Running scared

Chapter 3

About one and a half hours later Callie was done with the tattoo and the outcome was surprisingly good.

Arizona seemed to be very happy with it as well since she was a smiley.

There was this name on the inside of her left upper arm now and it looked awesome. The lines were all clear and strong and yet it seemed to be so fragile too and that was the perfect expression for Timothy – a bastion of calm and yet all sensitive, always listening and caring, but strong.

A good man in a storm.

Like Arizona herself.

That was who she has been raised to be.

And that's exactly what Callie Torres saw in her too.

A great person, an interesting one.

A woman, who loved somebody enough to get his name tattooed on her body.

Others judge people by money or their look or whatever, Callie Torres, badass tattooist, measured people in tattoos and in people's willingness to receive pain to get them.

Under different circumstances she would have asked that Arizona out, definitely.

But the situation was what it was and maybe it was better that way.

So Callie gave the blonde a check-up appointment to see if everything healed up well in about four weeks and said good bye quickly, just to call her best friend Mark and ask him out.

That was safer on every level…

Arizona really was happy, although it had been quite hard to talk about her brother…

And she was proud…proud of the fact that this man was her brother, even if he wasn't with her anymore.

She had talked to Callie for one and a half hours. She hasn't talked to anyone that long for such a long time.

And it felt a little weird to be all alone again. To go home, where nobody was waiting for her.

She finally unlocked her door, threw the key in her small key bowl and put her jacket on the wardrobe.

Arizona didn't know what to do, she just felt lonely, kind of left behind. Everything had went wrong, nothing had worked out the way she had planned.

And she was so tired…tired of telling people how good she felt, tired of faking smiles and tired of being who she was.

Everything was good, everything went well…She had been good at her job, she had been in a relationship, she even had been able to talk with her father in a normal way, since…she couldn't even remember… It all had seemed so…perfect…

And then she had gotten this call…and her whole life had turned upside down…

The blonde lay down on her couch, held a glass of red wine in her left hand and stared out of the window.

Today had been a good day…the first one in weeks…months even.

She had been able to laugh…and it had been real…no faking…just feeling good.


Callie was sitting at Joe's with her two best friends – Mark and tequila, on the best way to getting completely wasted.

Again.

The day had went way better than expected, but the evening was cruel as every day.

Since Erica had left she felt numb.

She had thought she would be heartbroken and hurting, but it was a lot worse 'cause she felt nothing anymore.

The days were grey, the nights were dark and Callie herself was drowning more and more.

First she had tried to fight the darkness with tequila, then she had realized that it wasn't helping at all, that it actually made things even worse, but she hadn't found the strength to fight all this chaos in her life and had given up.

There was no point in fighting anyway.

What would she fight for?

The clients stayed away 'cause she had lost her inspiration and couldn't draw, so she would need to close her shop soon.

And since she didn't earn the big box anymore she wasn't able to pay the rent for her apartment , which meant that she would be thrown out of there soon.

Didn't sound like a promising future…

Mark was gossiping about a new colleague at Seattle Grace, who was supposed to start working in a few days and how excited he was to meet the new peds surgeon, who was, as rumors said, a hot blonde.

Callie didn't really care about that, but at least she didn't have to think about her own situation for a while.

And the more her best friend kept fantasizing about that woman he didn't even know yet, the more Callie thought about Arizona.

That cute woman, who had been all nervous and babbling.

The woman, who had this adorable dimples and the stunning blue eyes.

The woman, who had been at her shop to get the name of some guy tattooed on her arm.

The woman, who was out of reach.

And yet the woman, who had brought her back to life.

Even if it had been just for one and a half hours.


Two days later Arizona Robbins started her new job. It seemed to work out quite well, she knew how to cope with her tiny humans and got to know most of her new colleagues. She was glad that her job kept her busy, so nobody had even the chance to trap her into any kind of conversation.

Of course she didn't avoid them, she was simply glad.

It was exhausting to keep her feelings under control, but she smiled, skated around in her Heelys and made at least small talk.

Arizona also caught herself longing for the one and a half hours she had spent with Callie.

The latina was a total stranger to her, but even so she had been feeling safe sitting next to her and talking…

Arizona was on her way to the cafeteria in the early afternoon when she bumped into one of her male colleagues, who's name she didn't remember, in the elevator.

And although she didn't know whom she was standing right next to Arizona realized the second that guy started talking to her that the gossip about him was more than true 'cause he seemed to be hitting on everybody.

Even on her, which was more than ridiculous, but obviously he didn't care to bother asking if she was interested or not, he took that as a matter of fact.

Didn't change the point that he was wrong.

As wrong as it could get.

"So, what about dinner tomorrow night?" he asked after babbling for a while.

"Thanks, but no", was all Arizona said before she turned round and left for the opposite direction of where he was headed.

Coffee had to wait.


It's been almost two weeks since that Arizona had showed up at her shop to get that tattoo done and Callie still couldn't stop thinking about the blue eyed woman with the gorgeous dimples.

There was something about this woman she couldn't define and it drove her crazy.

And Mark talking about this hot new doctor at the hospital for sure didn't help, but Callie had to listen 'cause her best friend had paid her rent for the month, so she owed him. Kind of.

She hadn't asked him to do that 'cause everybody, who knew Callie Torres, knew quite well that she would be way too proud for that.

Mark had practically forced her to take the money and since she hadn't had another opportunity left she had given in – in the end.

But the stories about this hot blonde from the hospital, who couldn't be hot enough to cover the name Arielle in Callie's opinion, started to annoy the hell out of her.

And Mark seemed to turn into somewhat like a slobbering bulldog 'cause he couldn't think of anything else than getting that blonde into his bed anymore.

Jesus Christ!

And it was kind of ridiculous 'cause as far as Callie could tell that blonde doctor simply wasn't interested in him, but he ignored all her warnings.

But at least he couldn't blame her later for not saying a word if he wouldn't succeed.

Swallowing a big gulp of tequila Callie closed her eyes and prayed for Mark changing the subject, which, of course, didn't happen.

Great!

And right that moment she regretted that she had asked him out that day back then – instead of Arizona.

She simply should have asked her.

Maybe they would have become friends.

There was nothing wrong with having friends, who were married to army guys, right?