Chapter 9

By looking at the picture there was one thing that was clear; Arizona had a child-somewhere. Jessica seemed to be the same age as Arizona. Callie had to admit, she was a very attractive girl. If you like that gorgeous, brown hair, beautiful blue eyes sort of way. Callie put Gabby down and continued to flip through the picture frames. "Why hasn't she told me?" Callie looked at the photo of Arizona laying asleep with the baby. "Why the hell hasn't she told me?"

Callie put the pictures back in place and closed the door to the closet. "I wanna watch cartoons now."

"Oh…..ok." Callie walked her downstairs still in shock. As she sat there with Gabby staring mindlessly at the television screen Callie could only think of one thing. What to do when Arizona came home. Should she act like she didn't know, should she confront her, or Callie's favorite of the three and tell her she was called back to Seattle on a special case? Callie didn't get to answer her question before Arizona walked in the front door.

"Hey you two." Arizona said smiling. "You guys having fun."

"Yeah!" Gabby shouted.

"Cool." Arizona replied as she put the groceries on the counter. She noticed that Callie hadn't turned from the television. Arizona's smile faded. "Callie? You alright?"

Callie never turned. "Um, yeah. I'm good."

"Ok. I am just going to help mom finish bringing in the groceries." Callie stood and faced Arizona. A chill went down Arizona's spine and she wasn't sure why. Just the look on Callie's face. Arizona didn't know what was wrong, but it was just…..stone. "Calliope, is something wrong?"

"I said I am fine." Callie still hadn't decided how she was going to handle this. "I'll help you." Callie said walking around Arizona.

"Callie?"

Callie stopped and turned around. "What?"

"You would tell me if there's something, right?"

"Would you?" That is all Callie said and walked out the door.

Arizona looked at Gabby. "Gabby, what did you and Callie do today?"

"Played dress up. She looked funny." The little girl laughed.

"Yeah she did. What else did you do?"

"We watched cartoons and played hide and seek."

Julie walked in the front door. "Mom, did Callie seem alright to you?"

"Fine I guess. Why?"

"Something happened. Gabby said they just watched cartoons and played hide and seek."

"Hide and seek?"

"That's what she said."

Callie walked into the kitchen. "Here are the rest of the groceries. I have a terrible headache. If don't mind, I am going to lay down a minute."

"No dear you go right ahead." Julie said. After Callie walked out of the room, Julie spoke. "Arizona, Gabby's favorite hiding place is in the closet."

"And?"

"The same closet that I hide all the pictures."

"What?" Arizona said terrified. "Mom!"

"I'm sorry. I never dreamed she would be in there."

"Oh God. She knows." Arizona started to pace the floor. "I gotta go talk to her."

"Yes you do. Now stop pacing the floor and go talk to her. Arizona, you should have been the one to tell her."

As Arizona walked out of the kitchen she said over her shoulder, "I know, Mom."

Arizona knocked on the door. No response. Arizona knocked again. She walked in when she didn't hear anything from Callie. "Callie?" Arizona said as she stuck her head in the door. There was still no answer. Arizona went and sat on the foot of the bed while Callie's back was to her. "Callie, is there something wrong?"

"No. I have a headache Arizona."

"Do you want me to believe that my three year old niece gave you a headache after an hour or would you like to talk to me?"

"Just go away, Arizona."

Arizona got up from the bed and walked around and knelt in front of Callie. "We need to talk about this. I know that Gabby hide in my parent's closet and that is where the pictures, I asked my parent's to hide were hidden. If it makes you feel any better, they hind most of them when I come around anyway." Callie gave Arizona her best 'really?' look. Arizona realized how stupid that sounded and wasn't even sure why she had said it. Other than the fact she couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Mom is big on family pictures being around." Callie noticed the hurt look on Arizona's face as she continued. "I am not even sure how many she has. When I come home I look up and see a picture of me and a child sleeping. Rumor has it there are more. Maybe she knows one is all I can see; all I can take."

Callie sat up in the bed. "Why have you never told me? Who are they? Where are they?"

Arizona sat on the bed next to Callie. "First let me say how sorry I am that you found out this way. I make no excuses for this. My family has told me to tell you and I didn't, so please don't be upset with them. They were just doing as I asked. They felt it was my place to tell you."

"Tell me what? What are you hiding from me? Just tell me." Arizona could tell Callie's

patience was wearing thin.

"I met Jessica my senior year of high school. We immediately just connected. It was easy and fun. We were two kids that always saw the glass half full. She wanted to go into medicine too, so all our classes were the same. We even decided that we would go to the same University. We had been together two years when Jess told me she wanted to have a baby. We were young and brilliantly stupid. We didn't think about residency and long hours, we saw what was right in front of us. Our parents tried to get us to wait, but us being the smarter people, went ahead with our plans. We were in our third year when Jess told me she was pregnant. We were so excited." Arizona smiled

Callie saw the tears starting to fill her eyes. "What happened to them?"

