A/N: Still moving across the country but I wanted to get a chapter up this week. I only did a rough edit so I hope there aren't too many glaring errors in it. Thanks for all the reviews on the last one and I hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: Grey's Anatomy and its characters are owned by ABC and not me.
…
When they returned to work three days later the news of the couple's engagement did not spread as quickly as most gossip does at Seattle Grace – Mercy West. A flashy ring on a necklace that dangled almost below Arizona's scrub top was much harder to spot than on the finger for people to immediately notice. Arizona and Alex didn't want to call attention to their change in relationship status. It wasn't until late afternoon that the news was found out by the gossip mongers of the hospital. So much of Alex and Arizona's relationship had been a series of grand announcements due to the accident and pregnancy that they really didn't care to make one for this. They agreed that they would tell people as they asked about the trip but they weren't going to make a big deal of it. To them this was just making their relationship official.
The one person in the hospital that did know what had happened was Teddy since she went to help pick out the ring with Alex. Teddy was ready to jump on Arizona as soon as she got to work. Arizona hadn't been answering her phone even though Teddy knew that they had been back from Africa for days. Teddy was waiting by Arizona's office door bright and early waiting for her to start her shift for the day.
"Let me see it!" Teddy demanded as soon as Arizona turned the corner to head into her office for the day.
"Wow there must be a lack of heart attacks happening in Seattle today," Arizona joked about her friend's over-eagerness as she unlocked her office door. Arizona lifted her necklace to show off the ring as soon as they closed the door. "Not like you haven't seen it before from what I heard. I'm not sure how I feel about you two conspiring together. This could be trouble for me."
"It was for your own good," Teddy examined the ring. It looked even better on Arizona than it did in the store. Teddy plopped on the couch as she watched Arizona get ready for her day. "So tell me how he did it."
Arizona had surgery first thing in the morning so Teddy only got the condensed version of the proposal. Teddy was genuinely happy as she listened to Arizona talk about Alex. Arizona was glowing and not just because she was nearly thirty weeks pregnant. Arizona was happier than Teddy had ever seen her. When Teddy first found out about Alex and Arizona's relationship she was skeptical. She thought that Arizona was just going to get hurt – that she was crazy for choosing Alex to be her first ever boyfriend. If Arizona wanted to switch to men, Teddy could think of a lot better choices out there than Alex Karev. Alex was a notorious bad boy and Arizona had already been hurt badly in the past. Teddy never would have thought that Arizona would be the woman to finally tame Alex.
Alex also had surgery first thing so he didn't have time to see his friends and be harassed about his trip to Africa. After his morning surgery, he was paged to the pit about a suspected case of appendicitis. While Alex was poking the boy's stomach, the boy chose that moment to throw up all over Alex's pants. After Alex confirmed that it was indeed appendicitis he went to the locker room to shower and change before performing the surgery. He was in the process of putting on a fresh scrub top when Cristina saw something interesting on his half-naked body.
"Whoa," Cristina said as she moved closer to him. She pointed to a mark on Alex's neck, "What is that?"
"What?" Alex looked down trying to see what Cristina was talking about but the spot she was pointing to was at a spot that he couldn't see without a mirror.
Cristina poked the bruise, "I had no idea Robbins was that frisky. Impressive."
Alex moved to the mirror so that he could see what Cristina was talking about. He ran his fingers over the small mark near his collar bone before pulling his scrub top over his head. "You have no idea," he winked.
"I thought you guys went to Africa to save the kids? You know she's already pregnant. She's huge. You can't miss that. You can't get her pregnant again until she has the kid, y'know."
"We do save the kids in Africa," Alex retorted. Alex glanced at his watch. He had rounds soon and didn't have time to get into the details. He really wanted to share the news about his engagement and Cristina did bring the trip up so that did follow the guidelines that he and Arizona set up for sharing the news. "We just had some…uh…celebrating to do this trip."
