Author's Note: A lot of people helped look at this chapter but I'm not sure it's beta'd so if there are mistakes (which there will be), I'm sorry. A VERY special thanks goes to Sandi, Max, and Sarah once again for helping me feel out emotional responses. Without their input, I would still be scratching my head and staring at the walls. And while the walls in my office are rather entertaining and pretty, one can only stare at them for so long before going crazy (crazier). So thank you ladies for your help, I owe you three a lot. PMac gets a shout out because she was supposed to give me a read through but with our crazy schedules we both let it get away from us so thank you, lady, for being ready and willing.

Circumstantial Evidence- Chapter Twelve

In an alternate universe, we meet attorneys Calliope Torres and Arizona Robbins. ... Word.

"We have a real problem, Long." A female dressed in everyday clothes came through the door, gun holstered at her hip dragging something behind her.

"What? Were they out of electrolyte infused water? The docs said she could have some of that sporty drink shit if it came down to it." Long looked up from his paper with annoyance for the interruption in his rather boring day. Yes he was bored but a problem wasn't on the agenda either

"Not what ... who." She pulled a shackled and raging blonde woman through the threshold of the door along with her. "HER. I found this one downtown asking questions and snooping around. Asking questions about Torres." She pulled the woman until she was standing between the two holding the conversation.

"Shit Pitts, what the hell?" Long cursed, his face contorting in anger. This wasn't good.

"Yeah, shit! She was alone or I think she was alone. She has a cell phone but hasn't made any recent calls and she isn't packing but that doesn't mean her guns aren't stashed somewhere." Pitts continued shoving Arizona from the foyer until she was standing in the main room with Long clearly blocking her line of sight. "I don't know who she is and she won't answer any questions either."

"You answer mine, I'll answer yours." Arizona spat at the woman.

"Arizona?" From where she was currently occupying a recliner, Callie looked up with trepidation wondering if her eyes were deceiving her or if she just had another fever coupled with hallucination from the small infection coursing through her system.

"You know her?" Long and Pitts spoke at the same time cutting off Arizona before she could answer. "Has she been following you before?"

"Arizona, wha … what are you doing here?" Calliope ignored the questioning pair and attempted to right herself in the chair without causing any discomfort.

"Oh God, Calliope." Arizona finally broke her silence with a whimpered relief at seeing her wife alive even if in the company of two armed captors, whoever they were.

"Sit down!" Pitts forcefully pushed Arizona into the closest chair causing Callie to quickly jump up from her seat grimacing in pain.

"STOP, she's not here to hurt me." Callie screamed before either could cause any physical harm to her wife.

"How do we know that? Just because you know her doesn't mean that she hasn't been bought off, here to seal the deal." Pitts snapped while her partner eyed the new woman with caution.

"She hasn't been bought off. You idiots, she's my wife." Callie interjected finally giving explanation to the unplanned visitor's connection.

Long carefully eyed the two women quickly catching onto small, simple factors that confirmed what they were being told as truth; the two women had the same slim band adorning both of their ring fingers, matching hearts dangling from around their necks and he sighed before a look of anger flushed his entire face. "God damn it, Pitts. This is why we should be given all the information, this on a need to know basis is bullshit." Long bitched at his partner.

"Tell me about it. I'm surprised when they shuffled her over into our care they even bothered to tell us about her medical history. Wouldn't be the first time we've been screwed because we were left out in the dark. I'm so tired of being the last to know." Pitts agreed.

"So, how did you find us and why are you here?" Sure they might actually be married but there were still too many chances that Torres' wife had been turned killer? So yeah, Long wasn't entirely convinced; in his history he'd seen enough spouses, especially unhappy and bitter ones, bought off to take our their partners and she could very well be one of them. This wasn't a game and they were trained make people disappear, never to be seen or heard from again. Or at least never to be seen as their current identities again however here was a woman with no known law enforcement background and she had found them. Found them in the middle of bum fuck nowhere.

"Why are you here, Arizona?" Callie repeated. She might have known Arizona wasn't a hired gun but how the hell did she find them especially when she had no knowledge of what was going on in the case and to begin with that there was even a case at all..

"Why am I here? Really Calliope, you have to ask me of all people that question? My wife disappeared and you expected me to what, sit around and wait for your purported body to show up in the sound too?" Arizona snapped at her wife, her wrists pulling against the metal cuffs behind her back as she tried to free herself. She wanted so badly to straddle her wife and choke her now that she saw with her own two eyes that Callie was okay. Or as okay as she could be with ten inches of stitches lining her stomach and IV antibiotics still being pumped into her system.

