Set 10x11. Imagine there was a night between when Arizona slept on the couch and (beginning of the episode) and when they made out (and so forth…) at the end of the episode.
So, slight AU of Arizona's first night back in bed after cheating.
As Callie got ready for bed and heard Arizona making the couch into a bed outside of their bedroom door, she couldn't help but exhale a painful sigh.
She missed her wife. Like, really, really missed her.
Which was silly, because Arizona was there. She was right the other room.
And, yet, Callie felt incapable of asking the blonde to sleep in their bed again.
She felt incapable of forgiving her entirely. It was too hard. It was all too hard.
But she yearned for Arizona's body lying beside hers. It was all she wanted.
After a final minute of deliberation, she headed toward the door, determined to follow her heart and let Arizona back in.
Except, when she tore open the door, there Arizona was, jumping back in surprise and looking like she had been caught red-handed.
"Hi," the blonde breathed.
"Hi," Callie smiled nervously.
Arizona bit her lip in a move that Callie had never been able to resist, and then she shakily offered, "I miss...sleeping with you."
Callie's eyes widened.
"Being with you, I mean," Arizona quickly corrected. "Sleeping in the same bed." She paused. "I was going to ask if I could come back. If I could sleep in here."
She looked at Callie with so much fear and hopefulness that, of course, the brunette couldn't say no. She didn't want to. "Yeah," she sighed, opening the door more widely. "Please."
Exhaling a relieved breath, Arizona walked past her wife, toward what had always been her side of the bed. She didn't move further than that, though. Somehow, she felt as if she didn't have the right.
On the other side of the bed, Callie pulled back the covers. She smiled slightly at the blonde, and that was all the permission Arizona needed to pull back the blankets on her side and sit down.
With her heart beating in her ears, she removed her prosthesis and leaned back on the pillows, looking at Callie out of the corner of her eye.
The brunette was lying beside her, still as stone, eyes closed and taking long, deliberate breaths.
Arizona felt her heart drop. Callie looked as if she were in physical pain, and the blonde knew that it was her fault.
She shut off the lamp and laid flat on her back beside Callie, wanting to reach out to her but not knowing if she could. Fearing how Callie would respond. Or if she would at all.
Before she could make up her mind, she heard Callie turn toward her as her soft voice cut through the heavy silence.
"Whenever I look at your hands, I imagine them on her," Callie began.
As she rolled over to face her, Arizona felt her stomach drop.
"Touching her the way you touch me. So the thought of them on me…" Callie shook her head, feeling daggers stab through her stomach lining. It was unbearable. All of it. "It makes me sick," she croaked.
Arizona's eyes were enormously wide, stormy oceans, unable to tear away from Callie's equally watery orbs as she digested her wife's honest proclamation. "Callie…" she pleaded. She didn't know what she wanted, she just knew it wasn't this. She couldn't bear her wife's pain. She couldn't bear knowing that she caused it.
Callie shook her head. "I mean it, Arizona. I'm sorry, but I do. Right now, anyway," she sighed.
Arizona exhaled a shuddering breath, swallowing the brunette's words. Then, courageously, she asked, "So what can we do? What can I do?" Where were they supposed to go from there? They couldn't stay stuck there — stuck in the pain. Not forever.
"You can kiss me," Callie murmured, inching closer to the blonde. "I want you to kiss me," she added. "But don't touch me. No hands."
Arizona was not going to argue against that. Kissing was something, at least. What she really ached for was to hold Callie in her arms, but for the moment, she knew that kissing alone would have to suffice. She hadn't been given any other option, and she knew that she didn't deserve one, either.
It was all her fault, after all. If she hadn't been an idiot, if she hadn't freakin' cheated on her wife, they wouldn't be where they were then: together but not really together. Needing each other, wanting each other, but not quite being able to forgive each other just yet.
She clenched her fists in an attempt to keep her hands still, and she shifted forward, allowing Callie's entire self to flood her senses.
Gingerly — almost fearfully — she brought her lips to Callie's, their noses lightly brushing as she leaned in. She was still in part terrified that her wife would pull away or scream in agony, as if Arizona wasn't the woman she loved but, instead, a monster gnawing on her, eating her alive.
But Callie didn't pull away or scream or run for the door. Instead, she brought her hands to Arizona's face, her right coming to tangle into blonde hair as she insistently kept pale pink lips on hers.
As Callie's tongue emerged to stroke against Arizona's, the blonde unconsciously lifted a hand onto Callie's hip, wanting to bring her closer. Wanting to be closer. To be one.
Immediately, Callie stilled her lips, pulling away. "No hands," she reminded Arizona fiercely.
An almost mangled-sounding whimper escaped the blonde's lips. How could Callie expect Arizona not to touch her? She couldn't stand it. All she wanted to do was hold her.
"Callie, please," she begged. At that point, she wasn't above begging. What did she have to lose?
Callie huffed, pulling away entirely and rolling onto her back, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. "Maybe this isn't a good idea. Maybe we shouldn't—"
"No," Arizona argued before Callie could even finish, terrified of what she might say.
Callie just shook her head, still not meeting her wife's teary eyes.
"Callie," Arizona breathed. "Please look at me."
Finally — almost regretfully — Callie turned her head toward Arizona, her eyes filled with omnipresent despair and despondency.
And Arizona couldn't stand it: staring into eyes that used to look at her with a sense of love and wonder, and now only viewed her through a thick sheen of pain and betrayal.
"Can you please look at me and see me?" Arizona beseeched. "I love you and," she held up her hands, "I didn't touch Lauren and Leah the way I touch you."
