A/N - For clarification, the present of this story is taking place in 2018. Also, smut warning. I feel sinful.
I took inspiration from other places again, so all credits to the quotes and stuff, you know. If you recognize something, then it's probably not mine. Most noticeably, the ones I remember: "But this universe is the only one that matters." – History is All You Left Me, Adam Silvera. "You can't just sit there and put everyone's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love." – The Perks of Being A Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky. "No, it's not like any other love. This one is different because it's us." Hand in Glove, The Smiths
I NEVER KNEW
Hardcastle
"Lost out in sun, forgot who I was,
Maybe it's finally time to let go now."
AUGUST 20, 2018
Addiction is so unbelievably tricky.
At one point, Arizona was only smoking cigarettes at really, really, stressing times. Or when she knew she'd be in trouble, as she put it when she basically named the gaggle of girls, one by one, that she so ungracefully slept with before Callie.
And then Callie left for New York, and Arizona didn't know what else to love apart from cigarettes, sex, and Sofia. She would chug another pint of beer at Joe's, and the girl next to her would be too busy giggling to wonder how empty Arizona had to be in order to do it. She slept with girls without talking because she couldn't remember their names. They would part when Arizona snuck out after the other had passed out, and never to be thought of again.
She said she was moving on, but lonely places were everywhere. And each time she had thought of Callie, she wanted a cigarette.
Arizona shifts her position on the carpet beside her bed and closes the small blue box in her hands. Pulling herself up, she replaces it at the bottom of her dresser and ignores the anarchic little want that still yearns for that silver necklace.
She guesses, maybe, what she's trying to say is…she thinks she'll always be, and always was, in some kind of love with Callie. Maybe even before they met. And, well, now that she really is with Callie again, loving Callie is a much better addiction then cigarettes or sex or surgery.
Arizona rubs the nicotine patch on her arm absentmindedly and smiles to herself.
She loves Callie. She really does, she always will.
/
It's getting chillier in Seattle, into the second half of August, and Arizona had forced Sofia in a sweater before going to school (to Sofia's great disdain).
Her day was crap. The only thing keeping her from pulling her hair out was meeting Callie at Joe's at the end of the day.
The feeling Callie brings still comes back after all these years and makes her look forward to the end of her crappy days just to get to see Callie's smile all over again. And she lives for it. It's comfort. It's motivation. It's the push she often needs to try harder, smile bigger, and be better. Like she thought before, falling for Callie was—is—also falling for everything else. She loves her life even more when Callie's in it.
And she can just hope that Callie falls the same, in all the same places too.
Still doesn't change the fact that Arizona's day was really crap.
She found a hair in her morning coffee, and her legged squeaked for a good two hours before she found the time to go into an on-call room to fix it. And then the goddamn hit and run in the pit.
Curiously, whether because all the children were busy taking advantage of the last seconds of summer before school starting again, or because kids don't like to waste their youth growing up…Arizona had a true overload of kids coming in today. Even with Karev and the interns slaving away in her wing, they had two siblings die on their table. One's heart stopped, and the other, they didn't even get to rush past the ER. Her leg started aching half-way into the day and she almost resuscitated a six-year old too late because of that damn leg.
Walking into Joe's, her sour mood lifts the tiniest bit as she spots Callie, chatting away light-heartedly with the bartender. The thin-legged tables are all full, and Callie's taken place on a stool by the bar, and Arizona thanks the surgical schedule gods that apparently, she was the only one that had a rough day.
Callie looks absolutely great. Or maybe Arizona's biased. But Callie does look great, and knowing she'll be the one to help Callie out of her knee-high boots tonight makes her want to stuff an intern into a wall a bit less.
Squeezing over to Callie's side, she nods to Joe. "Hey." And turning to Callie, she pressed a quick kiss on her lips, "And hey."
Callie's bright smile at her is almost worth the crappy day. "Hey, I heart about your two kids. I'm sorry."
"It's fine," Arizona shrugs and plops down on the stool beside Callie, "It's just a crappy day." And it's true. There are so many crappy days. But what's crappy those days is the weather, the surgeries, the parents who yell at her…but not Callie. Callie is the good thing at the end of her crappy days.
And god, she'd wasted so many days without appreciating that.
Callie tilts her head to the side for a moment, and nods, as if just accepting something she was contemplating. "Okay."
"Okay?"
"You can go home tonight if you want. You had a hard day," Callie shrugs, "I can ring up Meredith or someone to come do shots."
Arizona stiffens and snaps back, "You don't know what kind of day I had." She regrets it right away when Callie flinches barely noticeably. Arizona can't help the bitterness of her day that seeps into her words. She'd once promised herself that she wouldn't take out her anger for the world on Callie ever again, some days after Callie had walked out of therapy; some days after it was too late.
Callie smiles softly and hops down from her stool. "You had that tight face on. You always have that tightly wound-up expression when you have a bad day and you're annoyed at everything."
Arizona grits her teeth. She doesn't know why she is so annoyed at Callie knowing her so well. At Callie caring too hard.
"Really, Arizona. You can go home if you want to," Callie says, stepping in front of Arizona's stool facing her way, in between Arizona's legs.
