Arizona opened the apartment door and looked apologetically at Callie as she hung up her jacket. "Sorry I couldn't make the movie."
"Like I didn't miss two dinners last week because of emergency surgeries?" Callie returned as she leaned in to greet her lover with a kiss.
"Maybe we can go on Friday?" Arizona questioned, "We're both off at six."
"Sounds good, maybe we can get Teddy and some of the others to come too, it's supposedly a total chick flick."
"Ooh, good idea... who knew, beautiful and smart," Arizona teased.
Callie looked at her lover with raised eyebrows. "Just those two?"
Faking confusion, Arizona shook her head. "Hmm, there are more?"
Callie swatted Arizona on the arm.
"Problem?" Arizona turned on her best dimples.
Stepping close, Callie chose to show Arizona some of her other skills by kissing the other woman until Arizona started to let her hands wander under Callie's blouse. At that point, Callie broke off the kiss and turned to walk to the fridge, "Want some leftover paella? I was about to heat some up."
Arizona let out a frustrated breath. "What?"
"What what?"
"Calliope, get back here and finish what you started twice today," Arizona insisted.
Enjoying the moment, Callie opened the fridge and stood there to let the cool air bring down her own overheated senses. "You know, it seems that maybe you don't think I have the skills to finish what I started."
Growling under her breath, Arizona jumped off the stool and stalked over to Callie and pushed the fridge door closed. Turning Callie around gently, Arizona announced, "You're gorgeous," and then started to punctuate each word with a kiss on a different portion of her lover's body. "Smart. Amazing. Fantastic. Hardcore. Miraculous. Stunning. Enthralling. Sexy as ..."
Arizona's words were cut off by Callie's lips, which stayed there for some time before Callie moved back slightly and breathed, "I think we can find a better place to test my skills."
"No testing needed, but I think we'll just make sure we're both in practice, hm?" Arizona murmured as they moved towards the bedroom.
With her head resting on Arizona's midriff, Callie was in the perfect position to hear the blonde's stomach rumble. "Trying to tell me something?"
"That your many skills have exhausted me?" Arizona replied. "Or maybe that I need some sustenance before I waste away to nothing because you use your skills so well?"
"Ah, so now you recognize I'm skillful?"
Stroking Callie's hair, Arizona replied softly, "You've always had all the skills I could ever need or want."
"Always?"
Frowning slightly at Callie's tone, Arizona replied, "From the first time I kissed you, I knew I was in trouble."
Surprised, Callie pulled herself up and then rolled over to lean on her elbows so that she could see Arizona. "What do you mean, in trouble?"
"Calliope," Arizona started, "Do you really think I always follow women I don't know into a bathroom and kiss them?"
"Well, I hope not but we've never really talked about that. I mean - why did you?"
Arizona cupped Callie's cheek with her hand. "Because I'd been watching you for weeks and had tried to find the guts to ask you out? Because the fact that you were upset mattered for reasons that I didn't even want to think about then? Why do you think I chickened out initially when you asked me on a date?"
"I seem to recall something about me being a newborn and you didn't want anything to do with me," Callie replied, the sting of that moment coming back suddenly for just a moment before she looked at Arizona and felt it be whisked away.
After a soft kiss, Arizona argued, "No. You forget that people talk all the time, I knew Erica was your first. I panicked because I hadn't even spoken to you and yet I kissed you just to try to make your hurt go away. I realized afterwards that I was already lost and then came the panic."
"Or found?" Callie asked.
Arizona grinned. "I like that better. Already found."
"I almost got whiplash from the 180 I did when you kissed me, you know that?"
"In a good way, I hope?" Arizona questioned.
"When I walked in that bathroom, I was at one of the lowest points in my life. Then you kissed me and I thought my heart might explode, I couldn't stop grinning like a fool. It went from worst to best in a flash."
Wanting to lighten the mood, Arizona replied, "Of course you felt better, I'm a master kisser."
"Really?" Callie drew out languidly. "Shouldn't I be the one judging that?"
"Well, how about I try to prove my master rank AFTER we get some food so you don't have to explain to someone why I fainted?"
