Someday We'll Know
xxSoNFANxx
I own zero.
Hey everyone, this is just a quick fic from Arizona's POV about the end of 7.12. To those of you who wonder, I'm still working on 6 Months, but with the obvious hitches in the road, I'll have to rethink a lot of it. Enjoy!
-0-0-0-0
"Ninety miles outside Chicago
I can't stop driving, I don't know why
Too many questions that need an answer
Two years later, she's still on my mind
Whatever happened to Amelia Earhart?
Who holds the stars up in the sky?
Is true love is just once in a lifetime?
Did the captain of the Titanic cry?
Someday we'll know
If love can move a mountain
Someday we'll know
Why the sky is blue
Someday we'll know why I wasn't meant for you…"
-Someday We'll Know
Mandy Moore and Jonathon Foreman
"How about now?" she asks. Her eyes plead with mine and I can see the tears she had been holding back gather.
Instantly, my mind goes back there. This place is one that I have never been able to shake, no matter how hard I wished for it. My only relief from here had been to wake up, screaming, with her hands on my waist. Now, knowing where her hands have been makes me sick inside. I deserved this. I knew I did. After everything I had done, having not paid for my sins, this was my fault.
I was 18 when I had started gathering this karma. I spent my entire summer after high school partying, drinking, doing things I knew I shouldn't. Things my parents would absolutely never have approved of, and things he made certain I knew he didn't condone.
"That was really stupid!" he shouted at me as soon as he pulled the car into the driveway.
"Lighten up!" I said, laughing at the seriousness in his face.
"No, I won't. It's not funny, not in the least bit! What the hell were you thinking? Do you know what will happen if Mom or the Colonel finds out about this?"
"Daddy will get all red-faced and angry. His mustache will twitch until he finally is so annoyed that he yells at me and sends me to my room. Cause that worked so well the first time," I mock, "and Mom will sit there he whole time, looking at me in her 'serious' face. Then, I'll do some Arizona magic, like giving them my sad face or blaming Dad for being away so much or I'll blame them both for making us move every year and they'll be so guilt-ridden that I'll walk away with no scratches at all."
"Who are you?" he screams, and even though I'm drunk, it still hurts like hell.
"I'm 'the Bad Seed' Danny. That's what I am. The town, our relatives, everyone who ever knew me, every girl who ever dated me knows that," I say, tears finding their way down my face.
"That's not true," he says, putting his arm around me, "you're not. You're Arizona, the girl who learned to ride her big brother's two-wheeled bike when she was 4 'cause the six year old was too big of a wimp to ride without training wheels. You're the girl who wouldn't let her Barbie marry my G.I. Joe, because she wanted to marry that Carebear. You're the girl who risked everything she had for the sake of honesty. You couldn't keep who you are a secret, even though it could have ended badly. It didn't, because we love you so much that it doesn't matter. As long as you're happy and healthy, nothing you do can make us love you any less. But this isn't who you are. You're not this girl. You're better than her. You're better than booze and using all of these girls. You are the best man in a storm that I know. Why are you acting like this? You worked your ass off for your grades so you could go to a good college and become doctor. Are you willing to throw that away? College won't keep you very long if you don't try, no hospital will let you work there if you're unreliable. What's going on in that pretty head of yours?" he smiles at the end of his sentence. His beautiful smile and his beautiful eyes, they made him popular instantly, everywhere we moved.
The two years since he had gone to college had been really hard for me. He was my big brother, my best friend, my only ally for some of my life. His being gone not only sucked, but also made it harder for me to be who I was. When I found out what he was planning, I couldn't stand it. Rebelling was my only way of dealing.
"You leave me all the time," I say.
"I always come back," he replies.
"From college maybe," I say, "but what about after? You joined the Army, Dan."
"I'll be fine, Arizona," he smiles again, "I'll always come back to my first baby sister, one way or another."
We hugged each other and snuck back into the house. Danny kept that night a secret from our parents, and I promised that I would stop my reckless behavior.
Three years later, I was a junior in college. My grades were good, my MCATS were fantastic, and my applications were on their way to medical schools across the country. Danny still called me as much as he could, telling me stories about being stationed in places like Germany and Cuba, and falling in love. He had never been so happy as he was when he was with her. He told me once,
"You'll know she's the one when no matter what you do, how awesome it is, it sucks unless she's with you. It's just…someday, you'll know."
I could never relate, and wondered if love, true love, really existed for everyone.
Life had gone by quite well. My dad retired and my mom, a scrub nurse, took fewer hours at the hospital so she could help my brother and sister-in-law take care of my new baby niece. It wasn't until I was almost out of medical school that my nightmares began to come true.
September 11, 2001 was a horror story for thousands of people. I never thought that I would be one of them.
I was on my way to class when my younger brother called me from his college dorm. He told me what had happened and I couldn't believe what I heard. I couldn't imagine how horrible it felt to be one of those people. I didn't know how they could ever get over losing someone so important to them.
It was May when I heard that Danny had to go to war. I was terrified for him, his wife, my niece, and baby nephew. I knew what it was like to fear for you father's life while not understanding life at all. I didn't want that for his kids.
It was another two years before I got the email that he would be coming home by month's end. He was so excited to come home to his family, to be a father to the kids he barely knew.
