A/N: Hi everyone, here is chapter 6 – this one is a long one and also a good one (in my opinion anyway!) Stuff really starts to ramp up here, so I hope that you enjoy it! I've also left a few notes at the end addressing a couple of things about the story, and if you have any questions about any of it I will be happy to answer them! Also, I'm sorry if you left a guest comment on my fic in the earlier chapters and its now disappeared – I was still figuring out how this site works, and I couldn't find the moderate reviews button! Rest assured that I did read them all, and that if you comment now then it should hopefully appear!
I hope that you enjoy the chapter!
Disclaimer: none of these characters are mine, they all belong to Shonda Rhimes, I'm just borrowing them and making them do what I want for the sake of my fic.
Before Callie knew it, midterms had come and gone, and she had been exchanging emails with the ever-elusive A every couple of days for over a month. She still didn't know basic facts about the woman like her name or where she lived, but Callie felt like the two of them had formed a strong bond. Which was nice. She really enjoyed talking to someone who seemed to pass no judgement, who didn't know her personally and therefore who had no expectations of her. She wasn't 'Callie the weirdo that chews her hair in the back of class' that she'd been in high school, or 'Callie the lesser daughter that will never quite be as good as her big sister' she was to her parents, or even 'Callie the hard-working med student that has great friends but is kind of seen as a bit of a grumpy bitch by those that don't know her so well' that she'd made peace with becoming since being at med school.
No, to A she was just C, the girl that runs the food blog with whom she exchanges fun email conversation. There was something so refreshing about that.
From: iloveunicorns115 hotmaildotcom
To: cit107 hotmaildotcom
Hi C!
I am sorry to hear that my advice for your friend's family wedding problem wasn't a hit. Granted, I didn't think for a second that it would be, but hey at least I tried. I hope she isn't too mad at you!
I hope that your presentation ended up going ok in the end! I know you were super nervous, but you're clearly passionate about the topic so I'm certain that would have helped you kick your stage fright in the butt. I could see how interesting you find the topic from just the summary you sent me – you even had me excited about patellofemoral syndrome, and as you know I'm not a bone kind of gal! I just wish I had that much interest in the paper I'm currently writing, it would definitely make getting through it a lot easier. Although, saying that, does anyone actually find genetic dermatology interesting?
Thank you again for sending me the recipe for chicken noodle soup – I am truly honoured that I have been deemed worthy of getting to look at your unpublished work, I know that your blog is your baby so the fact that you're allowing me a chance to hold the baby (so to speak) means a lot to me. I hope that I don't let you down by dropping the baby or killing it by accident or something. This analogy just got really weird so I'll stop now, but I thought you should know I do plan to try making the noodle soup tonight. And don't worry, you'll be the first to hear my thoughts on it!
I hope you have a wonderful day C!
From your favourite commenter-turned-friend A :)
"Are you sure you aren't seeing anyone Cal?"
The voice snatched Callie from her focus on the email she was midway through reading, quickly bringing her back to her reality. Which, at the present moment, was under Mark's scrutiny as they sat in their usual study spot between classes.
"Uh, pretty sure," Callie replied, maybe a little too fast for someone that was actually telling the truth.
Mark stared at her like he was studying her, eyebrow raised. "Why do you keep smiling at your phone then?"
"I'm not smiling at my phone."
"Is that not your phone in your hand right now? That you are smiling at?"
Callie hadn't even noticed. She deliberately forced her face into a neutral expression, and then threw an unimpressed glare in Mark's direction.
"If you are seeing someone then good for you! It's about time you got back on the wagon," Mark said, his voice uncharacteristically genuine.
"I was never off the wagon. I'm just not seeing anyone. That's all." She threw him a stern look that told him she was serious.
"Boring," Mark muttered, frowning. "You're too hot to still be single Cal! Stop wasting your potential."
"Gee, you're so sweet," Callie deadpanned, voice dripping with sarcasm. "I'm not consciously remaining single, I just haven't met anyone interesting recently."
"Ok but also I've personally watched you turn down every advance that anyone has made on you in months."
Callie didn't have anything to say to that.
"I've just not felt like dating," she replied. It was a feeble excuse, but it was technically true.
"The she-devil really did a number on you huh," Mark replied.
"No," Callie shot back firmly. "I'm over… all that. I've just not really been in the mood."
"You haven't gotten laid in months Cal. That's a long time to be out of the mood," Mark replied. "And that's not for lack of me trying to get you back on the saddle, so to speak." He chuckled at his pun. Callie threw him an unimpressed glare.
"Can we stop talking about my sex life please?"
