A/N - happy (soon-to-be) new year, friends!

anyway, don't worry in the reviews, callie and arizona will definitely have a happy ending here. i can't and won't ever bring myself to give them an unhappy ending in a long chaptered story (that's also probably why there are so many depressing one-shots in my one-shot collection. getting the depressing stuff all out, you know). however, i know the process is long, and it's okay if it's not your thing, you're free to go read something you'd enjoy more!

i wanted this story to show the process of falling in love and growing as a person at the same time, you know? in a "what if we meet but don't definitely fall in love right away but rather learn from each other and become better people as we walk through life together before eventually getting together" kind of way. a...modern-day but old-fashioned love. i'm a sucker for that, i've been wanting to write this for so long.

sorry for the long author's note, please enjoy both this chapter and the upcoming year!

V - HALF ASLEEP

MARCH 12, 2011

...

It was by her mailbox, in her father's old tank top and watching a squirrel running across the street that Callie felt light and happy for the first time in three months.

Callie never liked writing or drawing too much, but she had a couple of notebooks lying around her cramped basement. In a small one with a black cover, there was a picture stuck, coming from one of the disposable cameras Arizona had at her new year's party.

In the picture, she was grinning at the camera and Arizona was grinning at her, both wearing bright pink party hats. They looked dumb.

Callie had stuck the picture there two months ago and left the notebook under a stack of romance novels she no longer read. After that, she swore that she would move on.

The sky was alright and the wind was warm, and she was building her own life up, piece by piece.

So many weeks later, the sunlight struggled through the leaves and bounced off car roofs, making pedestrians squint angrily.

Callie had decided she was important today. She was important, and she wasn't going to chase after people and emotions just to prove her own existence anymore. It wasn't that she didn't want a relationship ever again; she just didn't want a relationship where anyone could do. She couldn't run back and forth between the Callie she knew and the Callie they knew sometimes. And then eventually that line blurred and she couldn't tell Callie from Callie from Callie. But she was trying.

Callie looked down at the paper cup in her hand. Black coffee, because it was badass. She looked back up and could almost hear Mark talking beside her. Walk tall, Torres. Walk tall.

Callie crossed the street as the light turned green. Living in other people's eyes was tiring, and frankly, a disrespect to her own eyes. She took small steps and could practically hear Cristina scolding her. It's okay to like yourself better then other people, Callie. You're very likeable.

She had decided she was important today.

…

Africa was different in a lot of ways then what Arizona had imagined. For one, it wasn't completely miserable. Also, she didn't spend hours sulking over the life she'd left behind.

The only slightly questionable thing she tended to do was drinking too much coffee without her usual double milk and stare out the window of the small NICU on blinding sunny days.

The nurses whispered about how she was very particular about the coffee, freshly ground and no milk, but they didn't dare raise their voices. One, because Arizona was hard and severe and had an unexpectedly intimidating look in her eyes, and second, she was very damn good at her job and they didn't have reason to speak up anyway.

…

Six months into her clinic in Africa, and Arizona was staring at the phone again. The other side of the world was only a phone call away, but picking up the phone was far harder then saving babies.

Arizona was in Africa, she felt so far away from her whole life. This was new.

She never used to feel this strange homelessness when she used to move around before.

She heard people talking sometimes and she called people in Seattle once or twice. It was although Callie and her never were.

They were real, they really did happen, no matter what other people said. And sometimes, the best thing for anything was to be able to have a beginning and an end.

On particularly quiet nights, she felt although her youth was long left in Callie's warm hands, and this inevitable fall was seeming to have been made to last forever.

They were real. They were there once.

She preferred pretending she was okay and that she was over whatever leaving Seattle brought on her.

Arizona sighed and picked up the phone, dialing a number she knew by heart.

"Hey, Teddy?"

A muffled voice answered.

"How was the intern exams in Seattle this year?"

…

Callie looked down at the creases on her palm and fell back, leaning on the plastic seats of the subway. She smiled quietly to herself as she suddenly remembered Arizona standing there in a tank top, drinking a day-old Red Bull in her kitchen. She knew she must've looked like an idiot smiling to her hands to the people in her train. But she was trying to be a responsible adult person, she really was.

