So, you're just sitting poolside? Sipping a margarita, wearing your red bikini? her phone chimed with the new text from her girlfriend, pleasantly surprising her.

A smile appeared on her lips, and she typed back, Yes, it's so relaxing, with the screams of about fifty kids running around, splashing each other, and me.

Is it just a pool party or is there a theme? I think I had a Mickey Mouse themed party when I turned five. Tim was Pluto, the blonde responded, making her laugh just picturing the Robbins siblings, miniaturized, dressed in their party clothes.

Before she could type in a response, a shadow was cast over her as she sat in her lounge chair. Blinking from behind her sunglasses, she looked up at the cause of the shadow, seeing a tall, leanly muscled man looking down at her. His arms were crossed over his chest, "Hey. I've noticed you sitting over here for a while, by yourself. Just wanted to come over and introduce myself. I'm Tyler."

Sliding her glasses down the bridge of her nose, she looked up at him, a memory clicking into place, "You're Tyler Bridgewater."

He sent her a smile that she supposed was supposed to be charming, "Yeah. Have we met?"

Images of his sneering face in a football letterman's jacket clouded her mind, "We went to high school together. You were a year older than me…" she trailed off, her face flushing remembering the way he'd spent many times making fun of her.

Green eyes narrowed in thought, before his mouth dropped open, "Wait, you're Callie Torres? Damn, you got hot!"

Her stomach churned in disgusted annoyance at the way his eyes scraped down her body, "I'm going to go." Pushing herself up, she started to walk in the direction of the house before his hand wrapped around her arm.

"Wait, I'm sorry. That was rude. I meant to say… you look even better now than you did back in high school. So, what are you up to? I work with Felix at the firm, except today, you know, moonlighting as a lifeguard for the party," he said, frowning just a bit as she firmly tugged her arm out of his grasp. Then he hurried to add on, "Just bought a new house. Not dating anyone, living the single life."

Pushing her sunglasses up to the top of her head, she curtly answered, "I'm in medical school. In Boston. Not living the single life with my girlfriend."

His eyes widened, "Oh-oh, sure. Right. That's nice. Really nice… is she here?" he asked, looking around.

No wonder high school had been to absolutely miserable, she thought, rolling her eyes and shaking her head, "Nope, she's back in Boston. Working at the hospital."

A slow smile spread across his face, "So, she's a doctor, too?"

Grimacing at the slightly glazed over look in his eyes, she took a step back, "Yeah… shouldn't you get back to lifeguarding the pool of children?"

He looked over his shoulder, reaching a hand up to scratch at the back of his head, "Oh, yeah, yeah. But it was good seeing you."

Just giving an extremely forced smile in response, she turned around, lifting her phone, Yeah, it's like a Dora explosion. Sorry it took me so long to answer, the "lifeguard" was talking to me, she added as she walked away to lean back against the side of the house.

The lifeguard? I thought you were at Aria's house? Arizona replied, abnormally quickly for what Callie had been getting used to in the last three weeks. Since her girlfriend had started as an intern, her texts would be sporadic while she was on-call. After the first week, she'd been comfortable enough to start carrying around her cell phone in the pocket of her lab coat rather than leave it in her locker, which was a bonus because it guaranteed Callie a response at least within a few hours.

I am, she sent back, a bit confused. While she waited for the blonde to answer her, she looked around. The Miami sun beat down, bright and hot, while Felix and Aria's backyard was run amok with children. The kids from Dani's playgroup and all of their siblings, all of Felix and Aria's friend's kids, Felix's coworker's kids, the other kids who lived in the neighborhood… kids everywhere.

It was Dani's fifth birthday and Callie had flown in to celebrate, and had stayed in one of the guest rooms in her sister's house for two days, and was planning on flying back tomorrow night, because Arizona's first full twenty-four hour day off since she started was scheduled to begin the morning after Callie's flight landed.

And she couldn't wait.

After a few minutes, Arizona texted back, explaining, I thought Dani was having a home birthday party, which is why I'm confused about there being a lifeguard.

Lifting her phone, she took a picture of the scene before her. The pool was strewn with pool toys and arm floaties and life jackets. Beyond the pool, a colorful bounce-house was blown up, and on the many picnic tables that were set up, there were Dora the Explorer plates and balloons and table cloths. For this neighborhood, for the way Callie and Aria had been brought up, this party was tame; for Aria's tenth birthday, their parents had rented out an entire amusement park.

