AN: Well, we're more than half way through here, so I just want to say a quick thanks for continuing to read.
Amelia had been at the hospital for almost two months now, which was two months longer than she'd anticipated. Owen did warn her she might be bumped from temporary status to permanent if her little scheme to get Derek back in the OR didn't start working soon, but she was confident, given another month Derek would come to his senses. She'd come back from the hospital and talk him through her surgeries watching his face carefully for a reaction. At first, he'd just give inconsequential responses, answers meant to display his complete indifference to anything related to surgery. But, a few days ago, she came back and asked his opinion about removing a benign meningioma. The way his eyes shot up when she said she was going to do it, Amelia knew Derek's "retirement" wouldn't last much longer.
Today, she'd been working with Avery and Callie on a victim of spousal abuse who'd been attacked pretty badly with a blunt force object. In between shaking their heads in disbelief at the type of person who would do this to someone they supposedly loved, Amelia and Callie tried to chat about the anything really. They talked about the weather, about Frankie, about Callie's research, even about Mark. This was an especially sensitive topic since everyone in the room had a special connection to him. Jackson had been trying ever since the crash to pretend he didn't really care, but he lost two people, on top of already having lost his best friend in the hospital shooting a few years back. He hadn't really talked to anyone about Mark until now. Then the topic went back to Callie's research, mostly thanks to Amelia who was trying to ignore the giant elephant in the room, the one topic she and Callie had silently agreed not to talk about: Arizona.
"So, you think you'll win the Harper Avery?" Amelia asked, with genuine curiosity.
Callie had to pause putting her instruments down to think it over a bit. "I'm not sure, they haven't even published my nomination announcement yet."
Callie was referring to the fact that everyone on the shortlist had an article published in Modern Medicine explaining their nomination and what surgery they'd been selected for. It was how Cristina knew Maggie Stone shrunk a heart, how Callie found out that Preston Burk unclogged a major artery by pumping a patient's heart full of helium infused blood, and how Owen was able to send out a gloating staff e-mail after reading that all Colin Marlow managed to do was perform a single incision ventricular repair using a robot he'd designed himself.
Callie shook her head. "They're going for cardio. But it'll be fun rubbing shoulders with all the cool kids."
Jackson wasn't going to say anything; he wasn't allowed to say anything lest someone accuse him of displaying an unfair bias. But, if he could have said something, he would have told Callie to be a bit more confident. She grew a leg, her research was going to save lives it was definitely Harper Avery material.
"Anyway, Arizona isn't my patient anymore and I have the Ortho expansion to deal with and all the new hires I'm supposed to select" Callie continued blabbing on as if it were inconsequential information. She was completely oblivious to the curious thoughts running through Jackson and Amelia's minds.
"Arizona has a new doctor?" Amelia blurted the question out suddenly forgetting their unspoken agreement.
"You need new doctors?" Jackson shot out without giving Callie any time to address Amelia's question.
Callie could see the wheels turning in Jackson's head.
"Do you know who you're looking for?" It was a tentative question and obviously meant to quell the excitement he felt about, lord knows what exactly. She didn't need anyone in plastics.
"Uh" Callie began, "Someone with trauma training, we're also looking for another orthopedic surgeon so…"
Jackson smiled one of his patented smiles that everyone else described as pretty, but Callie found it cheesy.
"You need April Kepner" he announced, feeling satisfied with himself.
Callie wrapped up the patient's left arm and prepared to leave the OR. "I'm not sure yet, I haven't even looked at applications"
"You need Kepner Dr. Torres" Jackson repeated as Callie left the room.
~~~~XX~~~~
Arizona and Callie met in the cafeteria, they weren't exactly speaking to each other, but they were trying to push past their most recent breakdown in communication. As of today the only safe topics were Sofia, dinner, and Sofia. Everything else inevitably led to hostility, silence, and inevitably one of them storming away in frustration. Arizona plopped her tray down and sat directly across from Callie who was busy playing Sudoku.
"Did you ever find Sofia's other shoe" she inquired, recalling the fruitless search she'd conducted in the morning before Arizona left for work.
"Yep" Callie answered without even looking away from her Sudoku puzzle. "It was under her toy chest."
"Of course it was" Arizona laughed as she imagined Sofia kicking her shoes off by the toy chest while trying to put her toys away.
They just sat there picking at their food and trying not to make eye contact, it was a pathetic sight and something Callie couldn't really tolerate much longer.
"So, how was Spokane?" she finally let herself ask. Arizona had driven out to see her mystery doctor five days ago and Callie was too nervous about what would happen if she asked about it, but now it was just eating at her, she needed to know, and more importantly, as her wife, Arizona needed to tell her. She'd put her puzzle down now and was looking directly at Arizona.
Arizona drew in a long breath and sighed, she'd hoped they could at least eat silently without butting heads again, but she wasn't ready to talk to Callie about Spokane.
"I thought we said you weren't going to doctor me." Arizona warned.
Callie was tired of Arizona using that as an excuse, she watched as she pulled her hair, which she'd left un-straightened today, into a low ponytail.
"Oh so now asking how you're doing is doctoring?" Their voices were low so no one outside of the table could hear them, but a few passersby could pick up on some level of hostility visible in the furrowed expression on Callie's face.
"We're married, that's what married people do" Callie finished, before going back to picking at her food and staring at her book of puzzles.
Arizona was defiant, and stubborn, she knew it would have been better to leave it alone but she couldn't fight the urge to have the last word.