She was keeping track of her credit cards. She was ordering less take-out. She was trying to plan out her future and focus on hard work and stopping her habit of going out on the wiry porch to watch stars at three in the morning. Callie liked to think that she almost had this whole 'responsible adult' thing down cold. She didn't stuff feelings into everything that didn't have feelings, and she was crying less every time she watched Dead Poets Society.

She rocked her intern exam.

…

Arizona was saving lives and kicking ass, and it was everything a doctor could ever dream to reach itheir residency. There was only about a month to go and it would mark an entire year in Africa.

It shouldn't have been surprising; Arizona always was an overachiever.

She hanged up the phone call with Teddy, hanging up with all the contact she maintained with Seattle too.

She never did send any postcards to Callie. It wasn't that she didn't want to. She did, actually, really want to.

If fact, there was a small pile of postcards in the small cubicle they had given her. Nine of them were scrapped, with so many failed lines of ink that she no longer had much of space to fit in a single sentence that would ask Callie about her life. Their dates varied between almost ten months ago to only last week.

The tenth postcard sat in the middle of the desk, with only a "Calliope," written carefully in spidery handwriting.

Arizona walked back to her desk and sat down.

She spun a pen around her thumb and leaned back into the chair.

It was only until a cricket chirped outside the open window that she sat up again, picking up the pen. The ink made a small blob on the top right corner of the postcard, and Arizona didn't hesitate before writing.

"Calliope,

She paused, twisting her mouth and listening to the quiet night noise.

We are something. And we could have been something great, even, I'm sure of it.

I did fall for you. But we both had careers to pursue and different lives to take care of, and I never told you.

You never said anything either, but honestly, I think we both knew.

From Arizona"

Her pager buzzed and she put the cap back onto her pen, blowing the ink dry. This was a last piece of care to a bout of falling she'd left behind, all the way back in Seattle.

She hurriedly slipped it between two pages of a book on her desk and stood up, pulling on her lab coat.

Arizona never sent that postcard.

…

There had been a kind of bar gathering with Mark and a couple of people she honestly didn't even know that well. Somewhere in the middle of the noisy dance floor, Callie caught sight a swirl of blonde hair, twisting and turning in an idiotically tight dress. Arizona would never wear that kind of dress, Callie was certain, and between the two of them, Callie would be first one to go out in something like that.

But the woman's hair was bright and shiny and reminded her of Arizona for the first time of the week, and she scowled a little. It reminded her of those moments when Arizona had dropped her ways of a shark-like resident and was gentle and caring with Callie, slightly bubblier and certainly more smiley.

Callie clinked her glass with Bailey, a resident a year older that hated everyone, but seemed to tolerate her. Their blue drinks sloshed and burned when it washed down her throat.

She had begun living deliberately, trying to ignore the few stares that came when a new intern this year asked her out (and the even more numerous stares that came when she declined). She chose her morning coffee the way she liked it instead of sticking to raw black coffee just to look tough. It made her feel better.

She also supposed that this was better.

She liked Arizona, and with Arizona gone, she could remember Arizona the way she fancied.

Arizona wouldn't ever get old. She wouldn't ever sleep with too many women or cheat on a significant other or be rude to a cashier on a bad day. Arizona wouldn't ever get past thirty and start disliking new technology and start buying too many makeup products to reduce her wrinkles.

In Callie's mind, Arizona would always be slanted just to the left of a golden ray of light, in a tank top and smiling at her from clean white bed sheets, hair tousled from the night before. In Callie's mind, Arizona was forever twenty-nine and young and daring. All bright tinkly laughter and a fiery touch, fervent with the smell of their youth.

She frowned and raised a curious eyebrow when Mark eyed Teddy up and down and whispered something with his flirty face pulled over his neatly trimmed moustache.

And then she frowned again because the way she was thinking of Arizona was almost like she was dead, and frankly, she didn't like that thought one bit.

When Callie got home that night, she sat beside the crackly television while her phone charged enough to restart.

Under her dusty light, she added 'Malawi, Africa' to the weather app.