Sending the picture, she added the caption, This is the type of home birthday party I'm talking about.

What the heck?! My home birthdays consisted of a homemade cake and some rented movies, her girlfriend's response came, making her laugh.

That doesn't sound so bad to me, she wrote. In this world, even kid's birthday parties were made into a social networking type gathering. Though Felix was pretty good about separating his work life from his home life, she could still spot the men who were here, talking business. They all dressed as if from a uniform: various light colored, collared polo shirts with belted khaki shorts. Deceptively expensive designer loafers were on their feet.

Felix also fell into this style, she noted, spotting him across the lawn, keeping an eye on the children in the bouncy house. But his light blue polo was damp from where her niece had jumped onto him, still dripping wet from the pool.

The women, too, mostly had their own dress code. Sundresses with thousand dollar labels and sandals that cost more than a month's worth of rent for her apartment were worn by most. Actually, she was one of them, she thought, looking down at her own white dress. But she was barefoot. She was positive even the bathing suits that the kids were running around in were worth hundreds of dollars. In fact, she knew that to be the truth.

It was another few minutes before her phone vibrated again, and the words reflected on the screen said, Can I call you? I just got some news.

Curious, but already feeling a bad, sinking feeling in her stomach, she beat Arizona to the punch and pressed the call button. The blonde picked up after only one ring, "Hey…" she trailed off, the trepidation in her voice clear in that one syllable.

Cautiously, she responded, "Hey. What's going on?"

Even though she couldn't see Arizona, she knew she was biting her lip, just from the tone of her voice, "My day off, it just got moved. Um, it's starting tonight."

Heaving a sigh, she dropped her head back until it hit the house behind her, "What?"

The blonde cleared her throat, "I'm off tonight at seven, until tomorrow night at seven."

As much as she told herself she shouldn't be annoyed, she couldn't help it, "But my flight isn't even going to land in Boston until eight! Why was it switched?"

There was a few seconds of silence before Arizona exhaled heavily, "Because… Hayden asked if I wanted to observe an appendectomy she's doing on an eight-year-old the day after tomorrow."

As the realization hit her, she closed her eyes, "So, you chose to switch your shift with someone else." Now, irritation bubbled up inside of her and she just couldn't stop it, "I haven't seen you in almost a week, and even then it was only for a few hours."

"This isn't that easy for me, either, Calliope!" Arizona snapped, her frustration coming in clear despite the hundreds of miles between them, "Do you think I like only seeing you like five times in the last three weeks? Half of which I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open for more than like thirty minutes?"

"No!" she all but yelled into the receiver in her own frustration, garnering looks from many of the parents nearby, before walking through the sliding doors into the kitchen, shutting them to gain some privacy from the birthday party outside. Taking a few breaths, she leaned on the counter, rubbing her forehead with the hand not holding the phone, "But maybe part of that could be easily solved if you didn't switch your only day off so far to a time when you knew I was going to be out of the state."

Arizona's voice was lowered to a harsh whisper, making Callie assume she wasn't alone, "Well what do you want me to do when this is my first opportunity to see the inside of an OR, up close? For god's sake, even Ben Spencer was able to sit in on a surgery last week. Ben Spencer beat me into the operating room, do you understand how – how humiliating that is? I'm better than that! And I need to prove it or I'm going to fall behind. What do you want me to do?"

Closing her eyes tightly, she tried to will away the pure dissatisfaction she felt inside her stomach, twisting and eating away at her, "I – I don't know, okay? I want you to get into the OR, Arizona, obviously I do. I just also want to see you."

"I know," her girlfriend replied, her voice softer now, "I want to see you, too. But I couldn't pass that up. I'm sorry."

She shook her head at herself. "Don't apologize. Really, don't. It's… we knew it was going to be tough in the beginning." They went from seeing each other every day to seeing each other in snippets, managing to sneak in times to see each other when it fit into their schedules. It didn't help that Callie had started up her thesis study group last week, and that had run for a good few hours during her girlfriend's off time.

"But I can tell you're mad at me," Arizona said, yawning into the phone, and Callie could hear how exhausted she was. She'd been getting better at being able to stay awake, her sleep schedule adjusting already, as much as it could, to the crazy hours.

