Arizona instantly felt like an idiot as she extended her arm to shake Lauren's hand. They had spent more time together over the last week than Arizona cared to admit. They'd had coffee. They'd had lunch. They'd performed an incredible surgery on a tiny human. They had a connection. They had become more than a handshake and they both knew it.
Lauren laughed incredulously at the gesture - a laugh that was also laced with hurt and confusion. Arizona withdrew her hand and laughed nervously as she considered a more fitting farewell. She sighed internally as she took a step forward into the inevitable - a tiny step that felt like an enormous leap into dangerous territory. Lauren mirrored her action and both women found themselves physically closer than they'd ever been.
There were no barriers now, no scrub masks to hide behind. It was just Arizona, and Lauren, in an on-call room. Alone. Before Arizona had the time to consider this fully, she felt Lauren's arms close around her, pulling her into a loose hug. She melted into Lauren as she felt the other woman's form against her own for the first time. Arizona embraced the embrace and allowed her hands to settle on Lauren's shoulder blades over her scrubs and lab coat. Both women inhaled simultaneously, the scent of the other making them heady. The feel of the slender body pressed against her own, combined with the smell of fresh soap and shampoo of Lauren's skin and hair made Arizona weak to her core.
She barely noticed the lights inside the on-call room flicker and dim, nor the door slam into its crane behind her before she felt Lauren's lips brush against her own. The contact was so brief and delicate that Arizona wondered if she'd imagined it. It was only the ache between her legs that co firmed the reality of the situation. Desire consumed her then as she felt her body respond to Lauren, crashing her lips against those of the woman who had invaded her every pore in less than a week - the woman who felt more like Arizona than Arizona did herself.
The kiss was frantic, yet tentative; full of emotion, yet void of any complication at the same time. Arizona grabbed at the back of Lauren's head, anchoring them together as the kiss deepened. Arizona could feel Lauren's need for her with every breath against her face, every delicate touch upon her burning skin. She sucked Lauren's bottom lip into her mouth and bit down lightly, which seemed to ignite something within the other woman, who growled and shuddered in appreciation.
Arizona searched for Lauren's face in the dark but was unable to find the features she was seeking - there hadn't been enough time for her eyes to adjust to the reduced light, and that produced by the raging storm outside was not adequate. Arizona didn't believe she could get any closer to Lauren than she was in that moment, until she felt Lauren's strong and capable hands roaming over her lab coat covered back and she thought she would die from desire. She felt Lauren's hands slowly moving impossibly lower until they rested on her ass. Arizona closed her eyes as her breathing quickened, relishing Lauren's touch.
The lights flickered and came back on and Arizona's eyes shot open. She was ready to keep falling into the eyes that met her own, eyes of the most intense hazel she had ever seen. Realisation hit Arizona in that moment - the eyes that held her own should not be hazel because her wife's eyes were unmistakably brown. Brown eyes that go so dark with desire you would be forgiven for thinking they were pure onyx. Those were the eyes that belonged to her wife. The eyes that belonged to Callie.
"I-I-uh- ... I can't do this." Arizona gasped as she tried to wriggle out of the clinch. She tried incredibly hard to eschew the utterly defeated look that washed across Lauren's features. Arizona felt like she was in complete turmoil. How could she have let it get to this?
"It was a pleasure to meet you," Arizona stated simply as genuine tears pricked her eyes whilst she turned and reached for the door handle. And it had been. Lauren had made Arizona feel alive from the moment she had picked up the wrong coffee cup at the cart on that very first morning. She was fresh, and inspiring and an incredibly well respected surgeon. She was everything that Arizona used to be. Not before Callie, but before the plane crash; before the day she lost everything.
She flinched at the thought. She was frozen at the door as she was momentarily transported back to the woods, screaming in pain as the life from those around her drained away into the dirt. Arizona Robbins, the good man in the storm died in the woods, and she had been nothing but an empty shell since. She lost control the moment the pilot did, and lost everything as a result. She lost her daughter's father, her courage and her sense of self which was bad enough. Then she lost her leg and with the loss of her limb came so much more - her confidence, her pride and her dignity, not only as a woman but as a surgeon. She lost valuable time with her daughter, and equally valuable time with her wife.
It was not the physical loss of her limb as such that was the issue - it was the association of the amputation with the loss of everything else. The association with Callie. Arizona was not dense - she knew that Callie made the decision to safe her life. Unfortunately, though, Callie's decision to cut off Arizona's leg left Arizona with a physical reminder of all of the things she had lost, and this is what hurt her the most. Arizona gulped back a lump of emotion as she placed her hand on the door knob.
"Arizona?" She heard Lauren growl from behind her, a guttural groan that was almost primal. She blinked back tears as Callie flashed through her mind once more, from the time in the elevator she had uttered Arizona's name in the exact same way that Lauren just had, after their separation over their differing views on having children. Yet another thing that Arizona had compromised on to be with Callie.
She prayed that Lauren would not say anything else as she could feel her defences crumbling just from hearing her say her name. She drew in a breath and waited for what felt like an eternity.
"You are allowed to lose a little bit of control."
And there it was. That one sentence that made everything crystal clear. Ironically, it was not about Arizona losing control at all - it was about gaining it. Lauren had allowed Arizona to make a decision for herself, and she was sure she had never in her life been as understood as she was in that moment. Lauren wanted her - not out of love because she was her wife, nor out of pity for her being physically disabled, but because she was Arizona Robbins. A sigh of relief escaped Arizona's lips as she flicked the lock on the door of the on-call room.