"I love that getting together and eating cheeseburgers and doing shots of tequila has become our thing," Callie laughed as she cut their cheeseburger in half. "Cristina would've loved this."
Meredith grinned. "Though, if Cristina were here, we'd likely do a lot more shots."
"Good point," Callie agreed, then noticed her phone ringing and looked down at the screen. "Ooh, it's my dad."
"Answer it," Meredith shrugged.
So she did, with a "Daddy, I'm at a bar right now, so it might not be the best time to t—"
"Mija, your mother's in the hospital," Carlos interrupted.
"What?" What had her father said?
"She had a heart attack," Carlos continued on the other side of the line. "You should come see her. At once."
"Wait!" Callie exclaimed. "She's going to be okay, right? I—I mean, she's young. She's healthy. She's going to be okay, right?"
"Calliope, mi amor, you need to come home. I have to go. I love you."
Once her father had hung up, Callie set down her phone and attempted to swallow the lump in her throat.
"What's wrong?" Meredith asked immediately. She had always been good at reading people, and Callie was especially easy to read.
Callie couldn't look at anything. She felt like she was levitating in midair. She felt like she was drowning. "My mom had a heart attack. My dad says I need to go to Miami."
Meredith raised her eyebrows. "Now?"
Callie nodded. She felt like a ghost.
"Well, go!" Meredith instructed. "Have him email Pierce the scans for a second opinion."
Callie nodded. She still felt as if she was in a trance.
She hadn't been close to her mom in a long time, sure, but the woman was still her mother. And she was still potentially dying. And nothing could have prepared Callie for that.
"Callie? Can I give you a ride?"
Callie shook her head. "I didn't drink anything. I'll be fine. I need to go."
Meredith nodded sympathetically. "Go."
"Hey!" Arizona smiled from her perch on the couch as Callie walked through the front door. "You're home already? How were drinks with Meredith?"
When Callie didn't answer immediately, Arizona carefully inspected her wife's face.
Immediately, she set down her book. "Callie? What happened?" She wanted to walk over to her, to comfort the lost looking woman somehow, but her prosthesis was in their bedroom and all she had were crutches there.
"Callie...?" Arizona repeated, worry lacing her voice.
When all Callie did was look at her, eyes filling with tears, Arizona held out her hand towards the brunette. "Come here."
Her legs moving robotically, Callie paced over to the couch and fell beside Arizona, who immediately wrapped her arm around Callie's back, leaning closer into her. "Tell me what's wrong."
Callie shook her head, unable to string the words together. "I need to go to Miami."
Arizona furrowed her eyebrows. "Why?"
"My...mom...had a..." Callie stuttered disjointedly. "Heart attack. She's in the hospital."
Arizona tightened her hold around Callie's shoulders, a sympathetic "Oh" falling from her lips.
Callie closed her eyes, trying to ward off the tears she already felt coming.
"Oh, Callie..." Arizona murmured, pulling a willing Callie against her and wrapping her arms around her wife's shuddering body, her hands rubbing soft circles on her back.
Callie allowed herself to be comforted by her responsive wife until, eventually, her sobs subsided to the occasional hiccup.
Finally, she pulled away from Arizona, who took in Callie's splotchy face and swollen eyes and felt sick to her stomach. It wasn't fair for Callie to be in so much pain. To have a sick mom. To still love someone so entirely, even after years of her mother rejecting her.
"So when do we need to leave?" Arizona asked.
"'We'?" Callie questioned, her voice oddly high, as if the answer wasn't obvious.
"Callie, we're in a partnership," Arizona spelled it out for her. "We're married. I love you. Of course I'm coming with you."
Callie exhaled a shaky breath. Somehow, that made her feel so much better.
"In the morning?" Callie asked.
Arizona nodded. "Okay. Would you hand me my phone? I'll see if Meredith will take Sof for the weekend, and then I'll get us tickets."
Callie just looked at Arizona, searching her face. "Are you sure? We have to take a—"
"Plane. I know," Arizona finished. "I've been on planes since the crash, Callie," she continued. "Don't worry about me."
Callie still didn't look convinced, but she nodded. "Okay." She sighed. "I'm gonna go get ready for bed."
Even after Callie was down the hallway and out of sight, Arizona stared after her in worry.
Then, always rational in a crisis, she got to work. Meredith immediately agreed to watch Sofia, and Arizona was able to find two empty seats beside each other on a flight from Seattle Airport the next morning.
She crutched her way into their room, sitting on the bed and donning her prosthesis. She needed to pack.