Callie's face bleached white at the mention of the names of the women Arizona had carelessly screwed. And, once again, she felt that pain in her chest grow. It threatened to consume her.
"I didn't," Arizona continued impassionedly. Her voice fading to a mere whisper, she continued softly, "I've never touched anyone the way I touch you." Gently, she brought her hand to Callie's face, lightly brushing it across a soft caramel cheek. She prepared for her wife to tear away from her. She prepared for the agony.
Instead, chocolate brown eyes screwed shut; Callie wanted so badly to reject the touch. To not want it. But she did want it, and as Arizona's thumb lightly began to caress her cheek, her face relaxed. She couldn't help but give into the feeling. Because, really, she had ached for this.
For Arizona.
"You are the woman I love," Arizona soothed, her tone of voice coming out as giving and as loving as a late-night lullaby. "And I know I messed up. I know I hurt you. But, please, let me make it up to you. Let me love you," her voice raised in disquietude and desperation. And, uncomfortably, she worked on taking a deep breath, exhaling shakily against Callie's cheek. "Let me hold you, again."
Callie opened her eyes, a tear rolling down the bridge of her nose and onto the mattress below as she stared intently into sad blue eyes. "Arizona," she began. Consumed with grief, she decided to be honest. To say the words that had been true to her that awful storm several months before. "You broke my heart." As she attempted to say the words — the truth that plagued her — her voice roughly broke with just that: heartbreak.
Arizona's soothing thumb stilled as her stomach bottomed out. Her throat closed as newfound tears pricked her already stinging eyes. God, she couldn't stand this.
"And I want to hate you," Callie continued. "I want to...not want you so badly. But I can't." Hesitantly, she looked up into watchful cerulean eyes — eyes that could read her better than anyone else's ever had. Eyes that felt like both hell and home. "You're both the only one who can destroy me and the only one who can make me feel better."
"So let me make you feel better," Arizona pleaded, her hand moving to stroke the sweet spot beneath Callie's ear. "Please."
Callie drew in a deep breath, wanting to fight her wife's desperate pleas. Wanting to fight her own wants. Her own needs.
But she couldn't. She was helpless against Arizona. She always had been. She brought her shaky hand to the blonde's face, tracing the worry line between her eyebrows and then moving her caramel thumb to reverently run down the subtle bow of her lips.
Arizona's eyes dropped closed as she fell victim to the touch she so desired. At the feeling of Callie's soft skin against her lips, miserable wet tears fell from her eyes.
Callie slowly wiped them away, whispering, "Open your eyes."
Arizona lifted the lids of her cloudy eyes, looking deeply into Callie's generous orbs.
After a silent moment passed between them, Callie proclaimed, "I love you. I'm still in love with you. When I said that I would spend the rest of my life with you, I meant it. And I still do. Even after..." she shook her head, clearing it. "Even now."
"Me, too," Arizona promised meekly. It was all she could offer in return.
Callie nodded softly, then sighed. "But I'm still so mad at you. I'm still so...disappointed. And heartbroken. And…" she closed her eyes for a moment. "I just can't believe it, Arizona."
Arizona's eyes once again welled up with tears. She was ashamed. She was ashamed of herself.
"But I'm willing to let you earn my trust back," Callie continued. "I'm going to keep loving you until you do, and then I'm going to love you even more."
Arizona felt her heart begin to flutter in her ears, and a sense of relief set off like fireworks in her heart. As she felt her bottom lip tremble, she brought her hands up to cover her face. "I'm so sorry," she sobbed, unable to stand herself.
It wasn't fair. To have gone through this. To be in so much pain. To have caused so much pain.
To be loved so much.
"Shhh," Callie soothed, her hand running down Arizona's side. "I know you are. Me, too."
With tears and snot and pain streaming down her swollen red cheeks, Arizona lifted her hands from her face. She held them in midair, fighting to keep them off Callie. God, all she wanted to do was hug her. To hold her. To be together. To be one. "Calliope," she whimpered. "Can I please—"
"Yes," Callie finally gave in, pulling Arizona's body to her. "You can."
Relieved, Arizona exhaled a shallow breath and gratefully wrapped her arms around Callie's back, pulling the woman she loved against her. Slowly, her breathing evened out as the brunette buried her face into Arizona's chest, kissing every inch of bare skin she could find.
"I missed you," Callie breathed against a warm clavicle before she could stop herself. Because it was true. Arizona had broken her heart, but she hadn't meant to. Not really. So much had happened that year. They'd gone through so much...
"I missed you, too," Arizona murmured, ducking her face into delicious black hair. "So much, And I'll do whatever it takes — whatever you need — for you to trust me again. I promise."
"Okay," Callie's head bobbed in acceptance against Arizona's chest. "But, tonight, just be here, okay? I just want to be here with you. For us to be okay tonight." She closed her eyes, finally feeling as if she was where she belonged.
"Yes," Arizona immediately agreed, her arms tightening around the brunette as if, in that very instant, holding her was the most important thing in the world. And for Arizona, it was.
Closing her eyes, she repeated one last time, "I'm sorry. I love you."
Callie kissed the soft space between her porcelain chest and breast, murmuring, "I know. And I'm still so angry. But I'll forgive you."
Because, despite everything, it was that simple. She was still furious and heartbroken. Her heart still felt burned and charred, but knew she would forgive Arizona. Because she knew that she either needed to forgive her or end their relationship. End their love.
And that wasn't possible for her, because she knew that she would keep loving Arizona. She always would.
So forgiveness was the only option. Forgiveness and moving forward.
"I love you, too."