Here it is! I'm sorry it took so long. Things came up and I was a little unmotivated some days, but I worked really hard on it and I hope you all enjoy it! Don't forget to leave reviews. They're much appreciated!

Things between Callie and Arizona were going great. Sure, Arizona had only been in New York one full week, but it had been a week full of big and little steps. Since their talk regarding where their relationship with each other stood, everything had been smooth sailing, for the most part. There were some hiccups of awkwardness here and there. Building a friendship with someone you used to know like the back of your hand was a little more difficult than one might think. But it also provided both women insight into just how much they had changed in the years since the plane crash. Surprisingly to them, the two were kind of loving learning things about the other they'd never known. They looked forward to having lunch with each other at the hospital everyday, whenever one of them wasn't held up in surgery. They had dinner with Sofia almost every night. There was a lot of smiling and laughing. Lots of butterflies. Lots of stolen glances as well as eye contact that lasted too long. Yeah, they were kind of loving this "friendship" stage.


Even with all the truth Callie had revealed to Arizona within the week since she and Sofia arrived, she still had a dark cloud looming over her. Something she still hadn't talked to Arizona about. Penny.

Callie still hadn't told Arizona about how or when her relationship with Penny ended. She knew she needed too, but she didn't know how to. What if knowing what happened between her and Penny would be the iceberg that sank their Titanic?

Around a month and a half before Arizona called and told Callie she would be moving to New York with Sofia, Callie had started planning to move back to Seattle. For months after she moved to New York, Callie had been consumed with guilt surrounding how she'd treated her friends and Arizona while she was with Penny, and when she broke up with her, she didn't know how she would face them again. The only reason she'd caused such a mess was because of Penny. How was she supposed to tell them that it was for nothing? What would she say? "Sorry about all the damage I caused I was just having a midlife crisis. Can you please forgive me?" And then Arizona, God, she'd hurt her so badly, and she'd had no clue where she would even start with her. Arizona had bought her those plane tickets and allowed Sofia to come to New York with her because she thought Callie was desperately in love with Penny, putting her happiness over her own once again. How was Callie supposed to tell her that, that relationship flamed out almost as quickly as it had escalated? Even though Callie's feelings for Penny were real, they had also forced further than they truthfully were. When she met her, things happened fast. Callie's feelings developed quickly, as they usually do, and she became blindsided. She was terrified of messing yet another relationship up and making the same mistakes she'd made in her previous relationships that she became ignorant to all the damage she was causing with her impulsivity.

Callie realized that being with Penny wasn't what she wanted no more than a month after she got settled in New York, but she decided to stay with her anyways. Because if she didn't, then she had uprooted hers, Sofia's and Arizona's life for nothing. So she began distancing herself from Penny instead. She made up excuses as to why they couldn't see each other as much and since Penny was already busy with her grant, it made it easy for Callie to not have to sleep next to her every night. Penny was only allowed spend the night when they both were not on call because Callie didn't want to leave Sofia alone with her. It wasn't because Callie didn't trust Penny. She did. Penny was a great woman, but Callie didn't want Sofia getting attached to her, which ended up not being much of a problem since Sofia didn't like her all that much anyway. The six year old was always asking when her Mommy would be coming home, and every time that question left her daughter's mouth, it tugged harder at the constant guilt in the pit of Callie's gut. Sofia's constant calling for her other mother eventually led to Callie allowing her daughter to go back to Seattle earlier than planned. Callie decided enough was enough and officially called it quits on her relationship with Penny the day after, but her guilt over how she'd left things and one other thing kept her from moving back to Seattle right away.

Callie felt pressured to move on quickly after her divorce from Arizona. At the time, she didn't know why. Their divorce hadn't been about seeing other people. It had been about learning to love themselves without the other by their side. It wasn't until Callie had broken up with Penny that she came to realize she had never been single. Not for a long period of time. First, it was George, then Erica, then Arizona, then Dan, and then Penny. And when she was going through the heartbreak of George and Erica, Callie had, had Mark. Even throughout school, she was always going from one guy to the next. In the months she spent alone in New York without Penny and Sofia, it dawned on the brunette that she had lost touch with herself as just Callie a very long time ago. Along with her guilt surrounding how she'd treated her friends and Arizona while she was with Penny, the need to get back in touch with herself was what kept her in Seattle.