Arizona scoffs roughly and her eyes flash against the gentle look Callie was giving her. Her hand flies to the back of Callie's neck and pulls her down, slamming her lips against her's. Her anger at the whole damn world almost bruises Callie's lips. Arizona's hands are the metal linings of a cage, around Callie's neck and Callie's waist, trapping her in, to let Arizona lose focus on the rest of everything for a moment. Even if only for a moment. She's so mad at everything that's always too hard, and she's shoving that down into Callie's lungs with thrusts of her tongue, even if she knows she isn't supposed to. She only knows Callie makes her feel better. And she knows she gets to kiss Callie now. So that's what Arizona did.
But Callie is pushing back.
Callie's hands are barley resting on Arizona's forearms, neither pulling her in or pushing her away, and Callie is turning the kiss soft. She kisses back without Arizona's force, and she's taking everything Arizona was shoving down her throat and pushing it back with air. Like the way Arizona noticed Callie looking so sad almost a decade ago at Joe's. Like the way Callie's presence was never less than so very important to Arizona. And only then does Arizona realise she is being touched again, not just being angry without end. Not just trying to heal her pain and anger for everything else with hearts she'd screwed for one night. Callie is pushing all the life right back into Arizona; light, gentle, pink-looking life.
When Callie pulls back, still hovering with her lips only so close to her, Arizona finally breathes. She's finally feeling too much in a good way.
"I-" Arizona clears her throat weakly and closes her eyes, chuckling softly. "I'm sorry."
Callie takes a light breath and closes her eyes too. Her hands come up to rest on Arizona's face. "It's okay."
"No, Calliope," Arizona says, nudging Callie's shoulders away a little to look her in the eye. "It's not okay. It really isn't. You can't let yourself just sit there and take everyone else's pain and think it's okay. You can't just sit there and put everyone's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love." She smiles a little when Callie nods faintly and looks down. "No, look at me, Calliope."
Callie raises her head and holds Arizona gaze, albeit a little shakily. Arizona purses her lips, she doesn't want Callie to feel ashamed of it, god, of course not. She couldn't be more grateful that Callie had put her life before her's when she did, or Arizona probably wouldn't even be here today.
A clanging of glass bottles behind the bar counter brings Arizona back to Callie's shaky gaze. "Just…I want us to work, okay? I really, really do. I don't care which time it is, I don't care how many times we've broken up already, but I know we can work."
"Me too, Arizona."
"So, promise me that you'll stand up for yourself, just like you did when you walked away. The way you did when you wanted to go to New York to chase after your own happiness." When Callie looks down again uncomfortably, Arizona immediately tilts her chin back up. "Hey—I get it. Please don't look away. I just want you to know that you shouldn't stop chasing after your own happiness because it's me, Callie. No one should be considered your world, no one, except for yourself."
Callie bites the inside of her cheek and chuckles. "I feel like I'm fifteen again."
Arizona rolls her eyes, "You just ruined the moment."
Callie laughs quietly and stands up straight again, holding out her hand, "Let's go home. It doesn't feel like a night out for shots anyway. We can um," Callie waves her hand, "talk about this more somewhere else."
"Yup, you're right. Let's go."
Pushing open the bar door, the bells jingle merrily like they always do, and the cool night air welcomes them into itself.
"Callie?"
"Mhm?"
"Which home were you talking about?" Arizona scolds herself internally and says, "Sorry, I meant, like, my house or your house?"
"Errr," Callie hesitates, "Not really my place to ask, but did you fuck, like, really a lot of girls on your couch? Because if that's the case, I'd rather we go back to mine."
"Okay, first, totally your place to ask. Second, no. I'm not particularly as proud as I used to be about it, but I never took them back to my place. It was a hotel or their place."
"Alriiight. Um, your place then."
/
Talking is so hard.
Talking about themselves is so hard, and Callie keeps opening her mouth and trying to reel the words back in just as they were about to come out, wanting them to sound casual enough to say, but serious enough to stay. Arizona and her were never good at talking about things.
But now, they're talking about things.
Callie wants to interrupt Arizona and say her own stuff, but she knows she can't. She doesn't know when the burning desire to make herself heard had stopped being so emergent. She doesn't know when the years had rubbed off so much of her edge.
Finally, Callie huffs, "Don't scold me like I'm a child, Arizona. I get what you're saying."
Arizona raises her eyebrows, stopping her pacing and leaning into the back of the couch. "Please don't interrupt me."
"I- urgh." Callie rubs her eyes and looks down at her feet, then back up again, at Arizona crossing her arms and fixing her with that challenging look. She was always annoyed when Arizona fixed her with that challenging look, like they were against each other in this argument. They weren't; it's supposed to be the two of them against the problem. "I don't know. Um," she pauses again and blinks, gathering her courage. She doesn't know why she can easily get angry and spurt out things but she can't get enough nerve to voice the things that hurt her the most. Maybe her anger was hurt. Or whatever. "Since we're talking…I-I just wanted to know if you're, um, sorry for…cheating. And leaving. And…stuff." Callie clears her throat uncomfortably and fixes her eyes on the corner of the television.