It was four days before his flight was supposed to come in, but we were at the airport anyway. My father, in his dress uniform and me in a black dress, waited in the hanger. My mother stayed with my sister-in-law and the kids, while my younger brother and sister were on their way back from college, having to request the week off to say goodbye to their oldest sibling.
"Daniel M. Robbins Jr." a cadet called.
"We're his family," my father called to the young man, barely old enough to fight in the war.
"We appreciate you son's service to his country," he said, handing the flag to my father. They exchanged a salute and we were on our way again, back to the home where I knew everyone with good intentions would be. I didn't want good intentions. I wanted my brother.
The next 5 years had almost been a blur. After getting my degree from Hopkins, I completed my residency in South Carolina, staying with my parents and helping raise my niece and nephew. When Trey was ready to go to school, my family decided it was best for me to go somewhere else.
"You've helped them in every way possible," my father told me, "Grace and Trey are ok. Sarah is ok. Mom and I, Jeff and Emily are ok. The only person who isn't is you. You need to do this for yourself, Arizona. You've been offered something really special in Seattle. You can go and be an Attending Surgeon, you can teach other doctors to save kids. You can help save someone's big brother."
So I agreed to go to Seattle. I didn't know what I'd find, but my mom assured me that not knowing was one of the best parts of going somewhere new. She's a Marine wife through and through. When my family dropped me off at the airport, I said my goodbyes, leaving my most difficult for the last two.
"Bye Aunt Arizona," Grace said, "We'll miss you!"
"You'll miss me? Maybe I should stay."
"No," my mom said, "those kids need your help. These kids are fine right here!"
"We're not kids Grandma!" Trey said.
"Yeah, we're just tiny humans. Have fun in Seattle."
"I'll try, but it won't be any fun without my favorite niece and nephew," I teased.
"No, Aunt Arizona," Trey said, looking as serious as a 5 year-old can, "You have to go into it with a good attitude. It's ok not to know what's next. You just have to be a good man in a storm. Everything might not go as well as you plan, but it will work out in the end."
"Where did you get so smart?"
"Grandpa tells me stuff all of the time," he explained, "When I'm scared, I just say, 'I'm Daniel Michael Robbins the Third! I can do anything I want to!' as long as it isn't naughty. Grandpa says I can't do things like that."
"Don't forget," Grace helped, "someday everything will make sense!"
They hugged me and I felt terrible for going. I didn't want to leave them, ever.
"I'm not going to go pay the meter again," Jeff says, "you have to get on that plane. But remember, the kids are right. Someday, you'll know," repeating Danny's famous line.
Now, all of that, nights of tiny coffins, falling in love with a rumor, kissing that rumor in a bar bathroom, one baby drama break up, one crazed gunman induced make up, an apartment combination/renovation, another unnecessary break up, and one Carter-Madison Grant later, I'm standing in an elevator. My head is full of the memories of my worst moments and I'm trying to think of my family, of that boy and girl who look just like Danny and me at those ages, my little brother and sister, anything I can to stop the negativity.
I take all of the words of wisdom and use them to push out the bad thoughts. I have paid my sins back, not this last one, but the rest. This isn't my fault that the world is a mess, just that the woman in front of me is. I take a breath and I notice that it hasn't even been a minute.
"Ok," I say. She looks at me like I'm crazy, and honestly, I might be.
"What?"
"Ok, Calliope. That's ok with me."
"How?" she struggles to speak, obviously surprised by my answer.
"I promised to be a good man in a storm. I promised to protect the things I love. I have failed you. I broke that promise. The one time I should have just stayed in one place, I left. But that's the thing Callie, I will always come back. As long as I am able, I will always come back to you. Yes, I wanted my first child to be your first child, but things don't go exactly the way we plan them. I see no wrong, Callie. I see you, the woman I love more than I love anyone in the world, and that baby inside of you, is a part of you, so yes, I love it, too. Maybe it's not technically mine, but really, no child we would have could be both of ours, so I'd rather it be yours, because there is no one else in the world I love more than you. I would love nothing more than to get to love a tiny, little piece of you."
"Why are you so ok with this? How are you so ok with this?"
"Every cloud has a silver lining, Calliope, it really does."
"What's the silver lining around this one?"
"When the time comes for us to have a baby together, that baby inside of you now is going to be the best big brother or sister to him or her that it won't matter how either of them got into this world, only that they have each other to navigate through it."
"Arizona," she cries, "how is this happening? I thought that you'd never want to speak to me again after you found out."
"Someday we'll know why things happened the way that they did. Until then, we have to trust what we already know. You're the one for me. I know that much."
"Will that be enough for you? When this kid is two and scribbling on the walls and pooping in its pants and screaming at you for not letting it do whatever it wants to, are you going to walk away?"
"I might step into another room to breathe. I might need to go on a walk around the block. But no matter what happens, I'll always come back. I'll always come back to you, one way or another."
"Even if you get some stupid, stuffy, fancy award?"
"I already have the only award I will ever need," I say, looking into her eyes. Maybe this situation isn't perfect. Is any situation perfect? Maybe I wish it could be different. What would I change? Those are questions that I cannot yet answer. Someday I'll know. Until then, I know she's the one, I know this is the right decision. I'll let that be enough because Danny was right. About everything.
"Someday you'll know
that I was the one for you."