Disclaimer: This is AU. I do not own any of the characters from Grey's Anatomy. I just manipulate them to my will. Also, any line or phrase or setting that seems remotely familiar from any other show, movie or book, also not mine. I borrow…

AN: Enjoy!


Chapter 52

Arizona hates labs. They're boring. And long. And… boring. At least, they are now. Last year's labs were a much different animal all together. That's because a certain smoldering TA was teaching her labs. The eye sex, the flirting, the hot storage room quickie when they couldn't wait any longer. Oh yeah, those hours spent in stale, dry air and harsh, fluorescent lighting were heaven. But now… now all Arizona gets is a backache from sitting on the lab stools for hours on end and the beginning pains of a headache.

She's only one hour into a three hour lab and already Arizona has drifted off. Her mind replaying a very pleasurable evening last night while her pencil etches the name of her love across the corner of her lab book.

Teddy, one of Arizona's three lab partners, notices how the blonde has gone into a world of her own.

She peeks over the woman's shoulder and see's the 'Callie' surrounded with little flowers and hearts and x's and o's.

"Ohhhh, my girlfriend is so hot." Teddy teases Arizona. "My girlfriend is so sexy. My girlfriend can make me orgasm just by wiggling her nose."

Arizona giggles and gives her friend a shove.

She peeks over her shoulder then leans in close to Teddy and whispers, "I came seven times last night."

From across their table both Mark and Jackson look up.

"Ok, that's just excessive." Teddy mumbles while Arizona continues to giggle and blush. "I mean, really, shouldn't the honeymoon phase be over already?"

"I can't help it if my girlfriend just happens to have the tongue of a god and fingers that perform miracles." Arizona purrs. A warmth spreads across her body just thinking about the previous night.

It was a good night. A very good night. Almost worth losing her girlfriend for a couple days. …Almost. But still, Callie is gone. Out of town on a four day long tour of a handful of internship programs vying for her. Or, at least, vying for the daughter of one Dr. Lucia Torres, female surgeon extraordinaire. Because Callie's talent, while being a stellar student and teacher in med school, is unknown, but the Torres name carries great weight in the medical field. So just as her sister did, an up and comer cardiothoracic surgeon currently fulfilling her residency at the Mayo Clinic, Callie is being shuttled around some of the top teaching hospitals in the country.

So now Arizona is left to herself for nearly a week. It's only been a day, not even 24 hours, and the blonde is already missing her girlfriend. And the excruciatingly boring lab she is currently trapped in isn't helping matters.

But, as it always does, time passes. Arizona goes through the day as she usually does. Class, lab, lunch with her friends, then more class and labs, and then, when the sun has gone down, she goes home to a cold, empty apartment. It's mid February, and the couple has just celebrated their second Valentine's together. The bouquet of flowers that were at Arizona's beside when she awoke that day are just beginning to wilt, and the heart shaped necklace they exchanged that night is cool against the blonde's flesh. It amazes Arizona at just how quiet it is without Callie, how empty and cold the apartment really is. Almost as if the apartment itself is in mourning for the absence of the magnificent woman who normally warms its interior.

Arizona tries to call Callie up but only gets her voicemail. So instead she buries herself in a mountain of homework. And reading. And highlighting. And even more reading. Before she knows it it's past eleven, and she calls it a night.

But once in bed her mind returns to Callie. It's always Callie.

And just as quickly, scenes from last night start to flash across her mind and that warmth returns. The way Callie touches her, kisses her. The way Callie just knows what Arizona wants. Like they are two halves of the same body.

Arizona's hands roam her body, playing the part of Callie's. They cup her chest, caress her stomach, and then slip beneath her shorts.

In a moment of playfulness, Arizona snaps a picture of herself, legs spread, hand buried beneath her bottoms, and she sends it to her girlfriend with the message, 'Thinking of you'.

As the days pass Arizona becomes bolder, and the photos grow hotter. The next morning Arizona poses in the bathroom mirror with a strategically placed towel. And then a shot of her ass wearing Callie's favorite pair of panties on her.