"Sorry?" Callie can't see Arizona's face, but she can see the bewildered annoyance in her voice. "Sorry? Of course I'm sorry! How can you—"
"You just never made it seem like you were sorry for anything you'd done. You told me I wasn't in the plane crash and that I hadn't lost anything." Callie breathes in, breathes out. Better to just ramble it all out. Her voice grows smaller and smaller, until she was just speaking at the television instead of Arizona. "You…you just kind of, a little, very slightly, made me feel like I deserved it. Like I should have known it was supposed to happen. Erm, kind of…like the way you made me feel like I'm so easy to walk away from all over again when you left for Africa. Like…it was okay that George cheated on me, and Erica was normal for wanting to walking away."
"Calliope…"
"No, yeah, I know I still hold on to these things maybe a little too much, but I mean…it does bother me."
"Callie…" Arizona's voice draws her back in towards Arizona's face. "I'm sorry. I really am. You lost so much. We both did. It was horrible. We were in a fucking plane crash, Callie."
Callie's always hated the way her voice feels when it cracks just before she cries. Her throat aches and she knows she was going to cry. Because that was what always happened when she talks about Arizona and her.
Arizona was sorry for cheating. She'd finally heard those words.
"I-" Callie chuckles through a tear that dropped past the corner of her mouth. "Yeah."
"And…since we're going say it all…"
"Mhm?"
Arizona clicks her tongue. "You still talk about George and Erica. They were so long ago and you still talk about them."
When Arizona was only met with a teary and confused look, she continues, "You're great, Callie. You're not like me. You don't screw people for fun. You fall easy, you fall fast, and you fall hard. And you had so much love to give. I…" Arizona shrugs weakly, "I'm not the same. I met you, and I knew you were something different. But you, you fall in love everyday, with everything, and I love that about you."
Callie nods, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand, and Arizona can't help but smile at the gesture. Callie still gives off a feeling not unlike their six-year-old daughter so often.
"What I mean is, I think, I'm scared." Arizona bobs her head to herself, as if encouraging herself to keep going. "I'm scared that maybe you'll fall for someone new someday and leave me. Because anyone can see just how worth everything you are, and I'm still surprised I didn't have to fight off more people to get to you. I know that better people could-" Arizona stuffs the word 'love' back down her throat "-be with you, Callie, but I'll try harder than anyone else."
"No," Callie says firmly. Arizona blinks and Callie continues quickly, "I'll choose you, Arizona, you don't have to kill your self trying so hard. And I don't know how to explain this, because you're right. I fall so easy."
"Mhm."
"But it's like…a gut feeling. I don't know," Callie mumbles, looking away suddenly shyly. "Yeah. No. I had, have, a feeling with you too. I get the…special thing you get, I guess, I do too. I don't know, we weren't like any of my other loves. This love was different because it's us." She scratches the nape of her neck and wipes away the last of her tears. "If that makes any sense."
Arizona swallows and motions for Callie to come closer, pulling her in when she comes close enough. Both of them leaning against the back of the couch, because Arizona could never stand watching Callie cry.
/
Arizona mumbles muffled words into Callie's hair and closes her eyes. She wishes silently that Callie would cry far less in the following years. There are still things they haven't figured out, but they'll make it. They always do.
To think there were so many times Callie had cried and she wasn't there to hold her like this, it makes a little sad. Not so much jealous or guilty, just a little sad. Because she wants to be there for Callie, and she wants to see Callie being wildly happy most of all.
And its still weird that someone else has done everything Callie once did with her with Callie. maybe they even did things her and Callie never got around to doing, like having a crappy television marathon or going on a train ride together. Maybe Penny got to do some of those with Callie.
Arizona can't help but wonder if Callie laughs the same with someone new, if she's stubborn the same, if she brushes her teeth the same. If she loves the same.
Is there a different Callie for every person Callie's been with?
If so, Arizona absolutely wants to get to know those Callie's too. She just wants to know every different kind of Callie that exists. Because she's fairly positive that she can fall in love with all that is Callie. She just still finds Callie that great.
Absentmindedly, Arizona pressed a kiss on the tip of Callie's nose out of nowhere. She wonders if Penny or George or whoever else had ever felt the inexplicable urge to do that too. If any of their private memories have been unknowingly invaded by a new someone.
Like the small crescent shaped scar on the inside of Callie's right forearm. Arizona always kissed it when they had sex. The scar came on their fifth date, when Callie insisted to cook for her and then, in a (to Arizona, hilarious) attempt to look cool tending to the stove, proceeded to burn herself. Arizona wonders if Callie has told that story to Penny. If Penny knew that the scar she saw, Arizona had been there when its story had came. Or did they have an unspoken rule that that all that is Arizona was taboo?
Arizona can't decide which one makes her want to smoke more the most—Callie wanting to keep their stories to herself or Callie wanting to share their stories with someone new.
Arizona feels Callie sniffle against her neck, and then smiling slightly into the skin. Arizona smiles too, mirroring the one Callie probably has.
It makes Arizona feel better when she knows that she will still want to press a kiss to that tiny scar the next time she's on top of Callie. That Callie and her both still carry their history.
