Author's Note: You guys and your predictions... I love them! There are only three chapters left before this is finished, then I'm staying away from while I plan my next project, which is going to be a Pretty Little Liars fanfic - yeah, I double dip. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter, and check out next week's excerpts on wip-alterocentrist on Tumblr!
Arizona's eyes fluttered open and she was momentarily disoriented by the plain navy blue sheets covering her naked body. I wouldn't buy anything in this colour, she thought. Everything fell into place when she noticed the equally naked woman beside her. Calliope.
It had been a week since that intense hour of kissing and groping in her office - which they eventually had to stop because Callie's phone wouldn't stop ringing - Arizona and Callie started sneaking around in the FBI break room, in Callie's office, and once in Arizona's kitchen during a LAN party. They even exchanged flirty texts here and there. Things eventually escalated and on a Sofia-free night, Callie invited her over after work. And Arizona had the most mind-blowing sex of her life. So far, she reminded herself hopefully, as she wanted this to be more than a one-time thing.
Callie stirred. She had been facing away from Arizona, her hair flowing down her bare back. She turned around and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "Hey there," she said, her voice sexily hoarse from sleep. "I'm sure other women tell you this all the time but you have this rare gift of looking amazing when you've just woken up."
"I could say the same about you." Arizona tried to fight a blush, but failed.
Callie inched towards her and she reached out to place a hand on Arizona's hip, and traced light circles on it with two fingers. "You are as fucking gorgeous naked as I expected you to be," she said. "It's a public service that it's a legal obligation to wear clothes in public, because holy hell, Arizona."
"Holy hell is an oxymoron."
"Hmm." Callie held on to the blonde's hip as leverage to pull herself closer. "Don't change the subject." She started planting feathery kisses on Arizona's neck, shoulder and collarbone.
"Calliope," Arizona moaned approvingly. "I'm a pretty humble person, I don't feel right vocally appraising my own naked body with other people."
"Not even someone you've had great sex with?" Callie asked. Her breath tickled Arizona's jugular, which made goosebumps erupt on the back of her neck. Callie moved her head so that she was at Arizona's eye level once more. "You know, you're the only one who can make my name sound like a song." Their lips met.
"Really?" Arizona asked between kisses.
"Well, my dad is the only other person that calls me that, and he says it in that schmuck way-"
Arizona stopped kissing back and put a silencing finger on the FBI agent's lips. "Calliope, I really don't want to be talking about your father while we're naked in bed like this," she said. Her hand ran down Callie's side, then slid back up to cup a breast. She watched Callie's eyes darken in anticipation. She continued in a much lower voice, "And I don't want to hear about your father when we're about to do this." She kissed Callie full on, not pausing for a second to slip her tongue right in the other woman's mouth. Arizona couldn't help but feeling satisfied when Callie moaned in response.
A voice boomed from outside. "Good morning, mami, we brought croissants!"
Startled, Callie broke the kiss. "Shit," she said, slapping her forehead. "I forgot that Sofia and Mark were coming over for breakfast today."
"Why didn't you tell him that you were going to be busy?" asked Arizona.
"Quieter, please," Callie told her. She had jumped out of bed and quickly threw on some pyjamas. "I was a little distracted last night, as you can see. And Mark's apartment is just next door, and this is a Saturday routine, how could I possibly stop them?" She tossed all the discarded clothes from last night into her clothes hamper.
"Callie? Is everything okay?" asked Mark. "Are you still sleeping? I was afraid this would happen." His voice switched into a singsong manner, "Sofiarita, your lazy mami is still sleeping. Shall we go wake her up?" Approaching steps grew louder and louder from outside the door.
"Oh, shit," Arizona muttered. "He can't see me in here. Sofia can't see me in here." She deftly rolled out of bed and used her arms to roll herself to the bathroom. Gaining her presence of mind, she closed and locked the bathroom door as quietly as she could and sat on the closed toilet lid. She listened as Callie's bedroom door opened.
"Morning, Callie!" Mark said. "Is everything all right? You look like you haven't slept much."
Of course she didn't. I was rocking her world! Arizona couldn't help but feel pride at this.