Just having taken a hot shower, Callie walked out of the steamy bathroom to find Arizona by her dresser and two nearly full suitcases on their bed.
"I packed for you," Arizona explained. "Just the essentials, though. You might want to add more."
Callie waved off the idea, walking over to stand beside Arizona and quickly changing into her pajamas. "It doesn't matter," she finally replied. "But thank you."
Arizona nodded, the look of concern never leaving her face as she inspected Callie's face. She wanted to help, but she didn't know how.
"So," she cleared her throat. "We're all packed and ready, our plane leaves at 8:40 a.m., and we have a room at the Hilton by your mom's hospital in Miami. What do you want to do now?"
Callie closed her eyes, shaking her head. "I don't know. I just...I know I shouldn't be upset, what, with the way my mother's disowned me..."
"It's okay to be upset, Callie," Arizona assured her. "She's still your mom."
Her eyes a raging rainstorm, Callie nodded. "Yeah."
"Is she going to be okay?"
Callie shrugged. "Daddy wouldn't say."
Arizona sighed, understanding that the odds weren't looking good. "Come on. Let's go to bed."
As soon as they were lying down, Arizona opened her arms to Callie, who nearly flung herself into her wife's comforting body.
There, in bed, with Arizona wrapped around her, she felt like she, at least, would be okay, even if her mother wouldn't be.
That was reassuring.
Other than Arizona's nervousness at the departure and landing, the plane ride was fairly pain-free.
The car ride to the hospital, however, was quite a different story.
"What if she doesn't want me there?" Callie jittered, bouncing her knees up and down in the back on the taxi.
"Then you'll say your goodbyes and we'll go," Arizona responded rationally.
Callie huffed. "What if she does want me there? Do I just have to forgive her for refusing to talk to me because I have the ability to fall in love with men and women?"
"Of course you don't," Arizona sighed. She put a loving hand over Callie's knee. "But you should try."
"Mija, you're here," Carlos welcomed, clearly relieved to see that his daughter and daughter-in-law had come.
"Hi, Daddy," Callie greeted the shorter man back, walking directly into his familiar arms.
Arizona was surprised when she, too, was given a hug. It has taken her years to win the intimidating Father Torres's trust back.
"Your mother will be happy to see you. I'll take you to her."
Callie nodded, and Arizona whispered, "I can stay here if—" but Callie's hand tightening on her own stopped the blonde short, letting her know that her wife wanted and needed her close.
"She's in there," Carlos pointed out a small room once they had gotten to the other side of the hallway. Unlike usual, though, his voice wasn't gruff but uneasy.
"Wait for me here?" Callie asked her wife.
The blonde nodded. "I'll be right here. Take all the time you need."
"You're here," Lucia stated as soon as the door whispered shut.
"I am," Callie confirmed, slinking down into the chair beside her mom's bedside. "How are you?"
"Bién," her mom answered curtly. "What are you doing here?"
"Daddy said I should come. And I wanted to see you." Callie knit her eyebrows together. "What are you doing in the hospital if you survived a heart attack?"
Lucia pursed her lips. "They took some scans after, and they say my valves are clogged. I need surgery: triple bypass."
Callie lifted her eyebrows. "Are you sure?"
Lucia nodded. "Is your wife here?"
"Of course she is," Callie barked. She had too much to think about, and her mom's judgment was not something she wanted to add to the list.
Triple bypass. Surgery. Even as a surgeon, that worried her. Bypass surgery was serious. She knew many people who never woke up.
Her mother would, though. Of course she would. Up until then, she had been totally healthy. She would be just fine.
"Calliope, I don't want to fight with you," Lucia closed her eyes, searching for the patience she so often had lacked during their thirty seven year relationship.
"I don't either."
"But I'm not going to pretend. You could have been so happy being married to a good man, mija. That was the way God meant it to be."
Callie rolled her eyes. She couldn't stand this.
She wanted to leave, but she couldn't. Not when the woman who had loved and supported her for most of her life was lying in a hospital bed.
She made a move to interrupt, but Lucia put up a hand to silence her.
"So I don't love the decision you made. I don't love a lot of your decisions: keeping us out of your marriage to that man, divorcing him, and then all this."
Callie swallowed audibly, biting back her anger. She already knew her mother couldn't stand her.
It just wasn't right. How could who Callie loved matter so much to her mother? Why did it have to ruin everything else? Was it really worth sacrificing their entire relationship.
Lucia concluded, "But I do love you."