Whether they tell it to strangers or daydream about it before they fall asleep, this was their history, and no one can disturb that. Their history will remain their history no matter what more crap happens, even if history was all that Callie left her at one point.
Now, they can make history again. And again, still, it will be their exclusive history.
"It's okay now, Callie. We're okay now."
"We are." Callie sniffles and rests her forehead on Arizona's neck, revelling in the feeling of Arizona comforting her again, finally, instead of the other way around. "God, we finally are."
Who knew just reaching a point where everything is okay could be so hard?
Arizona didn't expect any of this when she walked into Joe's on a night so long ago. She never knew how to cope with all this future and all this past. But all her plans and ambitions so many years ago and all her forgiving and hope these many years later are all worth it. It really is worth it to hurt and patch up her own scars if only for another time with this one person. With Callie.
Even if they do this all again, it would be worth it for Arizona. Only if it's with Callie. Their love takes practice, she thinks. Loving Callie will take practice too. Good thing that they still have the rest of their lives.
Good thing that Callie walked away when she did, and good thing that their paths knew to cross again. Good thing that ordinary things are so often so great and good thing that they are both happy existing in this moment.
"Are you really not mad at all that I walked away that day?"
Arizona shakes her head and stills her fingers passing through Callie's hair. "I'm not mad. I'm proud that you walked away when you did. Especially after the night we had right before. God, I'm so proud of you."
Callie stays silent of a moment. And then Arizona hears her sniffle and again and whisper a quiet "Thank you."
/
OCTOBER 22, 2014
"What if she makes us start again?"
Callie let herself be pushed away a little and forced herself to look through her lust and haze to Arizona's eyes.
"What if we don't tell her?"
Arizona quirked an eyebrow and smirked despite herself, mumbling a playful "Oh" before her hands crawled around Callie's hips. That was the last thing that was close to light-hearted that night.
Lowering herself down, Callie kissed her again with a desperateness that has been foreign to her for months now. Callie's kisses were always soft and all-consuming, but that night, they were even more. Black holes sucking them into whatever it is left of their history, barrelling into the unknown next step. Because if Arizona was honest with herself, she knew that it wasn't right.
Even if she wouldn't tell the therapist, Callie usually couldn't be one to randomly push her down on the bed and demand sex. Maybe in the exception of when she was pregnant with hormones leaking through her pores, but even then, Callie was gentle in all her ways, and most times, yielding and less yearning for the assertive.
So, Callie's lips tracing a suspiciously guilty path down her neck was most definitely not something Arizona planted in her little book of 'things that are right'. But she tightened her hold on Callie's hips and shut any thought that what this might mean. At least for her, this was a rebirth. Painful, doubtful, into the undetermined history of the yet to be written, and not at all what Callie might have been thinking too.
And she was still reeling from the heat that haven't grown so quickly between them for so long. For too long. And she thought that there would be nothing worse, to not be able to slide her hands up the familiar curve of Callie's waist and hold her tight against her. To not be able to feel Callie inching down her body again.
To know this homeliness and awareness with anyone else than Callie. She wouldn't want it if it isn't with her Calliope.
Other people were just people.
But Callie was Callie.
Arizona gruffly groaned as Callie tugs her underwear down to her knees. She has no idea why or where this thing was going, but she guessed that she would've let Callie lead her there. This blind trust came at the worst times. This was a bad idea, but Arizona liked bad ideas with dark hair and dark eyes and a tame, deadly smile.
Propping herself up with her elbows, she gazed down at Callie. Although sensing the seamless desire straying from Arizona, Callie looked up too. And then the desire became heavy and obscene, lecherously tainting their eyes, still holding their contact. Callie looked away first, but not with the shyly rosy charm she had once did. She looked away, down at Arizona's wet center, swallowing and descending to swipe her tongue down and along.
Arizona's fingers wove themselves forcefully into Callie's hair, pulling her head up again. There were no rosy cheeks blushing with the things they are doing this time, not for while now, and Arizona found herself thinking about how Callie used to be. Somehow, when they had got together, Callie had still that young innocence of a tender woman even with every heartache slammed onto her, and Arizona revelled in every single second of her flushing face in the hours of watching Callie throw her head back and whimper and call out her name.
The blackness of the room had only let Arizona see the dull sparkle in the eyes looking up at her, and she couldn't for the life of her, decide what they might have meant. Or how they could have been hurt so badly by just another sack of blood and bones.
"Let me…" Callie whispered.
Arizona regarded her one last time before pushing her head down, one hand's fingers still tangled in, holding her in place. She only gripped tighter when Callie moaned silently at the abrupt forcefulness. Air wasn't anything relevant as she pressed Callie into her harder and groaned. The incessant soft and wet tongue swallowed Arizona into itself and her center ached with every move.
Arizona persisted on watching Callie's dark hair buried in her, propped up on an elbow, as she held on to her hair as hard as she fancied. And it bothered her to no end that she couldn't feel the shape of Callie's body, but her ability to coherently form that thought was ripped away as her hand tightened unconsciously and pushed Callie further into her. She pulled in a loud, shuddering breath and threw her head back, her toes digging into the sheets next to Callie. She felt like she was drowning.
Now they were running around in the dark, thinking that the darkness could hide what they were doing.
