The first time she sees her, they're both at someone's house party and she is standing alone, watching her press a classmate she only vaguely recalls against the open doorway of the kitchen.
They are drunk and she is drunk and the kiss looks steamy and entertaining, so she stares for a while. She takes a sip of her beer, chuckles, and, losing interest, her eyes drift to look for her boyfriend among the sea of people. She fails to find him, though, and her gaze returns. She watches the taller girl place her hand on the other girl's chest.
The taller girl moves her thigh to press against the girl's crotch, and it makes her wonder what it might feel like to have a curvy toned thigh rub against her.
She hears a murmur of her name, and her boyfriend finds her. She grabs his arm. Someone cheers at him. Former frat boy, she remembers. The noise calls attention and she meets her eyes for a still moment.
They are blue and unkind.
Later, she asks him, "Who was that girl?"
What girl, he wants to know, and she explains what she saw – she explains the fluttery blonde hair and the sharp, alluring sapphire eyes that met her own.
"Oh, careful of her," he warns. His beard grazes her cheek and it makes her want to turn away. "That's Robbins."
The second time she sees her, she happens to be assigned in the seat next to hers. She struts in slightly late with bags under her eyes, and more than just that, they are red and unflattering.
She lazily flops into her seat and their eyes meet again. But red eyes avert their gaze and she nestles her head against her arms.
The roster is called and R comes before S, so she affirms her presence and is surprised to hear that she's Amelia Shepherd. The rising Derek Shepherd's youngest sister, she remembers, as she glances over at her.
But she looks nothing like him.
There is no charm or wavy hair or exuberant pride, nor a glint in her eye.
The professor lectures and she forgets about her. And when the lecture ends, she assumes her polite tone to ask Amelia to move out of the way.
She looks at her, takes her in, and decides to exit on the other side.
She's asleep.
Arizona Robbins is a golden student, grade chaser, and annoying, she thinks. She is sober and focused now, and the blonde is eager and chatty and she kind of wants to punch her in the face.
She's noticed from her side-glances that her dimples pop out when she answers a question. She is tempted to reach out and poke at them.
The professor grins at Robbins just the same, his aged eyes crinkling at the sides. She briefly wonders if the blonde is fucking him, but then she remembers watching her grind her thigh against that other girl's crotch.
She hates her, she thinks. But her eyes drift to her thigh, and she notes the muscle indentations.
A runner, she thinks.
It must have felt good.
Arizona is absolutely sure she will pass the class with no problems, but then the professor assigns a partner for the term project. Which is fine, she thinks. She could be satisfied with anyone – like maybe the person on her left-hand side – the brilliant frat boy her ex-girlfriend dated before her, but instead, she's assigned to the person on her right.
Amelia's eyes are on her before she even turns to her, and the brunette looks just as disappointed, gazing at her with chin in palm and disdain in her hazel eyes.
"Well, Doctor Robbins," she starts, and it's the first time Arizona's really heard her voice. It's musical, and sly, and amused in its tone, "We'll have a good time together."
Amelia has four friends that have slept with Arizona. It throws her off. She doesn't understand the contrast between the blonde in the classroom and what people tell her, or perhaps there's a myth to the girl she has not legitimized yet.
Maybe they're both facades, she thinks.
They detain and detain until the day before their project proposal. They meet in the quiet air of the library, and Amelia briefly enjoys the stink of archaic journals.
Arizona speaks soft and low, with a tolerant voice, and it makes Amelia snicker hard. The prodigy is scribbling the draft with neat handwriting in her organized notebook, looking focused and ignoring input.
They are both facades, she realizes.
Amelia leans back in her chair, draping her arm over it. And as she stretches her legs out under the table, her foot taps against Arizona's knee.
The blonde looks up. "What?"
"Which is the real you?" she wonders aloud. Arizona laughs, but says nothing, and returns her attention to the book. "Are you using my ideas?" Amelia presses on.
"After considering them," Arizona murmurs without looking up, "I am not."
"What are you trying to say?"
"That you're lazy," the blonde says pointedly, placing her pen down on her notebook.
"You meant to say stupid, clearly."
"Well, you've been failing," Arizona notes. "You should get off the drugs."
Arizona ends up doing what she wants and Amelia doesn't seem to care much. She goes along with it, her investment placed in neurology courses. Arizona wonders about her sometimes. She kind of wants to fix her some days, but doesn't really do anything about it.
She wonders about the way her eyes sometimes are glossed over, or the why behind it, but she doesn't think too much since Amelia has a long-string of absences.
Besides, the professor knows she's done all the work.
Amelia disappears for the rest of the semester, and Arizona mostly hates her for bailing, though she would have hated her all the same. She gets an A, an A+ even, for bearing the burden herself, so she doesn't care.
She really doesn't need anyone.
Academic probation doesn't exist for cases like this, but it does for Amelia, and she's back again. The rumors suck, and so does her brother's reputation, so she struggles to sober up for a while.
When she does, she's back again, sitting next to Robbins again, and she is mostly annoyed again.
Withdrawal sucks too, and so does a smiley blonde.
Arizona doesn't say much to her besides snarky comments, but she finds her around the corner in halls and in most of her classes. She finds her at parties and events and seminars and it's annoying.
They exchange bantering words and hate each other most of the time.