…

Arizona had only been informed of the exact length of her stay, or rather, the rest of her stay in Africa a week ago. She wasn't very sure whether she was happy or disappointed that she was to embark on a return flight to Seattle in only eleven months.

Through leaving and arriving and moving all her life, there was one thing she knew, and it was that the hardest thing was always knowing when to let go.

There were a couple of pretty nurses in her clinic, but somehow she didn't feel the urge to sleep with any one of them. The nearest any of them got to actually knowing her as something more than a colleague was a night when another resident brought two baskets of alcohol (Arizona somehow got drunk less easily in the southern side of the equator) and they all sat in a circle, drinking.

After Arizona knocked back her third beer after only fifteen minutes, a nurse with batting eyelashes scooted very close and eyed her up and down. Arizona had taken no care and raised her glass in salute. People around them were too busy benefiting from the relaxed air of the one night to really care if people started hooking up.

A bit foggy, Arizona put down her glass when the nurse kept looking.

And then the pretty girl leaned in and kissed her on the mouth, tasting bitter and smelling of cigarette ashes. Arizona shifted away and frowned.

The girl had blonde hair and big eyes and a very American voice. She asked Arizona if it was a person's name that she was trying to drown in alcohol.

Arizona answered that it wasn't, that she was just a bit nostalgic, and that she had no fucking idea on how exactly to feel all this nostalgia.

…

It was winter again, and Callie was spending a rare day off on her mattress in the corner, covers pulled over her shoulders and squinting at her phone screen.

It was raining in Malawi again, and Callie had started a habit of writing in a diary.

Well, it was more of a few scribbles here and there in a cheap notebook that was interrupted occasionally by a receipt or a movie ticket. It made her feel less lonely.

It was snowing in Seattle again, and Callie liked sleeping alone.

Fumbling through the sheets, she found a roll of tape and tore off a piece through her teeth, slipping out one of the pictures that came out of the cameras on the new year's party this year. She stood in the middle of (a very drunk) Meredith and Cristina, smiling widely. She stuck it next to the familiar one of her grinning at the camera and Arizona grinning at her.

Under the older photo, there was her handwriting from a year ago, spelling out loopy cursive words. 'We are very happy here.'

Under the new photo, she found a pen under the bed and wrote carefully, 'I am still very happy now'.

…

Humid air and the same old rainy weather both came before summer did to Seattle.

Callie sat on her mattress and scowled at the empty wall lined with medical books. Her bed, or rather, mattress with three different sheets and a pillow on it, laid in its corner of the dark basement and she tried not to dwell on the dream she had of Arizona.

Of course, it was typical really, just as Callie was beginning to forget about her, she had a dream that kept her awake at four in the morning.

If she closed her eyes, she could still see the pharmacy she'd walked out of her dream. White walls, tall shelves, a quiet forbidding between big posters of white teeth and bright colors. The air conditioning that was turned on too low couldn't have followed her into the parking lot, where the half decade that lied between them couldn't have kept her from running into Arizona.

…Arizona?

Arizona looked up from frowning at her energy drink and smiled.

Calliope! Long time no see.

Arizona had nicer clothes in her dream. A loose but well-tailored suit, looking like every other professional woman people wouldn't mess with. A nicer car too, on which she was leaning on. Not a nicer cigarette though, those things were never very nice, but it looked thinner, more elegant, richer.

Like someone who was doing well in life.

Wow, what has it been…like, six years?

I suppose it has. Since I came back from Africa and transferred to Seattle Pres, huh?

That was how things always turned out, Callie sighed, half humourlessly smiling to herself. Friends left, even if just out of reach, and it was always the doomed beginning of having each other's lives untangle completely from each other.

It was funny how she still winced a little when she heard Arizona's name.

You know, you once bet me we'd never get this old.

Callie chuckled, smoothing out her yellow sundress that was not at all appropriate for the dingy parking lot. Yeah, well, things change. And we did get old.

Unfortunate, isn't it?

Well, I mean, not entirely, maybe. I heard you were doing pretty well.

Arizona smiled the same way she did, one tired corner of her mouth curling up almost unwillingly. She snuffed out the cigarette and crushed it under a high heel.

