Here is part three of Haunting, Haunted, Haunts. It will be 5 chapters long.
How can we heal these bitter divisions?
How can we overcome our mutual distrust?
"Hey Dr. Torres, I know you said that you needed all these files copied by noon, but the toner in the copier just exploded and the paper jammed and I think I inhaled it." one of the orthopedic interns rushed into the office looking quite disheveled. The fear in her eyes along with the black cloud of what appeared be toner following her made the whole scene look like a Pigpen in a Peanuts comic strip. Callie tried her best to save face by biting the inside of her cheek.
"That's fine. I was planning ahead anyway. I don't need to have those back in the Records Room until Monday. Could you call a tech in and let everyone else know?" Callie reached into her desk and grabbed her spare container of baby wipes. She pulled a few out and handed them to the quivering intern. "I expect those finished and on my desk by Monday though. No excuses, go to the library if you have to."
The wide-eyed girl just nodded and walked out of the office and quickly as she'd arrived. Callie wheezed and finally released the guffaw that had been threatening to erupt during the whole interaction. She did empathize with the poor girl, especially since she knew that intern exams were coming up. But, if she couldn't handle a broken printer she definitely wasn't ready for exams or even boards. If only the "Torres Method" could work on office appliances.
She shut the drawer filled with various odds and ends and stood up. Now that she'd been interrupted, her desire to finish her paperwork was dissipating quickly. End of month financial statements and expense reports were not something she particularly enjoyed doing. Even so, they weren't due for a week so taking a break wasn't really hurting anyone. She checked her phone for the first time in a spell and smiled when she saw that she had a few messages waiting for her.
Sofia lost another tooth!
Followed by:
Did you hear anything about the snowstorm?
And lastly:
Look how big Harriet is!
Callie smiled at the photo of the beautiful young child in the photo. She certainly had Jackson's eyes and April's smile. It was good to see that the couple were successfully co-parenting Harriet together with some semblance of normalcy. Honestly, Callie was a little envious; not like Arizona hadn't tried that route. It was kind of cute that she'd checked out the weather in Iowa too. That little detail did not go unnoticed.
She took a moment to think of the correct wording for her reply. She had kind of been walking on eggshells these past two months with Arizona. Ever since she'd stumbled out of the bar bathroom, Arizona's peach lip gloss still smeared on her face, Callie had been waiting for the metaphorical shoe to drop. Things were vulnerable and she did not want her impulsive nature to crush what could be the very last chance at a working, healthy relationship with her ex-wife.
Honestly, that was kind of how she'd been living her life since she'd left Seattle. It wasn't that bad things followed her wherever she went, except for they totally did. She was a catalyst for poor choices and even poorer actions. Callie Torres could fill a powerpoint presentation (with transition effects!) with the bad decisions she'd made in her life. There really wasn't any other entity to blame. Even so, playing the blame game had done nothing but suck the happiness out of a good chunk of her life.
But, alas, as the winter approached, Callie's reservations about returning to the Pacific Northwest were running amok.
When she'd left Joe's bar two months ago, things were so up in the air. So, she'd stayed quiet and let her ex-wife make the first move in initiating contact again. Of course, they'd made brief nondescript plans for her return right before kissing like newlyweds in another bathroom, another bar, and another city.
So, when she'd woken the next morning with an emotional (and maybe beer related) hangover to an empty inbox and no calls, she had tried not to be disappointed. After all, Rome wasn't built in a day. Although Julius Caesar might have had something else to say about that.
Callie finally figured out what to say back to the slew of unrelated messages in her inbox.
April and Jackson sure do make pretty babies. But, I thinks ours is prettier, as cheesy as that sounds. I hope that she will call later. I'm off at 7 but I'm going to try and sneak out of here early since the storm is supposed to start soon.
She waited for a beat and sat down on the corner of her desk, looking around at the nondescript office she was in. The walls were lined with hundreds of books - some from way before Callie was even born. The Board of the hospital had told her all about the history and legendary presences that had started out in that very office. There was nothing person in the room, sans a small smattering of photos on her desk. The furniture was outdated, as was the mahogany desk she insisted on keeping. Even after getting approval with the financial department to renovate the office, she still felt as if she was a guest. Maybe she'd never planned on staying in the first place. She had lived in homes in various places in the country but she'd only dropped her anchor in Seattle. Her roots were in Washington State, and even moving across the country couldn't change that.
