Sorry for the delay ladies (and maybe gentlemen?). I've been in the middle of a city wide power outage (no fuckin restaurants, no fuckin Walmart, no fuckin gas stations, no fuckin stoplights, and no MOTHERfuckin air conditioning) so it's been tough keeping this story going when all I have to write is my phone, plus no internet, all the while about to die from a heat stroke, but here I am... Please, hold your applause.
Oh, and in case nobody read the little note above chapter two, the time Arizona spent as a POW is eight weeks, NOT eight months. I don't proofread my own work very well and i didn't catch that slip till after the fact. Moving onward, I present to you, chapter four.
In the sessions that followed Arizona's unexpected visit to Callie's office, the blonde had been opening up much more than usual, albeit extremely vaguely. Though they'd covered that Arizona's nightmares largely stemmed from her time as a prisoner of war, she'd yet to disclose any specific details as to what had happened to her during those eight weeks. Callie had tried a vast amount of approaches, from practically begging the blonde to give up the story to trying to trick her into answering. Each attempt yielded no results, but she remained persistent (perhaps in the hope that Arizona would talk solely to get the therapist to stop asking), truly hoping she'd soon get down to all the nasty bits of it all.
And amongst feeling helpless and useless to the blonde, Callie was becoming more and more aware of an extremely unprofessional attraction to the blonde. She'd found it increasingly easier to get Arizona to talk about her life before the war, and had since then found herself desperate to know all the seemingly meaningless quirks and hobbies of the younger woman. It was dangerous to become so invested in a patient, particularly one as fragile as Arizona, and it took more self control than she would've ever believed she possessed to not completely breach the patient/doctor boundaries and take the petite woman home and try her best to make Arizona completely forget all the things she didn't want to remember. If Callie was being honest, the right thing to do in this situation would be to step away, tell Arizona that she couldn't continue their sessions and both of them go their separate ways. But Callie was Callie and when she cared and became invested, there was no such thing as turning back. She didn't want anyone else on Arizona's case. It had taken the blonde this long to warm up to her, and she was slowly learning the right things to say and the right subjects to stay on whenever a certain look crossed Arizona's eyes. She wasn't going to dump the already shattered woman onto someone else.
It was half past four on a Friday, Arizona's appointment had been made for four on the dot and Callie hadn't seen nor heard from the blonde. She sat behind her desk, clicking a pen impatiently. She heaved a sigh before she got up for about the hundredth time and stepped out of the office to ask Cristina if Arizona had called.
As she got closer to her secretary's desk, Cristina didn't even look up from her computerized solitaire game before saying, "No, I haven't heard from Lieutenant Malibu Barbie. Can I please go home now?"
Callie rolled her eyes, trying not to hide her disappointment. Arizona was her last appointment of the day and if she wasn't showing, there wasn't much use in either of them sticking around any longer.
"Yeah, sure, I'll lock up and I'll see you-"
The words were cut off as Cristina promptly shut the computer off, jumped up and made for the door.
"Sweet! See ya later, bye!"
And with that, the door shut behind her and Callie was left alone. She piddled a bit before making sure everything was situated and shut off for the weekend before grabbing her purse and heading for the exit herself. She'd stalled as much as possible with the hopes that Arizona would come knocking in the mean time, but no such luck. She shut the lights off and pulled the door closed and made for the parking garage across the street.
Walking down the row she was mildly certain she had parked her car in, she walked past a small SUV with a familiar blonde sitting in the driver seat. Emotions torn between relief and curiosity, she walked up to the driver side and knocked on the window.
Arizona flinched as though struck and her knuckles tightened around the steering wheel. She remained faced straight ahead and her entire body shook, the remnants of tear tracks prominent on her cheeks. Immediately worried, Callie tried the door, but it was locked.