"We can if you tell me who you've been talking to," Mark tried.
"I haven't been talking to anyone."
Callie knew he wouldn't buy it.
"I don't buy it."
Well, she was right on that one.
"It's just Aria," she lied.
"Oh yeah, and I'm going on a date with Jackson Avery tomorrow," Mark deadpanned sarcastically.
"You know that doesn't actually sound as ridiculous as you think it does," Callie countered.
Ignoring her comment, Mark continued. "Not once have you ever had anything nice to say about your sister. You expect me to believe that she's the reason you've been smiling like a kid on Christmas every time your phone lights up the past couple of weeks?"
"It's just a friend from high school."
"You didn't have friends in high school."
"Wow, thanks for the reminder."
Mark continued to look at her expectantly. Callie sighed. She needed to stop telling her friends so much. It was making it hard for her to lie without them catching on immediately.
Just as she opened her mouth to make another excuse, a flustered looking redhead appeared around the corner, moving toward the pair at an alarming speed.
Callie breathed a brief sigh of relief that she'd most likely be saved from this line of questioning, based on Addison's stressed-out appearance.
Mark threw her a look that she assumed said, 'this isn't done'. She threw back her best 'this is totally done and if you bring it up again, I'll break your nose' expression, but she was pretty sure she had just contorted her face in a way that made her look pained.
No matter, because Addison was upon them.
"Whose idea was it for me to take Intro to OBGYN on top of everything else this semester again?" The redhead exclaimed, hovering over the seated pair.
"Yours," Callie replied.
"I distinctly remember telling you not to bother," Mark added.
"Well you should have been more convincing," Addison shot back, glaring at the back of Mark's head.
"No pleasing some people," he muttered under his breath.
"Why are we wishing we'd listened to our friends now?" Callie asked tentatively, unsure if she'd just opened the door for Addison to start ranting manically.
"Dr Norman is an ass. An egomaniacal piece-of-shit ass from the stone age," Addison cried, throwing herself into an empty seat next to the brunette. She didn't wait for anyone to reply before continuing. "He is teaching this class like it's the 1950s and men still have control over their partners' vaginas. It's enough to make your skin crawl."
"That's rough," Callie said somewhat plainly, knowing Addison probably wasn't listening anyway.
"Now he's set a 5k work paper on pain medication in childbirth which, I'd like to point out, is a lot more complicated than you'd expect, and he wants it in next Monday. That's less than a week. As if I don't have a hundred other classes all asking for the same thing," she sighed.
"I mean you did choose to take on an uneven class load. You knew it was going to be hard," Callie said softly, deliberately keeping her voice gentle so as not to anger the redhead further.
"Cal, I love you, but you know I don't want to hear logic right now. Kindly keep your criticism to yourself. We all make bad choices," Addison shot back, glaring at the brunette.
Mark snorted.
Callie bit her tongue.
Addison continued to glare.
After a moment of silence, Mark spoke up.
"Right ladies, we'd better get our pretty asses moving," he said, glancing at his watch. "Bacterial cells aren't going to examine themselves!"
"You just want to get there early so you can have more time to chat up your preteen lab partner," Addison drawled, throwing Mark a pointed glare.
"Oh my god, when will you drop that? She skipped one grade! She's barely a couple of months younger than me!" Mark exclaimed defensively.
"She looks twelve," Addison shot back.
"You're just mad because you aren't getting any."
"You aren't actually getting any either, at least not from her."
"We get it, we're all celibate losers," Callie cut in before the bickering could get out of hand. "Can we go now?"
Both parties glared at the brunette but started to gather their things.
"I'd like it to be known that I am actually having regular sex," Mark cut in.
"No one cares, pretty boy," Addison retorted, tossing her hair over her shoulder as the trio headed for the door.
Despite Mark's desire to be early, the three of them arrived at the lab just as the class was about to begin, each slipping into their seats about the room just as Dr Webber took his place at the front.
"Right everyone!", he called, his deep booming voice instantly gaining the attention of the room full of students. "Before I start, I have a couple of admin bits to cover. We've had a couple of people drop the class following the mid-term results, so I'm going to need to do a bit of reshuffling."
It was only as Dr Webber spoke that Callie realised that the seat to her right was vacant. That was weird - her lab partner was usually always in attendance and was also never late.
"Ms Torres, do you mind grabbing your belongings and coming and sitting up at the front," Dr Webber said. Well, that explained her lab partner's absence. "You'll be working with Ms Robbins for the rest of the semester."
Callie froze. This had to be a joke.
