AN: So, a new chapter. important things are happening here.
They'd been going back and forth over this for a week now. Callie finally agreed to let Arizona search for another doctor on her own, even though she knew all the reputable doctors in the area and didn't feel comfortable with Arizona picking someone she didn't know. She sat at the kitchen counter swallowing spoonful after spoonful of cereal trying not to let her frustration show. Arizona finally picked a doctor, but now she was refusing to tell Callie who it was.
"This is ridiculous, you'll get better treatment here not with some doctor I don't know who you won't even tell me…"
"They're in Spokane" Arizona cut Callie off.
At this new information Callie dropped her spoon onto the counter. It clattered quite loudly and caused Sofia who was safely resting her head against Arizona's shoulder to jump and turn in her mother's arms.
"Spokane!" Callie was in shock. "Spokane!" she repeated.
Arizona took Sofia's breakfast, mashed potatoes and gravy, out of the microwave and skillfully popped the top off without dropping the container, or Sofia. She tested the temperature to be sure it wasn't too hot, then placed Sofia in her highchair with the food on the tray.
"There you go sweet girl" she cooed playfully at Sofia who just smiled and waited patiently for Arizona to spoon the food into her mouth.
"Yes, Spokane" Arizona finally answered, "You know there are only a handful of orthopedic surgeons in Washington." She didn't see what the big deal was.
Still, Callie was growing agitated, she needed answers, she needed to know and Arizona was unwilling to tell her anything.
"Spokane is five hours away." Callie complained, her eye searching Arizona for some level of understanding.
Arizona didn't want to admit that the five hour driving distance was exactly why she picked her doctor. She was serious when she asked Callie to stop being her doctor, but she knew if Callie had even the slightest in she'd go right back to checking her scans and monitoring her muscle reflexes.
"Spokane is a one hour plane ride" Arizona tried to reassure Callie, but regretted her choice of words almost as soon as they were out.
At that last statement Callie decided she was done, she didn't want to make things worse and she couldn't focus long enough to find a way to verbalize her thoughts in a non-confrontational tone. She got up from the counter, grabbed her jacket and gave Sofia a quick kiss on the top of her head.
"You're leaving?" Arizona questioned. "Where are you going?"
Callie was already at the door by now, she turned to face Arizona again. "Oh just some place, hey, maybe it's five hours away." With that Callie was out the door leaving Arizona to contemplate her reasons for keeping Callie in the dark.
~~~~XX~~~~
"Dr. Torres" Frankie announced upon seeing Callie exit the elevator. "You're here early."
The entire ortho department currently consisted of Callie, four residents, a handful of nurses, and Frankie, who would be leaving in three months after the expansion was complete. Callie was used to her department being treated as the hospital's after thought, what she wasn't used to was the old psych unit, which is where they'd been moved to due to the renovations.
"I uh," Callie paused for a second to think up a good enough lie, "I wanted to make sure they got all my stuff from my office."
Frankie paused for a second, and scratched at his chin. He had a question to ask, but he wanted Callie to be in a good mood when he asked it. Right now, her mood could have been any number of things but it certainly was not good. He watched as Callie played with the ring on her left hand, he knew what that meant, he'd been there before and it didn't end well for him. Frankie was just about to offer to give Callie a tour of her new research lab when Amelia came rushing over to them.
"Construction worker fell off a crane, massive, massive injuries!" she looked a little too excited, but they understood. "Can either one of you scrub in?" Callie could see the way Amelia was eying Frankie, like she was starving and he was a four course meal. Besides that, Frankie hadn't had a chance at surgery since he arrived, Callie figured she'd be doing him a favor.
"Why don't you scrub in" she insisted "I've got some paperwork I should fill out anyway."
From the look on Amelia's face she figured they'd be in bed together before the end of the day.
"Okay, but Dr. Torres, we should meet up for lunch" Frankie called after her as he walked off with Amelia at his side.