"Leftover paella?" Callie answered as she pushed off the bed and grabbed the closest articles of clothing she could find and leaving the bedroom.
"Mm, that would be great. I forgot, I'll have to add cooking to your skills the next time I have to list them," Arizona said as she slipped on a pair of sweats and a shirt.
"We'll have to get back to the skills later, after dinner," Callie teased even as she walked to the fridge and dished out enough paella for the two of them. Adding a splash of water to keep it moist, she covered the dish and placed it in the microwave to heat up.
Arizona sat on the sofa just in time to hear her pager go off. "No, no, no. I'm not on call tonight!"
Callie watched her lover pick up her pager and frown as she read it. "Do you have to go back in?" Callie asked.
Arizona frowned. "I don't know the number. Let me call and just make sure."
Dividing her attention between watching the microwave tick down and watching Arizona make her call, Callie got plates, glasses and silverware ready. She hoped Arizona would be able to eat before she had to leave, if she had to leave.
Arizona put down her pager as the phone call connected and she listened for a moment. "Oh, hi. I didn't realize you had my pager number."
"Oh, it's fine, I was just surprised." Arizona paused as she listened and then continued, "Tomorrow? I have another umbilical hernia, a couple of appys and likely a hydrocele repair but the parents want it to fix itself, so they're hesitating. That's about it, apart from rounds."
The microwave dinged and Callie carefully divided the paella between the two plates, before pouring a glass of red wine for herself and white for Arizona.
"Sure, that's great. I'll see you tomorrow then." Arizona paused again. "Oh no... no, you don't have to thank me, really. And I'm just about to eat dinner with my girlfriend, but thank you."
Knowing instinctively who was on the other end of the phone, Callie felt the flutters in her stomach again. Rather than pluck the phone out of Arizona's hand and say a few things she probably shouldn't say, she took a sip of wine.
"I'm sorry, I already have lunch plans tomorrow but how about I bring you a cup of coffee in the morning instead?" Arizona listened again. "Okay, deal. I'll see you in the morning then. Bye."
"Let me guess, Snyder?" Callie intoned in a flat voice.
Her mind occupied, Arizona missed the inflection in Callie's voice. "Yeah, I thought the nurses gave out my pager number but I guess they paged for her because she's been around so much lately."
"And she was asking you out to dinner?"
Understanding immediately she was on dangerous ground even as she wasn't sure why, Arizona replied evenly, "To thank me for showing her around and letting her extend the stay."
Tapping her fingernail on the bar's counter, Callie sampled her wine again before saying, "And you have plans for lunch tomorrow already?"
"Yes. With you, of course, unless you get caught up," Arizona answered and took a bite of her food, trying to divert the direction the conversation suddenly seemed to be going in. "This is just as good tonight too, thanks."
"I don't care about the paella right now, Arizona. I don't like her," Callie announced.
"Why?"
"She's interested in you," Callie spat.
Arizona shrugged her shoulders. "Even if she was, I'm not the slightest bit interested in her, Calliope. There's only one person I'm interested in and she's right here."
"You're going to recommend she be offered a position, aren't you?" Callie asked, as she recognized that her stomach suddenly had no interest in the food.
Arizona fielded the question carefully. "She has great references and Peds could really use the help of a seasoned professional. I could use the help, I wouldn't have to be on call as much if we had someone else. But, I'm still waiting on some calls."
"So, you are going to recommend her, even though she knows you have a girlfriend and yet is still asking you to dinner?"
"Callie," Arizona began.
"No," Callie interrupted. "Don't Callie me. This woman is after you and you're going to get her a job where she works with you every day."
Arizona sighed and spent a moment brushing non-existent strands of hair from her face to collect her thoughts. "Do you trust me?"
"It's nothing to do with if I trust you or not," Callie replied.
Arizona's eyebrows rose high up her forehead as she just looked at Callie.
"It's not," Callie insisted.
"You don't trust me," Arizona stated as she slid off the stool and started to move away, feeling as if her heart had suddenly dropped to the ground.
Suddenly panicked at the look in her girlfriend's eyes, Callie lightly grasped Arizona's arm and kept her in place. "Wait, no. Please," she pleaded. "I do trust you."