There was no way she could seriously be expected to spend the semester working alongside her pain-in-the-ass neighbour. Absolutely no way. The woman was a walking Disney character, and not even one of the mildly redeeming ones at that. She was one of the annoying ones that burst into song at the worst times, like that damn teapot, or that lobster in the film about the mermaid. Or was it a crab? Callie didn't know, nor did she care.
Animated character status aside, Arizona was annoying and rude, and literally the last person on earth she'd ever choose to be her lab partner. She'd rather work with the real-life Mickey Mouse than the blonde, annoying voice and all.
She found herself praying that there was a second, unknown Ms Robbins in the room. The class wasn't massive, but still, it wasn't all that uncommon of a surname. There could be a chance.
"Um, Sir, can't I work by myself?" the familiar perky voice from the front of the room piped up.
Nope, it appeared there was in fact only one Robbins. Of fucking course.
"This class requires lab work to be done in pairs, you know this," Dr Webber replied, his voice cool but laced with mild disapproval.
"I don't mind the extra work," Arizona continued. Callie wasn't sure whether to be relieved or offended by Arizona's clear desire to avoid her. Granted, she felt exactly the same, and would rather take on double the workload than be stuck with the blonde. But still, did she need to make her disdain for the brunette so obvious to the entire room?
"Neither do I," Callie spoke up from her spot at the back of the lab, embarrassed to be making a show in front of the whole class but more desperate not to be stuck with her irritating neighbour.
"If you ladies have a problem with each other, you'd better sort it out outside of my classroom," Dr Webber replied firmly. "This isn't high school; you're training to be doctors. That means working with people you don't necessarily get on with. Ms Torres, I won't ask again. Please come and take a seat up here, and do it quickly. I don't want to waste any more of everyone's time."
The professor sounded duly unimpressed, and his tone was enough to shut Callie up and get her moving pronto.
As she made her way to the front of the lab, she caught Addison's eye, who had an amused expression plastered across her face. Callie threw a quick unimpressed glare in her direction, before turning her head back to face the front.
Slipping into the seat next to the blonde, she kept her face straight, not wanting to betray exactly how irritated she was at the turn of events. She didn't want to risk pissing off Dr Webber further.
Chancing a glance over at Arizona, she noticed that her usually bright blue eyes were looking a little watery as she glared at a spot on the floor in front of their bench. She looked pissed but equally like she was a bit upset. Was she trying not to cry?
She clearly picked up on the brunette staring at her, as she whipped her head around, throwing a sharp glare in her direction so full of emotion it caught Callie off guard for a moment, forcing her to turn her head back around to the front of the room. She could practically feel the waves of anger coming off of the figure next to her.
Daring to glance back in her direction again, she saw that Arizona had focused her attention back on Dr Webber, her eyes now iced over, all of the expressive emotion present moments before gone. Now she just looked straight-up pissed.
Well, this was going to be fun.
Callie kept her eyes trained on the professor as he finished up his introduction, paying just enough attention to gather what they were supposed to be doing in the lab, but no more.
The rest of her focus was directed towards formulating a plan of action for how she was going to approach the class working with the blonde. She wanted to avoid having to actually talk to her as much as possible, but she was also aware that they were going to have to interact at least a little bit if they wanted to get the work done.
Arizona wasn't stupid, far from it in fact. Callie knew from what she'd overheard that the blonde achieved top-of-the-class grades on most assignments, rivalled by only a few select people. Callie also took pride in the fact that she was one of said few that could compete with the woman for the highest scores. Whether Arizona knew this or not was another matter, but what it did mean was that she'd likely want to remain focused, and therefore avoid arguments as much as possible.
That's what Callie hoped anyway. The alternative was that they both gave up on passing the class and instead focused their lab time on ripping each other's hair out. And that would almost definitely result in them both getting booted from the course at the same time.
Dr Webber wrapped up his introduction, announcing that he'd be at the desk at the front for the remainder of the lab time and that everyone was therefore to get on with the set work and consult him or the TA if they needed any help.
The lab was quickly filled with sounds of people bustling around, setting up microscopes, the clinking of glassware, the scribbling of notes in the margins of handouts and the chatter of conversation between partners. Everyone setting about getting on with the task they'd been set.
Everyone apart from Callie and Arizona, who just sat in silence for a long moment, both staring forwards, neither making a move to start setting up for the lab. There was an angry tension building between them, growing more and more unbearable as the seconds ticked by. Callie was certain if one of them didn't do something soon then the rest of the class would become engulfed in the awkwardness that was coming off of the two of them in waves.
"Ok then, I guess we're stuck together," Arizona finally said, breaking the silence and bringing the tension down with it. Her voice was flat, unimpressed and dripping with mirth and irritation, like Callie was a piece of dirt that had made the stupid decision to be underneath Arizona's foot.