Callie nodded her confirmation, then laughed to herself. If she were the betting type, she'd put odds on Frankie missing lunch all together. She found herself playing with her wedding ring again trying not to think that being married was sucking at the moment. She thought about calling Arizona, but it was pointless, Callie knew she wouldn't answer the phone. She shook it off, they would see each other at work, around lunch time. Callie was looking forward to the opportunity to smooth things over, Arizona would come around; she had to.
~~~~XX~~~~
"shrunken heart!" Cristina exclaimed as she plopped down next to Callie at the lunch table.
Callie was preoccupied with thought and couldn't possibly follow Cristina's train of thought if she tried anyway. She shook her head in confusion.
"What?"
"Shrunken heart!" Cristina exclaimed again. "Maggie Stone shrunk a freakin heart back to normal size."
In some sick twisted way, Callie knew this was Cristina's way of being supportive. She knew Callie still didn't want to win the Harper Avery and had taken it upon herself to give Callie daily reminders of how much better all the other candidates were.
"Okay, you stuck a piece of Jell-O in Arizona's leg, but there is no way you're beating a shrunken heart" Cristina was almost as peppy as Arizona about this whole thing. If she had the opportunity, Callie thought, Cristina would definitely add Dr. Stone to her personal collection.
"Cristina, you're drooling" Callie quipped. "Is there something else you wanted?"
Callie didn't have to think long to realize what was on Cristina's mind. The girl had a one track mind almost as bad as Amelia's, except instead of sex, all she could think about was surgery.
"You want me to introduce you to Maggie Stone?" Callie questioned, watching as Cristina smiled her confirmation. "I'll see what I can do, just don't go humping her leg." Callie warned half-seriously.
"I can't promise that" Cristina replied while excusing herself from the table "Shrunken heart!" she repeated as she walked away.
Callie was still waiting on either Frankie or Arizona to show up. But, so far, her lunch hour was almost over and there was no sign of either one of them. She was reasonably sure she could account for Frankie's whereabouts, but Arizona should have come in three hours ago and the one time she called, no one answered the phone. Before she could think about it a second longer, Meredith walked over and sat down with Alex following closely behind her. Callie still hadn't gotten used to her new-found popularity. It seemed like ever since the grant money came in everyone wanted to chat her up or ask her advice about things.
"Callie" Meredith greeted as she picked at the food on her tray. "where's Arizona?"
That was a good question, Callie would have loved to meet the person capable of answering it because at the moment it wasn't her.
"Spokane, Boise, Malawi, Timbuktu…" Callie's voice trailed off. "last I saw her she was at home, Why?"
Meredith seemed to go on in her train of thought completely oblivious to Callie's previous statement.
"She was supposed to scrub in with me two hours ago but she never showed."
Alex looked between Callie and Meredith, he could tell Callie had no idea what Meredith was talking about and no idea where Arizona might be. His brow furrowed in thought then he came to a decision.
"Wait, did you say two hours ago?" he questioned with his gaze focused on Meredith. "That was the um…" he waited for Meredith to fill in the gap for him.
"The liver transplant with the Franklin twins"
Alex bit into his apple, a satisfied look growing on his face. "Right, that was mine, she swapped with me."
Callie thought to question Alex about how he could forget switching surgeries, but she wanted to believe him for whatever reason. All she knew was that Arizona wasn't at the hospital and she couldn't think of a reason not to go looking for her, again. She was getting up to leave, already having taken off her lab coat and draped it over her shoulder when Frankie came dashing into the cafeteria. Callie could see Amelia walking off in the opposite direction in the distance. She smirked in satisfaction knowing she was right about them. Frankie finally reached her waving a manila envelope in his right hand.
"Dr. Torres" He panted out her name, "You've got to see these."
