Disclaimer: I own nothing and borrow lots. No, really... lots. Like the characters of Callie Torres, Alex Karev, Arizona Robbins, Mark Sloan, and Lexie Grey which are the sole intellectual property of Shonda Rhimes, Shondaland and ABC. All ideas for this story are from brain wrinkles and influenced by many other TV shows and movies. This is purely for entertainment purposes and sadly, no profit is being gained.
Ratings: Overall rating of this story is PG-13ish to R. This story will likely contain adult themes, activity, violence, suspense, and language.
Feedback: Yes, please. I mean... I'm not that needy. Much. I'll totally love you forever if I know you're reading and even marginally enjoying it. Without feedback, there is no love for you and less enjoyment in writing for me.
Story Information: This is created for roughian in honor of her birthday (which was like seven years ago) because I was really lazy (sense a theme) and couldn't get myself to finish a chapter of Fly By Night. I made her participate in a Mad Libs form of prompt and the following is the outcome. "Humor/Romance, Season Six... the happy/bubbly time, include Cristina and Mark, the words scarf, teapot, and fancy, as well as Hurricane Drunk by Florence + The Machine" I chose 6x13 "State of Love and Trust" as a point of reference. And here we go...
Caught Up in the After
The liquid eased out of the eyedropper into the beaker. Callie squinted at the cloudy mixture creeping towards the bottom of the glass. It was another non-reaction she was witnessing; again. After playing the go-between for Lexie and Mark today she decided to hole up in the research lab and throw away the key; she didn't have surgeries scheduled until tomorrow and could focus on cartilage. Sighing heavily, "Or lack thereof..." she groaned to herself.
Pushing off of the counter she spun towards her lab coat, digging into it roughly. Pulling out her Blackberry she scrolled through emails from the Ortho department. Callie forcefully let out a breath causing her lips to buzz and exited out of email bringing up a new text message from her girlfriend instead. She flipped her wrist to check the time and quickly sent out a note to Arizona to meet her in the laboratory at the end of her shift.
She watched the sent messages until a blue check mark showed that it had been received and a small smile worked its way across her face. Callie scooted back towards the microscope thankful that today for once she wasn't the one being counseled by Mark, even though it hurt her to see him bleeding emotions all over the hospital it wasn't her this time. It had always been her, but now she had Arizona.
The breeze from the air caught her hair, causing it to feather out lightly, as Arizona glided down the hallway she grinned; remembering today as a good day of work with a resident. Her resident, as she now decided to think of him. She had been impressed with Alex Karev before and he had shown her yet again today how she had an invested and gifted student. She pushed off again with her left foot as she turned towards the bank of elevators. Lightly humming to herself her foot tapped along to the song stuck in her head, closing her eyes for a moment she felt her hair moving back and forth as her head started nodding, which she knew meant her hips were not far behind, but she didn't care; today had been awesome. Her voice lilted through the calm corridor, "And you can't hold me down, 'cause I belong to the hurricane. It's going to blow this all away."
Just as she was about to hit the chorus a light ding sounded and her eyes fluttered open to see a slightly amused Cristina Yang in front of her. Laughing warmly at herself she stepped into the elevator, "Yang."
"Robbins, or should I start calling you Florence?" Cristina stated flatly.
Turning to face the doors of the elevator Arizona chuckled, "I'll go with Robbins," she glanced over at Cristina already changed from her scrubs, "Your shift over?"
A quick nod and Yang dug her hands into her pockets, "Yeah, see you at the apartment?"
Rolling her eyes back and forth as if she was thinking Arizona nodded, "Yeah," her phone buzzed in her coat and she pulled it out, "apparently not as soon as I thought though, or maybe not at all if Callie's pulling a late shift."
"Okay, and Arizona?" The doors opened and Cristina moved out of the elevator, but not before calling over her shoulder, "You might want to work on rhythm, you know the part where you get some of it."
Shaking her head slowly Arizona crossed her arms as the doors shut and punched the buttons again as she now had a new destination.