"No need to sound so excited," she drawled in reply, aware that this was not how she should be behaving if she wanted to keep things civil yet at a loss to stop the sarcastic comment from slipping from her lips. She really needed to try harder if she wanted to survive the rest of the semester.
"Look Callie, I'm sure you're not entirely obtuse, you know I don't particularly want to be working with you." Arizona shot a pointed look in her direction, blue eyes cold. "But you heard Dr Webber, we need to put our differences aside and get on with it."
"Fine. Let's get going then," Callie replied flatly, glad that at least they were on the same page. She gestured to the cupboard under their desk that held the microscope, indicating that Arizona should get it out as it was on the blonde's side and she didn't want to get up in her personal space.
Arizona raised her eyebrows incredulously.
"I don't have a problem with pulling more than my own weight, I care a lot about getting a good grade, but you could at least pretend you're going to try and be a half-decent lab partner," she said, blatantly speaking down at Callie like she was stupid.
"I hope you're not accusing me of being a slacker, Tinkerbell," Callie shot back, anger rising up in her chest. She was not a slacker. She worked hard, and her grades reflected that.
She did not appreciate being accused of free-riding off of the back of those she worked with.
"Well, you don't seem particularly geared up to get going, how would I know how hard you work?"
Callie closed her eyes and took a deep breath to calm herself. Breathe. Don't yell.
"I just thought you wouldn't mind getting the microscope out seeing as it's closer to you," she said calmly. Well, as calmly as she could muster, which wasn't really all that calm but at least she was trying. "I was going to go and get the samples."
A flash of guilt crossed Arizona's for a split second, so fast it was barely noticeable before it disappeared behind a blank expression.
"Fine," she replied flatly, before sliding off of her stool and opening the cupboard below the desk.
Callie slipped off of her own stool and made her way across to the other side of the room to gather the samples they were working with. She took another deep breath, desperately trying to calm herself down. It was almost ridiculous how quickly that woman got her worked up, anger bubbling in her chest the moment she laid eyes on her most times.
"I was already having a great day, but it's even better now I get to watch you try to work with Phoenix," The voice was loud in her ear, startling her and making her jump, raising her hands reflexively in self-defence.
When she saw it was just Mark, her body relaxed, a scowl forming between her brows as she turned back to the samples.
"How long do you reckon it'll be before you end up ripping her hair out?" He asked, his voice teasing. "I give it twenty minutes, if she doesn't go for you first."
"Suck it, Mark," she muttered, gathering up what she needed and turning on her heel and walking off before he could say anything else.
She arrived back at the bench to find Arizona twiddling with the adjustment nozzles on the microscope, face pressed up against the eyepiece.
Callie cleared her throat, unsure of how else to alert the blonde of her presence. She watched as she looked up at her, an expectant expression on her face like she was waiting for the brunette to say something.
"I'm gonna start preparing the slides while you do that," Callie said, trying to keep her tone even.
"I'll help you. No point calibrating the microscope until there's something to focus on," Arizona replied.
An uncomfortable silence settled over the two of them. This was so fucking awkward. Callie didn't know what to say to this woman – they'd literally never had a civil conversation. Bar perhaps the first time they'd spoken, but that didn't really count in Callie's opinion, as that was before she was to learn how awful a neighbour the blonde was.
"Can you pass the crystal violet?", Arizona asked, pointing at the small bottle of purple liquid in front of Callie.
"Sure," she replied, handing her the bottle.
Callie watched as the blonde untwisted the stopper and carefully dropped the brightly coloured solution onto the slide. "Have you got the timer?"
"Yeah."
"Can you start it?", Arizona asked.
"Sure." Callie set the timer for one minute and placed it down between the two of them.
They sat in silence and waited, the seconds on the timer ticking away in front of them. Callie swore that seconds had never been this long before, but each one dragged, and with each passing moment the tension between them grew again.
"Do you have the iodine ready?" Arizona asked, fidgeting in her seat, apparent that she was finding the situation as uncomfortable as the brunette.
"Yep."
"You sure? Because once I wash this off it needs to be put on the slide immediately."
"Yes," Callie repeated firmly, voice laced with frustration. "I have read the protocol you know."
"Ok! I was just checking!" Arizona replied defensively.
After what felt like forever, the timer ended and Arizona took the slide over to the sink, running it under the tap for a moment before bringing it back to the desk and extending her hand toward the iodine bottle.