"Celebrating?" Cristina raised her eyebrows. Alex knew that being mysterious would get Cristina going. She loved a good mystery. She was the hospital's version of Jessica Fletcher and since it had been slow at the hospital she needed something to help keep her busy.
Alex sighed as his pager went off. He was a little disappointed he wouldn't have time to lead Cristina on any further. He'd need to just tell her so that he could make it to surgey on time. "We got engaged."
"Hold up," Cristina raised her voice and threw her hand up in Alex's face. "You what?"
"I asked her to marry me. She said yes. We got engaged," Alex held open the door to the lounge and clarified his answer before heading out to scrub in for surgery.
Just as Cristina was about to head off to tell Meredith she got a page about post-op complications with a patient. Alex's big news would still be there to spread after she fixed another heart.
Arizona's first day back was busy. She had to catch up on paperwork, personnel issues and take care of patients. She was so busy that she only had time to grab a quick bite to eat in her office before being paged down to the operating room. A resident briefed her on the case before she entered the scrub room; a ten year old practicing an extreme skateboard trick off the roof of his house had multiple broken bones and internal bleeding.
Arizona wasn't surprised to see Callie in the scrub room preparing for surgery. She knew someone from orthopedics would be in the surgery with her to fix the bones while she worked on the internal injuries.
"Welcome back," Callie smiled as she scrubbed between her fingers when Arizona walked into the room.
Arizona picked up a sponge and ripped the packaging, "Thanks. How's the kid look?"
"It shouldn't be too bad. He's stable so it's just a matter of putting him back together."
"Good," Arizona nodded as she worked on making sure she was sterile. She had been fighting Alex about scaling back her work schedule and she claimed that she was not going to lighten her load but the third trimester was starting to weigh on her. She hated it when Alex was right. She was glad that this appeared to be a relatively easy surgery and afterward she was done for the day.
They continued to make small talk as they prepped for surgery. Both women were grateful that they had been able to remain friends throughout everything that had occurred between them. They were far from being best friends but as the months went by they were able to be closer.
The first hour of surgery was done in relative silence with the two surgeons only speaking to the nurses or to each other about the medicine. They needed to be focused as they assessed the situation of their patient. The x-rays and scans could only show so much of what was actually going on in the body.
Once Arizona had everything under control she decided to stimulate some conversation in the operating room. She liked her operating rooms to be fun and have positive energy and the silence was starting to bring her down. "So did I miss anything good while I was gone?" she asked Callie.
Callie paused to think for a moment. It had been a pretty average week by Seattle Grace – Mercy West standards. "I don't think so. Cristina and Owen are back at it again but that's nothing new. I don't know why they don't just divorce already. It's been years of the same arguments."
"It's got to be hard to love someone so much but not be able to make it work. To want such different things," Arizona frowned under her mask. She hated to hear about any of her friends going through a hard time and she knew that under it all they did truly love each other.
Callie looked up and caught Arizona's eyes. She didn't know if Arizona was referencing their past or not but the statement could relate to them as well. "Yeah, I suppose."
"What about you and Mark?" Arizona asked wanting to move on to a less depressing topic. Mark and Callie had been sleeping together since the start of the new year but they didn't seem to be progressing past being bed buddies. Or if they had they were keeping it quite a secret from the rest of the hospital.
"What about us?" Callie asked. She was under the impression that what she and Mark did was relatively under the radar.
"Why aren't y'all together?" Arizona glanced up at Callie before looking back down at her patient.
Arizona's question seemed to stun Callie into silence. It also caused her to stop all work she was doing to repair the boy's tibia.
Arizona realized she hit a sore spot and tried to smooth out the situation. "You deserve more than just friends with benefits."
Callie nodded and the two went back to working without personal discussion.
It wasn't until Callie leaned over the body cavity to take a sponge from the nurse standing next to Arizona that she noticed the silver necklace and the silver ring dangling from Arizona's neck. She hadn't seen Arizona wear a necklace since they had broken up and she stopped wearing the necklace that she had given her for their first Valentine's Day together.
