So the idea for this story was created while I was watching Amelia and Arizona working on Dr. Herman 's tumor. I just saw something there and if you did too, I hope that you'll enjoy this fic :) Oh and I don't own anything. Only my imagination.


There's a calm before every storm. It's a unique moment. The air does not move; all around you just freezes. Everyone knows that the storm will come at any moment, but at the same time they delude themselves that it'll go past. But when it's getting closer and closer people finally try to prepare for what's unavoidable, still knowing that they probably won't be able to be fully prepared for what will come. And it usually starts with a single clap of thunder...

"Perfect Penny killed my husband" the room fell silent. And then, just like during the storm, it all happened too fast. Amelia's scream, her voice full of pain, Penny's quiet explanations, Callie's disbelief and anxious whispers between the guests. For Arizona it was too much. She abruptly stood up from the table and walked over to the kitchen, but nobody even noticed that. After all, everyone was pacing all around the house, trying to adjust to the new situation.

She wasn't drunk. Well, not 'drunk' drunk. She was in a goofy mood, but once Meredith revealed the truth, it was like somebody poured cold water on her. Like sobering up, but with no hangover, although she was pretty sure that the hangover will show up later.

She came back to the dining room just to find out that the only person there was Callie. She cleared her throat.

"Umm...where's everybody?" the blonde tried.

"Well, apparently nobody wanted to stay in the room with Penny, so Karev and Wilson went upstairs with Meredith and Amelia. Jackson and April just left, obviously not in the mood to even argue with each other, Bailey politely apologized and she is also gone. Penny and Owen are nowhere to be found and Cross...ah, yes, he's in the bathroom" Callie blurted out, her voice shaking.

"Did you..." Arizona started, but seeing her ex-wife's gaze she realized that she really had no idea about what Penny had done. "You should talk to her Callie. Meredith told us her side of the story. If Penny were my girlfriend, I would at least try to know her point of view" she had no idea why she was trying to be nice to the brunette. She was just tired of the fact that everything was falling apart.

"Thank you," that plus a weak smile was all that she received in response before Callie walked out of the house. For a while there was a complete silence, but it was interrupted by Cross, who's showed up beside her.

"Hey Dr. Robbins, it appears that we're the only guests now. So my place or yours?" she knew that he was just trying to lighten the mood a bit. Interns usually suck at dealing with death. So she didn't hold it against him even though it was inappropriate.

"You'd better go home, you're on my service tomorrow," she just patted his arm and smiled.

"Understood. Good night" and with that, he also was gone.

Arizona looked around. The table was still set. All the plates and glasses have remained on it. But she was too unsteady to clean it at that moment, because her leg was killing her and she just started to feel the alcohol in her blood again. So she made the decision to go upstairs to her room. As she was heading straight to it, something made her stop. It was the raised voices that were coming from Amelia's room. One belonged to Amelia herself and the other sounded like Owen's. And for reasons unknown to herself, she decided to step in. She saw the neurosurgeon sitting on her bed with legs crossed and Owen was standing in the middle of the room, gesticulating.

"Ah Dr. Sweetheart, how lovely. Please come in, Owen has just been leaving," Amelia's mocking tone turned out to be a strangely unpleasant feeling for the blonde, but she ignored it.

"You know what? You're right, I'm leaving," Owen threw her one last glance as he stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

"Please, make yourself comfortable. I'm dying to hear what you have to say. After all, Meredith and Owen had so much to say, so many words of wisdom, so go on, tell me how should I be behaving," again with that mocking tone, mocking and bitter.

"Timothy Robbins" Arizona started, her voice a bit shaking but confident nevertheless. And that made Amelia look straight at her. "An Army Ranger, man of great honor, brave and willing to do anything for the others. But for me he was also an older brother. He died during his service. His unit went on a scouting mission. They were ambushed. My brother was shot while trying to protect his already injured friend. When they managed to escape and return to the base it appeared that there were no doctors left. My brother died, because there weren't enough doctors to help him. So I get it. I get why you act the way you act right now"

"You don't get anything" the brunette cut in.