Unfortunately, Callie had had the same idea and also reached for the iodine, prepped and ready to get the solution onto the slide quickly as the handout stated. Their hands collided with the bottle at the same moment, knocking it off balance and sending it rolling onto its side, liquid leaking out of the side.
"Fuck!" "You idiot!" they exclaimed at the same time, both jumping up and reaching to right the bottle and move their things away from the rapidly growing dark yellow puddle.
"Jesus! Why did you do that?!" Callie yelled, reaching for some paper towels to mop up the mess, glad for her gloves to keep the liquid off of her hands.
"I wasn't expecting you to go for it too!" Arizona exclaimed, voice also raised as she grabbed a towel to help clean up.
"You asked me to have the iodine ready! Why would that mean you'd do it?"
"You were just sat there like you weren't doing anything!"
"I literally just told you I wasn't a slacker, were you even listening to me at all or were you lost in cuckoo land?"
"Why have you always got to be such a bitch?"
"Why have you always got to be so fucking annoying?"
Arizona huffed out a long breath, before turning on her heel and heading to the bin, taking the paper towels with her.
Callie closed her eyes and took a moment to try and compose herself for what felt like the hundredth time in the past fifteen minutes. She was determined to make it through the next couple of hours, Arizona be damned, but with each passing minute, the blonde seemed to be making it harder and harder.
Returning back to the bench, Arizona calmly began to put together a fresh slide, the old one now redundant due to the iodine spillage. She didn't give Callie any room to help, but the brunette decided to keep her mouth shut and just hold onto the iodine bottle, making her intentions clear this time.
They successfully managed to stain the slide without any further incident, few words exchanged other than "can you pass that" and "there's ten seconds left on the timer".
Taking the slide from in front of the brunette, Arizona placed the small piece of glass onto the microscope stage, bringing her face up to the eyepiece.
Callie sat and waited for the blonde to finish adjusting the lenses, becoming increasingly frustrated as she took her time in finding what she was looking for.
"Have you focused it yet?" Callie asked after a moment, bored of waiting.
"Not yet."
"Do you want me to have a go?"
"I've got it."
"Are you sure-"
"I said I've got it!"
Arizona's tone was firm, and Callie decided not to push it, instead just sitting and waiting. She watched as Dr Webber said something to the TA before getting up from his desk and walking out of the room, presumably heading to his office to get something.
She continued to wait, exercising all of the patience god had given her. But then it had been five minutes and Arizona was still fiddling with the microscope, jotting down some notes on her page as she worked, and Callie was bored.
"Can I please have a look," she tried, keeping her voice level.
"Stop talking, you're ruining my focus," Arizona retorted flatly.
"Alright, no need to be assey," Callie muttered back.
Another minute passed, and the Latina was starting to get annoyed.
"We are supposed to be working together you know. You haven't even let me look once yet."
"Give me a minute."
"No, I've been sat here twiddling my thumbs for over five minutes, it's only fair that I get a go," Callie insisted, her voice slightly raised.
"Yeah well, I was here first, deal with it."
"You are unbelievable!" Callie exclaimed, getting riled up again. "God, you are just as selfish in real life as you are between our damned shared ceiling." She felt like she was arguing with a toddler over a toy, not with a 23-year-old fellow doctor-to-be.
Arizona didn't reply, just kept going with what she was doing.
"Tinkerbell?"
Still no reply.
"Robbins!"
Now she was mad. This was so petty and pathetic, and Callie had had enough. If Arizona was going to ignore her, then she'd have to get her attention by force.
"Arizona! Let me have a look!", she yelled, wrapping her hands around the base of the microscope and tugging it towards herself.
"Hey!" the blonde exclaimed, pushing at Callie's arm, her own hands gripping the contraption in an attempt to keep it in front of her. "I'm using that!"
"Yeah, well you've been using it for long enough!" Callie replied, voice getting louder and sterner with each word, tugging harder on the microscope.
"Stop it!" Arizona held on tighter.
"You stop!"
"Callie!"
As her name left Arizona's lips, the blonde's grip faltered, and the force with which Callie was pulling the microscope suddenly met no resistance. The full weight of the heavy device shifted faster than either of them were able to react to.
In slow motion Callie watched as the microscope fell onto its side, knocking over everything in its path. Every single one of the bottles of various coloured solutions on the desk was hit with the full weight of the metal contraption, falling onto their sides and spilling their contents all over the bench before rolling off of the cold surface and smashing all over the floor with a deafening crash.
Silence fell upon the entire room as fifty sets of eyes bored into the two women, who were now very grateful for their lab coats, which were both stained a bright purple.