"I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at… the situation," she tried to clarify, groaning in an attempt to rid her of some of the aforementioned madness, listening to another yawn. "Why don't you get some sleep? We'll talk again tomorrow. We could skype?" she said, trying to put some pep into her voice.

Arizona sounded about as thrilled as she felt, "Yes, we will skype. And I guess I should go to sleep while I have the time. I love you," her voice was growing heavier with sleep, and Callie was now pretty sure, as she heard rustling in the background, that Arizona was already in one of the on-call room beds.

"I love you, too," she told her, feeling most of her irritation fade into disappointment. Disappointment with an edge of annoyance, she acknowledged.

Before the blonde fell completely asleep, before her breath evened into deep, slumbering ones, she sighed into the phone, "I really did want to spend my day off with you."

"I know," she said back before disconnecting the line and putting her phone down roughly on the marble countertop, letting out a much longer moan of frustration into the air.

On one hand, she knew it was wrong of her to be upset with Arizona. And what she had said was mostly the truth – she wasn't actually upset at her girlfriend. It – this whole new schedule they were on – just sucked. And it was a huge, hard adjustment to make. Even before the summer, when they'd been seeing each other every day, they'd had spring semester. During which they were in a relationship and spent every other night together and usually saw each other every day.

But even before that, in fall semester, when they were doing their whole sex thing, they still spent hours together every week. They were spending more time together during that "no strings attached" period than they had in the last three weeks! Now that was just not right. So, yeah, it was hard.

Drumming her fingertips against the counter, she pushed herself up so she was no longer leaning against the counter. It wasn't Arizona's fault; this was the life they both wanted. And they both knew that even though "eighty hour work weeks" were required, it was an unspoken truth that the eighty hours spent in the hospital by interns – competitive, kickass interns – actually spent upwards of a hundred hours there per week.

And with the blonde being a competitive, kickass intern, that meant she was spending that much time at the hospital, and for the other sixty hours she wasn't there, she was studying and sleeping, just to be able to keep up. This year was the hardest, most difficult time in her life. Callie knew that, and thinking about it – being mad about it – just made her feel childish.

Picking up her phone again, she was tempted to call her girlfriend again, but thought better of it, instead texting, I'm really not mad at you; I just feel like I haven't seen you in forever and it sets me on edge. But I love you. I was going to call, but didn't want to wake you up.

Just as she pressed send, the door behind her slid open. Assuming it was Aria – she had told her sister that she would bring out more juice boxes before she'd even started texting Arizona – she rubbed her fingers over her temples, "I know, I'm sorry, I'll bring the juice boxes out now."

Frankly, she was fucking flabbergasted that her sister had managed to procure what seemed like hundreds of Dora the Explorer juice box holders. What even were juice box holders, anyway? She and Aria had grown up extremely privileged and even they didn't have "juice box holders" – you would think a juice box holder would be a hand.

But the voice that responded was far manlier and older to belong to her sister, "I'm not interested in a juice box."

Her hands froze their grip on her phone, and she spun around, coming face to face with her dad while her heart felt like it was falling into her stomach, just thinking about their last interaction, and the way he'd looked as he had walked away. And now, after she'd given him the all or nothing ultimatum and he'd chosen nothing, she didn't know what to say to him.

He'd always seemed so big to her. Larger than life. But right now, as he closed the door behind him, standing in his dark business suit, he seemed so much smaller. And even though they weren't on good terms, she didn't like that. She didn't like seeing him small, but there was no other alternative for her to hold on to.

His hands were tucked into his pockets, and he looked uncomfortable, but in a different way than he had at the beach house. Something was different, but she just couldn't put her finger on it. Then he admitted, ever so quietly, "I've been seeing a therapist."

She could have sworn her eyes bugged out of her head at the admission, and her mouth fell open without her meaning to do it, "You what?"

After clearing his throat, he spoke louder, clearer, "I've been seeing a therapist. I, well, I never thought I would be in therapy, but I am."

No kidding. Her father didn't like to admit his weaknesses, at all, and not only was seeing a therapist something he thought meant he was weak, but admitting it out loud to someone else, she knew, he saw as even worse.