A soft triple knock on the door and Arizona waited to see if she would also need to give a secret password to grant entry into Callie's apparent fortress of solitude. She lazily rolled one of her feet back and forth on the floor, taking comfort in the memories of roller rinks in Georgia and Virginia, it was the real reason she wore the Heelys. It reminded her of being a child and spinning in her brothers arms feeling like time was endless and they were infinite. Her daydream was broken up as the doorknob jiggled, "Come on, I feel like you're sneaking me into your bedroom."
She felt the warm grip around her wrist as her eyes had snuck a peek up and down the hall. Tripping forward she laughed as Callie poked her head out into the hall and then slammed the door shut. "Did you see Little Grey?"
Callie leaned against the lab door as she deftly flipped the lock back in place. She raised her eyebrows again questioning Arizona, "Did you?"
Pursing her lips out for a moment Arizona answered slowly, "No, are you in here hiding from Lexie?"
She smiled at Callie as her answer this time was a crinkling nose, "Oh my, you are! You're hiding from Lexie..." Moving to the work bench she eased down and waggled her eyebrows, "Why are we hiding from her?" Rolling her shoulders back for a moment Arizona narrowed here eyes, "Do I need to go and put some smack down?"
Callie snorted lightly before sitting down beside Arizona and sliding over to her. She placed a quick kiss on her cheek, "Arizona you are the last person who I would go to for help in a smack down."
"Hey!" Arizona crossed her arms, "Don't let the cheery disposition fool you; I can smack it with the best of them." A bright smile replaced her scowl quickly, "Also hello."
It was an adorable, in Callie's belief, trait of Arizona's that she would use hello as a way to ask for a kiss. Leaning in she quietly replied, "Hello yourself." Her eyes drifted shut as she leaned in and tasted the hint of cherry Coke on Arizona's lips. Callie's brow furrowed in thought and she peeked her tongue out, slowly moving along Arizona's bottom lip as she murmured approval of the lip gloss. She was never sure what Arizona would taste like from day to day, it usually depended on the rotation of patients. Tasty lip gloss usually meant that she was using the distraction of types of lip gloss flavors to chat up a female teen before a particularly nasty procedure, but really she just found kissing Arizona always surprising.
Pulling back, Callie slowly opened her eyes and caught Arizona licking her lips for a second. She felt a hand working its way up her scrub top kneading at the muscles as it went, a slow groan let out from her, "Yay."
Callie's soft declaration caused Arizona to chuckle, "So I had an awesome day, but it seems that you maybe, did not?"
Closing her eyes again Callie focused on the knots that were slowly being loosened in her lower back, "S'Mark and Lexie; they're being idiots."
"Well, it is Mark and Lexie," Arizona countered as if the statement itself was the key to a riddle.
Callie leaned forward giving Arizona better access to her back and ran her own hand up and down Arizona's thigh absentmindedly, "No they're both hurt and just being idiots."
Nodding Arizona joined in, "Yeah, it's never fun when your people fight."
Callie sat upright and turned towards questioning blue eyes. Arizona shrugged, "What?"
"You think Mark and Lexie are your people," she smiled triumphantly.
Arizona laughed, "Oh please they're like our 'something with' couple. I like Lexie." She stopped herself before stating anything about Mark, he was a complicated subject. One that had land mines all around him, she never knew what was okay or not okay to say about Mark. She understood the friendship between the two more than she wanted to share with Callie.
"You like Lexie because she's cute," Callie dangled the trap for Arizona seeing if she would bite.
Arizona laughed warmly, "She may be cute, but you..." she leaned in, moving Callie's hair to the side and dropping a kiss on her neck, "you are much," she worked her way slowly up towards her ear and whispered, "much," she pulled back looking into her girlfriend's eyes, "much hotter."
Raising her hand to ensnare Arizona's neck Callie smiled, "Well said."