Callie took in the scene in front of her. There was broken glass everywhere, pieces scattered halfway across the room. Giant splatters of pink and purple and murky brown coated the desk, similar patterns of coloured solutions covering the floor and cupboards all around them. Her notepad was soaked through, as was the handout and all of the things that Arizona had on the desk.
The blonde next to her had her hands in the air and her mouth open in shock as she too assessed the situation that they'd somehow found themselves in. The silence in the room was deafening, and Callie yearned for the awkward quiet between just the two of them again.
"What. The. Fuck," Arizona said slowly, turning her head to look at Callie.
She looked pissed. More than pissed. Like she was about to throw something. At Callie's head.
The brunette swallowed.
"What the fuck Callie!" She yelled, shoving the Latina's arm with her gloved hand, her eyes burning with rage. "Are you stupid!? Why did you do that?!"
"You wouldn't let go of the damn microscope!" Callie retorted, unable to believe that the blonde was acting like this was entirely her fault. Sure, she'd been the one that had resorted to petty snatching tactics, but it was hardly as if it had been totally uncalled for. "If you'd stopped being so selfish and actually let me have a look then this wouldn't have happened!"
"If I had let go?! Jesus Christ, you are a child!"
"I'm a child! That's rich coming from Minnie Mouse on speed!" Callie exclaimed. She heard a couple of snickers around the room at her comment, drawing her attention to the fact that the entire lab was listening in on their shouting match. Normally she'd be embarrassed at having so much attention on her, but right now she was too mad to care.
"Wow, real mature Callie!" Arizona yelled. "Do you have to go out of your way to be a total bitch or were you dropped on your head as a baby?!"
"I'm only a bitch towards people that are annoying, and I swear to god I have never met anyone more fucking annoying than you!" Callie shouted back.
"I don't know what your problem is!"
"My problem?! My problem is you, I thought that was very clear!"
"God, you're so infuriating! Look at this mess! This is all your damn fault!"
"Oh yeah sure, blame it all on me. It's all my fault, of course, you're a perfect princess, you had nothing to do with it!" Callie yelled, voice dripping with sarcasm, rage bubbling so high in her chest she felt like she was going to burst. "God, no wonder you're stuck living with someone like Alex Karev, no one else will put up with you! You and your stupid fucking perky voice and your damn annoying incessant need to be right all of the time!" She was being irrational and rude now, she knew it, but she couldn't stop the words from falling from her lips. "You are a piece of shit Arizona Robbins, and I can't fucking stand you!-"
"What the hell is going on in here!" Dr Webber's booming voice cut across Callie's angry rant, silencing the brunette immediately as all eyes turned to the doorway, a deathly quiet falling over the room.
"I…uh, there was… uh, it was an accident Sir, uh- we…" Arizona's voice was small and weak and the exact opposite of what it had been moments ago.
"An accident? What kind of an accident causes this much mess?" Dr Webber yelled, and Callie saw Arizona flinch out of the corner of her eye. "You're adults, you're meant to be training to be doctors, god help the rest of us, yet I could hear you screaming at each other like rowdy teenagers from my office!"
Callie wasn't one to cower, but right now she found herself shrinking back into herself like she was ten and her dad was yelling at her. Dr Webber had an air about him that demanded respect even when he was calm and composed, so right now the anger coming off of him was enough to scare the shit out of her.
"You two stay put, the rest of you go take a twenty-minute break and hope that there's enough time left after for you to finish up. If not, you know who to blame for obstructing your education."
The pair remained put as they watched the rest of their classmates filter out of the room, muttering amongst themselves no doubt about the scene that they'd just witnessed.
Eventually, it was only the two of them left, standing opposite a very angry-looking Dr Webber, who was shooting daggers in their direction with his eyes. He took a deep breath, and when he spoke his voice was quieter and more level, although the cold rage in his tone was still painfully obvious.
"I'm sure there is some perfectly reasonable explanation as to why two of my top students can't work together nicely without breaking hundreds of dollars worth of university property, and that's assuming that you haven't also broken that microscope," he said coolly, his hands on his hips as his eyes bored into the two women.
"Sir I-"
"I don't want to hear it." He cut across Arizona as she began to speak. Callie almost wished that he'd go back to yelling – it was somehow less scary than this. "You will clean this mess up and then you will leave my lab and hope that the textbook gives you a comprehensive enough explanation of the techniques you were meant to learn today." Callie felt her shoulders droop in relief. At least they weren't getting kicked out of the class. "If anything like this happens again, if either of you places a foot out of line for the rest of the semester, you can guarantee you'll both be out of my class faster than you can say MD. And I know you both know how bad failing a class will look when you start applying for internships."