"Okay then, let's start with how you found us, Mrs. Torres." Pitts pulled her keys out to release the other woman but still not convinced she jingled them in her hands instead of freeing Arizona.

"Robbins. We kept our own names, it's, I'm Arizona Robbins." She glared in the direction of the the woman refusing to free her from her restraints. "I hired a PI. And I didn't find you if you remember correctly, I was in town when you lured me into an alley, stuck a gun in my back, threatened to kill me, cuffed and kidnapped me before bringing me here."

"You were asking questions in town, we're ten miles out from town and that's close enough for our comfort." Pitts growled. Even if Arizona Robbins had never found their location, it was too close and heads were going to roll for this.

"I was looking for my wife who disappeared. She up and left without a trace and I'm more than entitled to look for her and ask questions anywhere I want. Now is somebody, anybody going to let me out of these damn things?" Arizona barked at her two captors.

Sighing and grabbing for his maps, Long shook his head. "Let her go, we're going to have to move them come nightfall so I'll call ahead and get the next location ready. We can't walk them out with that one still sucking down IV antibiotics every six hours so I'm going to call Jack in with another vehicle to aide in cover." He motioned over at Callie, Arizona seeing her wife's physical state for the first time since she left the hospital a few days back to collect Callie's belongings to bring her home.

Getting a good look at Callie, Arizona paled. Her wife looked horrible with her hair slightly matted from sweat, an obvious sign of a fever. Her usually darker skin tones were close to the shade of Arizona's own pale complexion. And there was an almost empty IV bag connected to IV tubing, connected to her wife's damn arm. Callie looking better two days out of surgery than she did right now fueled instant rage. "She wouldn't still be on IV had you left her in the damn hospital. What were you thinking? She just had major surgery less than a week ago. And … and who the hell are you people anyway and why do you even have my wife?" Arizona rubbed at her wrists glaring at the woman who just freed her. She'd been handcuffed a number of times in her career for contempt of court but even Cristina on a bad day had never cuffed her as roughly as this woman.

"US Marshals Pitts and Long." The lone man of the group explained. "Protective custody by order of the Federal Justice Department. And now you too, Ms. Robbins, have just entered The Federal Witness Protection Program whether you like it or not."

Standing between Arizona and her wife, Pitts smirked with vindication. At bare minimum her ass was going to be chewed out over this even if it wasn't their faults so a little discomfort to the cause of their new predicament was enough to take the edge off the impending trouble they were going to be facing.

Arizona looked around between the Marshals and her wife finally seeing Meredith Grey cowering in the corner of the room, looking as guilty as ever. Growling, Arizona was beside herself furious as it all fell into place. With the Marshals blocking the woman she wanted to strangle and kiss all at once, she instead shot out and in the blink of an eye had Meredith Grey pinned securely against the wall. "You … I could kill you!" Arizona yelled.

Guns drawn and pointed at her wife before she could do anything to stop Arizona from making a mistake, Callie screamed. "Arizona, stop! Stop it Arizona before they shoot you."

"You could have gotten my wife killed! What were you thinking? You are supposed to be her friend. Bailey's in prison for you and my … my marriage, do you have any idea what you've done?" Arizona ignored her wife's pleas, her rage blinding her to the fact that both Marshals had their guns drawn with her in the line of fire. "What have you done? I'm going to murder you myself."

"It's fine. She's fine." Meredith nodded to the Marshals while prying Arizona's hands from her body.

"Put your guns away." She pleaded.

Cutting off the drip like she'd been trained since departing the hospital and pulling out the IV from its connection, Callie made her way to stand behind her wife once the Marshals holstered their guns.

"Arizona, I'm okay." She gently put her hand on her wife's back expecting Arizona's blind fury to be rightfully redirected in her direction except again without warning Arizona abruptly spun around but this time pulled her wife into her arms without a second thought of Callie's physical state. Within seconds she broke and began sobbing hysterically and uncontrollably.

"I … I … I thought you were gone for good. I … I thought I'd never see you again." She cried hard, her tears soaking into Callie's sweater as she held tight cradling her distraught wife, rubbing light circles on her back.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Marshal Pitts melted slightly at the reunion although she'd never admit to such things, motioned to her partner. "Let's run an outside perimeter check and get things settled for tonight. All points in here are cleared and covered." Long only nodded following his partner out of the house to give the women some privacy.