"Yeah, everything's fine." Arizona heard Callie cleared her throat, then expertly feigned a sneeze. "Actually, I'm feeling a little under the weather, Mark. I've had a scratchy throat and I've been sneezing all night."
"Hmm. You do sound a little hoarse," said Mark.
From screaming my name, thought Arizona.
"Maybe it's not a good idea to have breakfast today then. You gotta get some rest. Sofia might catch whatever you're getting."
"Yeah, she might," said Callie. "You go enjoy your croissants, okay? Have extra strawberry jam for me." Her voice changed, so Arizona guessed that she was addressing Sofia. "And be nice when daddy gets you new clothes to wear." It took a couple of minutes before Callie had properly seen Mark and Sofia off, but she returned soon enough. "The coast is clear."
Arizona crawled out of the bathroom. Callie smiled at Arizona and picked her up. "So, this is how you make a lady swoon?" Arizona asked her.
"I'm so sorry you had to do that," said Callie. She lowered Arizona onto the bed.
"Did Mark live next door before or after you had Sofia?"
"After," replied Callie. "Why do you ask?"
I want to check that you're not going to run back to him. Arizona shrugged. "Just curious." She got back under the covers. "Hey, are we going to tell anyone about..." she gestured between her and Callie, "whatever this is?"
Callie sat next to her. "I don't know," she said. "It's not exactly unethical to be sleeping with a civilian consultant. But maybe we should keep it on the down low? For now? If that's okay with you, of course."
"Yeah," Arizona agreed. "Of course, that's perfectly fine with me. I mean, telling people would just come with all sorts of," she paused, "expectations." She laughed nervously.
The other woman mirrored her laughter. "Hey, do you want to put some clothes on?" she asked. "I'm going to go make us some breakfast."
"All right," said Arizona. When Callie left the room, she reached for her prosthetic, fastened it then went on a search for her clothes. She remembered that Callie had thrown them in the hamper. I guess she doesn't mind if I borrow hers then, she thought. She found a threadbare Columbia t-shirt and black sweatpants. They were quite loose so she rolled them up at the waist.
The smell of spiced meat was filling the apartment's air when Arizona emerged from the bedroom. Callie was next to the stove beating some eggs in a bowl. "I hope you like chorizo in your omelettes," she said cheerfully. Her eyes ran appreciatively down Arizona's body. "You look nice in my clothes." Callie poured her a cup of coffee and slid it across the counter. "Have a seat. This'll be ready in no time."
What is this? Is this dating? Arizona wondered as she sat on the stool and wrapped her hands around the warm cup. "Thanks, Calliope," she said.
The dark-haired woman must have heard the soft and earnest tone to her voice, because her attention was diverted from her cooking to Arizona. They held each other's gazes for what it seemed like a while, then Callie sprinkled some more pepper in the eggs before pouring them into the pan. "It's just some breakfast and coffee, Arizona," she said, shrugging.
"I know." Arizona poured a sachet of cream in her coffee cup. "But it's still nice. Last night was nice too."
Callie smiled widely. "You think?"
Arizona nodded. "Definitely. I'm sorry about cancelling your Saturday morning ritual with Sofia and Mark, by the way," she said.
"Oh, don't be!" said Callie. "I'd much rather have you here. It's a nice change. Sometimes I think Mark and I get too wrapped up in the whole mommies and daddies thing to forget that we're hot and we're sexy."
"Was Sofia conceived because you and Mark were collectively realising that you're hot and you're sexy?"
Callie laughed. "Good question, Arizona," she said. "But yeah, that's what basically happened. Erica and I had a bit of a break - a messy one - so I was sad enough to go get horny with Mark. It was a bit stupid of us, in retrospect, but I've always wanted a baby and I loved Sofia from the moment I discovered I was pregnant. And so did Mark, really, but we both decided that sex between us has to be, like, over. I got back with Erica but Mark was adamant to be in Sofia's life."
"I can see that Mark is a great dad and all. I'm sure you're over the moon that he's around to love Sofia... but am I allowed to be glad that you and him aren't having sex anymore?" Arizona asked cautiously.