He looked around at the mess again, and then sighed. "You two have let me and the rest of your class down today. Don't do it again." With that, he turned on his heel and walked out of the room, leaving the two of them standing in stunned silence.
A moment passed in which neither of them moved, until the quiet was broken by a sniff coming from the blonde.
"Are you crying?" Callie asked, turning to look in Arizona's direction and immediately receiving an answer to her question. She was standing there, the whole front of her lab coat covered in a cocktail of liquids that probably shouldn't be so close to her skin, strands of light hair sticking to her now tear-stained cheeks.
"Don't look at me like that," she shot back, but it was half-assed, all of the fight in her from before seemingly gone. "I have authority issues, ok. I'm not actually upset."
Callie raised an amused eyebrow.
"My dad is a marine," she continued by way of explanation, her tone defensive.
"Ok," Callie said, raising her hands as if to say, 'I don't care'.
"Whatever, I don't have to explain myself to you." She muttered under her breath. Callie wanted to make a comment about the fact that she hadn't actually asked for an explanation, but she decided to keep her mouth shut. "Let's just clean this mess up so we can get out of here."
Arizona pulled her lab coat off and discarded it in a heap on the stool, throwing her gloves in the bin and wiping her cheeks dry with the sleeve of her jumper. Tugging her hair tie free from where it was securing her ponytail, her blonde locks fell around her face as she shook them loose. Callie noticed that the pale strands caught the sunlight streaming through the window, making her almost look like she was glowing, just for a moment.
Then she tilted her head back to collect her hair in her hands so that she could re-tie it, and Callie's eyes were immediately drawn to the sharp line of her jaw, and the exposed column of her throat. For a fleeting moment, she found herself wondering what it would feel like to press her lips to the milky skin.
But then she shook that thought from her head. That was so far from appropriate considering the nature of their relationship. Sure, she could appreciate the fact that Arizona was attractive, Callie wasn't blind, but as pleasing to the eye as she may be, she was also Arizona, and there was no amount of beauty that could redeem her from that fact.
Turning away from the blonde, Callie pulled her own lab coat off, relieved to see that the material had protected her clothes underneath from the less-than-pleasant solutions that coated the 2-metre radius around them. She grabbed a clean pair of gloves and dragged the sharps bin over to the bench, before bending down and proceeding to pick up the biggest shards of broken glass that covered the floor.
God this was such a mess. They were going to be hard-pressed to have it all cleaned up before the rest of the class returned in… she checked her watch… now fifteen minutes.
She didn't bother to check and see what Arizona was doing, but she could hear her moving about, the light sound of footfall and clinking glass coming from the other side of the desk.
It was a short while later before either of them said anything, both stewing over the events of the past hour and how much they hated the other. Callie was glad for the silence, still so worked up that she knew if she said anything it would quickly turn into another screaming match, which she absolutely could not afford to do after Dr Webber's stern telling off.
"This can't happen again." Arizona eventually broke the silence, her voice quiet but firm.
"I know," Callie replied simply.
"I'm a hard worker, I put the effort in, and I do well because of it. I'm not the kind of person that gets into trouble," she continued, her even tone wobbling ever so slightly, betraying the emotion she was feeling right now. "I'm definitely not the kind of person that gets yelled at by renowned surgeons like Dr Webber."
"Neither am I."
"He actually implied that we might be kicked off of the course." Callie could hear her voice getting higher, like just the thought was making her anxious. "Like that's it. Class failed. I've never failed anything in my life. I've never even had a detention before!"
"You sound like you were a fun kid," Callie muttered sarcastically. It probably wasn't the most tactful thing to say right now, but she couldn't help it. She wasn't used to having serious conversations with the blonde.
Arizona threw her an unimpressed glare from where she was scrubbing the floor to Callie's right. "Whatever. This just can't happen again."
"Yeah, you already said." Arizona was right though. Callie might not be as terrified of stepping out of line as the blonde, but there was no way they could have a repeat of what had happened this afternoon. She was not risking her education over petty arguments with her annoying neighbour.
There was another moment of quiet before Arizona spoke again.
"You don't know me, Callie," she said, staring directly at the brunette as she spoke. Callie raised an eyebrow, unsure where the blonde was going with this, but able to tell from her tone that she was being serious. "You don't know anything about me."
"I know more than you think," Callie replied, thinking about all of the information she had learnt about Arizona against her will. You picked up a lot when you could hear practically every conversation someone had.
"No, you don't," she replied firmly. "You know what music I listen to, sure, and what time of day I exercise or clean my room or call my mom. But that's all."
"Ok?" Callie conceded, keeping her voice level. She didn't have the energy to argue about this. "Your point is?"
