A/N: Okay, so slight change in plan. Seeing as how I seem to be incapable of cutting things short and keeping things simple(lol), I've deiced to make this a 3 part story with chapter 3 being the *ahem* fun bit. Things got a bit more winded with this story than I'd planned. Also, I'm in the process of packing and getting ready to move, so time is a bit stretched. I'd like to thank everyone who gave me an overwhelming welcome back! It really meant more than I can express. I don't really like writing canon, but I wanted to thank all those who offered their comments and feedback on my attempt.


Arizona remained standing in the kitchen for a moment longer after the crack of her bedroom door slamming signaled the end of her wife's rant. Mark, still looking bewildered and wide-eyed, blinked a few times and let his mouth hang agape.

"Huh." he said without any inflection in his tone.

Arizona cut her eyes to the man standing next to her and then, again, to the door of her bedroom. Slowly, a smile began to form on her lips. With its birth her eyes, too, lit up and captured a delightful quality.

"So, Mark" she drawled. "Thanks for all your help. You did everything I had hoped."

Mark, finally deciding to move, looked to his left and down at Arizona.

"What?" he asked.

Arizona grabbed his elbow and started tugging on the older man's arm as she lead him to where Sofia sat in her carrier on the couch.

"Oh, nothing." she admonished. "You'll understand when you're married. For now, be a good daddy and take Sofia to your place. Her two mommies have some...things to...discuss."

Leaning down she easily lifted her daughter, carrier and all, and passed her to Mark.

"Now, don't waste anymore time over here, Marcus. You're the father, remember? You need to spend time with your little girl. Teach her how to fish. Teach her how to swing a bat. Teach her how to alter a woman's body parts with a scalpel."

Mark, again being led by the arm, could do little else but follow Arizona's direction. The look of confusion on his face was priceless as they neared the front door.

"Robbins, she's just a baby! I can't do any of that stuff with her!"

Opening the door, Arizona gently shoved Mark into the narrow hallway.

"Well, not my problem. As the father, it's your job to teach her all those things and more. So, go, teach! Be a father!"

With that, she slammed the door in Mark's face. Before the man could move an inch, or ever attempt to understand what had just happened, the blue door in front of him swung open again.

"Oh, by the way, Callie and I are going to be...talking for a good part of the night. It would probably be best if you didn't stop by again." The door started to close once more before Arizona popped her head out one last time. "You know what? Were I you, I'd turn the tv up super loud...you know, in case my and Callie's...talking gets a little out of hand. Goodnight!"

The door slammed shut.

Mark waited a moment.

The door didn't open again.


Arizona took a deep breath and smoothed her hands down over her shirt. She attempted to wipe the mirthful glee off of her features and, instead, adopt an expression of hesitant inquisitiveness. Puffing out her cheeks, she slowly walked across the living room towards her bedroom.

"Hey." she said softly when she opened the door.

Callie was lying on their bed with her arms crossed over her head on the pillows behind her. She glanced in Arizona's direction briefly before returning her gaze to the corner.

"Hey." she replied flatly.

Arizona stepped into the room and patted the outsides of her legs in a nervous gesture.

"Wanna tell me what all that was about?"

Callie rolled her eyes and her arms lowered to her chest. Still keeping her eyes focused on the far corner of the room, she slowly replied.

"I thought I was in a relationship with you. I thought we got married. I didn't know I was gonna have to share you with Mark when I asked you to be friends with him."

Her tone was cold and decisive. The way she kept grinding her jaw told Arizona how upset she was. Despite the fact that she knew exactly how Callie felt, Arizona couldn't help toying with her wife a bit more. It was just too rich.

"Uh-huh." she said, noncommittally. "So, the fact that he's Sofia's father and he's a good dad, doesn't mean anything to you?"

Callie sat up and raised an eyebrow. "What? What does that have to do with us? Okay, so he's Sofia's father! The way he spouts that off at a moment's notice ensures that no one will forget it! That doesn't mean he has to be here all the time or that we have to talk about him everyday!"