"Of course," said Callie. She shook the pan lightly, then looked up again. "I, for one, am glad about that. You are fantastic in bed." She flipped the omelette, then stepped away from the stove to grab two plates and two sets of utensils from the drawers. She passed them to Arizona. "You wanna set the table? I was thinking we stay in today, watch some movies and maybe have some more sex?"
"Sure." Arizona laid out a plate in front of her and a plate next to her. It's a Saturday, she resolved. She never got time with Callie on a Saturday, unless it was a LAN party. They're allowed to relax. They can talk about what to call this thing between them some other time.
On Wednesday afternoon, Derek and Owen called a task force meeting to report what happened with Gary Clark, and they did so satisfied expression on their faces. "He's not a man you'd have trouble intimidating," said Owen. "But he knows how to lie."
"He clearly told us that he didn't know anyone who could possibly have anything to do with it, and if he didn't arouse our suspicions so much the first time we came across his name, we would have believed him," said Derek.
Mark leaned forward contemplatively. "Did he look shaken up at any point?"
Bailey, who was in charge of watching the interview through the camera, spoke up, "He looked appropriately shaken up from someone who was being interviewed by the feds. But he didn't look like he was guilty."
"What matters here is that if he looked scared enough that he'd panic and create a string of activities that we can track down easily," Callie told everyone. "Bailey, can you play the footage of the interview for us, but on mute?"
Bailey looked at Derek, who nodded in agreement. She set up the video footage on the meeting room screen. While everyone took this opportunity for a small break, Callie shifted, then Arizona suppressed a gasp. Alex was the only one who noticed the small noise, and he gave her a strange look.
Callie was seated next to Arizona, her chair at a perfect distance just so she could surreptitiously place her hand on the blonde's leg. The tips of her fingers just brushed lightly on the inside of Arizona's thigh, high enough that the throbbing between her legs started immediately. She made eye contact with Callie, who had her features arranged nonchalantly. Please, please, please let me last through this meeting, Arizona silently pleaded with her.
"I'm fast forwarding through to when we started asking him questions specific to the case," Bailey told them. She pressed a few buttons on the computer. "Here we go."
Arizona watched as Callie focused intently on Gary Clark's figure, before training her eyes on the screen herself. Clark appeared to have a medium build, a bald head, beady eyes and a moustache. In the interview, he wore a striped button down shirt, tan pants and brown shoes, which all hung loosely on his body. He was boring, standard, pedestrian - hardly a criminal mastermind that has stolen millions of money.
"Did you watch his hands at all, Bailey?" asked Callie. She leaned forward, and her fingers slid further between Arizona's legs. Arizona fought to keep her eyes from rolling back in her head. Her free hand pointed at the screen, where Clark's hands were underneath the table, clasped on his lap. "He likes to play with his hands, doesn't he?"
"So what?" asked Bailey. "I noticed that. It's a textbook sign of nerves."
"Yeah, but I didn't realise that texting sneakily under the table is a sign of nerves too."
Derek and Owen leapt out of their seats to examine the video. "Bailey, can you rewind about ten seconds back then play in slow motion?" Derek asked.
Bailey tapped a few keys, and the video played in slow motion. "I'm zooming on his hands and isolating them." Clark's hands filled the screen. Within them, a black object with a screen became clear.
"Son of a bitch," breathed Owen. "He managed to sneak a phone in there." He blew out a breath in frustration. "I should have taken a bit of a harder line and asked him to make his arms visible."
"Can we zoom in a little more? Find out if he's contacting anyone, and who it is," said Derek.
"Sorry, Shepherd, that's it," Bailey told him.
"We'll need to access his phone records," said Owen.
"Knowing people like these, they'd be using prepaid phones or cloned SIM cards. It won't be that easy to track them down," said Alex.
Owen looked at Derek. "It's true," he confirmed.
"So what do we do?" asked Mark. "Bring him in for questioning again? Ask him why he was on his phone?"
With a final brush of her hand against the inside of Arizona's thigh, Callie withdrew it and placed it on the table before offering her opinion. "I say let's try his phone records just to be safe, then keep an eye on the other guys that we presumably linked to him to see if he's gotten in touch with them over the next week or so."
Owen looked momentarily thoughtful. "Yeah, that sounds doable," he said.