During those seven months she was alone in New York, Callie reflected on so many parts of her life, from George to Penny and everything in between. She danced, she learned some more about the LGBTQ+ community in regards to their treatment by medical professionals, she did groundbreaking surgeries, and she didn't date. Anyone. No hook ups. Nothing. She hooked up with herself.

Callie didn't know if Arizona would understand all of that. Even though Arizona had been adamant about being honest with each other and communicating but a million of these "what if", irrational worst case scenarios were running through her mind and throwing her for a loop.


"Coffee?" A white cup appeared in Arizona's line of sight, and smirk appeared on the blonde's face.

"Desperately," Arizona admitted as she took the cup from Callie's hand, and took a long gulp. "Thanks."

Arizona had slept past her alarm clock this morning leaving her in a rush to get out the door and make it on time to her scheduled 8 a.m. surgery, so she was very much in need of the caffeine boost.

"So," Callie shifted her gaze to the floor, swiping her foot against the marble tile. "I've been thinking." She has. A lot. "You've been here one full week now and you still haven't seen much of the city yet, so what would you say to having a picnic in Central Park with me and Sofia this weekend?" Callie made cautious eye contact with the blonde standing in front of her, bracing herself for the rejection.

Arizona felt her heart smile. Her smirk reappeared and her blue eyes twinkled. Callie's nerves over asking her to go on a family outing was amusing to her.

"Mm," she mused. "This isn't a date is it?"

"What?" Callie choked out. Panic overtook her features. Yep. Rejection. "No, of course not. It's just an ex-wife, current co-parents, and newly friends outing."

Arizona's smirk turned into a full blown smile, that she quickly tried to hide. "Mhm." Arizona turned her back to Callie, refocusing her attention to the iPad containing her patient charts. Messing with Callie was one of her favorite pass times. She thought it was the cutest thing when the brunette started her nervous rambling.

"Come on, Arizona!" Callie was beginning to get frustrated. Here she was trying to follow Arizona's "friends first" rule and she wouldn't even give her the time of day. "If you plan on living here, you're going to have to get to know the city sooner or later. Why not do it with Sofia and I?" The brunette didn't even wait for a response before adding. "Plus, friends do hang out, Arizona. That's a thing."

Out of Callie's sight, Arizona broke into a grin, laughing silently. Calliope Torres was great at sarcasm, but she sucked at reading it. She turned around. "I was kidding, Calliope. I'd love to have a picnic with you and Sofia in Central Park."

Callie's mouth dropped open to form an "o", her eyebrows just about reaching her hairline. She was pretty sure her cheeks were flushed bright red as well. "Oh."

She felt stupid.

"Ha ha," the mock was humorless. Callie had genuinely thought Arizona was turning her down for a minute.

"Wait," Callie paused, remembering something that could possibly threaten her picnic plans. "Isn't Herman coming in this weekend?"

Arizona nodded. "Yep. Saturday evening."

Swallowing a mouthful of the warm liquid, Arizona caught a glimpse of Callie's disappointed expression. "We can still go though. She won't get in until late."

Phew.

"But I still need to call the bank and talk to them about taking out a loan-"

Callie's eyebrows furrowed. This was the first time she was hearing about any loan. "A loan?"

Arizona gave her a puzzled look. Obviously she needed to take out a loan…

"Yeah. There's no way Nicole's grant is going to cover the construction of an entire hospital, Callie."

"Yeah, but-"

Beep! Beep!

Callie reached into the pocket of her lab coat and pulled out her phone to check her pager notification.

"Dammit," she muttered. "Trauma."

Beep! Beep!

"Oh," Arizona looked down at her phone as well. TRAUMA. "Me too."


