Pre-11x03.

"Callie," Dr. Dawson, the therapist, prompted, "Why don't we start with you today? What's something you would like to discuss?"

Callie sighed and looked at Arizona sitting on the couch beside her. Hesitantly, almost apologetically, she admitted, "I want to talk about the night of the storm."

Arizona stiffened uncomfortably, her face becoming an unreadable mask. Every time she thought back to the night she cheated, she felt an urge to run away. She couldn't even recognize that person.

Callie knew this face well. Arizona had always been a private person, but she had become even more guarded since the plane crash. Clearly, she was trying to hide her true emotions.

Callie reached out toward Arizona slowly, fearful that the blonde would recoil. She clasped one of the white-knuckled hands Arizona was unconsciously clutching against her thighs. She didn't mean to hurt her wife. She just needed to talk about it.

Callie looked at Arizona pointedly, and slowly, the blonde looked up to meet her stare.

"Not about the cheating," she squeezed Arizona's hand reassuringly. "We don't need to talk about that."

Arizona let out a shaky sigh of relief.

"I want to talk about what happened after." Recalling the memory of the fight they'd had, Callie released Arizona's hand. It hurt so much to think about.

Dr. Dawson took charge again. "Arizona, why don't you tell me what happened that night."

Arizona gulped. "We had a fight."

"It must've been a bad fight if Callie still wants to talk about it."

Arizona nodded. "It was." She looked at Callie, who almost regretted bringing up the subject. Arizona cleared her throat. "I said some things I regret."

"What did you say?" prompted the counselor.

Arizona inhaled sharply. She wanted to laugh. Or cry. She looked over at Callie. "She named everything we'd been through and included the plane crash, and I said it wasn't her experience. Then..." She couldn't say it.

"Then...?" Dawson prompted.

When Arizona didn't say anything else, Callie shook her head decisively. "It's okay," she whispered to the therapist. "We can start there."

"Okay," Dr. Dawson conceded. "Callie, what would you like to say about that?"

"I don't know," Callie said softly. "I just..." Tears gathered in her eyes, and she reached for a tissue on the small table beside the couch.

She looked over at Arizona. Her wife was so closed off. So unwilling, or scared, of what Callie was going to say.

Callie huffed. "I know I wasn't on the plane. I know that."

Arizona slowly turned her head to meet Callie's eyes.

"It wasn't my experience. You were right." She paused. "But, Arizona, even though my experience was far less traumatic, I went through something, too."

It was all Arizona could do to keep from rolling her eyes. Please.

"I had to get through four days thinking that Mark, and you, were dead."

Arizona flinched at Mark's name. She wanted to run far, far away. Hah. She could barely run at all. Maybe she could dig a hole, right here, and bury herself in it...

"Arizona..." Callie pleaded. She needed some sort of connection. Some sort of sign that her wife was hearing her.

Cautiously, Arizona looked at Callie again.

"I was waiting for you to come home that night. I was sitting in our room, in lingerie," she looked up at Dawson awkwardly, but the therapist appeared unfazed, "and then, I heard a knock on the door and got up thinking it was you."

Arizona widened her eyes. She hadn't heard this before.

"But it wasn't. Of course it wasn't. It was Alex. Alex had to be the one to tell me that you guys never made it. That the plane...crashed." Tears fell down Callie's face, and she no longer had the energy to hold them back.

Arizona nodded, finally understanding that Callie had experienced a different kind of trauma herself. And, despite everything, she reached out and grabbed Callie's hand. Callie held it as if her life depended on it.

Softly, Callie continued, "I know that you were out there for those four awful days, trying desperately to survive, but I was back here, thinking that you hadn't. You know, they didn't even send out Search-and-Rescue?"

Arizona knit her eyebrows together. What?

"They sent out a recovery team. They figured there was no way anyone could have survived. You're my wife, and I thought that you were dead for four days. I kept trying to imagine you, with blue lips and a lifeless face, but I just couldn't. I can never imagine you not existing; I can't imagine a world without you. But I had to try. For four days and nights. And...That. Was," she paused as a sob threatened to rack over her body, "hard, too." Suddenly, she was a crying mess. The memories were too much. Too overwhelming. Too sad.

"Callie..." Arizona breathed, scooting toward her wife and wrapping the disintegrating woman in her arms.

Dr. Dawson considered interjecting to ask Arizona to reply, but something held her back. She thought Arizona may get there on her own, and she didn't want to disrupt the flow.

With Callie still in her arms, Arizona finally whispered, "I'm sorry."

Callie pulled away to meet her wife's tearful eyes.

"For that night. For all of it. For thinking that I was the only one who lost something."

Callie offered a slight smile. Unbeknownst to her, she'd been waiting for this apology for a long time.

"I'm sorry," Arizona repeated. She admitted: "The crash changed your life, too."

Callie nodded, thinking back to that one long, awful year she could never seem to forget.

"Thank you," Callie said solemnly. Then, she smiled, reaching for Arizona's hand and bringing it up to her lips to kiss softly. "And thank you for coming back to me."

With tears threatening to spill over her eyes, Arizona nodded appreciatively. She beamed. "I love you."

Callie let out a shaky but satisfied breath, sniffling: "I love you, too."