"I should have already told you. I am so sorry, Callie. I never wanted it to be this way." Arizona took a deep breath and continued. "The day Conner was born my life changed. We were so busy with school and our lives, most days it was chaos. When I held him the first time, the world stopped. It made scene and everything just fell into place. Not long after that I knew that Pediatrics was where it was for me. We both had to do clinicals at a local hospital for one of our classes. We went to school during the day and the hospital three nights a week." Arizona dropped her head and was visibly upset. "One night we left him with a sitter. We had hired a lady who was a friend of a friend. My parents were out of the country and Jess, well her parents had disowned her. I made their baby gay, so they thought. They hadn't spoken to her in four years. They never even came to see Conner." Suddenly Arizona's hurt turned to anger. "How could someone do that, Callie? He was just a baby. He had done nothing to them."

"That is something I never understood. How people can be so angry. You are family you are suppose to love each other." Callie said rubbing Arizona's back. She was angry, but she loved Arizona and hated to see her hurting.

"He was eighteen months old that day we left for the hospital. We sat in the floor and played with him until the sitter came in and informed us were about to be late. We kissed him on the cheek. Jess on one side me on the other. That right there was my life, my world." Arizona's emotion of choice was now heartbroken again. "We kissed him, then left for the hospital. Jess was telling me some story about a friend of hers and her boyfriend as I was driving. We were about a mile from the hospital and was going through the last intersection when an eighty-two year old man had a heart attack behind the wheel. He ran through the red light and t-boned my car. Hitting right on Jess's side."

Arizona was lost in the past for a moment before continuing her story. "When I woke up, I was in the hospital. My eyes were barely open and focused when I saw who was standing at the end of my bed. It was her parents." Arizona started to cry harder and Callie wasn't even sure how that was possible.

Callie took Arizona and pulled her to her. Callie knew what had happened and Arizona was obviously heartbroken over it. "It's ok. We can stop for now."

"I knew. The minute I saw them I knew she was gone."

"I am so sorry." Callie said as she held Arizona.

"We were just stupid."

"Arizona…."

Arizona pulled back enough to look at Callie. "We were. We thought we would live forever. That nothing would ever happen to us. Callie, I was barely awake when he told me. Then he told me that he couldn't stop Jessica from being with me, but he could Conner."

"What?"

"He was Conner's next of kin. We never made a will or legally did anything. He told me they were taking Conner."

"They couldn't just take him. Right?"

"They were the next of kin. In the eyes of the law I was nothing more than his Mother's friend. I fought them, Callie. I was hurt in a hospital bed, my parent's out of the country and the law on their side. They just took him." Arizona was now crying so hard she could barely speak. "They…..they had…..never seen him and they took him while I was laying in a hospital bed. I lost them both in one moment."

"Where is Conner?"

"I don't know. They have moved several times and Jessica's sister will not tell me where he is. It was never that I didn't love you enough or that I didn't want to have kids with you, but you never know what tomorrow holds. I couldn't go through that again."

"I would never take a child from you, Arizona. Why didn't you just tell me?"

"I was afraid that you would think I didn't try hard enough or that I just let someone walk away with my son."

It was odd for Callie to hear those words, 'my son' come from Arizona Robbins. "Have you thought about going after him. Things are different now. I mean you may be able

to…."

"He is eight. We were all he knew and they took him. They didn't know that he cried at night if you didn't put is favorite bunny in the bed with him or that carrots are his favorite, but he hated peas. I can't do that to him again. He doesn't even remember me. It became about him more than me."

"So you are just never gonna see him again?"

"I hope not. I hope that one day someone, anyone will tell him. That he comes to me on his terms."

"That's a lot to hope."

"I got a letter in the mail about two years ago saying that Jessica's mom had died of cancer. That was all it said. It was from her sister, Jillian. That's all I know."

"I don't even know what to say."

"I just didn't want you to think bad of me. I didn't want you to think I abandoned him."

"I know better than that. You have to give me more credit than that."

"It was like a loss for my family. They were like me, they lost them both. Most of the time when I come home they take the pictures down. Like I said, there is usually one and no more."

"I don't know her, but I believe she would want him to know you. She wouldn't want you to be away from him."

"She would want him safe and happy. I have to believe he is. I couldn't do that to him again. I can take him from everything he knows. I have to believe that is what Jessica would want too."

"Hang on." Callie said as she stood up. She walked from the room and left Arizona on the side of the bed a little relieved but still crying.

Callie came back into the room with a stack of frames. "These are the ones I found."

Arizona reached up and took the frames. She looked through them. She smiled proudly at the one of her, Jessica and Conner in the delivery room. "I will never forget that day."

"You know you have to find him."

"I can't. I won't do that, Callie." She said with her eyes fixed on the pictures.

Callie pulled the picture of Arizona and Jessica out of the stack. "Look at her, Arizona. She wanted that for the both of you. She would at least want you know where he was."

Arizona put the picture down. "I will not disrupt his life, Calliope. If you want children, we will have them, but Conner, Conner stays where he is. That's final."

Callie was surprised by Arizona's sudden anger as she stormed into the bathroom. Callie looked at the picture of Conner and Arizona asleep. "So I guess I am doing this on my own."