcruz
Disclaimer: If I owned them, things would look a lot different. The characters, settings, established histories, and general Grey's Anatomy universe referenced in this work are properties of their respective owners. This is a work of fiction for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Note: This is a Christmas piece set about a year after the infamous parking lot scene (the bad one).
Chapter 1
Her shoes were wet. She hated wet shoes. Considering the number of years Erica Hahn had spent in this rain soaked city, you would think she would have learned by now to invest in rainproof shoes. She thought about it a hundred times each year and yet here she was with shoes that seemed to soak up the wetness with every squishy step. It was - to say the least - unpleasant and while it should not have come as a surprise that regular shoes would not keep her feet dry in Seattle, it always did. Today though, was different. It was not rain that was causing her discomfort, but snow. They had promised no real accumulations, but even the light dusting they were currently experiencing was making the ground wet. It was Christmas Eve. She should be welcoming the snow, but today was one of those days when she didn't need surprises like snow. She tried putting her wet feet out of her mind as she trudged through the dark parking lot keeping her focus on the doors in the distance and the relative warmth the building in front of her seemed to exude. It was all an illusion. She knew that too. These big stores wanted to appear warm and welcoming and so they made the light superficially bright. The actual store would probably be cold and chaotic. She frowned at the thought, hoping that she was wrong; at least about the chaos. Whatever the temperature inside, she prayed the store itself would be relatively empty of shoppers. Looking around at the rows of parked cars gently covered with a thin layer of the same white powder swirling around her, she guessed not. It was more than likely a packed madhouse in there as people scrambled for last minute gifts. She sighed, put her head down and quickened her pace. There was no turning back.
This was a ritual of sorts. She always waited until the last couple of days to buy her Christmas gifts. She acquired the habit while in school when time was scarce and it stuck as habits often do. This year an emergency at the hospital forced her to delay her shopping plans even further and so here she was still shopping on Christmas Eve. Time was just as elusive now as it had been when she was at school. There never seemed to be enough of it.
Lisa certainly didn't agree. No, the woman she had been dating for the last few weeks was of the opinion that Erica created the time problem all on her own. It was not the constant patients in need of life saving procedures. It was not the pressures and demands of a job that required specialized knowledge and skills and an intense focus on details. It was not as if she dealt in life and death on a daily basis. No, it was Erica's time management skills that were in need of work.
Erica shook her head. She needed very desperately to deal with the Lisa problem. Things with Lisa were not going to work out, but it was Christmas and no matter how much of a bitch people thought she was, Erica would not break up with someone over the holidays. That was just cruel; maybe New Year's, but not Christmas. Not dealing with the Lisa problem until after Christmas however meant that she would need to come up with a gift. She had purchased gifts for her sister, small nephews, mother and brother earlier in the day and had them shipped directly from the store. Her family never expected her gifts to arrive before Christmas, but in Erica's head, if she purchased them before the actual day, it counted as on time. Unfortunately, she had forgotten all about Lisa on her earlier excursion which was why she was now standing outside a giant retail store about to join the mobs packed into one of the few places still open on Christmas Eve.
They hadn't discussed holiday plans. They hadn't talked at all lately. That was only slightly odd. After weeks and weeks of constant hounding about Erica's busy schedule, Lisa abruptly curbed the pleading and begging for more time last week. It was the abruptness that was odd. It couldn't help but feel odd after the constancy of the nagging. What wasn't odd was that it was happening at all. No, given how things had been going lately between them, it was almost to be expected. Erica just wished that their inevitable break-up had happened before the holidays. It would have saved her a trip out in the snow.
When Erica first noticed that the constant phone calls had ceased, she thought Lisa was finally getting it, that they had come to an understanding of sorts. For about thirty seconds, she thought the lack of nagging signalled a new more pleasant stage of their relationship; that Lisa finally understood what it meant to date a doctor. And then that half minute passed, things came into focus and reality presented itself. Erica didn't know absolutely if she was right, but she suspected she was. Lisa mostly likely had found someone else to nag. Okay, if she was being fair maybe Lisa found her true love and not merely someone else to harp at. Maybe she had found someone who could put in all the time Lisa seemed to require in her relationships.
Erica hoped so, but there was still the chance she was wrong. It was possible that Lisa had indeed come around to understanding about Erica's crazy schedule after all. She didn't think so, but it was possible. If she knew Lisa at all, and she felt she did, her guess that Lisa had found someone else to nag was probably right. Still it was a guessing game until they talked about it and until they did, Erica felt an obligation to find a stupid gift.
She reached the doors which opened automatically and made her way inside hurriedly. The mass of humanity on the other side bombarded her senses. The noise levels were through the roof and the heat being generated by the excitable crowd made her dizzy. Thankfully she had seen worse in ERs, so she got herself together and trudged into the masses pushing some people not so gently out of her way and doing her best to side step others. She headed for accessories figuring a purse would be easy, but as people dispersed in front of her she saw why there was so much confusion in the directionless crowd. The store was bordering on empty. The pickings were slim. The purse section looked like a nightmare; rows of hooks on low displays, empty of wares, just staring back at her. She glanced quickly at lingerie which was nearby and apart from a few ragged looking pieces of pyjama bottoms and stray bras littering the floor, that space was empty as well.
"Damn it!"
She continued looking resolving to pick up whatever she found and go with it. They were on the verge of a break up anyway. Maybe a bad gift would unburden her of the responsibility of actually having to say the words. She walked up and down the aisles in accessories feeling discouraged and deflated by the rows and rows of empty hooks mocking her. She passed by one aisle and thought she saw a strap. She reached for it blindly only to have an adolescent girl snatch it out of her grasp a split second before her fingers could wrap themselves around the fake leather. Fingers clutching dead air, she almost screamed in frustration.
She went back to searching as rationalizations made circles in her head. Maybe she could get away with simply not calling Lisa. If she didn't call, they wouldn't have to discuss the holidays and there would be no need for a gift. Perhaps they were broken up already. Her guess that Lisa had found someone else to lavish her attentions on was more than likely right; so maybe they didn't need to see each other at all. Maybe Lisa had already called to break up with her or maybe she sent a text. She was irrationally reaching for her phone to check that possibility when she saw a lone brown purse sitting at the end of the aisle she was in. She used her long legs to cover the space between her and the purse quickly and reached for it glad when her fingers felt the cold leather of a strap. She grasped the purse toward her determined to bolt for the registers, but the purse suddenly seemed heavy.
She pulled harder but felt a very distinct resistance that could only be another human being. She almost let go. She didn't want to get caught up in some cat fight over a purse she was buying for a woman she didn't even like anymore. Her natural competitiveness, however, kept her hanging on. She straightened up and looked at her competition. It was a woman.
"I have to have this for my mother," the woman pleaded as her eyes scanned the area, probably for other stray purses.
Erica couldn't believe her eyes. She was utterly and totally bewildered by the presence in front of her.
"Callie?"