A/N: I know , I know it's been forever! Life this summer was a real bitch and things have recently just started to calm down. During my little hiatus though as I was working on this chapter and as it's getting extremely close to S10, I'm having doubts about continuing this story. As this is my first fanfic, I know that my writing isn't the best and I'm not sure I can live up to the story line and all the other awesome authors who have took this story line on. I started to doubt myself so much, I re-wrote this chapter 4 times then finally took all 4 copies and used sections from each part.
Here's the horrible part to my followers, I'm thinking of ending the story at this chapter. I have 3 options and here they are:
1. I left the end open and if you really want me to keep going I can, but it won't be the best writing you'll ever read and updates may be stretched out as I try to figure out where to go
2. I can leave it as is and you the reader can decide in your head how you want it to end
3. Within the next week or so I should be able to write an epilogue to kind of wrap it up fully and hopefully do it justice.
Please just let me know and if I don't get any opinions, then I will just end it here.
Part 3
Arizona went to put the key in the door and froze. What would she do if Callie wasn't on the other side with Sofia? She had to be there. Callie wouldn't just leave, would she? Fitting the key in lock, she took a deep breath before she walked in. The breath left her lungs when she seen Callie and then her breath hitched once again when she seen her wife pause briefly looking at her and then continuing with her packing.
"Callie-"
"No. I'm not doing this right now.'
"Please just listen to me."
"I said I'm not doing this right now."
Arizona sighed and went to Sophia's room. She watched as her daughter slept, her innocent daughter whose life was about to turn upside down. A few tears fell as she gently stroked Sofia's cheek. She had to talk to Callie, there was no way she could let Callie leave with Sofia.
Bracing herself for a fight she went back to the living room.
"You can't leave."
Callie's only response was a humorless laugh.
"Callie, I'm serious, we need to talk about this. You can't just-"
"Don't tell me what I can't do." She paused for a fraction of a second, "Especially when it regards my daughter."
Arizona couldn't stop the flinch at her wife's words. "She's my daughter too!" She passionately replied. "Where are you even going to go?"
"Tonight I'm sleeping on the couch and tomorrow I'll check into a hotel until I find something more permanent." Callie replied, glancing at Arizona and seeing a shocked look on her face. "How did you expect this to go, Arizona? Did you think I would just be fine with it? That we would just continue moving on? This isn't something we can sweep under the rug! Why are you even worried about this? Isn't this what you wanted? To-"
"NO!"
"To break my trust like I broke yours? For the last damn year I have been taking nothing but crap from you! At the beginning I understood, you were pissed and rightfully so. You're life changed in ways you didn't want it to. So I took it. I let myself be your punching bag and every day I just took it while I tried to break through to you, I kept coming back for more. I let you hit me with everything again and again and again. That's my fault, but I'm done Arizona. I'm done being your punching bag and coming back for round after round." A quiet sob left her.
"Callie, please just talk-"
"What would you like to talk about?" Callie asked, throwing the last piece of clothing in the suitcase, then roughly zipping it up, "The fact that you still hate me for your leg or the fact that you fucked someone else?"
Arizona winced.
"So, tell me Arizona, what the hell do you want to talk about?"
Arizona took a deep breath. Now that Callie gave her an opening she didn't really know how to start and she said the first thing that came to her mind, "I trusted you."
"I know, you said that earlier. Believe me, I remember. What could there possibly be left to say? I wasn't on the plane, I wasn't there, I lost nothing. Did I cover everything?"
"It's true," Arizona whispered, "you weren't-"
"There! I know!" Callie yelled, interrupting her once again. Throwing the suitcase on the floor by the couch, her hard, cold stare focused fully on Arizona, "You made me deal with everything concerning the crash because you didn't want to! I was at the meetings, talking with the lawyers and the others deciding on what to do! So if it seems like I was acting as though I was out in the woods then it's only because you checked out and I had to pick up the damn pieces!" Callie took a deep breath and lowered her voice, "Know this though; I will not apologize for making the call to cut off your leg and saving your life. If I was back in that moment, and Karev came in again and asked me what to do since nothing was working, I would make the call again. Not just for selfish reasons either, not just so I would still have my wife, but for our daughter. That child-" Callie raised her arm and pointed towards Sofia's room, taking a deep breath, she continued, "That child in there doesn't care if you have one leg or two, because either way you're still her mama, and she deserves to have you around for as long as possible. There was a way to save your life and I did it so that our daughter would have you around when she turns 3 or 16. You should be able to be there when she comes home one day saying she has her first boyfriend or when she gets married. I won't apologize for that no matter how much you hate me."