"I tend to have a way with-" Callie cut off Arizona's rebuttal and captured her lips in an assault of dueling tongues and heated breaths. Arizona pivoted on the bench and sat herself on Callie's lap as hands snuck up under her coat. Pushing lightly on Callie's shoulders, Arizona took a deep breath and smiled at the darkened eyes meeting her own, "You really did sneak me into your bedroom huh?"
She extracted herself from Callie's lap and watched the pout form in front of her, "I'm not saying that this isn't a sexy fun time, but I'd prefer your actual bedroom." Her hand stuck out, "So home?"
Callie sighed, "Okay, but you don't get to see the fancy moves that I had been working on involving the various counter space and not to mention the rolling stools."
"You're keeping a straight face with that?" Arizona nodded impressively, "We'll have time for fancy another day."
The creak of the elevator doors opening, which should have been unsettling, always felt like she was closer to home. Arizona paused for a moment watching Callie easily step out of the elevator car before turning back and throwing a confused look at her girlfriend. Shaking her head lightly Arizona stepped out of the elevator as the doors started to grind their squeaky way shut again, quickly trying to forget seeing Callie's apartment as home.
She still had an apartment; it had her sense of organization and felt very… sterile like an operating room.
"What is with you?" Callie chuckled as she opened the door. She tossed her purse towards the coat rack and headed towards the breakfast bar.
Arizona started to shut the door behind her, "Me? I'm perfectly-" something was pushing against the door and she looked back, sighing, "Mark."
"You're perfectly Mark?" Callie's eyes darted back to the door as Arizona worked on her tartan coat unbuttoning it slowly, obviously somewhat irritated. Callie hoped to diffuse the situation and greeted him cheerily, "Mark."
His six foot frame seemed to be falling in on itself and Callie nodded knowingly, as she bent over pulling back the cabinets hiding the teapot, "Earl Grey or Irish Breakfast?" "Do you have more of the Chai stuff?" Mark's voice sounded like a wounded boy and Arizona herself sighed as she tugged off her dark green scarf. He was the little lost boy who could only be fixed by his best friend, who she had planned on teaching a thing or two in bed tonight.
Her hands softly ran along the edges of her scarf as she took a deep breath and tried to center herself on how Callie had built a family out of the rag-tag bunch that rotated through this apartment. Mark was her person and she was really trying to get over the fact that he had mapped out her body before her arrival in Seattle. Arizona broke through the clinking of tea cups joining each other on the island, "It's been a long day, I'm going to take a quick shower and let you guys talk."
Callie's eyes seemed to hold a silent note of thanks in them as Arizona slipped into the bedroom. Her hand skimmed along the edge of the bed feeling the softness of the sheets; she only wanted to slip into now, but not alone. She peeled off her kelly green long-sleeved shirt and tossed it towards the duffel bag lying haphazardly open. It reminded her with contents spilling outward onto the floor that she needed to head back to her apartment to get clean clothes and perhaps a rotation in choices since the weather was slowly teasing with the thought of springtime.
Working with growing frustration on the button of her jeans she felt warm arms sliding around her waist, "Is he gone?" She asked hopefully.
"No," Callie placed a soft kiss on the crown of Arizona's head, "I think he just needs to mope around a bit. I need to let him; Mark's always been there for me when I was like this in the past."
Tilting her body slowly back Arizona allowed Callie to help her slink out of her jeans before turning towards her. She narrowed her eyes at Callie, "If my memory serves correctly that past usually involved you both salving sorrows in bed."
Warm laughter echoed through the room, "Arizona, there is no one else in my bed, but you, okay?" Callie tugged insistently on hips as Arizona still twisted in one leg of her pants caught forearms trying not to fall, "Just you."
Her head dipped down capturing Arizona's lips with a promise of more to come before a thumb lazily worked its way around the waistband of the light blue underwear. Arizona pulled back with a soft whine, "Okay, fine, but when I get out of the shower all jammified he better be all salved, or whatever."
