Moving boxes litter the hallways of their new house, each one labeled with militaristic accuracy and organized to maximize the efficiency of moving, all of which might not actually get unpacked for weeks. Arizona is good at planning. Executing… less so.
They've been here for a little under a week now, and all the essentials have found their places. The rest— well, it'll happen when it happens. Either that, or Callie will hound Arizona into it eventually.
Arizona stands in the kitchen, washing the dishes from lunch by hand because it makes her feel settled. Reminds her of her mother, and how beautiful she looked bathed in sunlight, staring into space, always a little bit lonely.
There's an itch that Arizona gets when she's confronted by a moment of absolute peace. A part of her that never actually believes it will last. Even this, now, idly drying plates in the kitchen of her home after a meal with her wife and her daughter. She wonders if she'll ever stop waiting for Callie to leave her.
Arizona watches the grass of their backyard sway in the wind through the window above the kitchen sink. She must look just like her mother. It's something she's accepted, recently, something she's learning to come to peace with, even as she takes the time to remember this exact, breathtakingly perfect moment. She wants to hold onto this for as long as possible. It's not a very peaceful instinct to cling to things the way she does, but she's working on that. She's learning. She hasn't learned.
Callie comes up behind her, wrapping her arms around Arizona's waist and hooking her chin over Arizona's shoulder. "Whatcha thinkin'?"
Everything. Nothing. Too much and too little and nothing she can say out loud.
"We should get chickens," Arizona says instead.
"What?" Callie chuckles.
Arizona turns in her wife's arms. She laces her fingers behind Callie's neck, playing with the buzzed ends of her hair. "I'm serious. The yard is perfect, and we could, we could get a coop. Or better yet we could build a coop. And we could paint it green and get a bunch of baby chicks. Sofia's getting older, and soon we'll just be her lame, boring moms and she won't want to raise chickens with me anymore. I mean, God, Callie, she starts high school in the Fall. And she's a Sloan. She's half Mark Sloan!"
"Alright, alright, I get it," Callie soothes, rubbing circles into the arch of Arizona's back. "Really we should be more worried about her being a teenaged Torres, though."
Arizona scrunches up her face. She squirms in Callie's arms in mild protest of not being acknowledged.
"You're serious about this?" Callie asks. Arizona can't quite tell if she's making fun of her, but it doesn't actually matter. Arizona wants this, and that's what matters.
"Yeah, I think I am."
Arizona gets the blueprints for free online and immediately jumps into the project. She drags Sofia to Home Depot for supplies on Saturday ("Honestly, I can't believe I made it 15 years without entering a home depot before. What kind of a lesbian are you?") and lets her daughter pick out the shade of green they'll use on the exterior even though Sofia inherited Callie's distaste for pastels— something Arizona's never really gotten over.
Her wife looks at her like she's gone crazy when she marches through their front door wielding a stack of thin wood paneling. Sofia follows behind, each arm weighed down by a can of non-toxic, chicken-friendly paint.
Callie's knees are curled into her chest and she has a book balancing on the arm of their sofa. She barely glances up as they come through the door, but her eyebrows raise immediately. "Is that plywood? Will that hold up?"
Arizona's frowns. "The guy said it was marine-grade."
"Yeah, mom," Sofia rolls her eyes. "Marine-grade."
Callie and Arizona glare at her at the same time. "Don't make fun of your mother, Sofia," Callie chastises.
"Yeah, Sofia, don't make fun of your mother," Arizona says, openly making fun of her daughter.
Sofia sticks her tongue out at them before pushing Arizona towards the backdoor. "I love you, I'm sorry, please don't disown me. Hurry up. My arms hurt."
Arizona leans into her daughter's hand to put up a little resistance, but otherwise goes willingly. They're bonding after all.
Turns out, building a chicken coop by hand kind of sucks. The last time Arizona held a hand saw had been when Tim and the Colonel decided to build a treehouse in the yard of their last, most permanent home. And Arizona really hadn't done much besides hand them nails and complain about the heat.