"Don't ever do that to me again." Arizona pushed her wife back, her relief quickly melting into angered hostility. "I thought you were dead, Calliope." She yelled before pulling Callie in for another embrace, her emotions all over the place from adulation to displaced fury. "I thought I'd never see you again. We are in this marriage together and that means no secrets, none. Do you understand me? I'd go to the ends of the earth for you." Pulling back from their embrace, Arizona peppered her wife's face with kisses. She was real and she was here and she was safe.

Callie cupped Arizona's face, wiping at the falling tears on her cheeks. "I'm so sorry. I never meant to hurt you, I just didn't want to get you involved, I didn't want to put you in danger." She explained.

"What were you thinking doing this on your own?" Arizona continued to cry. "I thought you were dead." She repeated over and over again as she finally let her greatest fears take over with their uncontrollable choke-hold.

"I'm not dead, baby." Callie tried to calm down her wife who was almost inconsolable.

"Damn right, you're not dead. Don't you think I can see that with my own two eyes?" Arizona pushed her wife away and began storming around the room. "Do you think I'm stupid? Do you think I'm so self-absorbed that I wouldn't eventually figure out something was up? What do you think of me Calliope Torres? Do you even respect me as your wife? Yeah we're having problems but damn it, did you think I'd just let you disappear without trying to come after you? To find you? What, were you going to leave me with the pieces of our life to clean up by myself? Oh, we were getting a divorce anyway so this makes things so much easier now that she's just gone. No skin off of my back? What were you thinking? Did our marriage not mean anything to you?" Arizona was yelling, her voice raising an octave with each question hurled at her wife giving Callie no room to respond. "I can't believe you. And you're alive, what now? Am I supposed to jump for joy that the woman that I'd give my own life for abandoned me? YOU ABANDONED ME!"

Arizona fell into a heap on the couch, sobs vibrating through her body from the tumultuous roller-coaster her emotions had just sent her through. "What is going on? Somebody please tell me what is going on?" She barely lifted her head, begging for answers, pleading for resolution of some kind.

"How did you get here, Arizona?" No matter how filled with relief and happiness she was at her wife's unplanned arrival, Arizona being here was a dangerous matter and one that terrified Callie. Arizona being here meant she was now in danger and Callie had tried so hard to shield her from that. She risked losing Arizona permanently in order to keep her alive because that's all that mattered, keeping Arizona safe.

"I guess we all have some explaining to do. Let's get you back on your IV and comfortable." Arizona calmed down immediately feeling embarrassment and shame for her actions. She started to get off of the couch but Callie reached her before she made any progress.

"I'm done this round, let's just sit down and sort this out, okay?" Callie nodded gently, reaching for her wife's hand, gripping it tight in her own to pull the still obviously distraught woman close on the couch cushion next to her.

"Are you coming?" Arizona snarled at Meredith who was still standing against the wall she'd been thrown into only minutes before.

With extreme caution, Meredith joined them around the coffee table sitting a safe distance away on the single chaise lounge.

"Arizona , this isn't Callie's fault, she was just trying to help and things got out of control." Meredith tried to explain but Arizona wasn't having any of her excuses.

"Out of control? Out of control? This is far past out of control, Grey." Arizona growled.

"Let her talk, honey. Please?" Callie begged, her thumb rubbing circles on Arizona's hand to calm her when all she really wanted to do was pull her in tight and hold her forever, never letting her go but Arizona's stiff posture was warning enough to know she wouldn't have it; not right now.

"Fine, talk. Please Meredith tell me exactly how you got my wife involved in your screwed up life." Arizona took calming breaths trying to dispel some of the anger currently eating her alive in order to give Meredith Grey her full attention. She needed to get answers and they wouldn't happen as long as she continued to fight every time one of them opened their mouths to speak.

Looking everywhere but at the raging blonde in front of her, Meredith fiddled with the blanket she pulled into her lap. Arizona was not somebody you wanted to mess with on a good day and this sure as hell wasn't a good day. She'd worked for the pair for long enough to have witnessed Arizona's courtroom tactics and she sure as hell didn't want to be on the receiving end of the woman's temper. Anymore so than she'd been thus far today. She was already going to bruise, Meredith absently rubbed at her collarbone where Arizona had used her full strength to pin her to the wall. She cleared her throat, looking up at Callie for some emotional support. The soft heart of the two didn't blame her, she had sympathy for her situation, their situation.

"So I took on an unfaithful spouse case that wasn't so cut and dry." Meredith began when Arizona interrupted her with a scoff.

"When are they ever?" She dared crack a very small smile.