It's been too long since they've had any wild desire run rampant, with the one time they'd finally to fall into bed together to be careful and strange and nervous. For Arizona, the fear of bothering Callie further with the memories of her infidelity, and for Callie, not really knowing what Arizona had become comfortable with.
This wasn't any of those things, and Arizona had no fucking idea what it means. But oh, Callie had just peeked up from between her thighs and grazed her teeth over her clit and licked her lips, and Arizona grunted loudly and shattered under Callie's gaze. Tightening, arching, and then falling down.
She'd thought they'd stay around for longer than 'long'. She'd thought they'd stay young forever.
This love that they'd wasted, Arizona was praying it could be reeled back in, just for the two of them, again.
/
Callie squirmed, her hips digging down into the sheets. Panting heavily, she moaned softly to herself as she grinded onto the bed underneath.
And then out of no where, the hand in her hair was tugging her up again, up Arizona's body, to come face to face, and to be where Callie dreaded being. She rolled off of Arizona with an undistinguishable noise and stared at the darkness above. Under the cover of the dark room, she thanked the gods she couldn't see clearly enough to recognize all the bits and pieces she knew would hurt too much. She was still throbbing, drenched, but she kept staring at the ceiling.
The last day of their separation was tomorrow, but Callie had walked up to Arizona knowing there probably won't be a tomorrow.
Not for them. Not anymore. No more mornings where Arizona's woke her with poorly scrambled eggs and no more evenings with Callie loading the dishwasher grumbling but doing it anyways.
It seemed like it was only yesterday that they were having the time of their lives.
Callie couldn't save Arizona, and she'd been wrong thinking she could have. Maybe she still wanted to save the world a little, but it was okay if the only person she was saving was herself.
And then out of nowhere, she wasn't staring at the ceiling anymore, but instead at Arizona, hovering above her, holding her down, although she knew that Callie wanted to turn away. The hand on her forearm was pinning her down and the eyes she once knew so well were searching, even if Callie knew they'd find nothing. She didn't have the answers about them, or anything else, this time around.
Arizona looked down at her. If Callie let herself look up to Arizona's face again, she would probably do something even dumber than coming in and demanding sex.
"Calliope."
Callie slowly raised her eyes at the rasp of Arizona's voice. She couldn't remember when her had lost faith in them and she couldn't remember when it became so hard just to be together.
"Does this mean something?"
Callie blinked slowly. She was still burning, feeling like she was turned inside out under Arizona's eyes and her own wet haze. "I don't know." I can't carry on like everything's fine.
Arizona slid a hand downwards, tickling the skin where her shirt had ridden up. "We were doing fine. We could still do fine." We were the greatest, me and you.
And I don't regret anything from you and me. Everything I did, you know I'll always mean. "I know," Callie mumbles.
Arizona's hand slid down further, cupping the drenched cloth. Her hot breath washed away Callie's crumpled thoughts. For a second, all the problems in the world were only the clothes separating her from Arizona. "What do you want?" Don't let me let you go.
With a soft little whimpering groan, Callie answered by offering up her mouth, reaching for Arizona.
Arizona licked her lips and seemed to understand Callie. She seemed to understand that this night was an interlude from themselves. Fucking like nothing mattered. "Okay."
Then this one is for you and me.
And they were all teeth and tongues and bruising force, tumbling back into something that was something like themselves, but not quite. Her skin was crumbling apart under Arizona's touches that were falling and falling and falling down onto her. Her mouth was waiting to be claimed by Arizona, like the way her taste was already dripping over her tongue.
Callie thought it felt like standing outside of her own life. Catching the primitive spark in Arizona, she was sure she might end up screaming up that night. And Callie wondered if Arizona knew, as she ripped off her pants and underwear, leaving her bare and wet, that everything Callie's done in the past months were just other ways of screaming out Arizona's name.
That every time Arizona kissed her, she couldn't feel herself.
/
Arizona knew that there was something was different, but she didn't know what it was. And then all thoughts of that flew out of her head when Callie's whimper was offered along with her mouth, like she didn't care about all that's horrible that's happened to them anymore.
She slid a hand up Callie's shirt and rasps in her ear, where their cheeks are pressed against each other. "Off."
And as soon as Callie threw it off, Arizona was back on top of her, pressing their nakedness together. A hot sigh from Arizona's lips made Callie shiver. Arizona looked down at her for a moment, with her sigh of greediness, wanting to take whatever Callie would let her have that night, and then rammed her lips onto Callie's all over again. She didn't know what would happen on their final therapy session yet, but she had already grasped the idea of finality, or rather for her, peculiarity.
Teeth against tongue, tongue against lips, and Arizona growled when her fingers reached where Callie was dripping since some time. To hell with any teasing, she thrusted two fingers sharply inside. And Callie's small surprised gasp that caught in her throat almost stripped her of all her restraint.
Instead, she curled her fingers painstakingly slowly, and she tore her mouth away from the kiss, sinking her teeth into whatever slick flesh that was under her. Like she wanted the world to know that at least in this moment, Callie was so completely hers. And Callie's hands gripped onto her back. It was Callie's own way of marking, as Arizona pulled her fingers out gently, and then entered her again with shivering force, forcing a small moan out from the woman beneath her.