"What's that?" Callie asked. There was a ring full of diamonds around Arizona's neck. There was only one thing that it could be but she needed to hear Arizona say it.
"What's what?" Arizona asked, glancing around the boy's body to see what Callie was seeing that she didn't.
Callie pointed with a bloody, glove-covered hand to Arizona's neck, "That."
"Oh!" Arizona instinctively reached out to touch the necklace stopping just before she realized that she was in the middle of surgery. She knew Callie was going to find out sometime she just thought she would have a little more time to prepare her for the news. She could tell by Callie's eyes that she knew what it was so she just had to tell her the truth. "Alex and I got engaged last week in Malawi."
Callie was glad that most of her face was covered by a mask. She was happy for Arizona. She really was. Arizona had found someone that made her happy and they were starting a life together. But that didn't mean that it didn't hurt a little. Arizona was getting everything that Callie wanted. Arizona had the fiancé and the baby while Callie was still having sex with her best man friend.
"Congratulations," Callie didn't want to show any vulnerability to Arizona so she immediately congratulated her. "That's great."
"Thanks you, Calliope. That means a lot," Arizona acknowledged honestly. She knew that it must have been hard for Callie to hear that news.
"You guys don't do anything slow do you?" Callie tried to lighten the mood of the room as she referenced their whirlwind romance.
Arizona chuckled, "Doesn't seem like it." In less than a year they had gone from best friends to engaged and in a few more months they'd have a son or a daughter. She raised her eyebrows at her friend across the gurney, "Maybe you should take a page out of our book."
Callie couldn't help but laugh at the fact that her ex-girlfriend was trying to give her dating advice. With her previous relationships with men, George was the only one that she'd ever remained friends with after the break-up. She had always heard that lesbians had a tendency to remain friends and even be close friends after the end of a relationship but she never saw how that was possible. But somehow that was exactly what she and Arizona had been able to do and it made her happy that they were able to stay friends. Arizona Robbins was an amazing person to have as girlfriend and as a friend.
By the time Alex and Arizona left the hospital together that evening everyone knew that they were engaged. After Cristina found out and Arizona announced the engagement to an operating room full of nurses it didn't take long for the rest of the hospital to hear the news through the grapevine. Most people in the hospital offered their congratulations as they had long accepted their relationship over the last few months but there were still a few noisy commenters that never had anything nice to say about them; Alex and Arizona did as they always did – they held hands as they held their heads up high, they'd prove all the naysayers wrong in time.
…
Arizona wasn't sure when it happened. But sometime between watching Alex put together the crib and folding freshly laundered baby clothes it did. She blamed the nesting instinct that had taken hold on her as she reached the final month of pregnancy. Alex had never bugged her about it. He wasn't in any rush and he understood her reasons for wanting to wait. Which is why he was surprised when Arizona tracked him down at work one Monday afternoon and told him that she wanted to get married. Immediately. Alex couldn't believe what she was saying. He was pretty sure that Arizona had gone crazy. After thirty-six weeks of pregnancy she had finally lost it.
"What?" Alex asked her to repeat herself as they stood in a busy hallway at work.
Arizona crossed her arms over her ever expanding stomach and repeated herself, "I want to get married."
Alex reached out to play with the ring on Arizona's necklace, "So do I. That's why I asked."
"No, I want to get married now. Let's go to the courthouse."
Yep. Alex had heard her correctly the first time. He looked around the busy hallway. Nurses, doctors and patients were bustling about the hospital. It was not the place to talk about getting married. "Let's go talk about this in your office.
"Alex," Arizona whined as he grabbed her hand and started walking them toward her office. "I don't need to talk about this. I know what I want. Do you not want to marry me anymore?"