She called Arizona's name through the glass and rapped her knuckles against the window again. The blondes only response was a shake of her head, but when Callie let out a little more forcefully, "Arizona, open the door NOW," she silently reached across the passenger seat and unlocked that door, which Callie took as an invitation to walk around the vehicle and slide in. Arizona still didn't look at her, eyes focused only directly in front of her and Callie only allowed a few seconds of silence before she broke it, closing the door behind her.
"Arizona, what's going on? You were meant to be in my office almost an hour ago, are you okay?"
The blonde shook her head again, a shaky hand releasing the steering wheel and brushing away a fresh onslaught of tears.
Callie, growing more and more worried, lifted the console between them and slid closer to the younger woman. Prying one of Arizona's hands from the steering wheel, she linked one of hers with the blonde's and slid her other between Arizona's back and the car seat, rubbing what she hoped to be comforting circles as the blonde continued to nearly hyperventilate.
"Arizona," she urged quietly, "I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong. Just talk to me."
Arizona took an unsteady breath and opened her mouth to reply, but then just shook her head, "It's stupid."
Callie couldn't contain the humorless laugh that escaped her mouth.
"Nothing stupid would have you this upset, hon," Callie reassured, dropping the blonde's hand and dragging hers up to Arizona's chin, turning her face so that their eyes connected. "Just tell me what's going on, alright? I just want to help."
The blonde inhaled a deep breath, weighing the options of working through this on her own, or working through this with Callie, whose hands on her body were bringing the panic attack under control faster than Arizona ever would've thought possible.
A few moments passed in silence before the blonde could collect herself enough to finally speak, and Callie was patient throughout, her left hand still on Arizona's back and her right securely wrapped around the young Marine's again.
"It was the car next to me," Arizona finally let out, voice soft and forcefully steady, "They were pulling out just as I was about to open my door and it backfired, loudly, and it just... I don't... One second I was here and the next I was there."
"Back where?" Callie questioned gently, urging the frail woman across from her to open up.
"Back in the desert," blue eyes shifted from looking out the window to looking in her lap, a small blush working its way across her face, "I know it's stupid and nonsensical, but-"
"It's normal, Arizona,' Callie reassured her, "And this won't be the last time it happens. You're going to have triggers. They're going to sneak up on you and stem from the most mundane, ordinary things, but it's going to happen."
Arizona nodded silently, and Callie continued, "It's going to be rough for a long, long time, but it'll get better. And I won't lie to you, they might not ever completely go away, you might still have moments twenty years from now, but that's why I'm here, okay? I'm here to help you learn to deal with them and fight them. You have to trust me, Arizona. You have to let me in. Otherwise I can't help you, and it will only get worse. You have to talk to me. There's nothing you can tell me that will change how I see you, alright?"
Arizona scoffed and allowed her eyes to meet Callie's, brown ones recognizing anger flash through blue.
"And how do you see me? Some pitiful, broken woman who can't go through the simplest of tasks without a panic attack? Or-"
Callie cut her off, fully aware that the anger was being used to deflect the conversation.
"I see you as the strongest, smartest, most beautiful, both inside and out, woman to ever fight for her country."
Arizona shook her head defiantly, pulling her hand from Callie's, "You wouldn't say that. Not if you knew what I've done."
"Tell me what you've done and we'll see about that."
"It's not that simple."
"But isn't it?"
Arizona sighed shakily, closed her eyes and brought a hand to her forehead, resting her elbow on the door frame.
"Let's get out of here," Callie suggested, having mentally debated repeatedly whether or not it was a bad idea, "You told me a couple sessions ago that driving puts you at ease. So, let's go. You drive and maybe the words will find their way out. And if they don't, that's okay too. At least your head will hopefully clear for a little while."
Arizona turned her head slightly to gaze at the brunette, her eyes torn between apprehension and worry.
"Are you sure?"
Callie smiled widely, now knowing this was the right decision, "Why on earth wouldn't I be?"
"What if I have a breakthrough and run you into a telephone pole?"
Callie's grin widened even more, "Why, Arizona Robbins, I believe that was a joke. We're making progress already."