Before she could say anything, and unsure of exactly what to say, he continued, "I've been meeting with her for two months now. After the last time I saw you… because I need you in my life, Calliope. You're my daughter, my oldest daughter, and I love you. I've never had any reason not to be proud of you, until last summer –"

Crossing her arms, she felt anger wash over her, "The only thing that has ever made you not proud of me in my entire life is over my love life. I'm not a cheater and I'm not a liar, but the fact that I was in love with a woman, and you know what? That's just wrong. That's not –"

This time, he interrupted her, "I know."

All the words that had been burning her throat, spewing out of her mouth, fell back down, "You – you know?"

He nodded, "I was wrong. I've been wrong for over a year. You need to know, when I saw you with another woman… all I could think of was where did I go wrong? What did I do, that was going to end up sending my brilliant, beautiful girl to hell?"

Leaning back against the counter, she shook her head, "You didn't go wrong anywhere. I – when you and mami raised me, you did everything right. You were the one who taught me about love and about religion, and that neither of those things had conditions."

"I know," her dad responded, his voice tight, "I've figured that out, now. As a parent, you raise your kids and you hope one day they will be even better than you are. Be more, be amazing. That's when you know you've been a successful parent. And you – both my girls – have let me know that I'm a successful parent. It wasn't until you were a grown woman that I failed you." His eyes filled with tears – another thing he counted as weakness – and though he didn't let them spill over, they made her own eyes start to fill in response, as he continued, "That's why I started going to therapy, because I've always been the one you could turn to, and I've missed being that person for you. I miss you."

"I miss you, too, and…" she took a second to clear her throat, because it was starting to constrict, "Has therapy helped?"

He nodded, "Yes, I… I'm sorry for the way I treated you. And I wish I could change it, but I can't. All I want now is to be a part of your life again."

"I think that can be arranged," she managed to say, before she fell into him, her arms wrapping around his back and digging in, the way she'd done ever since she was a child. A small part of her – the part of her that still felt betrayed and hurt – wanted to be more resistant. But most of her just felt so overwhelmingly better because he seemed bigger again. Her stubborn, pigheaded, father, who had never been anything but the epitome of machismo strength admitted to him that he was in therapy to work out his issues with her, and she could feel him shake, just a little bit, in a way that told her he was crying.

One of his hands stroked over her hair, "I want you to be happy. And this Arizona, well, Aria says she makes you happy."

They pulled away from each other, enough so she could reach her hands up and wipe at her eyes, coming away wet with tears, "She does." Even if they were in this weird, rough-ish spot for them, "She is really great."

He nodded, "I know. She's a very strong young woman, and it's clear that she cares about you, a great deal. And someone that will stand up to me – in your honor – someone who loves you enough to tell me that I need to bend, is the someone I've wanted you to have support you since the moment I held you, when you were small enough to hold in my hand."

Feeling herself smile, sniffling just a bit, she then took in all of his words, "Wait, what? What do you mean "stand up to you"?"

His eyebrows lowered, expression clearly confused, "At your sister's house, in June, after you and I talked, she saw me outside. And she told me about how I had to bend, for you – a lot more compellingly and eloquently than your sister telling me to pull my head out of my ass – and she was right."

She could just picture Arizona talking to her dad in her mind, and even though she didn't know exactly what she had said to him, she knew it had been perfect. Any lasting irritation she had with her girlfriend at the moment just disappeared, and before she could say anything else, two little fists beat at the door leading to the backyard pounded on the door.

Callie and Carlos both watched in amusement as Dani's little fists reached up, curling around the wooden handle, and yanked hard. With much of her effort, the door opened and she bounded in with a big, toothless grin. Her two front teeth had both fallen out last night, as she'd bitten into an apple, and she sight had been comically disturbing.

"Grandpa! You comed to my party!" she yelled, and made a running jump in his direction, the little red tutu-like skirt that was attached to her bathing suit flowed out around her little hips as Carlos caught her, giving her a big hug despite the fact that she was dripping wet, floaties still blown up around her upper arms.

He hugged her tight, his hand running over her black hair the same way it had just run over her hair, in that loving, protective way, his business suit getting ruined in the process. But he still smiled, saying, "I can't miss my best little girl's fifth birthday!"