"We're here!" Callie announced as she burst through the doors of Trauma room 1, Arizona walking next to her in stride. "What do we got?"

Arizona accepted the patient's chart from a nearby nurse while Callie approached the patient.

"Clara Davis. 17 years old. Been slipping in and out of consciousness. Car accident on the interstate. The other vehicle ran a red light smashed into her. Fractures to her femur and radius. Collapsed lung and possible internal bleeding," the paramedic that brought her in recited.

Arizona nodded, eyes squinted and lips pursed in concentration.

Dark brown eyebrows furrowed, as she let her eyes scan the patient's full body. Why did that name sound familiar. Oh!

"Clara Davis?"

Arizona looked up. "You know her?"

"Yeah, she's one of my Osteosarcoma patients. She was scheduled for a bone graft tomorrow morning."

Arizona's expression darkened. The blonde felt something squeeze her hand and she dropped her gaze. Her patient was semi-conscious.

"Clara," Arizona spoke softly, moving closer to where her patient's head laid. "I'm Dr. Robbins. Head of Peds. Dr. Torres and I are going to take very good care of you, okay?" She tried to reassure the terrified look in her patient's eyes. That was one thing she did not miss about pediatric surgery.


A few hours later…

Arizona walked out of one of her patient's rooms, a little boy with leukemia, and handed off his chart to the nurse at the station with a small smile. Randomly glancing to her left, she caught sight of brunette hair on the other side of the nurse's station and did a double take. It was Callie. She was leaning her body weight against the station's counter, arms crossed over her chest as she watched through the glass of a patient's room. Arizona guessed they had taken Clara up to surgery shortly after she was paged for an emergency appendectomy.

The blonde looked into the room herself and confirmed her assumption. Clara laid in the bed, unconscious. A man was asleep in a chair in the corner of the room, and a woman was awake in a chair stationed at her bedside, wearing a worried expression as she held the girl's hand. Arizona assumed those were Clara's parents.

"How is she?" Arizona asked softly as she slid in next to the brunette. She noticed Callie's somber expression and Arizona hoped her response wouldn't be something along the lines of a death sentence.

Callie turned her head to the side, looking to identify the owner of the voice that had just interrupted her thoughts. Arizona. Callie released a sigh.

"As well as can be expected," her tone held a light hearted ring to it, but Arizona knew she was serious.

"Were you able to do the bone graft?" Arizona tread the waters gently, trying to get a feel for whether or not Callie was in the mood to talk.

She got a short shake of the head in response.

"She was too weak," Callie sounded genuinely upset, and Arizona wondered if Callie had been treating this girl for a long time. "And Dr. Matthews, our head of cardio," Callie clarified for the blonde since she was new to the hospital. "found mets that had spread to her lungs. She started crashing just as I finished resetting her radius and femur fractures, so we had to close her up."

Arizona listened thoughtfully, watching Callie speak with a concerned expression wearing her features. This patient was clearly affecting her ex-wife, and she wanted to find some way she could help.

"There were dozens of them, Arizona. A few in her abdomen, too," Callie trailed off into silence. Arizona simply nodded, allowing the woman space to process her thoughts. "We're gonna have to admit her to Peds and keep her for close monitoring. We'll take her back into surgery as soon as she's strong enough. Probably won't be able to go home for a month or two."

Arizona licked her lips. There were two responses that she could get from what she was going to ask next. Defensiveness or receptiveness. Arizona hoped it was the latter.

"Have you been treating her for long?" The sweetness of Arizona's voice threatened Callie to crumble.

"Y-Yeah," her voice cracked. "She was one of my first patients here."

Arizona was about to ask why Clara seemed so important to her, but a nurse interrupted their conversation before she could.

"Dr. Torres, she's waking up now."


Saturday, June 17th 2018

10 a.m.

