Save it for the epilogue

Rating: M for Language. Late M for Themes

Rights: Everything belongs to Shonda Rhimes in terms of character etc.

Synopsis: AU. Set in a Store. Callie Torres is kick ass at her almost everything in her life. Her job. Her endless line of flings. Her friendships. But when a new blonde sets some fires in her store can she slow down and break her top rule and learn to not save all the hurt for the epilogue.

"Save it for the epilogue. Thats where all the hurt ends up."

Chapter 1 - I don't like Monday's

Piss it.

I scramble to find the friend of the boot currently in its correct place of my right foot and reunite them.

One of those days.

I land on my bedroom floor with a not so elegant *thud* tripping over last nights discarded jeans. All is not lost as I curse and turn my head. Left boot. Wedged between pizza boxes from weeks ago and clothes under my bed. I can't squeeze far enough under. Fuck it. Converse it is today.

"Fuck"

The rainy streets of Seattle have more bite to them today as the winter brought the wind with it. Time for operation wrap leather jacket as tightly around myself as I can until I navigate to the coffee place on 1st and Lenora. Today is definitely one of those days.

"Crap Crap CRAP"

I can already tell the place is rammed as I round the block. I'm hoping Susie, the barista i've become well acquainted with on more than one occasion, has remembered my order and has already put it in.

Once I manage to not so politely force my way inside I let the death grip on my jacket loosen and focus on operation number two. Get croissant and coffee in my face as quickly as possible. Come on Susie. Pull through for me today.

"Callie"

JACKPOT!

"Hi Callie. I already put your order in"

"Susie. You are a lifesaver. A Goddess. A vision of coffee and all that is good and right with the world"

"Oh God. This morning must be bad. All those compliments?" She giggles and runs her fingers through her hair. No time for flirting.

I roll my eyes and shrug

"Trust me. You have no idea. I really have to go though, so catch you tomorrow?"

"Same time every day Cal. You may as well just move in upstairs"

"Don't tempt me. Bye Sus-" I half wave. Before I'm even out the store another round of 'ruin my day' crops up in the form of an idiot with her eyes on her phone.

"Oh christ i'm so sorry! I just. I have no idea where i'm going. Its my first day of work and I. Oh shit."

I get a flash of blonde hair from the profusely sorry girl but barely look up to mumble its fine as I barge my way out of the door. Discarding the cup for the coffee I'm now wearing in the nearest trash can.

"Yo Torres! Meet and greet 5 minutes. Get your ass moving! Even though I love the whole come to work in just a bra thing. I don't think Hunt and Shepard will approve"

Oh great. Newbies. Just what i need in the holiday period. Fresh meet to teach and torture.

"Yeah yeah Mark I haven't forgotten. Where the hell do we keep new shirts around here?!"

"Left hand racking. Tell the Twisted Sister's that Hunt wants them there too"

I find a clean shirt, mine is soaked through having fallen victim to the contents of my coffee cup, and make my way into the stock room next to me. 8am is far too early without coffee.

"Yang. Grey. Hunt wants you guys there for the meet and greet in 5 minutes."

"Why do we have to be there? We take no part in the lives of you shop floor folk"

"Beats me Yang. 5 minutes!"

"Torres take Kepner with you before I eviscerate her with my box cutter. She has no concept of early morning! Comes down to get shirts for the newbies and is here for half an hour chatting about 'the light in the eyes of new friends' I swear Torres. I'll do it!"

I wave the startled looking girl my way as Yang takes a little bit too serious of a swing at her with the sharp implement.

"Isn't it exciting?"

April Kepner, a still relatively new sales assistant, great empathy for fellow man. Customers love her. I trained her myself and even though she has a talent for sticking her foot in it, she's damn good at her job. She follows me down the corridor chatting away until we reach the elevator to go back to ground level. Why is the stock room always freezing?

I give her a pointed stare and cross my arms. Trying to let her know that her tone of voice and the bouncing around is was too peppy for a Monday morning. Apparently the hint isn't taken.

"Fresh faces! I just love new people!"

Yep. Way too peppy.

I huff and shuffle my feet as we exit the elevator and I make my way towards the front of the crowd. I normally would have already met and started initial training with the newbies. This round my right hand man Mark Sloan did the honors. I had been back in Miami trying to sort out the shit storm I left behind. A waste of two weeks holiday and with most of my sanity missing in action I'm back at work and not at all ready and raring to go. Monday mornings should be illegal.

Sloan gives me an elbow to let me know the managers are in. Time to put my game face on. Owen Hunt. Store Manager. Takes his place beside me and begins.

"Right everyone. I know normally we'd do a run down of everything we achieved last week and a load of facts and figures but today we have some new faces joining us. Mark will be getting them in a few minutes so until then just busy yourself. You know the drill people."

Mark disappears as I get everyone into a kind of semi circle. Kepner looks like she may burst with excitement as she see's him re-enter. His loud voice travels across the whoops and welcome's as he leads the new guys into the belly of the beast.

"Right everyone. Welcome. We've got 12 new faces here but only a couple are for our store. We're going to do the usual. We will introduce ourselves. Name, Job Role, and an interesting fact about us. Then they'll do the same. Alright lets get started."

Everything is passing by without a hitch. Some rather boring 'interesting' facts. I chose the fact that I make a mean Chicken Piccata as my fact for this round. I know it counts as boring but when you've been through as many of these as I have, the facts start to run dry. A few mundane faces and we've made it through 11 of them. That just leaves the rather embarrassed, slightly familiar looking blonde on the end. Smoking hot embarrassed blonde in the end I should say.

"My name is Arizona. I'm a techie. My interesting fact is. Um. I play the piano."

So close. So nearly the personality to match the face. Then she pulls out a fact like that. Dammit. You'd think with a name like Arizona there'd be more...

R&R's are lovely. Posting Will be regular. All characters feature to some extent but this is C and A all the way.