"Exactly." Meredith relaxed. "The woman needed proof her husband was cheating and with proof she could get out of the family business, the cartel, for good. Her Uncle ran the business and promised her that he'd let her go if her suspicions were proven beyond a reasonable doubt. That's all she wanted for her kids, a chance to give them a normal life where they weren't always having to look over their shoulders. She never wanted the life but you're born into the families you're born into and she didn't have a choice until now. She wasn't strong enough until now." Meredith dared a small glance in Arizona's direction hoping that the woman understood from her own experience with Callie walking away from her family because Arizona had been that strength for her to do so. She didn't know what was going on with Callie and Arizona, the last thing she had heard before her departure was what she'd witnessed thus far in their messy divorce and she couldn't help but feel guilty for adding more strain to that for them. She couldn't change things, she couldn't go back and never have asked Callie for money but she could remind them, remind Arizona of some of the things that made the two women so strong, together.

Arizona watched Meredith with as much concentration as her frazzled mind allotted to her. She kept glancing sideways at her wife trying to make sure she didn't disappear again, that this wasn't all a big nightmare and she'd awake still on the plane, without her wife by her side. But she was listening to Grey and she understood what it takes to walk away from everything you've ever known for a love so powerful, so strong, so honest … because you had that love you could do anything. This woman's love for her children mirrored to that of the one they shared, the one that got them through this far. Arizona understood and she understood that Meredith was trying to make things right where she fouled them up so badly.

"So I followed him one night thinking he was meeting up with his mistress as according to the schedule his wife had given me except I was wrong, she was wrong. Really wrong. I watched him torture and kill someone over an arms deal gone bad. He … he was begging for his life and they … oh God, it was awful." Meredith choked back a sob at the memory of watching them cut off each of his fingers before finally giving into the man's pleas to die. Then taking his life in the most gruesome way.

"It's okay Meredith, you're safe. They can't hurt you." Callie's soft voice broke through her nightmare giving her a small sense of security for the first time in too long. Through it all, Callie had remained supportive, a real friend even at the risk of her marriage and wife. A guilt Meredith would forever carry with her.

Nodding, Meredith collected her thoughts back to the present and began again. "I thought I'd slipped in and out unseen but they had surveillance; they caught me on tape. The asshole tracked me down through his wife. He … he beat it out of her. He put her in the hospital and that's when I knew I had to get out and fast. Bailey was livid, she was going to kill me herself."

Arizona chuckled, "Sounds like Miranda although I'm surprised she didn't do it after that courthouse threat."

"Yeah well, that ended up working in our favor. That's right before we called Callie. I was going to just disappear but we didn't want them being able to track me down through my own bank accounts and credit cards so we asked your wife for money, a short term loan. Bailey was going to pay her back as soon as things settled down but once the US Attorney got involved, it was to late to give it back. I … I disappeared without a trace, assumed dead. When the cartel caught on to Callie's involvement, the Witness Protection Program tried to get her to join me but she wouldn't leave you. Even in the midst of your very ugly, very messy divorce, she wouldn't just leave. So as the cartel closed in on her to get to me, the Marshals faked my death complete with an unidentifiable Jane Doe body."

"That's when Callie disappeared." Everything was slowly falling into place. But why did you leave?" Arizona looked over at her wife, her voice dropping to a pained whisper. "Without me." But before she could answer, Meredith continued again.

"I think they were trying to scare Callie into protection. She could bring down the entire operation if the cartel got to her. And it worked, Callie left because she thought they'd really found me. The Marshals wouldn't tell her if that was really my body, if I was even alive anymore. They let her think it was all up to her now. She didn't want to leave you. She's done nothing but cry since she got here but we were promised once they concluded their investigation and brought everyone to justice that we could go home. It's all she wanted. But she also understood that Bailey was safe in jail especially with the discovery of a real body assumed to be me, you were safe with her gone with everybody thinking she just took off unable to deal with the divorce any longer, and my husband was safe thinking I was dead without any idea that I really wasn't. It wasn't supposed to be like this, I just wanted to help her. The Justice Department has an informant on the inside, it's how they knew Callie was in danger but it was me that witnessed the murder, not them so they couldn't testify and give us all back our lives. Callie never meant to hurt you, she …Callie was only trying to help me. Bailey was against it but she also knew how desperate I was. Your wife loves you Arizona. It wasn't about deception, she kept stressing that if she helped us that we would leave you out of this mess. She knew you were our next choice if she couldn't help. Callie only lied ..."