Now even more distracted, Callie decided that the clinic was slow enough to leave for the day. She'd check in on the disheveled intern to make sure that she didn't look like a chimney sweep and maybe, just maybe, she'd let the crew take the night off. Besides, the first snowfall was supposed to happen tonight, and even though she was no longer an Orthopedic Attending, she was still a surgeon and could potentially be called in if they got short handed in the ER. It hadn't happened very often, but her first blizzard in Iowa had been -40 degrees and almost three feet of snow, so she didn't underestimate mother nature anymore.
While she waited for a response and time confirmation for Sofia's video chat, Callie gathered her things and locked her office. She walked past the copy room and saw the poor intern in fresh scrubs looking aimlessly at the unsightly yellow wall. The look of pure emotional turmoil pulled at her heart strings and she dipped her head into the room.
"Hey, well, I know you don't hear this much as interns -especially as Ortho interns in the Clinic - but you did well. I know that copiers are fucking fickle - it's almost a rite of passage here. You and the others can take off if you want, just make sure you lock up and stay safe." Callie used a soft maternal voice instead of the authoritative one she brandished while at work.
The girl looked up at her with teary eyes and nodded.
"Thank you, have a good weekend." she whispered and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her yellow scrubs.
They both winced when a black streak appeared on the scrubs as the girl began to cry again. Callie couldn't keep the laughter inside so she turned away and giggled quietly all the way down the hall. She also made a mental note to ask the board if the intern scrubs could be anything other than yellow. Admittedly, even if they were cheaper, they did make the staff look like confused little pencils running around.
With a quick breath to ready her for the chilly weather, Callie pulled on her gloves and bounced the door open with her hip. With quick, calculated steps she penguin walked through the parking lot. The cold nipped at her nose and she hurried to her car, shivering one last time as she plugged her phone in and turned the heat on. One last glance at the device showed she had no messages so she took off towards home.
Halfway through making stovetop popcorn (with extra butter) and dancing around in her underwear to Selena, Callie realized that she'd never heard back from Arizona about calling Sofia. There had been times in the past where they'd just had schedules too conflicting for a video call (or those three months where she was too depressed to face even her daughter) but these last eight weeks had been timely and planned pretty well. Especially since the sight of the cheerful blonde no longer made Callie sob for long periods of time.
But, she refused to bother anyone and also did not want to act as petulant as she truly wanted to. So, she sat on the bed with a bowl of popcorn larger than her head and a bottle of the walmart moscato she had a strange affinity for.
By 8:00pm she was a little woozy from the wine and a little grumpy from the amount of popcorn she'd consumed. Maybe Arizona had been called in and had forgotten. Maybe she'd suddenly decided to run away and not tell anyone. Oh, wait, that was Callie's thing to do.
As the snow continued to fall in large amount, Callie's mood fell with it. No longer entertained by the cheesy Christmas movie she'd started on Netflix, she'd briefly contemplated going out in the storm to Joe's. But cars, wine, and snow were generally a bad combination.
At 9:00 she was utterly defeated. So, Callie decided to wallow in her self-pity and run herself a bubble bath. Usually she didn't indulge in baths for two reasons: One, she really only liked soaking in the bathtub if someone was there to rub her shoulders, and the other reason was because the bath in the cabin ran a little on the small side and was only comfortable for about 45 minutes until her legs would go numb. Throw in the fact that it was almost 10 degrees out, and lingering in lukewarm water just wasn't too appealing.
So, she set her phone against the sink and started playing an old episode of FRIENDS. Halfway through the episode, her phone vibrated with a message, almost sending the device into the water. She tilted her head 90 degrees to read the preview and quickly grabbed for the hand towels that hung above her head. Before she could get her hands dry enough to swipe at the phone, Arizona's face appeared on the screen. With a chuckle, Callie answered the video call, double checking that the camera was only angled from her shoulders up.
A grumpy Sofia appeared on the screen with one watery eye open and a set of pajamas on.
"Hey baby!" Callie looked adoringly at her daughter.
"Hey Mami, I'm sorry we were late. I was at a birthday party and I was bad and didn't want to leave." the downtrodden child looked guiltily above the camera, not making eye contact.
"Oh no, Mija. What happened?" Callie tried to keep her tone even, even if the sight before her made her smile. This is probably exactly what she looked like every time her father scolded her as a child. Whatever was making her laugh at everyone's woes today was actually pretty funny.
"We were ice skating for Molly's birthday and I didn't want to stop so I lied to Mommy about losing my shoes. I already told her I was sorry." Sofia stuck her lip out and frowned.