A groan escaped Callie's throat. She'd been up all night, her spinning wheel of a mind going over and over every single possible outcome of her and Arizona's family outing this afternoon. Callie told Sofia to invite her friend Abby and her parents as well, so she could be sure she'd be able to have some alone time with Arizona. The plan was to have a picnic in the park, and then Sofia would go to the Hecksher playground with her friend Abby and her parents, so she and Arizona would have some time to hang out alone. Callie wanted today to go well. It was all she'd been thinking about for the last 24 hours.

Arizona had some things to do at the hospital this morning, so she was going to meet them at the park in approximately - the brunette checked the stove's clock - 4 hours.


Arizona's negative feelings about New York were slowly, but surely, changing. As she walked around Central Park with Callie, she began to feel like maybe this change isn't so terrible. The park was quite beautiful actually. And huge. Did Arizona mention how huge it was? It was a stark contrast compared to the congested city.

The two women had just finished the tour of the park. They were not sitting on a bench that sidelined the middle of the park, admiring the huge water fountain that filled it.

"What do you think?"

"Hm?"

Callie smiled. Clearly she had interrupted some thought process. "About the park."

"Oh, right," Arizona glanced around as if she needed to absorb everything a second time around. "It's beautiful. Big. I like it."

"Yeah," Callie nodded. "It's my favorite part of living here."

"I brought Sofia here a lot the first year. Sometimes I eat lunch here, too since it's so close to the hospital."

A smile tugged at the blonde's lips. She cleared her throat before speaking. "Do you mind if I join you for lunch here every now and then?"

Callie's smile widened, showing off her pearly white teeth. "Of course not."

Callie and Arizona used to eat lunch at the park close to Grey-Sloan whenever they could for the first year or two of their relationship. There was something about the open air and nature that made them feel even more at ease with each other.

"So," Callie mused. She wasn't sure what would be a good conversation starter. What counts as friendship-building conversation with the woman you're in love with? Talking about the weather? Exes? Work? Everything she came up with sounded flirtatious. After a minute of pondering, she decided to just go with the first thing that came to mind. "Are you seeing anyone?"

Eyes focused on the scene ahead, watching children and their parents laughing with each other, Arizona's head turned swiftly in Callie's direction once the question reached her ears. A crooked smile appeared on her face. "Are you asking me if I'm single?"

Callie's thought process stuttered. 'Shit. Was that the wrong approach?'

"Yes, Calliope. I'm single," the blonde spoke through a light chuckle. "Are you?"

"Oh, yeah. Completely," Callie answered rather quickly.

They both already knew the other was single, and that's why Arizona found it so amusing. "You really don't know how to approach this friends situation, huh?"

"Um." Callie struggled with how to respond. She truthfully didn't have a clue. She was constantly second guessing her thoughts and actions. She released an awkward laugh. "Yeah, not so much."

"Don't worry about it," Arizona shook her head. "I'm not so sure how to go about it either."

It was true. Arizona was struggling with the whole "just being friends" thing as well, even though she was the one who came up with it. The want to kiss her was constant. She was always thinking about her, and a lot of those thoughts weren't very friendly. And it was a struggle to put all of their history behind them when she still had questions left unanswered.

"It's just.. a little awkward," Callie admitted.

Arizona nodded. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course," Callie's voice softened, and it brought Arizona back to the many times she'd stood in front of Callie crying while she tried to comfort her. She had to close her eyes. The rush of memories was enough for tears to sting in her eyes.

Sure the teary sensation had passed, Arizona reopened her eyes and released a heavy breath. She looked up and into Callie's honest brown eyes, and Arizona saw that she was ready to answer any question she tossed her.

"When you and Penny broke up, why didn't you move back to Seattle?" The question had been plaguing the blonde ever since the news of Callie's split from Penny accidentally came to light from Sofia. She'd been trying to move past it, but she couldn't wrap her head around it. The only reason Callie had moved to New York and uprooted their family's life was because of Penny. So, if she wasn't with Penny, why had she stayed? She'd had to ask. Arizona knew if she didn't have that question answered, she wouldn't be able to fully reopen her heart to let Callie back in.