Callie inhaled shakily, eyebrows raising. She hadn't heard those words from her mother in a long, long while.
A slight smile tugged at Lucia's lips. "Your father and I have been talking. A lot. Since your wedding. And, as much as I don't understand your life now, you are still my daughter. And you are still a good person.
Callie nodded, elated to hear the kind words but not yet trusting. "I am. And so is Arizona."
Lucia gave a nearly imperceptible bow of her head, conceding. "You are probably right. I've always blamed her for dragging you onto this path—"
"She didn't," Callie interrupted.
"I know. I should've known that wasn't true. You have always been so headstrong and independent," the older woman smiled wistfully, thinking of her daughter as a little girl.
Callie smirked back. This interaction was going much better than she had expected. Immeasurably better, in fact.
"I want a place in your life again, Calliope. Your father and I want to invite your family to spend Christmas with us."
Callie raised her eyebrows. "Really?"
"Really, mija." Lucia laid back on her pillow and closed her eyes. "My surgery is soon, but I would like to speak with Arizona first. Would you send her in?"
Callie nodded carefully. "Okay. I'll be in the waiting room if you need anything. And I'll be here when you wake up."
Lucia smiled and reached for her daughter. Callie easily found a safe haven in her mother's arms, clinging to the woman who—in the last few minutes—had absolved her of so much of her pain.
"Te quiero, corazón. I always have and always will."
"I love you, too, Mamá. I'll see you after surgery."
Arizona shut the door behind her and turned to look at Callie's mom skeptically. "Hi."
Lucia smiled. "Hi. Did Calliope tell you what we talked about?"
Arizona sat down in the chair beside the woman's bed. "She said you made peace." Now in protector mode, she crossed her arms dubiously. "You were set in your ways for a long time. You didn't come to the wedding. You haven't been present. Why now?"
"I caused her a lot of pain," Lucia observed.
"More than you know," Arizona replied honestly. Typically, she liked to put people at ease and be ultra-polite around people who intimidated her (like Lucia). But, now, she found that she was standing her ground. This mattered too much to let her guard down and give the older woman the benefit of the doubt. This was about Callie's happiness and well-being, and that was what mattered most to Arizona right then.
"You really do love her, so I understand your need to protect her."
Arizona stood her ground. "Why now?"
The woman sighed, assessing the situation before deciding to just answer in complete honesty. "I need to protect her, too. The surgeon said that my heart is weak—maybe too weak for bypass. He recommended that I say my goodbyes. Just in case."
That may have been the last thing Arizona had expected to hear, and she was stunned into silence.
"I don't want my daughter to suffer when I'm gone. Whether that happens tonight or in many years, I want her to have good memories."
Arizona stared at the frail looking woman, finally seeing the human in her. Until then, she had only negative memories of the woman causing Callie pain. Now, though, she saw goodness.
The woman may have lied to Arizona's wife about the details, but her intentions were clear: to protect Callie from pain, as much as she possibly could.
Lucia, who had been seemingly unable to bend for her daughter in the past, now had bent over backwards for Callie.
It was clear to Arizona that Lucia still thought that their marriage was wrong. That Arizona was wrong. That their love was wrong. That hadn't changed.
But she was now willing to conceal her beliefs for Callie's sake.
If anything, that was noble.
"Do you think you might die?" Arizona asked, her voice a mere whisper.
"I'm praying that it's not in His plan. But in case it is, I need you to promise me that you will take care of her. She's always needed someone to catch her, and you should be there when she falls, because she only wants you."
Arizona nodded. "I'm not going anywhere."
Lucia bobbed her head briefly, satisfied with Arizona's response. "Good. Now, I need to speak to my husband before surgery."
"We'll be waiting."
"What did she say to you?!" Callie asked as soon as she saw her wife walking over to her.
They were in a secluded hallway, with Callie sitting on the linoleum floor and Arizona then standing over her.
Callie held her hand out towards the blonde, knowing it was hard for her to maneuver herself onto the floor with a prosthesis, and Arizona graciously took it.
Once they were sitting side by side, her and Callie's arms brushing, Arizona replied with what she'd most taken from her conversation with Lucia. "That she loves you."
Callie couldn't control the grin that spread over her face. She was so grateful for how the day had ended up turning out. She sighed contently, leaning her head on Arizona's soft shoulder. "She said that she wants us to spend Christmas down here. Wouldn't that be fun?"
"It would be," Arizona agreed vaguely. Callie didn't seem to be worried about the surgery, and that worried her. "Callie?"
"Hmm?" Callie asked.
