Oh my god! Baby-drama! I almost feel like I'm watching the first season of Glee all over again, not that that's a bad thing. But either way, I had had had to write this. The first Callie/Arizona baby scene made my heart hurt unlike anything else. Am I right?
Here's to hoping they don't actually fall apart because of the silly baby-drama.
Watch out for the angst! Please review. (:
Spoilers for 6x18.
Disclaimer: Grey's Anatomy belongs to Shonda Rhimes and ABC.
"What's wrong, Calliope?"
Then followed by an unreal, stiff silence. Her stare grew dark, forehead creases becoming deeper and deeper as her face contorted into something anguished.
It was nauseating, really. I knew why she was looking at me like that, what I'd said, ripping her hopes and dreams apart right at the seams. I knew what I'd said the minute it tumbled out of my mouth, when she subtly stiffened before her biologically engineered masterpiece, and when she all but whispered that awful, agonizing "What?" that nobody ever really wants to be on the receiving end of.
For whatever reason, I kept going, trying to backtrack and cover it up with new ideas. As if chickens and dogs could suffice for a child. As if they could fill up the fresh abyss in my stomach that I'd just tore open.
I almost wanted to turn around and grab her shoulders, tell her that it wasn't that big of a deal, we could talk about it, we could come stand on some sort of a middle ground.
But in situations like this, where is the middle ground? It isn't dogs and chickens and a giant house. Shoot, Callie probably doesn't even like chickens.
I couldn't finish my take out. She was still staring at me, and every second that passed ate more and more into my stomach. The food would've dropped through and infected my insides, and I would've died. And if it isn't too cliché, I really felt as if I was, or I should've been. I gazed back at her, rushing back in my mind, trying to undo the past, choosing a different specialty, a different career even, something to erase what made me say what I just said. I knew what was coming next.
Anxiety-ridden and scared, I set my food down next to her and fumbled to my feet. I gripped her arm and I was like, "Callie, I'm sorry, I am. I just, I love you, you know? We don't need kids, we're a family anyway, yeah? Like.. like as we are. We're a family," and there were no openings or offers of compromise. My foot was down. I was crying, she wasn't.
"I want kids."
Heart strings snapped in my chest. It was my fault. I was breaking my heart, I was breaking her's. She was so excited, so fucking happy about her cartilage, and now she was so tiny I could snap her in two with a single hand.
"What are we going to do about that?" I whispered to her, dreading the response.
"Can we at least talk-"
"Calliope..." I sighed. It hurt. What was there to talk about?
"No, Arizona! Don't 'Calliope' me this time." Despite myself, I inwardly jumped as she jumped to her feet. She moved around the table and I thought she was leaving. In the second my heart stopped beating, I imagined her in the parking lot, in her car, at my apartment, taking everything she owned, and leaving. Forever. Out of my life. But she didn't.
"You're a peds surgeon, for God's sake!" She turned around and cried. She was angry and breaking and defeated all at once. "How can you not want kids?! You're a fucking peds surgeon!"
"And as a peds surgeon, Calliope, I have to watch children die and families disintegrate, and-"
"That usually doesn't happen, and you know it!" I gaped at her. Partially because I was growing mad, and partially because I was surprised, but mostly because there I was, watching Calliope strip down to her bare form. There was no longer any logic shackled to her wrists. She was all emotion, and as terrible as it was, I couldn't help thinking of how beautiful she was. But...
"Well, you know as well as anybody that usually doesn't mean anything," I said softly.
"It should," she replied. She looked drained and empty now, and my heart ached for her. I hated myself and everything involving me for this mess I'd caused, only because I couldn't catch my words in time. I couldn't even keep my mouth shut, just for once. "For me, it should."
Calliope had always been a pretty crier. When her father cut her off, we spent the evening watching movies and eventually talking and she cried and cried and cried. And looking at her, I marveled at it all. At how breath-taking she was, and that she was even with me at all. On the other hand, after we talked about Danny that night in the peds locker room, I caught glimpses of myself in various metallics and windows on the way to her car as she took me home. I was a wreck. That alone made me cry some more.
Now, I'm sure it wasn't any different. She still looked like an angel.
"God, I think I'm gonna-" She moved toward the door, and finally, finally I did something. She couldn't leave. I loved her, I love her, I love her so much.
"Calliope, wait," I got up and I gripped her wrist and pulled her against me. She wrapped her arms so tightly around my shoulders that I prayed she would be able to squeeze all the badness out of me.
But whatever I did, whatever she did, it wasn't enough.
It wasn't enough.
"I think this is it, Arizona."
It isn't enough.