"Stop. Stop. Just stop." Arizona stood up pulling her hand out of her wife's tight grip. She needed to pace. Sitting there any longer was not an option; her mind was racing full of this new knowledge.

"What were you two thinking, Calliope? I'm so … I don't even know." She couldn't figure out exactly how she was supposed to feel here. She was so angry at Calliope for getting involved but so proud of her as well. Her wife didn't think twice about helping out a friend but Arizona just felt betrayed because she was left out of the loop. Callie didn't think about how it would affect her, affect them. She couldn't help but be bitter that this whole thing only further put a wedge between them. And put them all in danger. Danger she had proof of with Stark's untimely death even if she was still slightly skeptical of it all because they, all of them, were just nobodies. Stark could have very well uncovered too much into the cartel's business and gotten himself killed; easy reasoning there because Arizona needed to rationalize everything. Compartmentalize everything. She needed to make this less than it was because if it was real, if everything was real … she shook her head ridding her mind of those thoughts and bringing them back to Meredith Grey. Arizona was never a big fan of the woman but truth be told, she wasn't really a fan of many people. She herself was hard to get along with but she also held people to really high standards so it was often mutual dislike. But how could she really hate a woman who put her whole world at risk to help a woman and her kids? She was pacing, trying to comprehend everything, sort it into her neat brain, dissect each and every moment, read between the lines.

As if on cue anger boiled up and over, Arizona whipped around, turning on her wife. "I'm guilty for my contribution to our communication problems but you … yours could have gotten you killed. Me. US!"

"I know, okay? Does it even matter to you at all that I was trying to protect you?" This wasn't all on her and she wasn't going to once again take Arizona's shit without being heard. She was going to be heard for once.

"Yes!" Arizona yelled. "No. No it doesn't because … because you never let me protect you. You are always doing things on your own without me, my input, Calliope. I'm never a deciding factor for you, am I? I … I can't do this, Calliope. I can't. You lied to me. Really lied to me. Maybe it wasn't manipulative or intentionally deceptive but I'm your wife and people are dead and what, we're all just going to move, get new names, new identities and leave everything behind? My … my parents behind? My career? You've ruined it all because you didn't think to include me. Why didn't you just include me? Things would be different if you had only thought about us. I don't want any part in this. I can't. I just can't, Calliope. You, you're on your own. It's obviously what you wanted so it's what you've got, are you happy now?" Arizona watched horror and shock cross her wife's face and was acutely aware that maybe she was overreacting, was being too harsh however at the same time she just wasn't ready to calm down, she was still a raging mess of emotions. Maybe she was being abrupt, maybe they needed more time to talk alone, more time to clear the air but the look of devastation on her wife's face literally brought her to her knees. She felt real physical pain from the look of pure misery from her wife. And then shame filled her compounding the physical pain almost to the point she couldn't breathe as she watched Callie jumped up, tears in her eyes as she ran away. There was shattered glass on the floor all around her, shards stabbing violently into her knees. But Callie wasn't running away like she had thought, she was running toward her. What was going on?

One second her wife was sitting confoundedly on the couch and the very next Arizona tried to crawl, to stand up before collapsing onto her back from the pain. She felt pinned to the floor with her wife kneeling next to her, leaning over her body, fresh tears streaming down her face, blood all over her hands. "Calliope, you … you … you cut yourself on glass, you're hands are bleeding." What the hell was going on?

Callie's mouth was moving, silent screams spilling from her lips and Arizona's head was pounding. It felt like a freight train was running its course through her brain.

"Ow." She tried to move, to sit up and apologize to her wife for making her cry but damn she was really hurting.

Everybody was standing there. Panicking. Screaming. Running all around her. Did she unknowingly trip and fall into the glass coffee table during her rant and tantrum? Painfully craning her neck, she looked back toward where she was standing and saw that the front bay window of the safe house was gone, blown out. She watched as Meredith pulled her wife from her rooted spot, Callie still silently screaming and fighting against the arms wrapped around her waist while with medical bags in hand, both Marshals surrounded her on the floor. She couldn't hear what they were saying; why was everyone whispering? With what strength she had left, Arizona reached out and touched the throbbing pain, her hand immediately saturated in blood. Her own blood.

"Oh shit." Arizona's mind caught up to her body as she finally comprehended that her fingers disappeared into a hole where the pain was almost blinding. A bleeding, gaping, gun shot. Her last thoughts before everything went black were of fear as she realized just how much trouble they all were in.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters from Grey's Anatomy.