Alex could hear the emotion in her voice. She sounded like she really believed that he didn't want to marry her anymore. Her pregnancy hormones were only getting worse and he knew that he needed to tread carefully around his fiancée or she'd be crying soon. "Babe, of course I want to marry you."
"Then let's do it."
Just then Arizona's pager buzzed. The timing couldn't be worse. They needed to finish this conversation.
"Let someone else take it," Alex suggested as she pulled her pager out of her pocket.
Arizona groaned and turned away from where Alex was standing, "You don't want to marry me and now you're telling me I can't do my job?"
Alex just stood as he watched Arizona walk away while muttering choice phrases about him under her breath. He loved her. And he really loved her being pregnant. He loved talking and reading to the baby. He loved feeling her kick his hand. But after thirty-six weeks, he couldn't wait for the baby to be born already. He wanted normal, less crazy Arizona back and if he got to hold a baby in his arms that looked like the love of his life at the same time then that was an added bonus.
It wasn't until their shifts were over that they had time to talk but even then Arizona didn't want to talk anymore. She had said everything she needed to say earlier and Alex just dismissed her – or so she thought. Arizona was still giving him the cold shoulder when they got home. She immediately went upstairs, leaving Alex by himself downstairs. Alex had learned over time that he needed to give Arizona space when she was upset. She didn't like to be bugged or harassed. She liked her alone time to process so he didn't follow her. He gave her a couple of hours to calm down before he finally went in search of her upstairs. When he didn't find her in their bedroom, he knew where she had to be; it was where she spent most of her free time these days.
The door to the nursery was cracked and Alex could see Arizona sitting on the floor as she went through some of the many gifts they had received at their impromptu football game viewing party turned baby shower. The door creaked as Alex pushed it open wider causing Arizona to look up from the stack of clothes on the floor.
"Hey," Alex said softly from the doorway.
Arizona made eye contact with him then turned back to her task at hand. "Hey," she replied softly.
"Can we talk?"
Arizona just shrugged her shoulders as she kept folding. Alex took that as a sign that he could enter the room without getting snapped at.
"That's really cute," Alex commented as he sat behind Arizona who was folding an elephant covered onesie. He couldn't believe that he was referring to pint-sized clothing as cute but when he looked at it all he could see was his baby wearing it and he couldn't wait for that day.
"It's from Eshe. There's a hat she knit around here somewhere too."
Alex let his hands help to relax Arizona. He worked at massaging her lower back in an attempt to make her happy. It had been the only thing he could do during the pregnancy to help relive some of her pain. The two sat in silence for a few more moments as Alex worked at the tension in Arizona's back while she continued to fold the ridiculously cute baby clothes.
"So, I did some thinking," Alex whispered as he kissed Arizona's shoulder and moved his hands from her back to wrap around her stomach and pull her closer to him. "We both have a three day weekend coming up for Labor Day. How about we get married Friday? That gives us time to get the license and wait the mandatory three days. And it also gives us time to fly your parents out here and maybe see if Amber and Lily can come out too."
Arizona turned her head and at him shocked, "What?"
Alex scooted on the floor so that he was facing her. "You said you wanted to get married immediately so I did some research. We couldn't get married today if we wanted to because of the three day waiting period. And as much as I love you and want to make you happy, your father would kill me if he wasn't there to watch his only daughter get married. And I really don't want to die anytime soon."
"Are you sure?" Arizona asked. She had no idea that he had done so much thinking about what she had brought up earlier. She assumed that he was going to tell her that they needed to wait.
Alex raised his eyebrows and caressed her cheek. "Are you sure? You're the one that was so adamant about waiting until after the baby was here."
"I'm sure," Arizona leaned into Alex's caress. "I just don't want to wait anymore. Why put it off when we both know it's going to happen? Life is too short to wait. We've learned that. What if something happens during labor? Hell, what if something happens on the drive to work tomorrow? I don't want something to happen and not be married to you. I already feel like we're married. This is just a piece of paper that says we are. And I could care less about doing a big wedding. I don't need that. I just need you."
