AN: Sorry this took so long! As always, they're Shonda's creations. I'm just playing around with them.


Twenty minutes later, Callie was standing on the front porch, waving to her children as she watched her sister's tail lights disappear at the end of the block. Her husband was next to her, standing close, but not touching. Finally, she looked up at him and turned back inside. Leading Owen into the living room, Callie sat on the sofa and gestured for him to do the same.

"Well."

Owen sat down with a huff and turned to look at his wife. "Callie—"

She held up a hand to cut him off. "Wait. I need to say some things here and I need to say them fast." She waited for her husband to nod before going any further. "I'm worried, Owen. I am so worried every single day about you and about our children and about your patients and about the hospital. I'm worried when I wake up in the morning. It's my default mood these days. And I know, I know, what's happening in your head is absolutely terrible. I know that. But this isn't what I want."

"You think I want—"

"Please, Owen."

He shook his head and stared resolutely at the floor.

"Think about it, Owen. When we first met…when we were dating…do you really think we were in love?"

"We have a family together, Callie!"

"I know. We have a beautiful family. No one is denying that. But…did you really love me?"

He sighed and looked up into his wife's eyes and saw only open honesty. "I don't understand what you're asking."

Callie let out a deep breath and rubbed her hands over her face. "I've been thinking about it for a long time. What we were like. Who we were as people back then, what we wanted..."

"And?" Owen prompted when it was clear the woman had gotten lost in her own thoughts.

"And we both wanted a family, Owen. We both wanted children."

"We have children, Callie."

"I know. I'm saying we didn't want each other."


"What do you think the pretty Seattle Pres people are doing right now?" Cynthia looked up at her friend from where her head was resting on the bar at Joe's after a long day.

"Well, we know one of them is watching Calliope's kids so she can have a talk with her husband."

"Yeah." Cynthia downed her shot and winced. "That sounds…serious."

Sipping her wine, knowing that she was going to be the one responsible for getting her friend home safely tonight, Arizona answered, "Definitely serious."

"Do you think they're breaking up?" Her eyes got wide. "Do you think she's going to break up with her husband and run into your arms and then convince her sister to date me and we all have one big sex orgy?"

"Cyn…that's gross. You've got two sisters in your orgy."

Cynthia wrinkled her nose. "Ew. Let's just have sex separately then."

"I should be cutting you off, you know that?"

Cynthia grabbed her glass of beer and hugged it protectively to her chest.


"We were comfortable, Owen. We were never madly, passionately in love. We were both sad about breakups and desperately wanting to settle down and have kids. We were rebounding and I think we're both too stubborn to have seen it that way."

"You're calling our family a mistake?"

"Please, Owen. I know this is hard. But I want what's best for everyone. For you too. Are you happy? Here, with me…are you happy? Do I make you happy?"

Owen was up and pacing the length of the living room. "Our children—"

"No, not our children, Owen." Callie stood and stepped in front of her husband. "Me. Do I make you happy?"

He stopped and looked at his wife. Really looked at her for the first time in what felt like ages. He contemplated what she was saying. Was he happy? No was the short answer. He barely even remembered what happy felt like. "Maybe…maybe I could go get help? We'll put everything on hold and I can…"

"I'm sorry, Owen. I can't wait."


"Tia 'Ria?" a sleepy voice broke through Aria's thoughts and she turned to see her niece rubbing her eyes and standing in the kitchen doorway.

"I thought you were sleeping, Lil' Bear."

"I woke up."

Aria smiled and went to the little girl, picking her up in her arms and sitting her on the counter so they could talk while Aria finished washing dishes from their movie night.

"The boys are still sleeping?"

Allegra nodded her head and stared down at her knees in deep thought.

"What are you thinking about, Allie?"

The girl's head finally rose to meet her aunt's gaze. "Mami and Daddy fight a lot."

Blowing out a deep breath, Aria stopped what she was doing and leaned back on the counter across from the little girl. Obviously this was about to be a big discussion. "Yeah, they do, don't they?" Aria wrinkled her nose. "That must not be much fun for you, huh?"

Allegra shook her head and started playing with the hem of her dress. "Did I do something wrong? Did Sam or Andy?"

"Nope." Aria didn't let herself have a single moment of hesitation before she answered. "You guys are terrific kids. You and your brothers are totally awesome and your Mami and Daddy love you guys sooooooo much."

"To the moon and back."

Aria recognized the phrase that she had heard Callie recite to the children on a daily basis. "That's right." She paused to let the little girl guide the conversation.

"But if we didn't do anything wrong…why are they fighting?"

Shifting to sit next to the girl on the counter, Aria thought hard. "Well, you know your friend from school, Sofia?"

Allegra nodded.

"You two used to be inseparable, right? And then she started playing with those My Little Pony dolls, but you didn't like them so you two stopped playing together. You guys just…liked different things. Maybe it's something like that with your Mami and Daddy. What do you think?"

The little girls scrunched her face up, trying to make sense of it. "Maybe."