"My point is you don't get to judge me like that, in front of everyone, like you know me. Because you don't." Callie looked up and made direct eye contact with the blonde, a firm expression on her face, her eyes cold. "Not that it's any of your business, but I live with Alex because, despite being an ass, he's a really loyal friend. I may be perky, and I may annoy the hell out of you, but you don't get to poke fun at me and make comments like that in front of our entire class. It's one thing yelling at me when we're alone, but that was uncalled for."
"I don't think it was totally uncalled for, you were being petty and selfish," Callie replied, irritated that she was being spoken down to. Although Arizona had a point and she had crossed a line with what she'd said, she didn't like the blonde's condescending tone.
"Maybe I was, but I'm still a person and I deserve some amount of respect in front of my peers Callie." Arizona was firm with her words, unyielding.
Callie sighed, frustrated but not wanting to push it any further.
"Ok fine, it was out of line," she said through gritted teeth. "I'm sorry."
"Thank you," Arizona replied. Her tone screamed 'was that really so hard?', but Callie decided she wouldn't rise to it. She could be the bigger person. "I'm sorry I called you a bitch. Although you were acting like a child, so you did kind of deserve it."
"I can take back my apology real easily Snow White," Callie hissed, scrubbing harder at the spot of floor beneath her boot. The stains really were refusing to budge.
"Ok, ok, let's just leave it," Arizona replied, clearly sensing the Latina's frustration and choosing to drop the subject. Callie thought that was wise. "We do need to agree to try and be civil in class though," she continued.
"I know," Callie sighed, knowing Arizona was right. "I don't like you, and I'm not going to pretend I do, but I'm not failing this class. I'm certainly not failing because of you." She practically spat the final word.
"Yeah, well, the feelings mutual," the blonde threw back. "But agreed, I'm not letting you be the reason I don't have perfect grades across all of my classes."
"Wow, you're modest,"
"I'm just being truthful."
There was a pause and Callie huffed out a sigh.
"Truce?" she asked tentatively.
"Truce," Arizona replied, nodding once before getting back to work scrubbing the stains off of the cupboards.
Standing and stretching her legs, Callie glanced up at the clock, noting the time. They only had about ten minutes left, and there was still a lot to clean up. But she'd be damned if she was going to still be here when the rest of the class got back.
She sighed, wiping her brow on her arm, before crouching down again and getting back to work.
A/N2: So the lab that I have described in this chapter is actually a real microbiology practical – if anyone is interested it is called gram staining, and it is used to be able to tell the difference between different types of bacteria. I hope that for anyone that doesn't have a science background, it is still understandable and doesn't impede your enjoyment of the story – I understand that not everyone loves science like I do!
A/N3: I know some of you are probably starting to think 'how have they not realised who the other person is yet?' which is a totally fair question and is something that I have had to think about very carefully (I have actually drawn up a table of the things that they know about each other so that I can keep track!) By my own personal logic however I don't think that they would have figured it out yet, for reasons that I will now explain if you are interested!
1. Initials are very generic – lots of people share the same ones (eg Alex and April in Greys). In my story, neither Arizona or Callie are aware of the other person's middle name, so the I in CIT and the B in ABR won't mean anything to them. Because of this, they are only working with CT and AR, which doesn't really give all that much away.
2. All that they know about the location of the other person is that they are probably American, so the person that they are talking to could be from literally anywhere in the US. Even if we narrow it down to just medical students, there are roughly 170 med schools in the US (according to Mr Google), and each of them take about 150-200 students per year – that's a lot of potential CITs and ABRs!
3. Where we are at in the story so far, they don't actually really know each other very well in the 'real life' part as of yet, so a lot of the details that they may mention in the emails aren't things that they know about the other person – eg Arizona doesn't know that Callie likes to cook, Callie doesn't know that Arizona wants to go into Peads etc.
4. Of all of the people in the world that they could be talking to, the chances of it being their annoying upstairs neighbour is so incredibly slim that I don't think that they'd suspect it, at least not yet (or at least that's my logic so we'll go with it for the sake of the story!)
That being said, I am loving hearing your thoughts on the logistics behind their friendship, and discussion about how and when they are going to realise who the other person is! I just wanted to say don't worry, your thoughts aren't without reason – all will be revealed in good time! What do you think is going to happen next? Will they learn to work well together in the lab, or is this just a recipe for disaster?
(Also, thanks to those of you that have pointed out my excessive use of the word 'whilst' – I hadn't noticed but now I've read it back I have realised that it's a bit much! I have made a concious effort to be more creative with my word choices and sentence structure moving forwards!)