Arizona rolled her eyes and started the car, trying to hide the blush spreading across her face.
As she shifted the car into reverse, Callie buckled up and noticed that the woman next to her was already visibly relaxing; her grip wasn't quite as intense on the steering wheel and her breathing evened out considerably. Pulling up to the exit of the parking garage, Arizona stopped and Callie answered the question before it was asked.
"We can go anywhere you want. Doesn't have to be anywhere at all really. Just drive."
"Okay."
The next ten or so minutes passed in a tense silence that Callie spent wondering whether or not she should be the one to instigate the conversation, or if she should wait for the blonde to begin voluntarily giving out information. Given Arizona's history of needing to be prodded into talking, she eventually caved and started asking questions.
"So what happened back there? When the car backfired, what did you remember?"
Pulling up at a stoplight, Arizona inhaled deeply and tapped her fingers against the wheel, trying to find an explanation but ultimately settled on a vague, "Chaos."
"And what does that mean?," Callie asked gently.
Arizona closed her eyes briefly before moving the car again as the light changed to green.
"There's no such thing as one bullet over there," she replied quietly, "When one sounds, it's just the beginning. It's someone giving up their location and all guns in the field immediately train to that area. And once your location is compromised, that's it. It's chaos. Organized the best your leader knows how, but ultimately," another shaky breath, "it's just chaos."
Callie nodded, choosing to look out the window instead of Arizona, trying to make the blonde feel less like she was being scrutinized and more like they were just talking.
"Were you ever shot?"
"Yeah... Well no, I guess just grazed," she shifted carefully to show Callie a nasty looking scar along her right tricep, "One of the men I was hunkered down with had been shot in the leg.. It was mangled worse than anything I'd ever seen. Everyone called him Tank because he was huge. Six foot seven and over two hundred pounds. I was trying to move him, to get him under better cover, but I couldn't, he was too big. I remember begging him to try and stand, I could take the brunt of the weight if I could just get him to use his other leg, but he was going into shock," her voice began to crack and she took a few seconds to calm herself back down, "And then he started talking, like crazy type talking, asking for all these people who weren't there and the shots were coming more rapidly, zipping by us and into the ground all around us and then one caught me..."
Her voice trailed off and Callie urged her to continue, "And what happened then?"
"I don't know. I mean, I do but I don't. Adrenaline kicked in I guess and I began pulling underneath his arms again, using everything I had in me. He'd move a few inches and then I'd have to stop. Then I'd start again and it felt like my arm was falling off but I couldn't just leave him there. He had a family, you know? He had kids and he had a wife and I wasn't going to be the one to look at them and tell them I left him there to die. I felt like I pulled him for hours and never got anywhere. I don't remember anything else. I remember praying, and I remember crying, but then the next thing I know it's two days later and I'm waking up in a medical tent."
Watching out the window as city life quickly began fading into forestry and green landscape, Callie soaked in every word that came from the blonde next to her.
"Did he live?"
"Yes."
Callie finally looked over at the blonde, blue eyes fixated on the road before her, and the brunette smiled.
"You saved his life."
A somewhat furious shake of her head, "I almost killed us both because I wasn't strong enough."
"Arizona," Callie placed a comforting hand on the blonde's knee, "You saved his life. You could have left him, you could have run, but you didn't."
"I don't see it like that."
"That's what I'm here for," was Callie's only response, "To make you see it the way it is."
And for those of you leaving feedback, I'd like to know if ya'll would rather this continue as it is, meaning basically 100% from Callie's outlook, or if you'd like to have it shift on towards Arizona more? I think there's been a few times I've (very briefly) put it off towards Arizona, but I wasn't sure if you'd rather have Arizona's feelings/thoughts come only from her interactions with Callie, or what? Does my question even make sense? Let me know, yo! I'm also trying to make my chapters longer, but if it becomes too much at once, again, that's what feedback's for. I'll shut up now.