Walking closer to the bed, Arizona nodded and pursed her lips, attempting to keep her coy smile to herself.

"Well, you were the one going on about what a great father he was going to make before Sofia was even born. I thought you'd be happy that I could see the truth in that, now."

Rolling her eyes, Callie came up short. "Whatever. I just wanted to come home tonight to you. I wanted us to share dinner and spend some time together. But, no! You had the great idea to invite Mark over...again!"

"Well, he's been having a rough time with the whole Lexie and Jackson thing, you know? He seemed sad and lonely so I thought we could help!"

Arizona wasn't truly upset, nor was she as oblivious as she was leading Callie to believe. The arguments she was posing were the same points Callie had tried to get her to see when the two of them had been on opposite sides of the Mark issue. As hard as she'd tried over the years, Arizona had been unable to get her partner to see that boundaries had to be set between the two of them. Callie could still be a good friend to Mark, but she had to be able to draw a line on where that friendship sat in regard to her relationship with Arizona.

Callie got up quickly, obviously frustrated with the direction of their discussion, and pushed passed Arizona. Once back in the living room, she ran her hands over her face and sighed.

"You know what?" she started, seeing that her wife had followed her. "When is Mark not having an issue with Lexie? He's messed things up over and over with her. Wallowing in it isn't going to help anyone. He can't rely on us to always give him his dignity back!"

Coming to stand a few feet in front of Callie, Arizona crossed her arms and took on a thoughtful expression.

"So, it's okay if it's you? Is that what you're saying?"

"What are you talking about? You're the one whose been choosing Mark over me lately!"

"So, a few weeks of my friendship with Mark has upset you?"

"Yes! Why wouldn't it?"

Unable to hold in her emotions over the irony of it all, Arizona finally let a small laugh escape. The sound seemed only to infuriate Callie all the more.

"You know what, Calliope? It sounds to me like you're jealous of Mark!"

And then...

Silence.

Callie felt as if she'd been slapped across the face. Her mouth was open to offer up some counter argument, but she found no words could escape her. Wide, shocked, dark brown eyes stared intently into soft baby blue.

The words were hauntingly familiar. Though it had been several months since Callie had heard them, and though her memories of the overall incident were fairly hazy, she could recall with vivid clarity the last time the words 'jealous' and 'Mark' had shared the same sentence.

She and Arizona had been going to a B & B to rekindle the romance in their relationship. Callie had offered the weekend in the hopes of reconnecting with her, then, girlfriend again. No sooner had the two of them gotten on the road then Mark had begun texting, complaining to Callie about his sorrows and woes over Lexie.

Arizona had felt slighted, implying that Callie placed her friendship with Mark over her relationship with her. Callie had lashed out and accused Arizona of being jealous of Mark.

The look she had received after the words had left her lips had been the most hurt and disappointed she had ever seen from her partner. Until just now, Callie had been unable to understand what that look meant.

How it felt.

"Arizona..."she said, trying to find her voice, but her wife cut her off with a hand in the air.

"You think I don't understand how you feel? You think I don't get that? A few weeks of it for you and you're ready to come to blows. How do you think it's felt for me? I've been dealing with matters for years, Calliope. Mark being in our bed, Mark dumping his problems on us, Mark taking over roles that should have been reserved for me!"

As she listed off her points, she counted them off on her fingers to give them added emphasis.

Callie swallowed the painful lump in her throat and continued to listen as her revelation fell upon her shoulders.

"I tried to get you to see it, but you couldn't. I was accused of not giving him a chance. I was accused of trying to hog your time. I was accused of being jealous. After I nearly lost you in that car accident, I knew I couldn't keep driving a wedge between us. I realized fully that if I wanted to have any part in your life and Sofia's I had to just suck things up and deal. You and Mark were a package deal."

Shaking her head, Callie took a step towards her wife. She couldn't believe how blind she'd been over the years. Mark had been her friend long before she'd ever met Arizona and so she'd never tried to change or adjust how she viewed that friendship. Instead, she'd demanded that Arizona be the one to change her views and opinions.