When they fuck for the first time, they don't really call it a fuck. It's fast and urgent and happens too suddenly, when Amelia calls Arizona stupid and fake for coming to another shit party to fuck another random girl.
She is angry most of the time, Arizona notices, while she is relatively cool. She thinks it's the withdrawal, the furtive glances, so she lets it slide. She's not one to escalate.
But something about the way Amelia says it, something about the way she looks at her, the way her eyes scan over her body and stop at her breasts and thighs, makes her want to fuck her.
So she does.
Kissing her is nice, Arizona thinks, and they find a bedroom.
They still don't get along – they were never friends, and they're still not really friends at all, and Amelia regards it as mostly a one-in-the-moment-fueled-by-anger time thing.
She thinks so, she does, but then she opens her door one day to find Arizona staring at her with wanting eyes.
There is no greeting.
There is nothing between them to constitute a greeting.
And she is pushed against the door as it closes behind her.
They hate each other less, only because they fuck a lot.
And now Arizona realizes that Amelia's funny. She is more funny than anything, and sly, and witty, and dark.
She's dark, too, Arizona notices, when she comes over to fuck and finds herself scanning Amelia's bookshelf and fridge.
But she is sweet and she likes that better.
"Fuck me against this wall," she demands one night, when her roommate is not there. Arizona never leaves immediately anymore, she stays in bed for a little while before she departs, but now it is not enough.
So she demands more.
Excess.
"What?"
"I want to come against your leg."
They start to branch off. They do different things, they find new interests.
Amelia disappears again, and she rarely sees her anymore. She hears the distasteful rumors again, the ones she refuses to believe.
Amelia knows when it's back. She can't run from it sometimes. It's too much, she thinks, and Arizona was good distraction, but not enough.
There can't be enough of anything.
Amelia takes a hit for her pleasure and Tim takes a hit for his country.
She hasn't seen her for a while, and she'll be gone for a good amount of time, so she decides to come see her. There are people in Amelia's dorm room she doesn't recognize, but when she enters her bedroom, she realizes that it's mostly just Amelia that she doesn't recognize.
Amelia laughs when she sees her, "You look sullen as shit."
"You're high," she notes.
"Accentuated," Amelia corrects, drawing the word out lazily. It almost sounds like a drawl. "Or just fucking ecstatic."
"I haven't seen you in a while."
"Yeah."
She stands by the door and says nothing, but instead listens to the murmuring of the people outside of Amelia's bedroom. Amelia stands and struts over to her, and grabs her hand. Her eyes are glossy and seductive and it's a combination that Arizona has never seen before.
"You don't want to?" Amelia asks, when she does nothing.
"My brother is dead."
She pulls away then, and Arizona wants to leave.
So she does.
Sometimes, she wonders how it happened. How two people can depart from each other and leave not a string of attachment behind.
But they do.
Later, Addison tells her that her friend Callie married Arizona Robbins.
And Amelia spits out the spoon in her mouth and laughs hard.
In Seattle, she was surprised to meet Derek Shepherd. He was different, he was nothing like her. He wasn't sly or courageous or gorgeous like her. In Seattle, she saw her once or twice around the halls and was mostly unconcerned, but glad to know that she became established.
When she moves to Seattle, she grins and greets Arizona with an air of familiarity and glee that surprises even herself.
She is surprised to feel like they are old friends.
She is surprised to find her battered.
Even when Amelia comes, she is not concerned with her. She's mostly concerned with Herman, and Callie. And then, less concerned with Callie and more with Herman.
She gets divorced.
She gets trampled.
She finds out Herman is dying.
And then Amelia steps in.
And she sees nothing but brilliance.
It happens like whiplash, and it's mostly Amelia that does it.
They praise Amelia's plan and Arizona commends her brilliance and suggests a celebration with drinks, but Amelia can't have drinks, so she suggests a fuck.
It makes Arizona laugh when she says it, so she kisses her to be convincing.
"I'm not always joking," she tells her. And unlike the first time, Amelia is the one who slips inside of her.
It becomes a thing again, but it's less complicated and more light hearted, and Arizona is surprised when she takes off her leg in front of Amelia.
Her eyes aren't the same, though, they are soft and sweet and mostly bright.
Amelia isn't sure what kind of thing it is, but she finds herself knocking on Alex's door a lot. Arizona opens the door and doesn't have time to shut it before Amelia is on her.
And it surprises her, how much it's changed.
Arizona stalks around the Attendings' lounge, trying to figure out how to tell Herman, but mostly annoyed that Amelia went on a date with Owen.
The neurosurgeon comes in eventually, and apologizes for her lateness, inquiring of her mentor's whereabouts. Arizona dismisses her, though, and stalks around again, and Amelia grabs her arm.
"You can ask me how it went," she informs her.
"What is this, anyway."
"Whatever you want it to be."
So it's whatever.
And they're mostly fine with that, since they don't change it much.
One time she tells her, "You're like drugs."
"Drugs?" Arizona asks. She looks down at the brown hair pillowed on her lap and meets hazel eyes.
Bright and defined. They are smiling at her. She is smiling at her.
Her fingernails graze Amelia's scalp.
"I'm addicted."
Later, when they're laying in bed sweaty and satisfied, and Amelia's sure she's forgotten all about it, Arizona turns on her side to correct her.
"Medicine," she says, "Not drugs."