But one small moan wasn't enough for Arizona. She was on top of Callie, and that was as great as being on top of the world.
Arizona needed to hear Callie—to really hear her.
In more long, slow, moves, she pounds into Callie, each thrust untying the grit in Callie's teeth more and more. Each thrust pushing out a louder moan, a needier whimper. She still had no idea what Callie wanted from that night, but by all means, if it still led to her moist breaths smothered against Arizona's neck, she was going to give it. Even if she didn't know what to give, she was going to try to hell to give it.
She still found the spot that made Callie press harder into her neck to muffle her moan, but it took longer than it used to take. Each thrust was Arizona finding another way of whispering 'go back to what you used to love about me', and each moan from Callie was another mystery.
And then Arizona raised her head and saw Callie biting her lip and clinging onto her like she was the only thing keeping her in this universe, Arizona's own slickness still covering her chin. So she shoved a third finger into her, and threw away the slow pace. Callie's writhing looked like a dance with the devil and the sweat beading on her neck was dripping gasoline.
Nothing was as it used to be, but Arizona had just roughly pressed Callie's clit and made her give a strangled whimper and arch into her. And she did it again, making Callie tighten and give a moan filthy enough to shatter the undercover darkness that belonged to this room.
Still running her own race but ignoring it, Arizona held Callie's shaking body tightly into her. She held her like she thought this was going to be her last night alive.
She felt Callie's fingers scratch a little on her back again.
Pulling her fingers out, Arizona licked her lips at the sight of Callie sprawled out, completely at mercy, and squirming when she was left suddenly empty. Unable to stop herself, Arizona bent down and blew over her taunt nipples, straining against Callie's skin and begging to be noticed. As always, Callie was soft and warm and inviting, and she wriggled under Arizona's hot mouth closing in on her chest, giving her a small whimper. Arizona's mouth was gentle. But nothing else about this was.
Arizona peered up at her through her eyelashes, and let her other hand roughly twitch a nipple as she saw Callie stiffening again. And she'd thought she'd died and gone to somewhere where perfection was possible, as she watched Callie react, still so sensitive, giving Arizona exactly what she was aiming for without her knowing.
Callie was her fucking medicine, the only thing she woke up and looked forward too.
/
Callie somehow knew that she would combust, turn into dust or be exploded into a million atoms. Her eyes were shut so tight she was seeing specks of stars. And if tomorrow, they'd lose it all, well, at least they had it for a moment.
Arizona roughly twitched a nipple and Callie felt herself arching off the bed all over again. She couldn't think, couldn't breathe, she was so rightfully stuck in this present. She felt the hot rush of her high between her legs, and she was nothing but sweat and mess.
Indistinctly, she noted that Arizona shifted off of her and curled up around her back, holding Callie in her arms, and Callie had to wait a few seconds to find her voice.
Because she didn't think she could be here in Arizona's arms.
If Callie let herself stay in this familiar warmth, she would never have the balls to get up and walk away. For herself. If she let herself stay in this familiar warmth, she knew that she would want to stay there forevermore. She couldn't just let herself make a home out of this again. She couldn't let herself lay there and bleed for everyone else. She felt as though she was still the lost little girl her father felt the need to protect because she didn't know when to stop giving, and she hated feeling clueless and weak and unhelpful.
So she stiffened and tried to shift further away from Arizona's secure arms. But Arizona just tightened her hold and pulled Callie closer, pressing them together. Callie's body was still aloof from orgasms. Clearing her throat weakly, she tried to get her voice to regroup steadily enough to form words.
"Arizona…"
Arizona grunted and passed her hand over Callie's waist. "Shh."
Before Callie could've opened her mouth again, Arizona's hand traveled further down and circled her navel. Arizona's leg slipped in between her own, pressing into her, and fuck, Callie couldn't believe she still had such a hold over all her rational thoughts. She wished she had left her heart at the door of Arizona's bedroom, and came in only a shell of herself. To not have felt this much every single second.
"No more…" Callie whimpered, "Arizona…" Even as she gave her low protest, she grinded into Arizona's leg.
"Hmm?"
Arizona's hum vibrated gently against her skin and Callie barely audibly whimpered, "I can't…"
Another questioning hum bled into the back of her neck and Callie had to bite back a moan. Still in that damn low and raspy voice, Arizona hummed into Callie's ear, "What do you want, Calliope?"
Callie's head was spinning from too many things all at once, and for split second, she couldn't even fathom why she was here in the first place. Maybe it was selfish. Maybe it was an incredibly ill-intended last night together, as a one-way goodbye, maybe it was a lot of things, maybe it was nothing. Having this halfway was a little worse than not having it at all.
/
Arizona mumbled another series of something unintelligible into the soft skin behind Callie's ear, planting kisses all over the nape of her neck, like she was kissing away every weight that had ever rested upon Callie's back.
She was kissing her for all the times she hadn't. She was kissing her for all the nights Callie had to spend in her dead best friend's apartment when she wouldn't let her into their own bed. She was kissing her for the mornings they hadn't woken up next to each other. She was kissing her for the days she wouldn't see on the bright side, so Callie had sat with her in the dark. She was kissing her for the future they'd had once planned together, the future that only Callie could complete. She was kissing Callie for all the times she wished she had, and all times she wished they still had.