By the time Callie opens one picturing two fingers buried deep in a wet and hungry sex, topped with a small patch of blonde curls, Callie has gone crazy. Imagining her girlfriend back home, pleasuring herself, makes Callie's entire body ache. She finds it harder and harder to focus on what her possible to-be chiefs of surgery have to say. And when her phone buzzes again while at dinner, Callie nearly sends red wine spewing across the table when she's greeted with Arizona, on her knees, kneeling over Callie's go-to toy, liquid heat coating the toy's length and disappearing between slick lips.

"Callie?"

She jumps, and quickly tucks her phone beneath the table, face down.

"Uh- I'm sorry, what?" She asks, hoping the blush that has settled in her cheeks and neck isn't as bad as she thinks it is.

"Is everything alright?"

"Oh, yes. I uh-" She fans at her face. "It just got a little hot in here, that's all. You were saying?"

But it's more than just teasing going on between the two. It's a test. Because the days and months are passing quickly and before long Callie will be walking the stage and receiving her white coat. She'll receive her doctoral diploma; she'll shake hands with the university president; she'll smile for picture after picture; she and Arizona will celebrate Callie's achievement in a way only they can; and then she'll leave. And Arizona will stay.

If she were being honest, the thought terrifies Arizona. In the brief time she's spent on earth she has always believed that long distance relationships were doomed to fail. They just don't work. Her own parents couldn't take the stress and hard work a long distance relationship requires, and they have been her aspirational couple since she was old enough to understand what love was. But now she finds herself facing one head on and the enormity of what is at stake scares her.

But her subconscious mind doesn't let those fears bother it, because somewhere deep down she knows that they'll make it. Which is why Arizona sleeps soundly at night. It's only in the bright light of day, when her mind has control of her being, that she fears hers and Callie's future together. But at night, when her mind drifts off and her heart takes over, she sleeps like a baby.

Which is what Callie finds when she tiptoes into their apartment at two thirty in the morning.

The soft glow of a full moon cascades across blonde hair and a smooth, bare leg sticks out from beneath the duvet. Her deep, heavy breathing brings a calm to Callie she hasn't felt since she left. Just being in the same room with her girlfriend makes everything better.

Leaving her bag at the door, Callie slips out of her jeans and pulls off her shirt before crawling into bed behind the blonde. Normally Arizona is a very light sleeper but she doesn't seem to notice the mattress giving way beneath another body.

It's only when an arm wraps around her from behind and a pair of soft lips press against exposed flesh at her neck does Arizona stir. In those few seconds between awake and sleep, all is right. All is as it should be. But then she wakes further and remembers.

"Callie?" Arizona mumbles. Her voice is thick with sleep.

"Hey, sweetness." Callie whispers.

"What are you doing here?" The blonde asks, rolling to her back to look up at Callie. "You weren't supposed to get in until later this morning."

"I decided to bump my flight up a few hours." She leans in for a kiss and hum of delight slips from between her lips and floods into the blonde's. Fair fingers wind themselves in raven locks. "I missed you."

"I missed you more." Arizona says, the pad of her finger tracing the lines of Callie's features.

"You think so, huh?"

"Mmhmm." She hums against Callie's lips before kissing them again. "I do think so."

Turning in her girlfriend's arms, Arizona nestles against Callie as they settle into bed.

"So?" Arizona asks after a minute of quiet. "How was the trip? Do you need me to rub lotion on that chapped butt of yours? You know, from getting your ass kissed so much?" The blonde's head bobs up and down in time with Callie's laugh. "But really, how was it?"

"It was… interesting." Callie sighs. Her fingers run the length of Arizona's shoulder and trace invisible patterns against glowing flesh. "Five hospitals in four days; a lot of it has blurred together. But I met the Chief's, I saw the hospitals, I walked the cities… I guess I was kinda hoping to find something I didn't already know."

"So you've decided then." Arizona states, a weight sinking in the pit of her stomach.