"All right," said Derek. "We're adjourning this meeting for now. Lexie, Cristina, Bailey, get your computers and come to my office in five minutes."
Arizona was alone in the break room pouring herself a cup of coffee when a pair of hands slapped her backside. "Hey," a deep, sultry voice whispered from behind her. The breath was hot on her ear.
"Calliope!" Arizona steadied herself. "I'm holding a cup of extremely hot liquid here!"
Callie smirked at Arizona, not removing her hands from Arizona's ass. "You know what else is extremely hot?" she asked.
"What?"
The taller woman's hands ran over Arizona's curves. "Your ass," she said. "It doesn't quit."
Arizona put her coffee down before turning to face Callie. Their torsos were touching, and they could feel each other's exhaling breaths, lightly brushing the small hairs on their cheeks. "You were naughty in the meeting room today," Arizona told her. "And you're being naughty now."
"Is that such a terrible thing?" Callie leaned in closer. "Are you gonna punish me?"
"Come over for dinner tonight," Arizona blurted out, distracted by Callie's closer proximity. It didn't come out as seductively as she wanted it to.
"Funny that." Callie looked at her curiously. "I was gonna suggest that you come over tonight and I'd make you dinner. Sofia's with Mark, and Teddy would have a field day seeing me in your kitchen."
"Teddy's at a conference in Chicago, actually, so I've got the place to myself."
"Is that so?"
Arizona nodded. "I was just going to order takeout for us, but since you said you were going to cook for me, how about you stop by the grocery store to pick up your supplies while I get home to set up?" she suggested.
"All right," agreed Callie. "I'll see you in a couple of hours then?"
Arizona smiled at her, before putting a hand on her chest and pushing her backwards, enough so she can walk towards the door. "You will," she said. Still smiling, she walked back to Lexie's office, where Alex was sitting alone, eating a Philly cheesesteak sub. "Don't you have a lab to get to at UDub?"
"Got cancelled," said Alex. He looked up at Arizona. "You're sleeping with Torres, aren't you?"
"I'm not. Who told you that?" Arizona asked guardedly. But already, she could feel the heat rising up her neck and jaw.
Alex noisily slurped soda from a straw. "No one had to tell me," he said. "You're perkier than usual and you two were sitting real close together at the meeting. Don't even lie to me that nothing's going on, Robbins."
"Well, then you better keep quiet," said Arizona.
"Knew it!" Alex laughed. "Hey, I'm totally behind you. Torres is hot, you're a lucky woman. Oh, by the way, I got these from my friend." He pulled a couple of sheets of high quality paper out of his backpack and showed them to Arizona. "Your clan's laptop stickers."
Arizona took them from Alex. The stickers were patterns of white and hot pink and purple. "These look wicked," she said, grinning. "Thanks. How much do I owe you?"
"Robbins." Alex waved it off. "It's my treat."
"Thanks," she said again. Even if they'd known each other for two years, working on this case together meant that Alex was becoming less and less of a student to her and more like a brother. "Well, I've got to go now. You should go home, too, if you've got nothing else to do here."
"I will, Robbins," said Alex. "You enjoy your night."
Oh, trust me, I will. "You do too, Alex."
Callie's nails dug into Arizona's back as she cried the blonde's name out loud. When her body relaxed, Arizona rolled off her, smiling smugly as she lay back against the pillows.
Callie pulled the covers over them and snuggled up to Arizona's chest. She draped an arm over Arizona's abdomen. "A vegetarian would not have the stamina for what you did just then," she sighed. "That required a lot of protein."
"Oh no, they can do that if they ate things like chickpeas and potatoes and beans," said Arizona.
"Shut up, you nerd," said Callie. "I just wanted you to say that my cooking is amazing."
"Your cooking is fucking amazing," said Arizona. Callie had made them succulent Greek-inspired lamb chops over a bed of lemon and mint couscous earlier that evening, and Arizona finally understood why her mother insisted that she marry a woman that cooks. Not that I'm going to marry Callie, of course.
"Why thanks." Callie kissed Arizona's chest. "You, on the other hand, are amazing at fucking."
Arizona couldn't help but snort. "You're a dork," she told Callie. "How you manage to bed women is beyond me."