That was the dad she knew, she thought, leaning back on her elbows, smiling at them. It was the dad she was pretty sure she might have back. Aria then stepped in through the doorway, and she raised her eyebrows at her daughter, "Is someone ready for cake?"

The little girl slithered out of her grandfather's arms, landing on the floor, "Yes! Choco-late cake! Choco-late cake! Give me some, for goodness sake!" she sang, and skipped back out the door.

They all watched her go for a moment, before Aria turned back and looked at the both of them, "Hey, dad, would you mind bringing those two cases of juice into the backyard? The kids have been asking for more."

Their dad took off his suit jacket, resting it over the back of a chair, before rolling up his sleeves, "Of course."

As he left to deliver the juice boxes, and probably be attacked by children in the process, Aria slid the door closed, excitement written all over her face, "So? That looked civil, and dare I say, nice?"

She nodded, still grinning, "It was. Really nice."

Her phone, still resting on the counter, chimed with a new message, drawing both of their attentions. Aria walked closer as Callie picked up the phone, reading Arizona's answering text, I feel like I haven't seen you in forever, too, and it's just as hard on me as it is for you. And don't ever worry about waking me up to tell me that you love me.

Sighing, she ran her thumb over the new contact picture she'd saved of her girlfriend – it had been taken the weekend before her internship started, during the weekend they'd spent at the Cape. Arizona's hair was just a little messy, wavy and tumbled after spending the day on the beach, her smile wide, mouth just a little bit open as she'd been unprepared for Callie to snap the picture.

Aria's voice broke her out of her slight reverie, "So, how's your girl?"

"Busy," she automatically responded, her smile dimming just a little bit.

The younger Torres walked across the kitchen, opening the freezer to pull out the giant ice cream cake that she'd had custom made to resemble Boots from Dora – who was Dani's favorite character. "Tell me more," she encouraged.

They'd already had a chat in which Callie had vented her frustrations about these new time restrictions, on her first night she'd been in town. Dani was actually the first one to question Arizona's absence, surprising Callie by remembering her girlfriend's name from the afternoon they'd spent making cookies back in December. Aria said that the blonde had made a good impression on her daughter, who had sporadically questioned when Auntie Callie would be visiting and bringing her friend Arizona to play.

Shaking her head, she watched her sister find teal, curly birthday candles and place them in the cake, "We were going to spend her first full day off where I also had the full day off together, the day after tomorrow after I got back. But her resident offered her OR time for that day, so she switched shifts and is now off tonight, and back on-call by the time my flight is scheduled."

Aria nodded as she listened, "I see," she muttered, looking through extremely well organized drawers for where there would be a lighter, "And you're mad that she switched her day off to a time when you aren't going to be back," she surmised.

Callie found herself nodding, then stopped, "No, that's not – not really. I understand where she's coming from, you know? We spend so much time hearing about our first year of residency and learning about how hard it can be. I just didn't expect it would be this hard, not only for her but for me, too. It just… sucks," she finished, rolling her eyes at her own eloquence.

Finally finding the lighter, Aria leaned over to light the candles she'd just put into the cake – five for her age, plus the one for good luck, "Would you change it?"

Caught off guard, she lifted an eyebrow at her sister, "Huh?"

As the cake was ready to go, she stood up straight, though still coming up a few inches shorter than Callie, and braced her hands on her hips, "Would you change it? This situation, Arizona, to keep everything going the same as it was before?"

Not having thought of that before, she bit her lip. Would she? But it was hardly a question she considered before she knew the answer, "No. She wouldn't be who she is if we weren't where we are now. I wouldn't change it, or her, though."

Satisfied with the answer, the shorter sister nodded, "Good. That's what you need to remember to keep you going. When Felix was finishing getting his law degree and started working while I was here – with Dani – do you think I didn't have doubts or get mad? Because I did, a lot. And it was hard. But it was on both of us to keep us going."

Sometimes Aria, for all of her dreamy, happily-ever-after ideas and whatnot, she could surprise Callie with what she said. Noting the way her sister bit her lip, she knew there was another comment begging to come out, "So, what exactly are you saying?"

Aria slid the cardboard holding up the cake onto her hands, starting toward the door before throwing over her shoulder, "I'm saying it's not too late to change your flight and get back to Boston tonight."

Please let me know what you think! A huge thank you to everyone's responses thus far, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for reading!