****XX*****
She was supposed to be over it by now. She was supposed to not be feeling so emotional every single time she came down the hall to her apartment, but for whatever reason, without fail, Callie would find herself glancing over at Mark's door as if at any minute he might open up and greet her with some cheeky comment. She'd finally decided that they needed to move, it would only get worse when someone actually moved into the apartment and Callie didn't want to be there for that. She looked down at the manila envelope Frankie gave her earlier and smiled as she fumbled to get her keys out of her purse.
Callie pushed the door open to find Arizona lounging on the couch with Sofia watching some children's show she wasn't familiar with.
"I heard you took the day off" Callie announced in place of a formal greeting as she walked her way over to the living area. She gave Arizona a peck on the cheek, then Sofia.
"Are you feeling okay?"
Arizona had every intention of going to work that day, but after their morning confrontation she'd decided to take a walk and think about things. It was only supposed to be a short stroll through the park with her daughter. They grabbed a bite to eat , or Arizona grabbed a bite and Sofia ate a nice snack of fresh cut strawberries Arizona had packed for her, fed some ducks, and caught a live music show. Before she knew it, the day had gotten away from her and it didn't make sense to go into work for the day.
"I'm great" Arizona smiled, unsure if they were still supposed to be mad at each other.
Callie leaned in and gave Arizona another kiss. "Just promise me you're not going all Shepherd on me" she teased plopping the envelope down on the coffee table before heading off to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. At the sight of the envelope nearly a million scenarios ran through Arizona's head, most of them completely implausible, but thin veil of secrecy provided by the envelope sent Arizona's imagination into a tail spin. She thought maybe an eviction notice, a summons from the court for unpaid parking tickets, pictures from the clinic in Malawi. She couldn't take it anymore, before Callie could get back to the living room and explain, she'd already opened the envelope and was thumbing through what a set of x-ray scans.
"Why am I looking at pig feet?" Arizona blurted the question as Callie walked up from behind her.
"Not pig feet" Callie explained, "regenerated pig feet."
Arizona smiled at Callie, it was a warning smile, she was cautious of any conversation related to Callie's research. But she wanted to be supportive, so she tried her best to ignore her trepidation.
"Those scans just came in from the research lab in Philly" Callie explained. "The synthetic dissolves into sugar over time so we were worried"
Arizona flipped through the scans again, they looked like normal pig feet to her, and she was a doctor, she'd be able to tell synthetic cartilage from actual cartilage; she'd even seen the synthetic on her own scans. She flipped through some more and listened as Callie explained how the synthetic was acting as a place holder fooling cells long enough for them to regenerate actual muscle tissue before the synthetic dissolved. In other words, she was in the clear, or should be once they could get scans to confirm it. Arizona looked on at Callie who was asking a question without actually asking it.
"We talked about this" Arizona reminded Callie. "I don't want you to be a doctor for me."
She got up to take Sofia to her room, leaving Callie to wait it out growing frustrated with each passing second.
"I am being your wife" Callie began upon seeing Arizona coming back from Sofia's room. "I am being the woman who loves you and needs to know that you are okay."
Arizona tried to explain her reasons, but they were just falling on deaf ears.
"It's not that big of a deal, I'll get scans in Spokane. If I need you…" Arizona couldn't finish the thought, the look on Callie's face said enough for her to know she'd said too much.
Callie threw her hands in the air, sometimes she wondered if Arizona was aware of how impossibly frustrating she could be to deal with.
"If you need me? You know, I really can't believe how easy it is for you to just hop on another plane and leave me. It's selfish, it's just selfish." With that Callie was done talking. She'd wanted to bring up house hunting, but given the state of things, it seemed like a topic that could wait for another day.
They spent the rest of the day walking on eggshells around each other and hoping not to spark world war three. At night as they went to bed with their backs to each other, Arizona thought about the moment just before she'd opened the envelope. In a momentary haze that she quickly shook off, she'd imagined divorce papers.
AN: As always thanks for reading thoughts and comments are appreciated.