Speaking of.
"It's hot," Sofia groans, handing Arizona a nail. Sometimes she's so much like Arizona it's scary. And when she doesn't want to be somewhere– well, Arizona pities the fool. Except, today, she is the fool, and she pities herself.
Arizona balances an upright piece of wood between her legs, trying to screw one piece of the frame into the other with very little success. She yelps when she accidentally stabs herself with the screwdriver hard enough to draw blood. "I give up," she snaps and Sofia's eyes light up. "Try not to look so happy."
Sofia nods solemnly but the corners of her mouth twitch. "We could always hire a professional to do this for us."
"You can't just pay someone to do everything you don't want to do," Arizona sighs. They've had this conversation before, but, honestly, what did she expect? God, her daughter is a complete trust-fund kid.
Sofia opens her mouth to respond, but is cut off by Callie coming out to the yard, holding two glasses of lemonade.
"Saved by the bell," Sofia mutters and Arizona squints at her.
"How are my two favorite girls doing?" Callie asks, handing Arizona one of the glasses. Sofia reaches for the other but Callie holds it just out of her grasp. "Oh, this?" she asks, dangling it in front of Sofia for a second before snatching it away. "You thought this was for you?"
Sofia silently turns to Arizona. Arizona silently hands over her own glass of lemonade and Sofia smirks at Callie in victory. Arizona won't meet Callie's eyes.
"You're sick. You have a problem," Callie says. She passes the second cup to Arizona, sweeping Arizona's flyaway hairs away from her forehead with the same ice-cold hand. Arizona leans into the touch a little.
"She gets in my head!" Arizona defends herself.
Callie trails a finger along Arizona's hairline, worried eyes darting down to her leg for a second. "Seriously, how's it going? You've been out here for hours."
"It's going great! We're awesome." Arizona shoots Sofia a look that clearly means keep your mouth shut. "It's, it's awesome."
Normally she'd feel bad about lying to her wife— and conspiring with their daughter to do it— but it really doesn't count if Callie definitely knows she's lying. Arizona's not ready to admit that maybe, possibly, this hadn't been the best idea in the world. Besides, it's nothing that she can't handle. Eventually. God, her hands hurt.
Callie kicks the flimsy frame. "Really?"
"Yes," Arizona nods. Grimaces. "No."
"Yeah, that's what I thought. How about you come inside?" Callie asks in her let me take care of you voice that Arizona still can't stand. "Come inside, please?"
Sofia glances between them, standing quickly and brushing the dirt off her knees and she's still so much a child. She knows this particular argument just as well as her mothers do, holds out a hand to Arizona knowing that she won't be refused.
Arizona nods, taking her daughter's hand and pressing a kiss to her wife's cheek.
Later, Callie lifts Arizona onto the bathroom counter, sliding her hands down Arizona's thighs as Arizona wiggles a bit to get comfortable. Arizona leans her head back against the mirror and closes her eyes as Callie ruffles through the medicine cabinet. The tile is cool against her slightly burned skin.
"Aha!" Callie shouts. She holds up the tweezers triumphantly. "Found 'em."
Arizona hums, looking at Callie through half-closed lashes. Callie positions herself between Arizona's knees and takes Arizona's left hand in both of her own gently, almost reverently. "I still can't believe you managed to get this many splinters. That's insane, Arizona."
"I didn't do it on purpose," Arizona pouts.
"Yeah, well, you could've stopped after the first." Callie curves herself over Arizona's hand, bringing it level with her face. Her eyes are dark and clear, the perfect, arching line of her brow furrowing as she studies Arizona's fingers one by one. Callie bites her lip as she inspects the hand, turning it so she can see every inch in the overhead light. It's more than a little sexy.
Callie peeks up. "Whatever you're thinking, stop thinking it," she says.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Arizona lets a slow smile pass over her face. "But, hypothetically, if I did–"
"No." Callie picks up the tweezers, angling them at a splinter in Arizona's palm.