She was on such a high, being able to have all of Callie again. Callie was her fucking medicine. The only thing she woke up and looked forward to.
Callie trembled and moaned when Arizona's hands found their way to her chest again, "Fuck."
Arizona's mouth twitched upwards against Callie's neck and she whispered, "Okay."
/
It mattered how they end. She wanted more than just dissipating into nothingness for them. They've come such a long way together, but they were going to have to part ways still. It's fucked, that's what it was.
But whatever should happen, they wouldn't forget each other, right?
Callie sucked in a loud breath as Arizona's leg pushed up harder into her crotch. She would just have to believe that, whatever should happen, would happen, and it wouldn't be the end of the world. She would have to believe that somewhere down the road, they could meet again, grown and different and understanding, and be able to smile politely at each other and laugh about how they broke each other's heart so long ago. She wouldn't ask for forgiveness, because she knew Arizona would probably be, if not hate, then really pissed at her. She wouldn't expect Arizona to understand of course it wasn't easy at all, giving up her heart. Until then, Callie would wish the best for Arizona. And wish Arizona could find her own happiness somewhere good, somewhere great.
She hoped there would be days Arizona would fall in love with being alive again.
Because Callie was exhausted. Because she didn't know who would come save her if she continued trying her damndest to save everyone else. She didn't know why she called it love.
Arizona kissed her neck with so much care, and even if she was saying nothing, it felt like the gentleness that they lacked so much since the plane crash. Callie thought she was falling apart under the darkness, in Arizona's arms, and she stared at the spot of the wall facing her and wondered if falling apart in darkness dark enough made a sound.
But Arizona was holding her tight, and it was tight enough to keep her from crumbling down.
Arizona had her tongue against her neck. And then Callie thought, fuck that, because she was sure she'd always carry Arizona with her anyway. She wanted to feel the ache of Arizona taking her, she wanted the high of Arizona filling her. So, Callie bit down on her lip and surrendered herself, craning her head back and arching into Arizona. It was selfish, it was useless, but fuck that.
They had been separate worlds for so long then, stepping along life out of synch, flipping the pages to their story but never landing on the same one. But Arizona bit down on her neck, marking her territory, infinitely marking Callie as her's on that one night, that no matter whatever comes next, she had Callie arching into her into the high of the night. Their separate worlds were crashing together at last, too late, and Arizona's hand teased its way slowly down Callie's waist.
/
OCTOBER 23, 2014
Arizona had watched Callie walking away from the office and she smiled apologetically at the therapist before excusing herself.
The whole way back to the parking lot, all Arizona could think of was Callie's crying face when Arizona told her that she couldn't live without her, that she loved her. Callie's crying face when she said she wanted both of them to feel free. That she wanted so much more for her, for the both of them…so much more than this. And Callie wasn't screaming or yelling or sobbing in her heartbreaking way. The silence was more definitive than Callie's words. The silence spelled out their end so clearly.
Callie crying, crying, crying, as she walked away.
Standing in front of her car, Arizona dug her nails into her palm and almost chuckled at how Callie was the one to walk away this time. That was how bad Arizona had fucked this up; Callie was walking away first.
The bed back at the house felt too big, and she got up at eleven, falling asleep on the sofa bed in the guest room.
/
OCTOBER 25, 2014
Surgeons can't save every patient, Arizona! The police kill good people and can't catch all the bad ones, and breakfast bars don't open in the evenings. And even I can't love you forever if all it does is make me feel like shit, don't you get that?
Callie had shouted that at her after a particularly vicious lash out two months after the amputation. Callie had apologised nervously in the evening, and had said that she'd promised she would love her forever, and she would wait, because the amputation was indeed her fault. That was what Callie said. And Arizona hadn't given it another thought until she learnt that it was Karev that cut off her leg.
But Callie was right, and Arizona thought she knew. But she never knew it would be this easy to lose everything they'd once had. Maybe there were really parallel universes somewhere where all this never happened.
She really hoped so.
/
OCTOBER 26, 2014
Arizona brushed her shoes against the pavement and craned her head to look at the sky. Sofia was with Callie today and she has no idea how her life piled up to this point in time. She returned from the hospital at six to find that Callie had already came over and cleaned up her stuff on her day off. She didn't know how she could see herself loving anyone else for the rest of her life. She ran to the bathroom a few seconds after she looked half the closet stripped bare, and brought her meager lunch back up again.
Arizona had lost her footing from the ground, and she was floating around in space, an abandoned satellite without ground control, nowhere, no one, calling her to come home.
The night was clear and the wind was soft. Does anyone remember all the countless nights where she told Callie she loved her?
And Arizona never thought that she would stand here one day, knowing that she let Callie walk away. That all she did was let her walk away.
/
OCTOBER 28, 2014
Arizona had spent another night wide awake, imagining what it could have been like. What if the plane didn't crash? What if Lauren Boswell never got called? What if Callie had said something a second later, and had let Arizona finish one of her sentences?
Even in all her hopeful what if's, Callie and her were still together. And they were more than history.