Callie's grin widened as she held Arizona steady, watching her grumble as her leg flailed about trying to rid itself of the jean parasite attached to her right ankle. She stepped on the pant leg as it flopped around like a live wire, "How about now, Princess Grace?"
Tugging roughly Arizona freed herself from the confines and as a reward she dropped a chaste kiss on Callie's lips. "Alright I'm going to go get all naked and wet. You go feed the puppy tea and try to not think about me…" she paused watching Callie's eyes, "all wet." She paused again, "And of course naked," a wicked grin spread over her face, "but mostly wet."
She turned towards the bathroom, but felt a brisk smack on her backside and looked over her shoulder at the smirk on Callie's face, which was nearly growing into a full smile, "Hand must have slipped." Callie shrugged over exaggeratedly, "Whoops," she said before turning on her heel; heading back to the kitchen.
Mark watched as Callie pulled the bedroom door closed behind her. He knew he was intruding and part of him really wanted to leave, but the only person that would make him feel better was Lexie and he was furious with her. If he was completely honest with himself he was furious with himself too; he had jumped into the deep end without looking and drug Lexie in too, but he forgot to ask her if she could swim first.
"I'm sorry Torres," he lifted the dark cup to his face breathing in the comforting aroma and feeling a tad better as the heat seeped into his hands pushing away a chill he had not known was there. "I can see I'm interrupting something," he paused and took a deep breath, "and I really want to care about it, but all I feel is hurt."
Nodding lightly, Callie stirred a spoon through her tea watching as the few stray leafs twirled around in the mini-tornado that she had created, "Is that where the Addison stuff came in?"
He shrugged, "Isn't that where most of our post relationship bad decisions come from?"
The question seemed to expand through the air in the kitchen and Callie motioned towards the couches, "We're the same Mark and that means I can call you out on your crap and you can yell at me all you want, but deep down you know you're being hard on her because she's the one."
She watched him curl a leg up underneath himself and tug a pillow into his chest, "No, I just thought she was, she doesn't want kids and I-"
"You ambushed her Mark!" Callie shook her hand at him in frustration, "You decided what you wanted and you didn't lead into it, you didn't ask, you just did it, right?"
His eyes broke away from hers focusing back on the cup he was cradling between his hands and he grumbled something low and gravely.
"I can't hear in that register Mark."
The cup hovered around his mouth now and he mumbled this time, "It felt right."
Callie's eyebrows raised, "Oh, felt right… and that doesn't remind you of your behavior I don't know…" she trailed off and looked to him to finish.
"Before Lexie."
She slapped her open palm back on her thigh, "Exactly. We revert Mark, you and I, we go with the feeling. I felt like I wanted a commitment from George, Bam!" Her hand hit her thigh again, "Married. I felt him slipping, Bam! I want a baby."
Mark shook his head and snorted, "O'Malley was years ago, you've grown from that excuse of a relationship." He laughed for a moment until he caught her gaze and sobered instantly, "Callie, I didn't-Callie."
She rolled her shoulders back, "Mark, we grow from every person we touch, every person leaves us with a mark… but we still stay us, in essence and you and I," she smiled at him, "we're emotional bumper cars."
Callie looked at her friend as he seemed to wrestle with the pillow in front of him before leaning forward to deposit his cup on the table before him. His hand kneaded the pillow, giving her the sense that he needed a hug or some physical contact as a release. Mark looked towards the bedroom, "So what is Robbins?"
"Arizona?" Even saying her name felt comforting to Callie in this moment.
He nodded, Mark Sloan, looking like one of the Lost Boys stuck in Neverland; he just needed someone to believe or to believe in. "She's my…" she paused, her eyes drifting up in thought trying to picture the word to describe how she felt about Arizona, "She's my now, my next, and my never-ending."
A sad smile worked its way across Mark's face as he cleared his throat, "That's how I felt about Lexie."
Callie shook her head, "No, it's how you feel about her and Mark, you make each other better." Her voice lowered as she raised her eyebrows and spoke from the side of her mouth, "You make her a little less neurotic and she makes you," she scooted closer to him on the couch, "She makes you the man I know you to be, but not the secret Sloan that I know."
