Arizona can hardly breathe as she turns, and walks away from Callie in the terminal. Her words echoed in her mind.
"I don't want to go to Africa with you."
She wished she had never uttered those words. That she would have kept her mouth shut, and allowed Callie the space to get used to a life she simply wasn't that crazy about. Maybe then, she wouldn't feel like her world had just imploded around her.
She blinks hard, and feels that familiar swelling in her throat, but steels herself from daring to turn around. She so badly wants to turn around and see Callie, her Calliope behind her. Waiting for her, begging her to work this out. But she refused to allow herself to turn back around. If there was one thing that the Colonel had drilled into his only daughter's head for her entire life was the importance of turning forward, keeping your head held high, and facing challenges head on. "Robbins' never look back." was what he always told her as a little girl.
She knows it was only a matter of moments before her personal dam is going to burst. She ducks into a stall in the ladies room at the far end of the terminal and quietly sobs over the seeming finality of her decision to move forward with her plans.
Without her.
#
The plane lands, an excruciating fourteen hours later in Africa with an unsettling bump. Arizona is startled awake by the force of the plane hitting the runway. She had fallen asleep somewhere over the atlantic, and was hoping that when she awoke, Callie would be in the seat next to her, holding her hand, that it had all been a side effect of the sedative she had opted for to endure the flight. She is crushed all over again when she realizes that it was no nightmare, and that her seat mate is still the same soft spoken scholar from Kashmir.
Her mouth is like cotton and her eyes are as dry as sandpaper from all of the silent crying she has been doing since she took her seat on the plane in Seattle. She reaches for her bottle of water, and lifts her matted, sweaty blonde locks off of the back of her neck and into a ponytail as she gathers her carry on, and deplanes a few moments later.
The terminal is bright and full of activity, and the air is hot and sweet smelling. She sighs deeply, sadly and thinks to herself, "she should be here. This should be our adventure."
"Dr. Robbins?"
Arizona looks up as a young man approaches her. He startled her right out of the fog her mind had just been in.
"yes" she forces a smile and extends her hand to him.
The young man smiles widely. I'm Gideon St. John. I'm with the Carter Madison foundation. On behalf of everyone, we want to welcome you to Malawi."