The Love Contract by kml224 [part of the Tumblr 50 ways to reunite calzona challenge]
"Doctor Torres, please come see me in my office when you get a chance" Chief Bailey stood at the door of the attending lounge
Callie looked up distractedly. She was reviewing an operating plan for a surgery later that day.
"What?" she asked, looking blankly at Bailey.
Miranda Bailey looked at the other attendings in the room before repeating her request "Come see me sometime today".
Callie shrugged "sure, I can see you at 12? I should be finished my rounds by then"
Bailey nodded and left the room.
Callie felt eyes on her and looked at the other occupants of the room, Karev and Maggie.
"Ooh Torres has to go to the principal's office, what did you do now?" Alex taunted.
"Shut up, I didn't do anything. Did I? Not that I can think of" Callie pondered aloud.
"Maybe your girlfriend is causing more drama "Alex suggested as he finished signing off charts.
Callie gave him a deadly look.
"Too soon? We are not joking about her yet? Come on, it's been a couple of months" he joked.
The deadly stare did not waver. He looked at Maggie, who quickly rose and averted her gaze
"Uh uh, I have to put up with enough tension at home and the car pool, not doing it here" she quickly left the room.
The awkward silence left in her wake was broken by the sound of a pager. Alex was never so happy to hear that sound and after a muttered apology, hurried off, not meeting Callie's eyes.
Callie sighed heavily as the door closed. It had been 2 months. Two months since her girlfriend Penny started working at Grey Sloan memorial. After a very rocky few days, Penny had hit her stride and found her voice. Though they would never be friends, Meredith and Amelia had risen above their initial anger and hostility and replaced it with a cool professionalism. They would teach her but that was about it. As Meredith had told Callie, they were forced to put up with her at work, but outside of work they did not want her in their personal lives. She wasn't trying to be mean and asked Callie to see it from her point of view. Rightly or wrongly she couldn't help but think of the worst day of her life when she looked at Penny. She had lost the love of her life. She was grieving. Maybe in time but not right now. She didn't ask Callie to choose between friendship and love, or whatever it was Callie had with Penny, but she hoped Callie understood her refusal to socialise with them outside of work.
And Callie did understand. Meredith was heartbroken. Callie imagined herself in that position. What if it had been Arizona, not Derek, that had died under Penny's care? While understanding that it wasn't her fault, the memory would always be there.
Callie missed the friendship. Apart from Penny, she had no-one to talk to about her personal stuff, apart from Penny of course, but what about when she needed to talk about Penny?
Bailey just raised her hand when Callie had tried to start a conversation "I don't do personal, woman. How many times do I have to tell you? "
She had Owen but really, asking Owen for relationship advice was like asking a Buddhist which was the best assault rifle on the market. He was pretty clueless when it came to relationships.
Amelia wasn't speaking to her, Maggie and Alex were too close to Meredith to want to get involved, she wasn't that close to April, who to be fair took Penny under her wing but both she and Jackson were going through their own troubles.
That left Arizona. She had been surprising in the initial aftermath of the dinner party. Penny sang her praises, saying how nice Arizona was to her, helping her out when she could. Callie smiled at that. She had told her Arizona was great and knew Arizona was an excellent mentor and teacher. Whenever she was on Arizona's service, Penny would enthuse to Callie how much she learned.
But again, that was their only real interactions, inside at work. Arizona only talked about Sofia when she and Callie met. Arizona remained friendly but Callie sensed she was holding back. Her cheerful manner with Callie was the same one she used on colleagues or people she didn't know that well and it irritated Callie that she got the same treatment. Didn't she mean more to Arizona? The only time the cheerfulness fell was last week when Callie told Arizona she was going to take Sofia out to dinner to meet Penny. She didn't want to rush things, certainly not after her last few disastrous relationships but she wanted Penny to spend a lot more time in her place, not just when Sofia wasn't there. She needed Sofia to be comfortable around Penny if the woman was going to be spending so much time in their home. For a brief moment she saw a raw pain flash on that flawless face she had loved, before it was quickly covered up with a smile that did not quite reach her eyes Thinking about Arizona made her sad. She wished so many things could be different. With one last sigh, she headed off on rounds.
"Come in " Bailey shouted hearing the knock on her office door. Callie came in and sat across from her.
"I have surgery in 30 minutes, will this take long?" she asked her boss
"No, not all" Bailey said before clearing her throat and shuffling some papers on her desk.
"I hate this part of my job" she muttered before making eye contact with Callie.