"Why?" Arizona whines. Callie tugs out the tiny piece of wood in one quick motion. Arizona yelps and snatches her hand back, cradling it against her chest.
"Because this?" Callie waves her hand vaguely between them. "This is so not sexy."
Arizona falls back against the mirror with a huff. "I hate you."
"No, you don't. Now hold still."
They sit in silence for a long time as Callie checks and rechecks Arizona's hands, brushing her fingertips against the skin of Arizona's palm to feel for anything her eyes may have missed. She takes it so seriously, so diligently.
Arizona never liked being cared for– she's always been too staunchly independent for that. It makes her feel nervous to count on anything. Need and want are complicated emotions. They take up space, take to the body like muscles in atrophy. Once something is a need, it never stops. Never ends. Callie had been a need, and then she wasn't. And now she's here. Again.
The last time they bought a house together, everything fell apart.
Maybe this is all just another mistake.
"I thought I told you to stop it," Callie murmurs. She links their fingers deliberately and their wedding rings catch against each other for a half-second. They're new; new rings for a new start.
"Honestly, Calliope, I think you keep leaving me just to have an excuse to buy me jewelry," Arizona jokes, lifting their hands in emphasis. Callie cocks her head at Arizona. The corners of her mouth pull down sharply. "You're right, that wasn't really funny."
"Yeah. It wasn't." Callie sighs. "What's going on with you, Arizona? I mean, I love you, but a chicken house? In our backyard? Really?"
"Coop," Arizona corrects automatically. "Chicken coop."
Callie doesn't seem to want to respond to that.
Arizona tugs their joined hands into her lap, drawing Callie close and resting her forehead against Callie's sternum. Callie is a soft warmth, always.
"I don't– honestly, I don't get it either. I just know that…" Arizona stares at the skylight above them. It's so clear out here that they even have stars. Not many, but it's more than they ever had in the city. "When I was a kid, our mom took us to visit her uncle's farm in Louisiana for a week. And he, his whole family, had lived there their entire lives. I mean, their whole lives. And to me, at that point, the idea of living somewhere for five years seemed…" she trails off, silently hoping that Callie would understand without Arizona having to say the words. She doesn't know what the right words would be. "I just know that you don't leave a farm. You don't build a chicken coop anywhere you're not planning to stay."
"Arizona," Callie cups Arizona's chin, guiding her face back down so that they can see each other's eyes. "If you're building a chicken coop to keep me from leaving you again, honey, I gotta say–"
"I know. You think I don't know that?" Arizona snaps. Callie tightens her hold on Arizona's hand, already anticipating that Arizona would try to pull away. "It's not– it's about permanence."
"It's been seven years. We've got permanence coming out of our asses."
Arizona knows, logically, that Callie isn't trying to hit a nerve here. She understands that Callie isn't trying to push her away. But all it does is make Arizona feel like she isn't being taken seriously. "You aren't hearing me, Callie."
"Okay," Callie's voice is intentionally comforting. "Okay, explain it to me. I'm listening, I promise."
"Why can't you understand that I need something to make it real?" she asks, and she hates herself for the way Callie flinches a little. "Something I can touch, something I made. The last time we— well, you know. I need to know that this time is different. I need…" Arizona hesitates. "Chickens," she finishes lamely. It sounds ridiculous out loud.
Callie's eyebrows quirk and Arizona can tell she's holding back a very inappropriate laugh. "You need chickens."
"Yep." Arizona says. "Chickens."
"I want you to have… chickens," Callie responds carefully, and Arizona is sure that at some point in this conversation, her wife decided that the damn chickens were a metaphor for their relationship. Which may not be entirely wrong. "I want you to have everything."
"Well, that's great, then, because we're, um. We're getting them."
"I, uh, yeah. Sure. Great."
"Great."
"Awesome."
Arizona pushes through the door into the backyard, dreading another afternoon of working on the coop. She's had a brutal day at the center between paperwork and two emergency surgeries and the chicken coop is the last thing she wants to do but she is determined. This is life, this is building a home. Hard work and commitment and chickens. Arizona will have chickens.