She poked him in the ribs and ran her arm around his shoulders before pulling him into her side, "They make us better people Mark." His deep breathing came quicker and Callie could feel him staring to let go of the anger and the grief washed over him as tears fell onto her shoulder.
"It's going to be okay Mark." Dropping a kiss onto the top of his head Callie kept rubbing up and down his back. "I'm right here; you're going to be okay."
The water trickled down her face as Arizona leaned back into the shower spray, the scalding heat bringing her skin to a bright shade of red that made her think of herself as a gigantic lobster. She hummed lightly as she thought back to the moment with Karev as they looked over the scans and x-rays of Brad Walker when Alex mentioned that no child would fake being ill and staying in the hospital.
She could see in the resident's eyes she had shared a little too much of her own nerdy self from childhood. The hospital had always been a fun escape for her growing up. It felt less rigid than the military base; she had been treated with care and like a tiny adult as she roamed the halls as her mother conducted physical therapy sessions with pediatric patients.
She heard the door to the bedroom open and she called from the bathroom, "I know I'm going to use all the hot water and then Cristina is going to put an extra surcharge on your rent. I'm hurrying up." Rinsing off quickly, she reached for the towel dangling from the shower door. She ran the cotton cloth over herself before wrapping it around her body and continuing to bellow towards Callie, who she thought would have entered already.
Quickly running through her nightly routine Arizona slipped on her pajamas and walked into the bedroom, taking out her earrings for the evening and continued to chatter, "So are you going to shower in the ah-ah, liar!"
Her eyes scanned the bed seeing Callie tucked into the middle of the bed and Mark had joined her, over the covers, but still he was in their bed. The covers were pulled back for her and Arizona sighed before slipping underneath the sheets and trying to situate herself.
The bed dipped as she felt Callie turn on her side and look at Mark's frame, "You feel better?"
"A little," drifted across the span of the bed to Arizona as she felt Callie snuggle in between the two of them.
She tried to talk herself down, but it came out anyways, "This really isn't gonna work for me." Callie pulled her arm closer and slipped her hand into hers.
The deep warm chuckle reverberated through the mattress as Arizona felt her lean towards her, "It's not about you tonight." She kissed her lightly and Arizona's eyes met hers pleading silently.
"Mark?" Callie lightly questioned.
He hadn't moved and just sighed, "Two more five minutes."
The childlike nature of his request caused Arizona to laugh. "How about one more five minutes Mark?" She haggled.
She looked over Callie's body as her eyes met his and he smiled at Arizona thankfully, "Yeah, one more."
Callie turned towards Arizona and felt her heart ache slightly from the give and take her two people were making for each other in that moment. She closed her eyes and leaned back into the pillows taking deep breaths which caused her to fall asleep quickly.
The door to the apartment shut somewhat loudly and Cristina winced as she tip-toed into the living area. She glanced at the ajar door to Callie's room as the light spilled out of the door, "Guys?" She asked softly, treading even closer.
Looking over the threshold she let out a grunt of surprise as she saw Arizona and Callie sleeping as they normally did in big spoon and little spoon style, but the more surprising addition of Sloan on top of the covers. What brought a smirk to her usually stoic face was that Mark, turned on his side towards the cuddling women had at some point threaded his hand into Arizona's. The most remarkable part is that it seemed she had continued to let him.
She dug into her bag and clucked her tongue as she found her phone, pulling it out of the satchel she shook her head, "Mere would never believe me without photographic evidence."
An arm rested on her waist and she turned back and saw Owen shaking his head at her, "Do you ever just let people be?"
"But look at it. It's just." She motioned again at the sleeping trio before Owen stepped lightly into the bedroom and turned the light off. "Killjoy," she murmured heading for her bedroom.
Owen smiled at the slumbering individuals and quietly swung the door shut before following Cristina to catch shut eye when his friends had already got a head start on him.