She tips her head up to find Callie's illuminated portrait staring straight up at the ceiling. "You have, haven't you? It's Seattle." When she doesn't get a response, Arizona props up on an elbow and asks, "What's it like there?"

"It's beautiful. Always green, and the air smells so fresh. The hospital itself is so impressive. Top of the line surgeons, teachers- It wasn't even close." Brown eyes slowly track back to find her girlfriend's gaze. "But I don't have to-"

"Yes, you do." Her words are firm and yet still soft and caring. "You need to go where you'll be awesome. And… if that means being awesome in Seattle then you need to be in Seattle." She can still see Callie fighting. "Look, I don't like it either. But, like you said, it's only a year. And not even because you know I'll be visiting during my breaks. And we'll have holidays. And we can skype, talk on the phone. …Text." She says the last one with a low growl in her voice. "It'll be over before we know it."

"I thought Seattle wasn't on your list, though."

"It wasn't. But… it is now. Because it's on your list. I mean, I'll still be applying to a few other programs but… I like green. And tall buildings. And… rain. But most of all, I love you."

Callie's eyes narrow in the darkness as she tries to read Arizona's face. "So you'd… you're ok with Seattle? I mean, if you-"

"Of course, Calliope. Why wouldn't I follow you? I mean, it'd be a different story if you were going to, I don't know… San Diego or something."

"Right, because that's like a total party hospital." Callie jokes. "Keggers in the locker rooms. Running the halls naked. Swiping all the good meds and getting high in on call rooms."

Arizona just rolls her eyes.

"Look. You need to do what you want to. And if that means going to Seattle, then so be it. If it means going to Chicago, then so be it. If it means staying here in Boston and interning at your Mom's hospital, then so be it. Because I want you to be successful, Calliope. I want you to get the training you deserve. I want you to learn at the right hand of Ortho Gods… or whatever specialty you end up choosing. I want that for you."

"You're too good for me, you know that?" Callie whispers in awe.

The blonde shakes her head. "Well, it's not all about you. I'll be getting something out of it too when you discover the cure for bone cancer or… whatever. You'll need a date to all those celebratory, hot shot dinners."

Arizona smiles at the loud belt of laughter that rips from Callie's body.

"Speaking of dinners." Callie growls, pushing Arizona to her back and rolling partially atop her. "Do you know how difficult it is to act like you care about a new protein synthesis machine when I've just received one of you dirty little messages?" Arizona just smiles proudly beneath the teasing woman. "I'm pretty sure the Chief of Surgery at Chicago thinks I have ADD or something. I had to ask him to repeat himself like five times all the while dropping my silverware all over the place."

"So you liked those pictures, huh?" Arizona purrs while looping her arms up and around Callie's neck.

"Mmhmm. Very much." She kisses her girlfriend. "Almost as good as the real thing."

"You mean…" Arizona takes Callie's hand and guides it down her stomach, beneath the sheets, and between her legs. "…this?"

Brown eyes close as her palm cups Arizona's sex. "Christ."

"Did my pictures turn you on, Calliope?"

"Mmhmm." Callie groans when her girlfriend's hips rise up to grind against her hand. "I could get you out of my mind. Imagining you here, in our bed. Fingers soaked in your juices. Fucking yourself." Their embrace grows more and more heated with every passing word. "God. All I wanted to do was come home and feel you myself." Her fingers seep between moistening folds and tickle a slowly awakening clit.

"Did you touch yourself while thinking of me?" Arizona asks. Her gaze remains locked onto Callie's and even in the darkness she knows brown eyes have dilated from lust. "Show me, Calliope. Show me how."

A whimper ripples through the air as a single finger sinks into her heat. And then another.

The hours is forgotten and soon any thought of sleep disappears. Their hunger for each other returns with the ferocity of a forest fire. And in that heat all doubt is burnt away. Set aflame only to crumble into a pile of ash. Because they are going to make it. Just as sure as the sun will rise and time will pass, they are going to make it.


AN2: Ok peeps. Two chapter warning. Two more chapters and then this story is a wrap!