"Bed a woman. Newborn, remember?" corrected Callie. "And for your information, I'm not a dork. I'm badass. I spent my early twenties having my hands inside corpses and helping the police catch criminals with the stuff I find in them."
"Yummy." Arizona's nose crinkled, as if she didn't spend years in Afghanistan seeing dead bodies all the time. "Why forensics, though?"
"I wanted to join the police straight out of high school but my parents had this college fund for me," explained Callie. "I felt bad for not using it, so I decided to go to college, and then I was drawn to the forensics squad so there I went. After a major homicide case, the FBI caught wind of my reputation and poached me, pretty much."
"You must have been excellent then," said Arizona.
Callie nodded slowly. "Yeah, I really was." She caught herself. "And I still am!"
"Of course," said Arizona. "Hey, you had a college fund?"
"And a trust fund, too," said Callie. "My family in Miami is loaded. That's why my dream of being in the police force seemed odd to my parents. They wanted me to help with the family business or start my own."
"But instead you became a badass."
"Pretty much." Callie's fingers started tracing patterns on Arizona's stomach. "What about you? Why did you join the Marines?" Arizona had her mouth open to reply, but Callie followed up her question with, "And don't give me the family history reason. I already know that."
Arizona inhaled deeply. "Well, it was because of my brother Timothy," she started. "He'd bring friends home in between tours and they'd keep going on about how Tim would brag to them about his 'super genius baby sister'. There was a real demand for computer scientists in the Marines at that time - heading into the dotcom boom and all - so I decided to enlist. I went into training three weeks after my college graduation. My first base was close to home in Quantico, then Germany. The war happened and Tim was deployed to Afghanistan. I joined him not long afterwards. I was excited to finally serve my country with my brother."
Callie's hand was now on the base of Arizona's residual limb. She was stroking it tenderly. "And that what happened?" she asked, eager brown eyes looking up at the academic.
Hesitation made Arizona's vocal cords constrict for a moment. "Callie."
"Shit." Callie lifted her hand. "I'm sorry. You don't have to tell me if you're not ready."
"No, keep doing that," Arizona said, almost pleadingly. "It feels good. And I think I'm ready to tell you."
"All right." Slowly, Callie resumed stroking the residual limb.
"We had just cleared the Taliban out of a whole territory that consisted of six villages, about eighty-seven thousand people all in all. The battles had virtually no civilian casualties and only a few on our side. We were waiting for the UN Peacekeepers to arrive and start reconstruction before we move on to another part of the country," Arizona recounted. "We had the afternoon off so Tim and I decided to go on a joyride on one of the jeeps - just exploring, getting to see the terrain. But then our jeep went over an undetected land mine."
Callie gasped. "Did the Taliban- ?"
"No, I was told that it was from the Soviet occupation. It had just been there all that time, waiting for some unsuspecting kid playing soccer to step on it..." she drifted off for a few seconds, then found her voice, "Anyway, Tim was really agile. Maybe it was the adrenaline, or maybe it was just because he was a great soldier. He managed to get on top of me mid-blast, protecting me from the shrapnel. The shrapnel got him, though. Caught a few of his organs, tore a couple of arteries." She swallowed. "He was gone pretty quickly. Meanwhile, my leg was buried under car parts, and the force of the blast broke a couple of bones elsewhere. Ribs, pelvis... Teddy told me all this, of course."
"God," breathed Callie. "That must have been horrible."
Arizona sighed. Her eyes were starting to sting. "Yeah it was," she said. "Tim's always been looking out for me all my life, you know? And then this one time, he looked out for me and he ended up getting killed. The funniest thing is, it wasn't even in battle! We were awesome in battle! This, this was when we were just acting like a couple of stupid kids - which is nothing new to us, really - and suddenly he was gone."
Callie held Arizona a little tighter, and they remained in that position for a while. Arizona took the liberty of adjusting herself so that she was in a place to burrow into Callie's chest, taking in the FBI agent's smell - a combination of sweat, coconuts and herbs from the lamb chops lingered on her skin.
"I'm so sorry," Callie finally said. "But thank you for telling me."
"It's okay," said Arizona. "You're the first woman I've slept with that I've told, I would have only told someone really special to me."