"What about the surgery?"
"What about it?" Callie attempted to clarify, confused. Why was Arizona bringing that up? It'd be over in a few hours.
"You're not at all worried?"
Callie sat back and took in Arizona's concerned face.
"I mean, a little. But the mortality rate is only 3.3%. And she's been healthy up until now."
Arizona bit her lip. She hoped Callie was right.
"Anyway," Callie shrugged, smiling slightly, "I feel like we've reached our pain quota, you know? We've been through more in the last ten years than some lucky people have in their lifetimes."
Arizona chuckled. "That is a fair point, but I'm still going to send good thoughts her way."
Callie nodded, shutting her eyes. "Me, too."
"Callie?" Arizona rubbed her wife's shoulder gently. "Callie? Wake up."
"Mmm," Callie moaned in disapproval, having forgotten that it wasn't just a normal night.
"Callie," Arizona whispered, "We should go find your dad. Your mom's surgery is probably almost over, if not already."
This woke up Callie, as she remembered that, in fact, this was no normal night. Her mom was having heart surgery, perhaps right at that moment.
Hands clasped between them, Callie and Arizona walked down the hospital hallways towards the waiting room where they expected Carlos to be.
But Carlos was nowhere to be found.
"Do you think he's in her room with her?" Callie asked.
"Maybe," Arizona commented, but she had a sinking feeling in her chest.
"Let's go," Callie pulled Arizona down another hallway and towards the room where they had talked to Lucia a few hours prior.
They walked into the hospital room, and as Callie had suggested, Carlos was there.
The bed, however, was empty. Her mother was nowhere in sight.
"Daddy?" Callie carefully put her hand on her father's shoulder. "What are you doing in here? Where's mom?"
Slowly, the corpse of a man turned to look at his daughter, his face ashen and his eyes far, far away.
Immediately, Callie's stomach bottomed out. Her face turned more pale than Arizona had ever seen it. "No."
Carlos shook his head. "The surgeon said that, when he took her off bypass, he couldn't restart her heart."
"No!" Callie repeated. It couldn't be.
Arizona held out her arms in midair, feeling an uncontrollable compulsion to comfort her wife somehow.
She couldn't even imagine Callie's pain.
"No! She's fine!" Callie screeched. "Where is she?!"
"Callie..." Arizona pleaded. Carlos was still set in stone.
Callie turned to her. "She was fine," she cried, falling into her wife's waiting arms.
Callie sobbed loudly into Arizona's chest, and Carlos sat mutely on the white bed.
Her mother was dead. His wife was dead.
They were in immeasurable plain, and Arizona was helpless to stop it.
If she could swallow Callie's pain—if she could feel it, digest it, herself—she would.
But she couldn't. She couldn't do anything to help but be there.
A new onslaught of tears piercing Callie's eyes, she disentangled herself from Arizona's arms and stole a look at her father.
Carlos, who had always been a man of control and constant action, was clearly at a loss. He was only staring at the empty hospital bed, as if expecting her late wife to magically fall into it, alive and well.
"Daddy?"
He tore his stare away from the empty bed, looking into Callie's eyes, his own equally bloodshot.
"You said Aria's in Paris. You should call her and tell her."
The old man nodded, taking out his phone and regretfully informing his other daughter of the devastating news.
Callie grabbed Arizona's hand, and the blonde squeezed her wife's in love and support.
Arizona gingerly walked them towards the small couch, where Callie's head immediately fell onto her shoulder.
"How much longer do you want to stay?" Arizona whispered.
Callie closed her eyes. "I just need to make sure my dad gets home. Then we can go."
Arizona nodded. "Okay."
After Carlos hung up the phone, Callie made arrangements for her mother's body to be sent to a funeral home, and then she, Arizona, and Carlos piled into her father's small Porsche. With Callie's expert direction, Arizona drove to her wife's grand childhood home.
And it was grand. It was in a neighborhood full of old, Westchester-looking mansions, but the Torres' property was particularly imposing.
It felt strange that Arizona had never been there before, but she understood why more than she ever had. This...wasn't Callie. Clearly, Callie had attempted to distance herself from this way of life as much as she could have. She wanted to live a different life, and she wanted to be able to stand on her own two feet.
"Come on, Daddy," the sound of Callie's voice interrupted Arizona's thoughts. "Let's get you inside."
In the passenger seat, Carlos shook his head. "I'm fine, Calliope. You two should get home to Sofia."
"But we sh—" Callie objected.
Carlos leveled a look at his daughter. "Mija, I'll be okay. I promise. I just want to be alone."