"Don't I? You're angry...no you're pissed. You're pissed at Penny for the fact that she was there, that she didn't pushed harder for the CT, that she is involved in Derek's death" she said and Amelia sent her a confused look. "I told you I get it. I was also mad; I was so mad at the doctors that weren't even there. But most of all, I was mad at Tim. That he left us, left me. You know when I came out to him he asked if that meant I was going to marry a chick. When I said yes, he told me that he was going to dance so hard at my wedding. I got married and he wasn't there. I got divorced and he still wasn't there..." her voice cracked a bit. But she tried not to cry. "So I get it. You just need to process it, accept it... you just need a minute to miss your brother" and she was about to leave. She said what she wanted to, what her a-bit-drunk self wanted to reveal. But then she heard words that she just couldn't ignore.

"I can't do that. I know how to do that but I still can't do that" her gaze met a pair of terrified, blue eyes. There was something about them. That blue wasn't like Arizona's blue. This one was darker, more subdued. Like there was a shadow lingering on it, preventing them from shining. So the blonde came closer to the bed and sat on its edge waiting for the brunette to continue. "I don't mourn. I just shut my mind off. I don't let hurtful knowledge near my consciousness. Instead I do drugs or have a lot of meaningless sex. I do that, but I don't grieve. Because if I started to grieve, I don't think that I would be able to stop. I would shrink and eventually I would disappear. And since I'm clean now, I'm running out of options. And I can't mourn...I can't."

"Oh, but you do," Arizona answered quietly and then she saw it, the shadow in Amelia's eyes slightly moved. It was like for a second some force has tried to get rid of it.

"My life has turned into a horror show and all I can do is stand back and watch it play out. My baby had no brain. No brain. I'm a damn neurosurgeon and my baby had no brain. Now Derek also has no brain. Because when it's dead then it's no brain. It's just a mass of neurons. My baby and brother are both dead due to some neurological shit. I'd say God has a sense of humor, but there is no God. No God would do this" the brunette uttered with a husky voice and then she fell into pieces. She started to tremble and suddenly she became smaller. Tears were falling down her face and she started to gasp for breath. Without much thinking, Arizona propped herself up and despite the fact that the prosthesis significantly prevented her movements, she scooted closer to Amelia and put an arm around her. Amelia nestled her head in Arizona's torso, still sobbing. Blonde started to stroke her hair hoping that it will soothe the younger woman.

The storm is over. You look at all the damage it has done, you count the losses. You know that although this storm is over, another one will come. And you begin to wonder how many other storms you can survive, before it destroys you. But Arizona Robbins wasn't that person. When others kept on wondering, she was there to remind them that life should be about more than just surviving. To show them that even though they can't see it, there is always a rainbow after every storm. And she was like that, because she was raised to be a good man in a storm.

"I used to eat donuts" Arizona suddenly broke the silence. This statement was so taken out of context that Amelia raised her head to look at the other woman.

"I think you've overdone it with that wine, Robbins," the brunette mumbled in a tone of somebody who's been crying for a long time.

"I...what? Well I might have had a bit, but that's not the point," blonde stumbled. Maybe the alcohol was really coming back to her head. And for a brief moment that drunk Arizona seemed to be quite endearing for Amelia. Still able to have a heart to heart conversation even though her body was fighting with stupefying overflow. Yeah, that was definitely endearing knowing that someone was trying to stay sober, just to keep you from falling apart.

"You and Kepner had drained at least three bottles before the actual party started," the neurosurgeon commented with a hint of amusement.

"Try to stay sober while your ex-wife is supposed to introduce her new girlfriend to your friends and you're still single as hell," Arizona rubbed her face with her hand.

"Fair point," the other woman sighed and there was silence between them again. This time it was Amelia who broke it. "Well, if it makes you feel a bit better, she doesn't tickle my fancy," she smiled at the blonde.

"Shut up, it's not funny" but she laughed anyway. Because it was funny. It all was funny. Funny in its own fucked up way.

"So what's with the donuts?" brunette looked at the other woman and something inside her moved. She was met with the sky. Not literally, but Arizona's blue eyes looked exactly like the sky on sunny days. They were shining, warm and calm. There was a storm raging on inside her and yet she was looking at the clear sky...

"When Tim died I grieved by eating donuts," she confessed and that was pretty much all that she was able to say before her eyelids suddenly became unbearably heavy. She just lay down on bed and fell asleep. Amelia didn't even have enough time to react properly to the confession.