"Well, I would think I was more that someone you sleep with. Like," Callie paused, "your girlfriend."
Arizona was taken aback, but she couldn't say that she disliked the word coming out of Callie's mouth. "You want to be my girlfriend, Calliope?" she asked.
"I thought I already was." Callie's eyebrows were knitted in confusion. "I mean, this thing we're doing - cooking dinner for each other at home, then going to bed, then pillow talk. Isn't this what girlfriends do?"
"That settles it then," said Arizona. "You're my girlfriend."
"And you're mine," said Callie. She reached up to capture Arizona's lips in a kiss. "Say, as my girlfriend," she said, when they finally pulled apart. "Do you want to go to dinner with me tomorrow night? Somewhere romantic?"
"Callie, I'd love to, but Isn't it going to be your turn with Sofia?" asked Arizona.
"Yeah, but Mark's eager for me to date again so I'm sure he wouldn't mind giving up another night," said Callie. "I'll find us a nice restaurant in Belltown or something."
"Oh, Belltown!" exclaimed Arizona. "You showing off your Torres digs?"
"Maybe," said Callie. "I heard that a well-cooked meal is an aphrodisiac."
"And you were proven right this evening," Arizona chimed in. "I don't know what your motivations are, Calliope Torres, but I am so up for dinner with you tomorrow night."
Callie giggled and let Arizona pull her in for another kiss.
"What the hell are you doing here? I told you not to come see me here." A familiar voice thundered out in the hallway. Startled, and weary from being at her desk all afternoon, Arizona sat up and looked at the clock in the corner of her laptop screen. It was six-thirty, an hour before she was due to meet Callie at the restaurant.
"You weren't answering any of my phone calls," another voice said. "I was trying to find out if you've realised how much shit we're in."
"I told you that the plan was a bad idea. There are people smarter than us out there, and they are starting to outsmart us. I knew we were going to get caught. This was way in over our heads."
"So what's your master plan to keep us from going to jail?"
Okay, that's suspicious, thought Arizona. She turned her laptop off and started packing her things away. Whoever was talking outside clearly thought that they were alone in this corridor. She stood up, slung her backpack over one shoulder, and opened the door.
The voices immediately stopped. She stepped out into the corridor to see Robert Stark standing by his office door, closely standing next to a bald man with a moustache. He was tall but his shoulders were hunched over awkwardly, and he was rather thin. Arizona froze. What the hell is Gary Clark doing talking to him?
"Hey Dr Stark," she tried to keep her voice even, "is everything okay?"
Stark appeared momentarily stunned. "Dr Robbins." He blinked rapidly. "I didn't know that you were still here."
"I was finishing up," said Arizona. "I was just about to leave, though." She stared at the two men.
Stark's eyes shifted from Arizona to the man next to him. "Oh! Dr Robbins, this is my accountant," he said. He didn't give his name.
The man's dark, beady eyes stared at Arizona, although he realised this quite quickly and stopped, averting his gaze. It's Gary Clark, all right. "Nice to meet you," Arizona said hastily, "but I've got to go now." She exited the building, strapped her helmet on and rode out of the university. She found a 7-11 after a mile and a half and pulled her phone out, shakily scrolling down her contacts list to find Lexie's number.
The younger agent picked up. "Are you checking on me again?" she asked.
"Lexie! Are you still at the office?"
"Yeah, I was just packing up. What's up?"
"Is the rest of the team still there?" asked Arizona.
"Yes, they are."
"Tell them to head to my place as soon as possible. I just discovered something that impacts greatly on what we're doing, and I don't want to go to HQ because that might arouse suspicion. So direct everyone to my place, and I'll be there in about forty minutes, okay?"
"Arizona." Lexie sighed, realising that the academic won't tell her any more over the phone. "All right, I'll get everyone ready. We'll be there."
"See you," said Arizona. She hung up and dialled Alex. "Hey, we've got a problem. I need you to head to my place, key's in the usual spot, and order pizza, around six boxes. And beer, maybe. No, Karev, this isn't a drill."
Next week: With only a few days to go until the LAN party, the task force regroup to arrange their plans around the new revelations in the case. A slip of the tongue gets Arizona in deep trouble.