"Daddy..." Callie pleaded.
Carlos shook his head. "Call me tomorrow. I'll be okay. Your mother is dead, but I still have Aria and you." He smiled towards Arizona, who carefully smiled back. "And your family." He turned back to Callie. "I'll see you soon, okay, mija?"
Callie tried to muster up a smile. She was worried about her father. How could she not be? "Okay." She wrapped her arms around her father, who suddenly seemed so small. While, when she was younger, he used to tower over her, now she was taller.
This man had a strong spirit—that was blatantly obvious, especially now—but he was not indestructible.
And, like Callie's mom, he would not live forever.
Carlos had insisted that they borrow his car rather than take a taxi, so once he was safely inside, Callie and Arizona drove the short distance to their hotel. It was already almost morning, and so much had happened in the past twenty-four hours.
In the elevator up to their room, Arizona put her hand on the small of Callie's back. "What do you want to do? I didn't know what was going to happen with all this, so I didn't reserve us a flight home, yet. We can leave as soon or as late as you want."
Callie exhaled heavily, pausing for a lifetime before answering. "I don't know," she replied shakily. "Whatever you want."
The elevator doors opened as they reached their floor, but neither woman made a move to exit. Finally, Arizona gently led her wife to their room
Callie was an emotional person. She always had been. She felt everything deeply and cared immensely. It was part of what had first drawn Arizona to the brunette, who in many ways, was so different from herself.
So if Callie wanted or needed to cry, Arizona was going to give her the space to do that.
Arizona shut the hotel door behind them and turned to look at Callie, who was standing in the middle of the room.
"Callie..." Arizona worried. "Sit down. I'm ordering dinner." By now, it was really breakfast, but it felt like time had stood still for them this past day.
Limbs robotic, Callie scuffed backwards, sitting back on the mattress as soon as the backs of her knees hit the bed.
As soon as Arizona hung up the phone, she came to sit beside Callie.
After a moment of weighty eye contact, Callie asked, "Can we take a quick nap until the food comes?"
Arizona smiled softly. "Anything you want." She stood up and moved to the other side of the bed, pulling back the blankets to lie beneath them. Callie did the same, each woman then kicking off her shoes before climbing inside.
Lying face to face, hands immediately clasping and limbs wordlessly tangling, Callie and Arizona found warmth in the King-sized bed and in each other.
"Thank you for being here," Callie whispered.
To which Arizona promised, "I will always be here."
The first few days home were hard for Callie. Despite her father's and sister's pleas, she had opted not to attend the funeral. She wanted her last memories of her previously estranged mother to be good ones: and they were.
Her last memories of her mother were sweet and loving, and Callie didn't want them to be tainted by attending a morose funeral filled with aristocratic people who would think far more about appearances than they would of deceased Lucia.
Instead, upon Bailey's insistence, Callie had opted to take several days off from work to mope around and grieve.
"We're home!" Arizona called, walking through the doorway, Sofia skipping along beside her.
From the couch, Callie smiled. She was still sad, but she needed to put on a brave face for Sofia. "How was school today, Sof?"
"It was good," the little girl replied. "I got Austin out during Four Square!"
"You did?!"
"Yeah!"
"Go girl!" Callie exclaimed proudly. "Come here, give your mom a hug."
And Sofia did so happily, then ran off to go get ready for bed.
Callie stood up, walking towards Arizona. "How was work?"
Arizona shrugged. "Hunt, Pierce, and I had to operate on this kid whose twin brother accidently shot him through the heart with their dad's hunting rifle. I've had better days."
"He didn't make it?" Callie asked carefully, soothingly running her hands down Arizona's arms.
Arizona shook her head.
Callie sighed sympathetically. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay," Arizona attempted to smile. She didn't want Callie to worry about her in the face of her own trauma. Since becoming a pediatric surgeon, Arizona had become accustomed to kids being too far gone to survive surgery and to thoughts of tiny coffins.
She backed out of Callie's arms, not wanting to cry. "I'm going to put Sof to bed. Then I'm all yours."
Callie nodded in understanding, letting Arizona walk away and then plopping back down onto the couch to resume wallowing. It just wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that people had to die.
It wasn't fair that her mother had to die.
It wasn't fair that someone who raised her and loved her and hurt her and loved her again had to die.
"Callie?" Arizona asked from beside her on the couch. How long had she been there?
"Hmm?" Callie asked.
"You're hurting," Arizona observed, her voice a black night breeze. "I was asking how I could make you feel better."