Arizona wiped at her tears, "I don't hate you." She said quietly, "it's just...complicated"
"No, it's really not, Arizona. You've been blaming me since the moment you woke up, you wouldn't let me be your doctor and you sure as hell weren't letting me be your wife! And I loved you so I was willing to be what you needed and that was a punching bag. So for months and took it and I just can't do this anymore. I'm done."
"No! We're not done. This isn't how this ends!
Callie let out a humorless laugh, "Arizona, it ended the minute you slept with her."
Arizona watched as Callie lay down on the couch, covering her eyes with her arms trying to end the conversation. "You can't just quit! We need to talk about this and work on us!"
Callie quickly sat up, her back towards Arizona, "The time to talk was after the plane crash. The time to talk was every morning, afternoon or evening that passed in silence. To talk now, it's a waste. For months you've been walking around acting like everything was fine. Was that part of the plan?" She asked her voice low and keeping her back to her wife, "Make me think everything was fine before you slept with someone else? Was that the final twist of the knife, to let me know what it's like to lose my trust in someone?"
"There was no plan, Callie! I don't... I just..." Arizona let out a frustrated breath. How could she explain something to Callie when she barely understood it herself?
Before she could try to explain, Callie started talking, her voice resigned, "I tried Arizona. It wasn't just an empty promise I made. I spent hours fighting and trying to convince Owen that my plan would work. I didn't go about this wanting to amputate, I had every intention..." Callie broke off and tried to muffle a sob, "I'm so tired and I just...I'm done."
Arizona stared at Callie's back. She wasn't sure where to go from here. Her eyes darted from Sofia's room to Callie to the suitcase and Arizona knew that if she let Callie walk out the door, she might never come back. Walking around to the other side of the couch she sat down on the coffee table facing her wife.
"Callie please." Arizona whispered and went to grab her wife's hands in her own, but Callie pulled hers away, stood up and started pacing.
"Please what, Arizona? What is there really left to say?"
"Then just listen."
"I don't want your excuses."
"I didn't plan this! She came out of nowhere. I don't even love her."
"And what, you think that makes this better? You just hopped into bed with a practical stranger, but it's alright because it was just a quick fuck and meant nothing to you?"
Arizona shook her head, nothing was coming out right and she felt like she was just making things worse.
"Tomorrow morning I'm taking Sofia and staying at a hotel," Callie told Arizona once again, "and when I get situated into an apartment, we'll talk about visitation. We will be parents to Sofia and that's it because it's like we are on this merry-go-round and we keep going in the same viscous circles over and over again and I'm so tired. So I'm getting off. I'm done." Callie finished, tears falling down her cheeks as she got situated for her night on the couch.
Arizona stood there for a moment, watching her motionless wife. Knowing the conversation was over for good, she decided to spend more time watching Sofia sleep. After an hour, she headed back towards their bedroom pausing to watch her sleeping wife on the couch. She would get up early in the morning and try to talk to Callie again before she left. She would spend some time tonight getting her thoughts together so she would be able to try and talk to Callie and have her words make sense.
Arizona bolted up in bed, the alarm startling her out of her deep sleep. Slamming her hand down on the offensive object, she rubbed her eyes and quickly went through the process of putting her prosthetic back on. She would take a shower after she was able to talk to Callie. As she stood up, a yawn escaped her and she gently shook her head to fully wake up. Last night she spent over two hours going over in her head what she would say to Callie this morning and hopefully it would be enough to get her to stay and work on their marriage.
Arizona paused in the doorway staring at the couch and her gut twisted.
The couch was empty.
The blankets her wife used the night before where neatly folded on the end.
The suitcase that was there the night before, also gone.
Tears welled up in her eyes and she used the door frame to support herself as grief and shame washed over her.
Callie left with Sofia.
Her wife and daughter were gone and it was all her fault.
A/N: So there it is. Hopefully I did it justice and it wasn't too all over the place and blending my different chapter copies worked out well. So I'm leaving the fate of this fic up to my readers, what shall I do? 1,2, or 3. If you have a moment drop me a pm or review and let me know!
If this happens to be the last chapter, I would just like to say thanks to everyone who followed my first story. Keep an eye out because I do have a storyline in the works (not related to s9 or s10 in anyway) that I will hopefully be posting within the next month.
Kat