But with all her useless alternate and parallel universes, this universe is the only one that matters. And in this universe, Callie and her had came to a stop. In this universe, she saw Callie laughing at the nurses' station like she was completely okay. In this universe, Callie had glanced to her left and saw her, and stopped laughing, and looked away, but in this universe, Callie looked at her once but didn't look twice. Callie still looked like Callie, but Arizona felt like a ghost.
In this universe, it seemed like the whole world was laughing and happy, and she was alone in an infinite place of nothingness. So. Much. Fucking. Nothingness.
/
OCTOBER 30, 2014
After the plane crash, during the first few months, Arizona had itched for her packet of Marlboros. She didn't use to like smoking, she hated it, in fact. But after she went back to work, she always wanted to smoke. Callie stopped her every time her found her smoking on the roof. It didn't get very bad.
It's not that she couldn't live without Callie. It's not that she desperately wanted for Callie to come back. But Arizona was watching American Bake-Off again and she didn't know why she kept watching that crappy show. She laughed and she glanced to see if Callie had laughed too.
And she only realised after she turned around that Callie wasn't here anymore.
On this cold fall day, Arizona smoked on a street corner, next to a newspaper stand. She smoked for no reason at all. She smoked for the hell of it.
/
NOVEMBER 4, 2014
When Arizona found Callie forgot her soap in the shower, it just about wrecked her. She cursed loudly at the wall and flung it out the window.
Callie used to be hers.
They used to be so happy.
They loved each other so much.
But she sat down and stared at the same wall, and she knew that she once had her at a point where Callie would've left the world for her. She knew that they had loved each other to death, and she also knew that she was so damn wrecked that Callie didn't love her the same way anymore.
Arizona was being torn apart from the chest out, and it hurt to exist.
What the fuck happened?
/
AUGUST 20, 2018
There are alternative universes in this universe too, Arizona thinks.
They'd moved to sit on the couch, and Callie had fallen asleep just a few seconds ago, curled into her side. Arizona's left arm is going all tingly, but no way is she going to move it. Instead, she wraps it around Callie's shoulders tighter, resting it on the gentle black hair that's spread onto her shoulder, and pulls the blanket covering them up snugger around them.
This is peace and contentment. This is new.
Arizona can smell her soap in Callie's hair and she knows her bottle of bodywash was almost empty after Callie had used it in the shower just an hour ago. Arizona can drink her coffee with her free hand and clumsily stroke Callie's hair with the other. The clock on the coffee table ticks with all the passing seconds and Arizona can hear it over Callie soft, stuttering, snores.
The clock is still ticking, and Arizona's hand is still stroking. Watching time pass and happen with Callie in her arms is a new definition of happiness Arizona's only now found again.
Maybe that counted as their first fight back together. If so, then that was much better than any of the other fights they'd had. This is what's supposed to happen; the progress.
Still following her train of thought, Arizona nudges Callie. "Calliope?"
Callie's nose twitches and Arizona smiles.
"Callie, wake up for a second."
Callie's turns her head further into Arizona's shirt, pretending she couldn't hear anything. Rolling her eyes, Arizona stretches to place her coffee on the small table and reaches down to pinch Callie on the side.
A small, surprised noise comes out of Callie, who lifts her head groggily to glare at Arizona through only half-opened eyes. "What?"
"We should make a promise that we can never go to sleep angry. If we fight, we make up before going to bed. Or we take a pause. But we don't go to sleep angry."
Callie grumbles something unintelligible into Arizona's shirt, nodding with her eyes closed. Before Arizona could ask her what the hell she meant, Callie lazily raised her hand, sticking her pinky out and waves it in front of Arizona's face.
Chuckling, Arizona hooks it with her own and shakes their hands together. "To not going to sleep angry again." She chuckles again when she feels Callie smiling into her shirt, nodding slightly and giving a gruntled little noise. She wonders if she can remember this moment exactly as it is another ten years from now. If she can look back and remember all the moments that made her as happy as she is feeling now.
Other people are not medicine, but god, Callie can make her happy so quickly. And Arizona has learnt to give herself things to look forward to that are not people, but god, she loves her life so much with Callie in it.
Because she really does think there are alternated universes in this one too.
There are versions of themselves that only half-way belong in this dirty world.
Like the day after Arizona told Callie she loved her on their first time around, the went out for brunch in one of those rickety restaurants with waiters on roller skates. Of course, Arizona absolutely adored it. And Callie would have never in a million years admit that she had purposely looked for a restaurant with roller skates just to cheer Arizona up after little Wallace.
They had cracked up at one point when Arizona retold the story of Cristina making scary bear noises, terrifying little kids, in an effort to impress Arizona on a peds rotation.
So, surely, in someone's memory, (maybe one of the older pairs that were sitting a table away), they will always be remembered as the happy couple who laughed too hard. The happy couple where milk flew out of the blonde one's nostril after a particular loud snort.
They are surely infinitely happy in someone else's memory, and that itself is a forever of its own. They will never know, but they surely do own one. Surely.
"I won't look back, there's gotta be more to life than that.
...
All of the people and the places I almost missed,
I'll start to move on from this."