"You didn't marry people, you married me and I don't want to talk about it." Arizona grabbed Callie's puzzle book away and set it aside. "I need you to understand."
With that Callie swallowed her pride and went back to picking at her food until she could think of something else to talk about. At first she thought they could settle on what to do about dinner, but they'd already decided on ordering a pizza earlier in the morning and Callie wasn't desperate enough to try talking about pizza toppings.
"I think we should start looking at houses" She finally blurted out.
That seemed to get Arizona's attention. But, Callie wasn't expecting it to cause the strong reaction that it did. Without even saying a word Arizona looked up and straight ahead then picked her tray up and stormed out of the cafeteria. Arizona had pushed the doors open so forcefully that they swung back and forth repeatedly for a full minute after she left.
~~~~XX~~~~
After the debacle at lunch Arizona was still on break so she decided to use her newly found free time to try and clean up her locker. If nothing else, it provided her a nice excuse for throwing things around the room, and she really need to throw things at the moment. She picked up a now empty pill bottle and chucked it in the general direction of the trash can, not checking to ensure that it made it in, she didn't care where it landed. If she had, she would have seen she'd missed by about half a foot and the bottle landed squarely at the feet of Amelia Shepherd. She bent down and picked the bottle up, studying it's features as if cramming for a test.
"Skelaxin," Amelia spoke up "That's good stuff."
She said it as if recalling a fond memory. Arizona just wasn't in the mood, but she could see there was no shutting Amelia up. She turned her head swiftly staring Amelia down, but then quickly calmed herself before speaking.
"Could you just throw it away already" She softly pled.
Amelia was now flipping the bottle around in circles in the palm of her hand, using her index finger to rotate it back and forth and back and forth. Arizona watched the process with baited breath. The torture she felt was all too visible on her face. Then, after what seemed like the longest ten seconds in the history of history, Amelia stopped, steadying the bottle in her hand again. She turned her attention back to the label.
"Any reason you need to drive five hours to see Dr. Jonas in Spokane?"
Arizona had enough.
"Mind your business Dr. Shepherd" Arizona hissed, her voice cold and all too serious.
"You know, doctor shopping can get really messy if you're not careful." Amelia tried to be subtle about it, but she was all too familiar with the now very present signs she'd been brushing off for a while now. She'd never admit it, but she respected Arizona too much not to try and step up.
"Not that you're asking, but uh sex helps" Amelia offered her clearly unsolicited advice. It was, however, advice for a problem Arizona wasn't even willing to admit to having. She wasn't one to give pep talks, and more importantly, she knew Arizona wasn't one to receive pep talks, at least not from her, so rather than say anything else, Amelia simply pitched the bottle in the trash and walked off to her own locker.
~~~~XX~~~~
Arizona returned home to find Sofia wasn't there and the apartment smelled of paint fumes. She walked down the hall nervously seeking out the source of the assaulting odor and found Callie in Sofia's room paint roller in hand, indiscriminately distributing large stokes-worth of black paint onto the wall. She would have been shocked, but actually she was only surprised Callie had managed to hold out for as long as she had.
"Are you doing the entire room" Arizona questioned while walking up behind her and grabbing the spare paint roller that had been resting against the wall.
"Nope, just the giraffe" Callie explained.
Arizona dipped her brush and began applying a second coat to the areas where Callie had already painted and for a while they just worked like that without really talking at all. Callie didn't need Arizona to say anything, she knew this was as close to an apology as she was going to get for now and it was good enough for her.
When the silence grew too comfortable Arizona forced herself to speak. "Where's Sofia?"
"With Derek" Callie responded while stepping back and studying her work, ultimately deciding that it wasn't asymmetrical and they needed more paint on the left side.
They went back to just painting for a while longer until Callie couldn't find anything else to paint black. Feeling satisfied she'd rid the room of all things giraffe, she dropped her roller into the bucket and wiped her brow with the back of her hand. This left a paint smear streaking across her forehead as if she were being prepped for a tribal ceremony.
"How are we going to explain a giant black rectangle in the middle of the safari?" Callie sighed.
Arizona looked at the wall, then back at Callie, she couldn't help finding the paint smudge on her forehead alluring and simultaneously cute.
"Surrealism" Arizona offered.
It didn't make perfect sense, but it was plausible enough for Callie who smiled with satisfaction.
"okay"
Arizona stepped up close to Callie, there was newspaper under her feet which Callie had hurridly put down to protect the carpet. It rustled and bunched beneath her.
"You've got a little paint up here." Arizona explained as she brushed Callie's forehead with her thumb. She could see Callie go almost completely stiff and then just as quickly relax.
"Is it gone" Callie laughing nervously. It was strange for her to feel this way, butterflies in her stomach again. But, the way Arizona was looking at her, as if something might be happening, something other than another argument, it put Callie on edge with anticipation.
"No" Arizona laughed softly. She then stepped closer and kissed Callie just once, softly and slowly. She didn't know if it was good or bad that she knew that was all it would take, but that was all it took. The minute she stepped back, Callie stepped forward returning the kiss more passionately than it had been given. Before long they were on the floor, not long after that the paint can was knocked over, and a while later they were in the shower trying desperately to wash the paint off which of course turned into shower sex.
They left the apartment and got a hotel for the night, because of the paint fumes they told themselves. But honestly, there were obvious ulterior motives Arizona seemed insatiable and Callie decided it was a nice change of pace, so why question a good thing.
AN: Thanks for reading thoughts and comments are appreciated.