The force of the question hit Callie hard. She should've had this conversation with Arizona sooner.

"I'm not mad," Arizona saw Callie's apprehension. "Not anymore. I just have some questions."

Callie nodded and blew out a breath of hot air. Here it goes. "I know that. You have every right to, Arizona." The brunette didn't break her eye contact with the blonde. She'd been going over this conversation in her head for months. She knew what she was going to say. "And to answer your question, guilt. I stayed here because of guilt and the realization that I needed to get back in touch with myself," Callie paused and scanned Arizona's expression, but it was blank and she couldn't read it. "It didn't take me long to realize that Penny was a mistake, but I didn't break up with her until Sofia went back to live with you."

Now Callie could read Arizona's facial expression. Her eyebrows were furrowed; her eyes narrowed, and she shook her head as she tried to digest the information Callie was giving her. "Why?"

"I felt guilty," Callie shrugged. "I realized that my actions while I was with Penny, the impulsivity, the custody battle.." She trailed off. Callie hated acknowledging that was something she had put the two of them through, let alone their little girl. "It was all because I was so terrified of having yet another failed relationship. And when I realized how much I royally fucked up, I desperately wanted to make things work because if I hadn't-"

"Everything would have been for nothing," Arizona interjected.

Callie released a breath she didn't realize she had been holding. "Yeah."

Arizona nodded. Arizona felt one of the walls around her heart fall. She had needed answers, and she got them. "I get it."

"You do?"

"Yeah, I mean, I know what it feels like to desperately want to make ends meet in a relationship."

Callie gave Arizona room to speak.

"The woman I was with before I decided to move back here, Carina, Andrew's brother. I-"

"DeLuca?"

"Yep," Arizona said, popping the 'p'.

Woah, Callie thought.

"Sorry, continue."

Arizona smiled. "Um, I didn't feel as strongly about her as she did about me, but I really liked her and wanted it to work. It wasn't until the day I got high that I realized it was because I was terrified of losing someone else in my life."

"You got high?"

Oh, she must've not told Callie about that. "Yeah, it's a long story."

Callie's expression remained confused, her mind reeling, but she guessed that conversation could happen later.

"I'm just saying that I get it, Callie. I'm not necessarily super happy about it, but it's in the past and now that I know, I can move past it."

A smile grew on Callie's face as well as in her heart. Arizona was finally beginning to open up her heart to her.


Knock! Knock!

"Be there in a second!" Arizona called from her very bland and currently undecorated, apartment living room. She leaned forward and placed the stack of mail she'd been going through next to her glass of white wine. Normally she'd be bothered by someone interrupting her night of relaxation but she knew her intruder was most Nicole. Her plane had landed not to long ago and Arizona was letting her stay with her until she found a place. Also, after her day with Callie and Sofia, she was in a certain type of good mood that she hadn't been in, in a really, really long time.

The front door was located a few hundred feet directly behind the back of her couch, so she didn't have to walk far. Which she was thankful for tonight because her leg was killing her after all the walking she had done at Central Park that day.

Arizona turned the door knob, and gave it a tug.

"He-April?" Blue eyes widened. The red-head gave a barely there, half-hearted smile as a greeting. Arizona noticed her guarded posture first. Her arms weren't crossed but her hands faced one another so that her fingers could play with the left arm opening of her red jacket. She looked tired, almost on the verge of tears, and red locks hung loosely down the sides of her face. "What are you doing here?"

'Where's Matthew?' Arizona wondered.

"Can I stay here for a while?" April's voice was small, almost scared even.

Arizona's mouth bobbed, words were failing her. She was shocked, to say the least. Opening her door to a disheveled April was the last thing she was expecting tonight. She seemed happy when she'd left her in Seattle. Arizona had noticed slight regret in her words when she would talk to her about work and Matthew, but she never expected for her to show up outside of her apartment in New York at 7 p.m.

"Of course," The blonde managed a small smile over her worried expression. She opened the door wider and took a step back, allowing for her friend to make her way inside.