"You're really sure?" Alex didn't want Arizona to regret not having the grand wedding that she probably dreamed about when she was a little girl.
Arizona reached out and grabbed Alex's left hand, "I am." Arizona played with his ring finger, "And I really want to put a ring on this finger."
"Okay," Alex leaned in for a kiss. "Let's start making some phone calls."
Arizona grinned and rubbed her belly, "Mommy and Daddy are getting married. What do you think about that?" Arizona instantly felt the baby moving. It felt like he was doing a celebratory dance. She grabbed Alex's hand and positioned it so that he could feel as well.
"She's happy," Alex leaned down to place a kiss where the baby was kicking and got a firm kick on the mouth in response.
"Of course he is. You make us both happy."
"You're telling your parents," Alex informed Arizona as he stood up and held a hand out to help her up. "And make sure you tell them that this was your idea. I'm not getting blamed for this one."
They had a lot to do in a matter of days. They had to get the license. Fly their families into town. Buy wedding rings. Figure out exactly what they were going to do for a wedding – just go to the courthouse or do a small ceremony. Arizona was quickly realizing as she made a list of things that needed to be done that it wasn't as simple as just going to the courthouse at lunch like she wanted but she knew that Alex was right – her father would probably kill Alex if they eloped without family there and she really wanted her baby to have its' father around.
They each spent the rest of the night on their respective cell phones. Surprisingly, Daniel Robbins was pleased to hear about the upcoming nuptials. He was old-fashioned at heart and was happy to know that his grandchild's parents would be married before he or she was born. It was past Lily's bedtime when Alex called his sister but Amber assured him that Lily was going to be thrilled to get to see her favorite aunt and uncle again. By the end of the night all four family members had plane tickets to Seattle with everyone set to arrive in a couple of days and spend the long weekend with the happy couple. Once the family travel plans were set, Alex and Arizona were able to relax and work on the rest of the plans from their laptops while in bed. After a lot of debate, they decided to just go ahead and get married at the courthouse on Friday afternoon. They didn't want to bother with finding a place to get married or someone to marry them. A simple courthouse ceremony and then a celebratory dinner afterward was more than enough for them. They just wanted to be married to each other – they didn't care how or when it happened.
…
Once they decided to get married before the long weekend, Arizona was able to finagle the work schedule so that she and Alex would have enough time off to be able to take care of the little things. The most important thing to Arizona was not looking like a whale at her own wedding. One of the reasons why she originally wanted to wait to get married was that she didn't want to be huge in her wedding photos. She didn't want to be that woman that was getting married because she had gotten pregnant. Arizona knew that she was getting married not because she was pregnant but because she loved her fiancé but to strangers it would look like they were getting married because she was knocked up. During an extended lunch break and with the help of Teddy and an unlimited budget she was able to find the perfect dress for her wedding. It was short and flowy. It was classy yet casual. And most importantly, she looked and felt good in it. It was perfect.
During another quick escape from work, Alex and Arizona were able to pick out their wedding rings. With their line of work they both wanted something simple. They wanted something that could be worn under gloves when they were doing procedures and something they didn't mind having to replace if they lost it while in the operating room. They had both heard too many stories from their colleagues about losing and forgetting rings that they had taken off and tied to their scrubs for surgeries. They decided on a pair of matching plain platinum bands with Arizona's being ultra thin compared to the normal thickness of Alex's men's band. Getting the rings really made things real for the pair.
After finishing up all of their tasks, all they had left to do was wait for their guests' arrival. Everyone was going to be staying with them at their house and Arizona was just a little nervous about everyone meeting for the first time.
Amber and Lily were the first to arrive. Lily was thrilled to be back in Seattle. She hadn't seen her uncle since Christmas and Arizona since their visit almost one year earlier. While they video chatted all the time, that couldn't make up for hugs from two of her favorite people. Amber and Alex couldn't keep Lily out of Arizona's arms. They tried convincing both Arizona and Lily that Lily was too big for the thirty-six weeks pregnant woman to be carrying but neither one of them would have any of it.