Callie looked at her wife, all doe eyes and pink lips and cheeks that dimpled just for her, and she thought of one thing that might help.
Before Arizona could process what was happening, Callie's insistent lips were on hers, strong caramel hands roughly roaming everywhere, and she couldn't breathe.
Arizona put her hands on Callie's chest, shoving away from her. "Callie, what are you—"
"You asked how you could make me feel better," Callie explained between short breaths. "This is how."
Arizona exhaled heavily. This was not a good idea. She herself was well-versed in the art of using sex to attempt to circumvent grief. She'd done so when her brother died. She'd done so when Nick died.
She'd used it to avoid fighting with Callie, too. On multiple occasions. And, though it had been a good distraction, it didn't really help.
And, after everything they'd been through, Callie and Arizona had promised to communicate. To really, truly communicate. Through words, whenever possible. So sex right then was not a good idea.
"After everything we've been through...after everything we've survived this week...can't we just—"
"'After everything we've been through'?" Callie interrupted indignantly. "Your patient died, sure. But your mom didn't die."
"Callie..."
"What?" Callie spat. "After you cheated on me, you said I couldn't say that we'd had a tough year because I wasn't on the plane."
"Don't," Arizona pleaded. Callie was being uncharacteristically nasty.
"What?" Callie feigned ignorance. "Don't you remember?"
"Of course I remember!" Arizona exclaimed. "But you don't get to do this. You don't get to bring up old, long-forgiven wounds. You don't get to hurt me just because you hurt."
"I'm just trying to understand," Callie argued. "Why is what you just said any different from what I said that night?"
Arizona sighed, attempting to maintain her level head. "It's not." She reached out for Callie's hand, but the brunette yanked it out of the blonde's grasp.
Callie was upset, so she was picking a fight. She knew that, but she still felt unable to stop herself.
"It's no different," Arizona repeated. "You were right before; just like I'm right now. There's no 'I' in marriage. It's always our and we. Our house. Our daughter. We love each other. We can do this together. I shouldn't have blamed you for acting like you were a plane crash victim, because you were one. We were married, so my pain was your pain. My loss was your loss."
Callie inhaled shakily, her heart thrumming in her chest.
So close, Arizona reached out towards Callie again, setting her hand on her wife's thigh. And, this time, Callie didn't wretch away from her.
"It's the same now," Arizona continued. "We've been through a lot this week, because your pain is my pain, and your loss is my loss. When you're happy, I'm happy, Callie. And, when you're hurting, I really, really hurt."
Callie set her hand over Arizona's, never breaking eye contact with the cerulean eyes that were searing holes through her protective walls and defense system.
"My mom didn't die, but yours did. And, more than anything, I wish I could take your pain away, but all I can do is feel it with you." She lightly rubbed her thumb over Callie's thigh. "So as long as you're suffering, I'm suffering with you. Just as the opposite was true after the plane crash. Okay?"
Callie nodded slowly as Arizona's honest words sunk in. "I'm sorry."
Arizona offered a hint of a smile. "I forgive you." She paused. "Now, would you please tell me what you're thinking?"
"I don't know how," Callie whined in exasperation. She wanted to be able to talk to Arizona, but everything was so jumbled in her head.
"Try," Arizona requested.
"It's just..." Callie sighed. "I wrote her out of my life, you know? She stopped talking to me, and I stopped letting myself thinking of her. I stopped making plans."
Arizona nodded.
"And that was fine. I mean, it wasn't. But it was fine. I had you and Sofia and my dad and eventually Aria, and that was enough."
Arizona continued to listen in silence, beginning to understand where Callie was going with this.
"But then, right before her surgery, she somehow got written back in. She apologized and said she wanted us to spend Christmas with her and my dad! So I started making plans again. And that made her dying so much harder than it would have been if I kept trying to hate her and forget about her."
Arizona moved closer to Callie, wanting to give her wife every bit of physical and emotional support she could.
She understood Callie's pain. She could empathize, having gone through something similar with Nick. Writing someone back into your life made it so much harder. She understood that.
"I'm so sorry, Callie." Arizona put her arm around Callie's back, softly urging the larger woman to lean on her.
Callie willingly settled her head into the space between Arizona's neck and shoulder, breathing her in. "I just need a few more days to be sad. Then, I'll be relieved to have gotten some good final moments with her. Then, I'll be good again."
Arizona burrowed her face in Callie's hair, inhaling the black tendrils. "Then we'll be good again," she corrected. "When you're good, I'm good."