Saddened, Arizona just looked at her lover.
"I love you. I trust you," Callie insisted. "In fact, I told Mark today I trusted you implicitly. I know you would never cheat on me. Could never." Callie cupped Arizona's cheek with a hand. "I know that to be a fact, there is no doubt in my mind. None."
"If that's true, then what's going on?"
Bringing her hand down from Arizona's cheek to hold her hand, she led the blonde to the sofa and they both sat down facing each other.
Callie took a few seconds to collect her thoughts and then looked up at Arizona. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Before her girlfriend could speak, Callie continued, "Even though I know you wouldn't cheat, I've never thought about what working here must be like for you sometimes. To be reminded of my previous, let's say, experiences all the time. And I guess it just took one person to slobber all over you and slam home that the badass bubble I've been living in needs a wakeup call."
"Badass bubble?" Arizona asked curiously.
"Yeah," Callie said, understanding this was a time for complete honesty. "Arizona, you're amazing. Incredible. We're so very good together. After Erica..."
"You don't have to..."
Callie shook her head and interrupted Arizona, "Please. Let me say this." She gently grasped Arizona's hands in her own and continued, "After Erica, I - I once told Mark that if I had another failed relationship it would cut me off at the knees." Callie took a deep breath and released it slowly, then went on, "But if something happened with us, it would be so far beyond losing my knees that I don't know if I'd ever recover. Seeing someone go after you like that kinda shook my world. Shook the perfect space I'd been living in with you. And I reacted badly, I'm sorry."
"But you've seen people hit on me before and it never seemed to bother you," Arizona said.
"Oh, it bothered me but I was right there and was able to deal with it, so it wasn't the same. This is someone who will work with you all the time, someone you'd spend a lot of time with when I'm not there and my mind just went crazy with ... well, it went crazy. I just haven't had to deal with THAT person before."
"You mean someone like Mark is to you?" Arizona asked.
"No." Callie winced. "Okay, maybe a little like that."
"A little?"
"Point taken," Callie conceded. "I'm sorry I haven't really gotten your perspective before and I think I get it now."
"So you're saying you want to borrow some bricks," Arizona teased gently, feeling her heart slowly release from the constricted form it had been in for the last few minutes.
"What is this brick thing?" Callie asked.
Arizona smiled finally, willing to believe in Callie and allow the deflection. "It's just a little mental exercise I do, thinking about throwing a brick at your former lovers. You know, angles and damage and so on."
Callie returned the smile with one of her own and said, "I'm sorry I was such an idiot. This just ... I guess it just hit all my buttons at once."
"There are other buttons that got pushed?" Arizona asked, curious despite feeling like she had run a marathon.
"I know I'm not easy, Arizona. I know that. I know I sometimes speak before I think, I know I don't usually look at both sides before I make my point of view abundantly clear. I know I have so many flaws, I guess this just made me think of how you could have anyone and you chose me."
"You need to listen to me, okay?" Arizona soothed. "We're all flawed, we all make mistakes and we all want to take back things we've said and done. Yes, we're different but haven't you ever heard of that saying about opposites attracting? Maybe the reasons why we're different are exactly why we're so good together. And we are very, very good together." She kissed the back of Callie's hand. "You chose me too and every single day I bless whatever wind of fortune brought you to me, because I won the Callie lottery and I plan to collect for a very long time."
A glint of humor appeared in Callie's eyes. "And how much did you pay for those lottery tickets?"
"Calliope, I love you," Arizona began, needing to say it one more time as she squeezed Callie's hands tighter. "I would never be stupid enough to cheat on you. And I would do anything for you, you have to know that."
"I do."
"Then know that it wouldn't matter if every woman in the world offered themselves up to me, it just wouldn't matter. There's one that I want and I have her. Okay?"
"Okay," Callie agreed. "And you have to know that you're it for me too."
The two women leaned closer and melded their foreheads together for a few moments before bringing their lips together as well.
Pulling back slightly after a long moment, Arizona said, "Think we can just have a quiet night and finish dinner safely?"
"I think we can arrange that. Let me micro another batch of paella up, I'm suddenly very hungry," Callie replied, feeling much better than she had in a couple of days.