Yup, I am. Saving babies, all that stuff. I started a new speciality a few years back actually, fetal surgery and poking into hearts in uterus, you know.

Callie was certain she would have missed Arizona's smile if she had come across her anywhere else a few years ago. And then seven months passed, just before Arizona had to leave for Africa, she turned into the only smile Callie could find so quickly in a crowd.

She guessed it was a good thing, kind of, after getting over the pesky and unimportant feelings that she of slight unworthiness after Arizona had left for Africa.

In another universe, they probably wouldn't have ever met. But luckily for them, in this one, they did.

Arizona chuckled stuffed her hands back into her pant pockets without a can or a cigarette to hold onto.

I'm sure Addison told you about the new breakthroughs and everything. She was the bridesmaid at your wedding, after all.

Callie shifted on her feet and replied with a matching smile.

She was. And I'm so proud of the both of you.

Arizona shrugged humbly.

I heard you were doing well too. The years have been kind to you.

Yeah, yeah…I am, yeah, with the robotic legs, veterans, a couple of ted talks… Callie nodded.

And you, Arizona? Any…

Arizona laughed, an actual airy laugh. A laugh that floated out because she couldn't contain the feelings. She grinned, the real kind too, dimples and all.

Husbands? Wives? Girlfriends? No, not really. Just mistakes with different names.

Callie nodded. Cool. As long as you're happy.

I am, I would say. Arizona lifted a shoulder.

I think I'm happy.

And then Callie could no longer make sense of the rest of the dream that came back in small bits.

Arizona had told her that maybe if they changed back into cornflower scrubs, they could live everything again. Callie had answered that the distance between scut and a scalpel was really only five years of their time. Arizona had said that she had a pile of postcards at the bottom of her dresser because she actually did write to Callie in Africa, and then whenever she went on business trips afterwards because it had become some sort of habit. Callie had said that she still drank Monster sometimes, even though she hated it.

She furrowed her brows and thought harder.

Arizona had said that they were putting on expensive suits and pretending to grow up, and Callie had replied that farewell really did mean that they wouldn't meet again. Arizona had said that their youth mattered no matter how they chose to spend it, and Callie had said that this earthliness, it always hurt like a bitch.

And whatever I've got, I'm eager to lose.

Callie wanted to cry but she didn't whether they would be happy tears or salty sadness that finally leaked through.

We are only blood and bad timing.

We will never be this young again.

Callie stepped closer.

What if this time, I asked you to stay? And what if this time, you said yes?

A decade later, they would surely have families and different lovers. In different suburbs, leading different lives with different houses and different sadness's. Arizona probably would have quit smoking and she wouldn't smile the same way anymore.

Callie laid back down and turned to face the wall.

She was not where Arizona left her.

…

Arizona plopped back down onto a rough couch and high fived the nurse.

"That was our hardest patient in a while, you know, Doctor Robbins?"

"It certainly was. Good job back there."

The nurse smiled smugly under her dark mascara and pasty skin. Arizona didn't look at her, instead she picked at a loose string of her scrub top and tried not to think of cigarettes.

"Poor kids. Thank god we're here for them."

Arizona shrugged and said, "Probably will go into my list of reasons why I don't want children."

"Really?" The nurse sat down beside her and raised her eyebrows. "People would think you'd be crazy for kids, you love 'em."

"Eh. I mean, I love them as long as they're not mine." Arizona hesitated when the nurse batted her eyelashes. "What was your name again?"

"Mia. Mia Gesolis."

"Is our shift over?"

The girl smiled sweetly at her.

The corners of her mouth went upwards and her eyes didn't budge. She didn't have a nice smile.

Arizona cleared her throat. "You have a nice smile."

"Thank you!"

"And yeah, I think our shift is over."

Arizona blinked and let her lashes stay downwards a fraction of a second longer.

She stood up. "Okay. I'd better get going." Picking up her mug, she took a large gulp and revelled in the bitter coffee.

"W-Well I thought that maybe—"

"I'm not going to sleep with you." Arizona ignored the nurse's surprised and irritated expression and forced a polite smile. "That's someone that I no longer am."

She walked towards the door and left behind a half-sincere 'sorry'.

She was no longer the person she was two years ago.