Owen dropped down to the couch and hung his head. "I'm so tired of fighting."

"Me too." Callie perched herself on the arm of the chair across from him. "And when we're together that's all we seem to be capable of doing."

"So the only logical conclusion is…" The silence weighed down heavily around the married couple.

"I know; I don't want to say it either."

Gazing at each other, Owen finally stood and took the few steps over to his wife and brushed a strand of hair from her face. "You're an incredible person, Callie. A phenomenal mother and a true joy."

Callie blinked back tears at the kind words. "You're so strong, Owen. I've always been so proud of what you've done. And I know you can keep doing incredible things."

"Just not here."

"You need help."

"Yeah."


"Okay, but like, it's not just Little Torres that's got me all flustered."

"Little Torres?"

"Yeah, Little Torres. The younger one. Little." Cynthia held up her hand, fingers about an inch apart. "Like if you and I were sisters, I'd be Little Robbins."

"We're the same age. Your birthday is a month before mine."

"Then you're Little Robbins." Taking a swig of her drink, the inebriated woman continued, "Anyway, it's not just her. It's all of them. How did they manage to staff an entire department with models, Zone? How did they do it?"

Arizona waited for her friend to continue before realizing that she actually wanted an answer. "An…ad in the newspaper, I suppose."

"Of course." Cynthia hit herself on the head. "I should have thought of that. I went into the lab today and almost knocked over an entire tray of instruments! It was just, like, one right after the other. Pretty, prettier, and prettiest. But then you look back at pretty and realize that pretty is even prettier than prettiest!"

Laughing into her soda, Arizona scoffed at her friend. "You're just horny."

"Says the woman in love with the pretty married lady."

"Shut up."


"So…this is it? We end it?"

Callie sighed and ran her hand through her hair. "You know, after all the fighting and tumultuous moments in our marriage, I expected the end to be bigger, you know? Larger than life. But this…this is just small and quiet, isn't it?"

"In like a lion, out like a lamb."

"You're going to get help?"

Owen looked up at the ceiling and tensed his jaw. "I'm going to get help. I'll go—uh, I'll go stay with my mom tonight. Until we figure out where to go from here."

Slowly, Callie nodded. "Aria's dropping the kids off at daycare tomorrow morning. We should figure out when we can go talk to them. We should do it together."

"Yeah. Definitely."


"My friend Angela in the daycare? Her mommy and daddy don't live in the same house."

Aria took a deep breath. Kids were way smarter than she ever gave them credit for. "Is that so? What do you think about that?"

The little girl shrugged and crawled into her aunt's lap. They had moved from the counter and now were sitting on the floor in Aria's kitchen. "Angela said they don't fight anymore. They used to, but now they live in two different places and she goes to visit them both on different days. She said they haven't fought in a long time."

Pushing back Allegra's hair, Aria tried to get a read on the girl. "That sounds…kind of nice, I think."

"Yeah, Tia. I think so too."


Arizona was in the middle of trying to convince her friend to switch to water when Cynthia's eyes got wide and she stared at a spot past Arizona. Getting fed up with her friend, Arizona turned around and saw none other than Callie Torres walk into the bar and sit in front of Joe. There were only a handful of seats between the two women. "Oh, shit."

"Zone! She's here!" Cynthia fake-whispered.

"Hush. You're drunk and you're going to get me in trouble." Feeling her friend poking her finger into her side, Arizona sighed and started back at Cynthia. "What?"

"Go talk to her!"

"She doesn't really look like she's in the mood to talk, Cyn."

Just then, the two women heard a voice behind them that made them look up guiltily. "Dr. Robbins. Dr. Rogers. Hello."

Cynthia spun around with a big smile on her face and almost fell off her bar stool. "Dr. Torres! Hello. Hi. Hey. How are you?"

"She's drunk," Arizona unnecessarily clarified.

"Very," Cynthia agreed in a serious tone.

Callie let out a small smile. "Well, I saw you both over here and I didn't want to be rude. I'm just going to get a quick drink and head home. Long day, you know."

"Of course. It was good to see you, Callie," Arizona said, trying to let the other woman get back to her drink that Joe had just placed on the bar.

"Drink with us!"

"Cynthia! Stop it now!" Arizona hissed at the other woman.

"Oh, no, I couldn't. I don't want to intrude on what looks like a very fun ladies night."

"It's always more fun with an extra pretty lady." Cynthia's eyes lit up, "Zone! Look!" She pointed at herself and the two other women in turn, "Pretty…prettier…prettiest!"

"Oh my god." Arizona tried to hide her face in her hands but stopped when she heard Callie chuckling. It really did look like the women needed a friend tonight, and she could be that friend, right? She had offered friendship and had been pretty insistent about it, after all. She could keep her libido in check for one evening. "You wouldn't be intruding. I'd like the company." She quickly tried to correct herself, "We'd like the company."

Looking around the bar, Callie made a quick decision. "Then yes. Let me join you two."