"Who would have thought that the peds surgeon will be the one to set a bad example," she quietly stated looking at the sleeping blonde. Despite what happened, she looked quite peaceful. Her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. The brunette started to wonder whether it's just Arizona or do people actually look like that while sleeping. So calm, so delicate. She never got a chance to watch others sleep for one simple reason; drugs. She was usually the one to pass out first. So that moment, while she was watching instead of being watched, seemed unique to her.

So she just watched for a while. She focused on her face. She was looking for any signs of emotions, but she couldn't find them, Arizona's face remained still. Almost...blank. So Amelia thought about the reason why the other woman got drunk. Penny. Although the blonde spent the party complementing her ex-wife's new girlfriend, Amelia knew that it was just her way of protecting herself from being hurt. Funny how a few minutes ago the said blonde was lecturing her about accepting things in life even if they are most likely to hurt us.

"Appears we're not that different after all" she said even though the blonde obviously couldn't hear her. So she went back to watching. And then there is was. A slight grimace appeared on Arizona's face. It was more of a grimace caused by pain, not by a nightmare. So Amelia's gaze slid to the prosthetic leg. It must have been it. But the problem was that brunette didn't quite know what she was supposed to do. In order to remove it she would have to take off blonde's pants, because they were too tight for rolling up. Then another grimace followed by a quiet groan helped her make the decision. She reached up to unbutton Arizona's pants. "This is going to be fun" she bitterly thought to herself. This was actually the first time she was undressing someone for anything other than sex. And suddenly she felt that her hands were shaking, because undressing a person like that was so much more intimate than just taking one's clothes off in order to get laid. When she finally managed to compose herself, she almost chuckled at what she saw. For some strange reason she pictured Arizona's underwear to be something similar to her Holly Hobbie scrub cap. So seeing simple navy blue briefs suddenly seemed ridiculous. The only thing that seemed more ridiculous at that moment was that she actually found herself staring at that underwear, casting a glance at the exposed part of blonde's abdomen from time to time. Maybe it was because Amelia mainly saw her in medical scrubs so that sight was kind of new, or maybe because Arizona was an attractive woman. Or maybe both.

"Get your act together Shepherd" she whispered and with efficient movement she finally got rid of that pants. It took her only a while to figure out how to get rid of the prosthesis as well. Arizona flinched slightly, but her sleep remained undisturbed, so Amelia just put the artificial limb on the floor. It was quite light and didn't look like something that costs the user much trouble, but she could only imagine how 'heavy' it must have been. Her gaze returned to the sleeping form of pediatric surgeon. Asleep and almost half naked she looked vulnerable. The lack of the leg wasn't helping. In fact, it made her look so fragile that for a brief moment all that Amelia wanted was to take her in her arms and shield from all the crap in the world. But almost at the same moment she realizes that she's in fact an intruder. She's just standing there, watching the other woman, feeling like she's done something bad. Because she did. She's invaded Arizona's privacy. The leg. She knew about the leg, everyone in hospital knew about the damn leg. And yet there she was, looking at that leg like she had a right to, but in fact she didn't have any. And that made her feel really bad. So she quickly rummaged around in the drawer for her old shorts and she put them on the blonde as gently as she could. The only thing that made Amelia's remorse a bit less bothering, was the peaceful look on blonde's face, uninterrupted by any grimace. She looked at the clock. It was past midnight and both of them were supposed to show up at work tomorrow. After all they were all living together in that freaking house, so what difference was it in which room. So she just lay down next to Arizona and not even bothering to change her clothes she slid under the duvet, covering the blonde as well. Sleep came to her sooner that she expected.


Arizona was the first one to wake up. Not that she wanted to. It was more like the hangover decided to pay her an early visit. At first she struggled with opening her eyes, because the room seemed too bright. When she finally managed to do that, she quickly realized that it wasn't the room she was used to waking up in, but she decided to play it cool. Then she realized that she didn't have her prosthesis on, what made her a bit nervous. But just then she finally realized in what position she was. She was laying on a bed under nice, warm bedding. Her whole body was slightly twisted on her side, because her left arm was resting on...someone. Someone's waist to be exact. Before she freaked out, she saw the tangle of brown hair and suddenly she remembered. But that didn't make her feel any less calm. The last thing she remembered was talking about donuts and now there she was, waking up next to the Amelia Shepherd. But nothing happened between them, right? She tried her best to remember, but all she saw was darkness.