The only thing that got Lily to leave Arizona's arms was the arrival of Barbara and Daniel Robbins. Lily took a special liking to Daniel and quickly decided that he was her new favorite person. He gave the best hugs and he didn't force her to eat all of the green stuff on her dinner plate like her mother and uncle did. Plus he told the best bedtime stories. Daniel Robbins was just as smitten with the little girl who charmed him with her pigtails and impressive manners.
Everyone got along fabulously as they spent a couple of days together before the wedding. Daniel took the opportunity to turn his playground sketches into reality as he coerced Alex into helping him with the manual labor. While the boys were busy outside, the girls were busy in their own baby-crazy bubble. Barbara didn't waste the opportunity to spoil her future grandchild in person. Arizona was sure that Barbara would have spent her entire bank account at the baby stores if she didn't put a stop to it. Arizona was running out of room in the nursery for all of the things that her mother was buying. Barbara didn't limit herself to just spoiling her new grandbaby, she also made sure that Lily had some cute winter wardrobe additions and the latest and greatest toys to take back home to Iowa with her. For so long Barbara thought she'd never be a grandmother so now that she had young children in her life it was her duty to spoil them rotten.
Arizona and Alex staunchly argued against the tradition of spending the night before the wedding apart. As she just reached thirty-seven weeks, Arizona was considered full-term and the baby could really come at any time; Alex wasn't going to spend a night away from her in case she went into labor. They soon-to-be married couple did, however, agree to have dinner with their respective family members alone.
Alex picked a local burger and brewery for him, Amber and Lily to eat at. It had a kids' play area without being a fast food joint so he was sure that Lily would enjoy it as well. Alex was right and Lily headed off to the play area as soon as her mother said that it was okay.
"I knew I was right about you and Arizona," Amber smiled at her big brother.
"Yeah, things definitely changed after you left last fall," Alex just laughed. He remembered Amber telling him that he shouldn't let Arizona go all those months ago. He couldn't believe that he was actually getting to marry her.
Amber kept her eyes on her daughter in the playground as she continued to talk to her brother. "She looks really good. You can't tell any signs of the accident at all."
"She pushed herself really hard and she's pretty much at one hundred percent again. There are still some small things that she's working on with physical and occupational therapy but she's doing really great especially considering what happened. It's a miracle she even survived."
"So, you ready to be a husband and a dad?"
Alex's smile took over his whole body, "I can't wait. I've felt like a husband for the last nine months so that's not a big deal. But the baby? I think I'm more anxious than Arizona is at this point for her to just get here. I just want to hold her already."
"Or him," Lily emphasized. She agreed with Arizona that it was going to be a boy. The way Arizona was carrying was typical for a boy. "You're going to be great. You're so great with Lily."
Alex looked over to see Lily going down the slide, "She's a good kid. How are things going at home?"
"Okay," Amber shrugged. "Lots of work. I've been thinking a lot about looking into starting at the community college or something if I can get a scholarship. Lily can start pre-school soon so I can go to school while she's in school."
"Really? I think that's a great idea. What do you want to study?"
"I was thinking like medical assistant or something like that. I know I'm not smart enough to be a doctor like you but I could do something, right?"
Alex reached out and put his hand on his sister's, "You can do whatever you want. You'd be a great medical assistant but I think you should look higher than that."
"Alex," Amber rolled her eyes. "I have a two and a half year old. I have to work and go to school at the same time. I can't aim for the stars in my position."
The waiter appeared with their food so Alex wrapped up the conversation, not wanting to talk about that in front of Lily. "I'm just saying that you're smart. Don't underestimate yourself."
Across town, Arizona and her parents went to a more upscale restaurant to satisfy Arizona's craving of Italian food. It was the first time since they arrived that they were able to be alone with their daughter and as much as they enjoyed the Karev family, they were grateful for the time with Arizona.