"You lied? Sof, you know better."
"I know, Mama. I just didn't want to stop." she whined, a few tears streaming down her face. "I know I didn't use my words. Mommy already yelled at me and took my iPad. I have to use her phone to call you now."
"Okay, Mija, I won't yell at you anymore. I hope you didn't make Mommy wait a long time for you."
"I didn't! I'm going to go to bed." Sof frowned at her and looked off camera to who Callie assumed was Arizona. There were in hushed words and Sofia and stomped off, leaving Callie to watch her daughter disappear down the hallway. After a few seconds the scenery changed as Arizona's face appeared on the screen.
"Looks like Little Miss definitely inherited your attitude." she laughed, blue eyes sparkling.
"I won't disagree with that." Callie relaxed back into the tub, no longer concerned with the amount of modestly she'd had for Sofia.
"So, ice skating? When did she start that? I want to lecture her about the dangers of broken bones, but I feel like she's already heard enough today."
"She has. I almost let her get away with it. I know she loves to skate, but she's always hesitant to ask to go." Arizona said softly, her eyes twinkling in the low overhead light. Callie mused that she was probably sitting on the couch facing the hallway to keep an eye on their daughter. No matter what Callie had said, Arizona was a wonderful mother.
"Why?"
"Because I think she's scared that I will react poorly. I haven't quite mastered how to ice skate with only leg yet. I mean, I probably could after a few tries, but Sof doesn't like to see me hurting. She actually didn't even tell me about this party until Zola asked me if she could go last week."
"Oh, baby girl." Callie used the name she'd been calling her daughter since she'd met her the very first time. "She's so thoughtful. I see why you were torn."
They sat there quietly with matching content smiles. It was something that hadn't happened in a very long time. It was...peaceful.
"Are you in the bath?" Arizona laughed melodically. "That's really funny to me for some reason."
"Probably because you usually joined me."
"That's true, I did love our baths. Even when they tapered off after the crash. This counts as joining though!"
They both stared at each other, lost in memories of easier times. Arizona broke the silence and cleared her throat.
"I know it was kind of our thing, but have you seen the new season of The Great British Baking Show?"
Oh had she.
"Um yes. I'm seriously concerned with the judge's blood sugar levels. Why do they keep adding cane sugar to everything? Why do I feel like the surgical residents make better pies than some of those people!"
Arizona replied passionately and they conversed about the show for a bit. Callie watched her ex-wife putz around and clean up after dinner. It was oddly adorable to see her so comfortable. She'd set the phone on the counter and they talked while she did the dishes. They'd even cheered at each other, Callie with her empty bottle of cheap wine, and Arizona with a pale ale. After awhile, the conversation strayed and flowed between them without much effort. They'd spoken a few times since meeting at Joe's but, never this casually. For Callie, she was still apprehensive about opening herself back up and moving quickly. As they talked, she turned the phone on it's back and rose from the tub. Unfortunately, the front facing camera lined up perfectly with the bathroom light.
"Hey, the light up there is bright!" Arizona's voice screeched from the phone. "Can you at least move me a little?"
Feeling devious and pretty happy from their conversation, Callie turned the camera back on her, just low enough for the expanse of her collarbones and makeup free face to taunt Arizona.
Suddenly the tirade the blonde was on about retinal dangers stopped mid word. Callie smiled - her plan had worked.
"Ugh stop teasing me. You know my weakness is you fresh out of the bath. That's mean!" the blonde yelped from the phone. "I never thought I'd cave to a set of collarbones."
"I told you, Arizona. Bones are sexy!" Callie stood a little further back from the phone, revealing a little more of her clavicle and sternum. Too add fire to flame, she shook out her wet hair and pulled it over one shoulder.
"You're such a freakin' tease, Calliope Iphegenia Torres!"
"Teasing? This is teasing? You know I can't handle being full named by you!"
Suddenly, Callie flipped the camera to the back one and laughed as Arizona got a good, long view of her in the mirror, donning nothing but a white plush towel delicately wrapped around her damp body.
"Callie…"
"Now that, that would be the mean kind of teasing. I'm not that bad. Am I?"
Before Arizona could respond, Callie winked into the mirror and ended the call. She quickly tapped out a goodnight message and went about her nightly routine. About 15 minutes later, Arizona texted back.
Sorry, texting back with one hand is rough. Talk to you soon. Xo
Oh, Arizona Robbins was bad.
Really bad.
And Callie loved it.