Callie swallowed and stuttered "Oh My God, are you firing me?"
Bailey gave her a look of disgust " Torres, don't be so dramatic. The reason I hate this part of the job is because I don't do personal but now thanks to you I have to do this personal stuff and I don't like it one bit"
Callie continued to look confused.
Bailey huffed and said "As you know we have a no fraternisation policy in this hospital between superiors and subordinates. As you and Doctor Blake are now openly engaged in a romantic relationship It is my duty to inform you that you are breaking hospital policy"
She raised her hand as Callie started to interrupt "I'm not finished. Outside of here you can do what you like but if you remain in a relationship with Doctor Blake, both of you must complete this form for HR indicating the status of your relationship and your commitment that it will not interfere your working relationship".
"But Penny is not on my service, I haven't worked with her" Callie protested.
"But you will have to Torres, she will have to do an ortho rotation. You are head of Ortho and I don't need to remind you , you are also a member of the board so technically you are her boss. Sign the damn papers , both of you, so I can forget about this and concentrate on medicine" Bailey thrust the papers at Callie before dismissing her with a nod.
—–
Callie grabbed a booth at Joes after ordering a drink. She was meeting Penny, Alex and Jo after a long shift . There was no sign of the others so she took the opportunity to glance though the papers Bailey had given her.
"Hi hon, sorry I'm late" she looked up and smiled as Penny slid in to the booth beside. Callie leaned towards her and share a soft kiss before Alex and Jo noisily slid into the booth across from them. Seeing the papers, Alex recognised the forms and laughed loudly " Oh man Torres, how ironic you have to sign a love contract"
"A love contract?" Penny asked, looking around the table.
"Yes if you are in a relationship with someone in a higher position than you, you both have to declare that relationship, for ethical reasons and to save the hospital a laws suit if things go bad." Jo explained.
"I've never heard of one before. Why is it ironic Callie has to sign one?" Penny asked Alex.
Before Callie or Jo could stop him, Alex blurted out "because Robbins is the reason that policy is in place, and Torres too"
Callie groaned and rubbed her face with a weary hand. Looking at Penny she said "we can talk about it later. I feel like a tequila night"
Penny nodded her acceptance, she knew Callie would tell her later and was excited that their relationship was heading for a more committed status.
Several hours and many tequilas later, the foursome were laughing at another anecdote Callie and Alex were telling about their own days as residents.
Having heard about all the hook ups at the hospital, Penny was stunned. Her last hospital had been nothing like this "Sounds like everyone has hooked up at this place. Are there any people in your group who have hooked up that I should know about?" she asked jokingly, but despite her merry state she did not miss the awkward look between Callie and Alex
"Nooo, you two as well?" she couldn't believe it.
"We'll talk about that later "Callie said before downing another shot.
She could kill Alex and his big mouth, thanks to him, she had a lot of things to tell Penny, things she'd rather forget about. A loud burst of laughter from a group entering the bar distracted her. She saw Nathan and April and DeLuca and waved them over to their booth.
"Hey guys, why don't you join us? Are you only coming out now?"
The trio laughed, Nathan replying" coming out is the right word. We've just come from a lesbian bar". Seeing the raised eyebrows of Callie and Penny, he held up his hands "no offence ladies. We were there with Robbins"
At the perplexed looks of the foursome in front of her April clarified "We worked on a case together today and decided to go for a few drinks. Arizona won the coin toss and picked the bar" she continued laughing "It was awesome, they even had a fire eater performing".
"Oooh is that Chick Flicks, on 4th?" Callie asked, remembering several nights out with Arizona there.
"Yes!" April said enthusiastically and Callie laughed, seeing her wife's mannerisms rubbing off on April. Her ex-wife's mannerisms. Shit, she'd better stop drinking, her brain was turning to mush.
"Where is Robbins?" Karev asked, searching the bar for his former mentor.
"Oh, she got lucky at the bar. They were lining up for her" Nathan shouted, oblivious to the tension that his remarks had caused as he headed to the bar for more drinks.
Callie's smile remained plastered on her face. Of course they were lining up for Arizona. She deserved to meet someone. She smiled reassuringly at Penny and put her arm around her, though her mind was racing with images of someone putting their arm around Arizona.
"More tequila" she shouted, ignoring Penny's questioning look.
"Callie, I thought we were heading home after that last one" Penny asked.
"It would be rude to leave without having a drink with these guys" she said gesturing towards DeLuca and April. Suddenly she wanted her brain to turn to mush, to blank out all these images of Arizona in her head.