After a quiet dinner where the conversation primarily revolved around the baby, Daniel finally got the nerve to say what he wanted to say. "You can still back out if you want to," Daniel informed his daughter as he sipped on his glass of wine. He liked Alex but he wanted to make sure that Arizona was positive about her decision. He didn't want her to feel like she had to do this just because she was pregnant.
Arizona nearly spit out the sip of water she had just taken. "Are you serious?" She couldn't believe that her father was questioning her about her marriage the night before it was supposed to happen. She looked to her mom to see if he was serious or not but her mother just shrugged her shoulders.
"This is just all so fast. It hasn't even been a year since you two got together. I just want you to be sure because I only want to go to have to go to one of your weddings in my life."
"Dad, I only plan on getting married once. Tomorrow," Arizona said sternly. She should have known her father wasn't as happy for her as he initially seemed.
"Okay. That's all I wanted to know," Daniel had gotten his answer and was ready to let the topic drop. "I just want you happy."
Barbara felt the need to cheer up the mood at the table. She never could stand to have any tension in the family plus there was something that they had wanted to talk to Arizona about since they arrived. She wasn't sure that this would improve the mood but it needed to be put out there. "So, Zona, your father and I have been doing a lot of thinking."
"Uh huh," Arizona mumbled as she sipped on her water. She had no idea what her mother was about to say but by the way her mother was looking at her she knew it was probably nothing she could prepare herself for.
"We're thrilled about all of the upcoming changes in your life. Thrilled," she emphasized. "But Seattle is so far away from DC."
Arizona thought she could sense where this conversation was going so she needed to interrupt. "Mom, our jobs are here. Very good jobs. We're not moving."
"I didn't say that, dear. It's your father and I that were thinking about moving to Seattle."
Arizona's mouth dropped open. She loved her parents and she did wish that she could see them more than a couple of times a year but she wasn't sure she could handle living in the same city as them. Plus her parents' lives were in DC. Almost all of her extended family lived in the area. And Timothy was buried at Arlington. They couldn't leave him.
"Arizona, you can shut your mouth now," Daniel ordered. "What your mother meant to say is that we're thinking about buying a vacation house here. Not to move here permanently. Obviously, we're going to want to visit a lot more often now and we want someplace that can be our own so we're not invading your space all the time. Someplace that we can take our grandbaby when his parents need a break."
Arizona was shocked and stunned into silence. She didn't know what to say. She knew her parents had money saved away but she never imagined they'd use it to buy a second home in the city that she was living in.
"Would you be okay with that?" Barbara asked hopefully. As much as she and Daniel both wanted to do this, she knew that they wouldn't do it without their daughter's permission.
Arizona nodded, "Uh yeah. I guess." She couldn't exactly tell them no and it did sound like a decent idea. She knew her parents would be wanting to spend more time in Seattle and to have them in Seattle and not living in her guest room for weeks on end would be great.
"Great," Barbara smiled. "Because it's a buyers' market and there are several good places near you."
"All are at least a half mile away," Daniel interrupted and winked at his daughter.
"This is going to be great," Barbara practically bounced in her seat as dessert was served. Her enthusiasm was infectious and both Arizona and Daniel had long forgotten the earlier conversation with Daniel wanting to make sure of Arizona's marriage desires.
After their respective dinners, Alex and Arizona were more than grateful to retire to their bedroom for the night. They loved their families but they wanted some time away from the crazy and to enjoy this special time in their lives. They spent the night catching each other up on their dinners. Arizona was surprised how supportive Alex was about her parents buying a house in Seattle. She didn't expect him to be so happy about his in-laws moving to their town but Alex had never really had family in his life so he wanted to make sure that his child got to have what he didn't have. While they both agreed that they already felt married and the wedding was more about it being legal, they both fell asleep anxious about the day ahead.
…