…

Rare nights out were even rarer when all of Callie's friends were surgeons.

This was a very rare night out.

Joe's bar buzzed with booze and music, and their booth was squished all the way in the back. It was Wednesday night, and Callie never liked Wednesdays, but she guessed this one was okay.

Mark and Teddy and Bailey sat beside her, all slack-jawed and surprised, staring at Cristina's head peeping over four jugs of beer.

"Guys," Teddy spoke up first. "Guys. This isn't a dream, right?"

"Nope."

"Oh god," Mark croaked, "Cristina Yang is letting bratty men feel her up and making disgusting blue drinks." He downed the rest of his scotch and made a face. "This is a fever dream."

Callie played with her straw and watched Bailey not answer anyone and continue lifting her glass, finishing another one of those deadly blue drinks. "I think it's nice."

Teddy snapped her head her way.

Callie doesn't giggle. Only when she was tipsy.

Callie giggled. "What? I think it's nice. As long as it makes her happy, then it's nice." She propped up her chin with a hand. "I think I'm going to get a hair cut. I want short hair."

"I want—" Bailey burped loudly and both Mark and Teddy winced, earning themselves a glare. "I want fistulas. A solution for…fistulas."

"I need a sexual sorbet," Mark groaned.

"No, you need to get over Addison moving away."

He glared at Teddy. "You can't talk. You don't get to talk when you're all happy with you hot baseball guy."

"I need to get over Addison moving away too," Callie drawled, "Everyone is leaving! Everyone leaves me eventually! I'm inlovable!" She frowned. "No, uh…unlovable."

"I don't think Addison moving away was in any way because of you. Besides, she promised that she'd visit often."

Mark rolled his eyes, patting Callie's head that dropped on his shoulder. "How's your hot blonde chick? Arizona? Have you heard from her?"

Teddy swallowed a peanut whole and averted her eyes.

"No," Callie said as she glared at him, "She was a long time ago. I don't think of her anymore."

He nodded, pursing his lips. "Right."

Bailey raised her hand and waved over Cristina. "Another round, Yang. On me."

The rest of the table cheered and Callie giggled when Bailey took a fake bow. They raised their glasses and stood up unsteadily, saying not at all in unity, "Here's to us!"

"To Mark becoming less of a man-whore." He grinned toothily and jutted out his chin in pride.

"To Teddy finally settling down and being our role-model right now." Teddy blushed a little.

"To Bailey owning her residency and scaring all the interns, emphasis on the one that keeps asking Callie out." Bailey rolled her eyes and wacked Mark in the back.

"And to Callie, finally having her own apartment and moving out of that terrible basement!"

A bit of the drinks sloshed over the sides as they clinked their glasses and sat back down.

And Callie meant every word she said. She loved the delicate way the night tore her open.

The rest was but a fog of drunken taxi calling.

Back in her basement, she looked around the packed-up boxes and sighed, flopping down onto her good old mattress that was one of the only things left laying around. She patted around the sheets until she found a little notebook shaped bump.

Clicking a pen, she flipped it open.

June 24, 2012. Slightly rainy but not very depressing.

She paused, got up, and went to close the windows.

I'm leaving this basement in another day, and I can't say that I'm not excited. I'll still miss it.

It's creaky floorboards and moldy windows and drippy bathroom sink. God, daddy would've been disgusted if he found out that I lived in this place.

A cricket chirped and Callie puffed out her cheek. Reaching to her right, she propped up her phone up and directed the flashlight onto the yellow pages.

I don't know if I'll remember this in five years. In ten years.

I get sad when I think of all the nights that I loved but wouldn't remember forever. There are familiar smiles that I see everyday and that I won't know anymore in a few years, and that sucks.

Everything sucks, all the time. But sometimes, things suck less, and I think those are the moments I really need to try to remember.

…

Sometime into September, Arizona stood at her desk and shuffled a few files. She thought of the tickets back to Seattle laying in her drawer, next to a small pile of postcards.

A bird landed on the windowsill that was too thin and Arizona looked into the small mirror perched on the edge of the table.

Staring back was not the girl she used to know.

She wasn't very sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

In her earphones, was the same fifteen songs on repeat since the beginning of her two years in Africa.