'Your imagination is messing with you Robbins' she thought and gulped. Whatever did or didn't happen was irrelevant now. What actually mattered was the fact that she, a divorced woman who hasn't actually been with anyone so close since the marriage, was now laying in an intimate position with no one else other than Amelia Shepherd. The girl that she had met during her surgical residency in Hopkins and the girl that she thought that she will never see again. And yet there she was, having survived a plane crash with her bother, her own daughter being best friends with her niece and her laying down just inches away from her. Amelia's voice echoed in her own head: "I'd say God has a sense of humor, but there is no God"...Oh but maybe somewhere there is a God after all. Because something or someone put them into this position and she would be lying if she didn't admit that it felt so good to be there.


Amelia woke up when the sun rays began to tickle her face. It was her favorite way of waking up, because it was a sign that it was going to be a good day, and she didn't get much of them. But there was something different about that morning. She wasn't alone. Someone was there with her and she knew exactly who that was. The only thing that surprised her was the fact that she fell asleep on the edge of bed and woke up with her back nuzzled in that said someone. And it felt nice. Having someone's arms wrapped around her, gave her the sense of security and it was something that Amelia was lacking almost all her life, but in that very moment, she felt safe. However, the circumstances were so ridiculous that she decided to burst her bubble. After all it happened by accident, didn't it? She forced herself to reach out for her phone. It was 7:30 am. She groaned silently. They were supposed to show up at work at 8. She slipped out of the embrace and gently shook blonde's shoulder. What she didn't know was that Arizona wasn't sleeping for quite some time and that she was watching her instead. So when brunette tried to wake her up, her eyes opened up immediately.

"We're screwed, aren't we?" she asked with a husky voice, feeling the recurrence of nausea.

"Well, in a nutshell," she answered feeling slightly unsure. She still was afraid how the blonde will react.

"Listen, I'm sorry I passed out," Arizona tried to put on her best 'I'm usually not like this, but last night was too much for me' look.

"No need to be sorry. Actually you've helped me a lot. It's good to have someone that gets you," she answered her with a smile.

"Told ya," she smiled back, but as soon as she saw her prosthesis on the floor the smile froze on her lips. She looked up questioningly. "What..." she tried, but Amelia cut in.

"I'm sorry, I know that I shouldn't have, but you seemed to be in pain because of it and I just decided that it'll be the best thing to do"

"Oh..." Arizona was upset. She wanted to yell at Amelia for what she's done, but she couldn't. She didn't do anything wrong, on the contrary, she helped her. But still the fact that somebody invaded her privacy bothered her a lot. It wasn't even about the undressing. It was about the leg. After all it was always about the leg, wasn't it?

"I'm a surgeon, Arizona. I've seen stuff. The fact that I saw your leg wasn't an extraordinary experience. It's not a unicorn, it's just a stump. And it's a pretty well healed stump. I know that this leg is making you feel like a worse person that the others, but that's bullshit. The only person that thinks like that is you. And you know what? If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself" she didn't mean to be so direct, but it just sort of came out of her. "You want to know what I've seen? I've seen a strong woman, who has survived a shooting, car crash and even a damn plane crash! A woman who's tried to overcome obstacles, even though they seemed to be running straight under her feet. I've seen a survivor. So who you are Dr. Robbins? A simple gimp or a survivor?" the last words echoed in Arizona's head for a time that seemed an eternity. She opened and closed her mouth several times, but nothing came out of them. Instead she was just looking at the pair of blue eyes that pierced her through and through. Finally she collected her thoughts.

"Survivor," it came out as a silent whisper, but it was enough for Amelia to hear it. And she was pleased with the answer. Although she had no time to respond, because at the same moment the door to her room opened and Meredith came in, complaining as always.

"I told you to be ready on time, how hard it is to..." but the words died on her lips as soon as she looked up and saw her sister-in-law with no one else, but chief of pediatric surgery, in the same bed, under the same bedding.

"Mer, it's not what it looks like" and although Amelia sounded confident, even she wasn't exactly sure what that "it" really meant.


That would be Chapter 1, there are more to come if you'll want to. Special thanks for my beta reader Ari and for my online friend Sara