"Arizona, I didn't..."

"No, don't, Callie. Okay? I'm not upset. I love you. I love Sofia. I can't say that I love Mark or the fact that you seem to have some compulsive need to sleep with him, but I can tolerate him if it means we don't argue anymore. You chose me when we got married. That was enough for me. I've just tried to do as you asked and give him a chance seeing as he's not going anywhere."

Callie, again, shook her head. She didn't want Arizona settling. She didn't want the woman she loved changing who she was any more than she already had. Not for her. Arizona had walked away from the Carter-Madison grant. For her. She had left Africa and come back to Seattle. For her. Even after learning of her one night affair with Mark and her resultant pregnancy, Arizona had still chosen to grin and bear it and remain faithful to them. For her.

The love Callie had always longed for had been right in front of her and she'd been too blinded by past failures and heartaches to see it. Arizona had fought for her every step of the way for the past two years. After her accident and Sofia's early birth, the two of them had been busy with Callie's recovery, Sofia's stability, their wedding, and finally learning to be a couple with a newborn in the house.

They'd had very little time to evaluate themselves or their relationship and so Callie had been unable to fully see and appreciate how hard the entire ordeal had been, and still was, for Arizona.

"No. You may be okay, but I'm not, Arizona. I did chose you. I married you and I took those vows seriously. I promised to love you and ensure that you were happy and healthy. I never saw my own behavior where Mark was concerned. He's just always been my friend, you know? I didn't want to...I didn't want to...run the risk of isolating him if you and I didn't work out."

Arizona put her hands on her hips and cocked her eyebrows. "Umm, so the past few years with me have been, what, a trial run?" She wasn't trying to argue, but Callie's words left her curious.

Stepping closer still, Callie smiled softly and shook her head.

"No. The past few years, even with the bumps in the road, have been the happiest of my life. Mark's been my fall back person. He's the person I was able to be a fuck up with and not be judged for my childish behavior. With him, I never had to acknowledge my flaws or my faults in my past relationships. Somehow, even though you were different than anyone else I'd ever met, I still put those defenses in place...without even realizing it."

Nodding her head, Arizona bit her lip playfully. "So, what does all that mean for us, exactly?"

Callie smiled, fully, as she noticed the change of mood in the room.

"Well, first of all, it means that from now on there is a you and a me and only a you and a me. Mark will only be around in a fatherly capacity. We'll get the locks changed on the doors, too. I'll talk with him and let him know things have to change. I don't want to lose him as a friend and I don't want you feeling like you can't spend time with him either, but he has to realize that we're married now and that comes first."

Smiling, her eyes bright and happy, Arizona stepped forward into Callie's personal space. She looked into her eyes and studied her features for a moment.

"Thank-you." she said, leaning up to place a soft kiss on her wife's full lips. "With that, I think I'm gonna go shower and try to relax."

Callie scrunched her brows upon seeing Arizona's retreating form. After everything they'd just said, the other woman was just going to walk away and relax in the shower?

"Um, what? No you're not." she said in a voice that left little room for argument. Grabbing Arizona's wrist, she tugged with just enough force to send her wife colliding back into her. Once their bodies were flush against the other, Callie reached around with her left hand and pulled the head of blonde hair towards herself. Her right hand wrapped around her lover's back and splayed across her shoulder blades.

Before their lips could meet, Arizona smirked and asked "Are we going to do what I think we're about to do?"

"Mmmhmm." Callie replied, her heart already racing and her eyes taking on a hooded quality. The hand she had in Arizona's hair tangled and grasped more firmly.

Arizona kissed the side of her partner's mouth and brought up her hand to grasp the side of Callie's neck. Turning her head, she whispered against a set of lips longing for her touch.

"Are you about to make me your sex slave?" The words were barely audible over her amused giggle.

Her tone was playful but also brought with it a slight expectant tremble. The husky change in pitch excited Callie.

"Hell yes." was all the Latina could say before leaning forward and pressing her mouth to Arizona's.