The world, while mostly garbage, had these remarkable moments. Like now. Where Arizona was at peace, packing up a bit of stuff for Seattle and thinking about the surgery she was to perform in the afternoon.

There was always a strange feeling when she was about to leave a place. She didn't know if she could fit back in Seattle. She didn't know what to do, as she once told someone beside a lonely highway, with all this permanence either.

Times like these, or rather, the times that were already passing, were rare. These times that only got better because she wanted them to.

Arizona took her phone out of her pocket and opened her photos. There weren't many photos, only a little past two hundred. She disliked the cramped feeling of having pictures of too many things she wouldn't ever get a use of.

Scrolling up, she found the one she was looking for.

It zoomed up on the small screen and Callie's face looked back up at her. Nose bright pink, shining through the frost and cold, and she had on that goddamn dress she was always so stubborn to wear in the middle of the winter.

Callie was laughing like she used to in front of that ridiculously blue sky right in the back of Arizona's old truck, laughing like a sad love song that buzzed through radios in the early morning hours.

Arizona couldn't help but smile too.

"Doctor Robbins?"

Arizona looked up.

Mia poked her head through the door and waved her hand. "It's almost time to scrub in for your surgery."

"Okay. Thanks, Mia."

Arizona looked back down and the song in her earphones ended.

She took a breath and pressed the little red trash can.

Then the phone was back on the table, her earphones neatly wrapped around.

And the only picture she had of the way she was happy was permanently deleted.

…

They will never have those lives they dreamt of when they were six that teacher asked them to describe.

But Callie stood in the middle of her new apartment and she was happy.

"A new start."

Mark clapped her on the back and put the last box down. "Yup."

Callie nodded to herself. "I'm going to be fine. Just fine."

Outside, the first snow of the year started floating down.

"We're going to do great, Cal. Don't worry." Mark walked over to the fridge and took out a beer. Callie had no idea when the beers got in there. "We're hot." He cracked open the cap. "We're cool." He took a swig. "We'll people and we'll get invited to prestigious medical ceremony thingies because we're so cool."

"I hope so."

"I know so."

Callie rolled her eyes. "I know so."

Mark laughed, handing her a second beer. "Anyway, I've started teaching interns. I've found this whole teaching-the-next-generation thing pretty nice."

"Pretty nice?" Callie narrowed her eyes, finally turning to look at him. "They're hot, aren't they? Which ones have you fixed your creepy, smug, admittedly hot face on this time?"

"Only one, actually. For once."

"Wow."

"Yeah." He looked away, looking almost embarrassed. "Her name's Lexie. Lexie Grey."

"Grey? Like, as in, Meredith Grey?"

Mark made a face and a beer-free hand in her direction. "How 'bout you? You're hot. Especially with your new haircut. Haven't that O'Malley guy pestered you even more?"

Callie couldn't help but chuckle and shake her shoulders, bobbing her new hair that came down to just below her chin. The blue streaks had a bit of light bounce of them.

Mark raised an eyebrow.

"Urgh." Callie scowled. "George isn't that bad. He's sweet."

Mark raised his eyebrow again.

"Really. He's kinder than anyone has been to me in a long time."

…

It had been past t-shirt weather for a few weeks (with the exception of those adolescent boys who run around in tanks and shorts even in snow). The shops down fifth avenue were putting out Christmas decorations in the display windows again, Starbucks started making pumpkin spice and peppermint drinks…

And Arizona was back on this coast.

The sun was shining brightly, her skin was a tiny shade darker, and her hair had grown long, and then had been cut short again. The ends clung to her chin and Arizona closed her eyes, sucking in the familiar Seattle air. Her phone was just sitting in her pocket, still waiting to be dialed.

She was here again, for all the things she sometimes, a little more rarely, but sometimes, couldn't let go. The hospital, the friends, the bars, the highways, the seven-elevens…

A yellow taxi zoomed past, raising a cloud of smoke and a child yelled gibberish across the street. Arizona thought of Callie and smiled.

They were so close, but they were not, and in the end, that was what mattered.

They were so close.

But they were separate people, getting on with separate bits of life.