She looks up. Gasps.
It's done. That stupid, miserable coop that has been haunting her dreams for the last week is finished, wet paint shining in the afternoon sun, and it's perfect. The coop is everything she ever wanted, and her heart catches in her throat.
It's real now, it's really happening. Instead of a flailing hypothetical that seemed less and less likely every time she stabbed herself with a screwdriver or she was forced to beg Sofia to pull out the splinters in her hand because she was too proud to admit she needed help from Callie. Judgey, caring Callie who always knew anyways. And maybe she never said anything, but Arizona could see it in the way she watched Arizona's hands.
"Calliope?" Arizona calls.
Callie stumbles out from behind the coop, wielding a hammer and a grin. She's wearing a loose tank-top and tight shorts, and there's a bead of sweat running down the entire length of her chest. "Hey," Callie chuckles low in her throat. "Guess what I did today."
"Built me a chicken coop?" Arizona asks.
"Something like that," Callie responds, dropping the hammer on the ground. Arizona stares at the way her forearms flex.
Arizona throws herself into Callie's arms, giggling, feeling the rumble of Callie's laughter against her chest. She kisses Callie on the nose. "You are so getting lucky tonight."
Sofia and Arizona sit in the backyard, using their legs to form a diamond shape with six yellow, fluffy chicks trapped inside. Sofia coos at one, lifting it to her face and gently stroking it's beak with one finger.
This is the one, shining, perfect moment that Arizona has been looking for since the day they moved in. This is what will make it all worth it if everything falls apart.
She looks up at Callie, who is sitting on the steps of the back porch with her elbows resting on her knees. Arizona can feel herself grinning. She couldn't stop it if she wanted to. She doesn't, though, because Callie is smiling back with her real smile, the one that pushes her chin awkwardly back into her neck like there's too much happy for her to fit it all on her face.
Arizona loves her. She loves her more than almost anything. She loves their life together, she loves their daughter. And she is so, so grateful that they got another chance. One last shot.
Arizona always knew Callie was it for her. She just never imagined that would be a good thing one day.
"What do you wanna name them?" Arizona asks Sofia, who's still holding that same chick to her chest.
Sofia shrugs. "I don't know, we won't be able to tell the difference between them for a while."
"I guess it doesn't matter," Arizona says. She points to one of the larger chicks between their legs. "I name you Mister Feathers."
"That's a terrible name," Sofia responds, shaking her head. "You've gotta name her something like Clea or, or Maria."
"Fine." Arizona's smile turns sharp. "I name you Penny."
"Mom!" Sofia giggles. She glances nervously at Callie, who doesn't seem bothered at all. They're past that one, at least. Arizona won. There's no reason for her to avoid any mention of Penny anymore.
Callie rises up with a hmph noise, bracing her hands against her knees. "I vote Eliza. Or maybe Joanne," she says, gathering up as many chicks in her hands as she can– four, two in each– and beginning to transfer them over to the coop.
"Mmm," Arizona hums. She scrunches her nose playfully. "I always liked the name Eliza."
Callie glares at Arizona, but it's much less threatening when she's cradling four baby chicks. Besides, Callie won too. Arizona's allowed to tease her a little.
Arizona and Sofia carry the last two chicks to the coop, letting Callie lock them in for the night.
"I wonder which of them are boys," Arizona thinks aloud as Callie slides an arm around her waist.
"Wait," Callie says. "You didn't ask which ones are male?"
"No? Should I have?"
"Arizona!" Callie's mouth drops open incredulously. "Do you know what male chicks turn into?" she asks, looking more and more horrified at Arizona's blank face. "Roosters! They become roosters!"
"Okay, and?" Arizona's head bobs. "So they wake us up really early in the mornings. What's the big deal?"
Callie just stares at her, eyes filled with abject terror.
It starts small. Cute, even. The chickens will flock to Arizona every morning for breakfast, flapping their little wings and clucking softly. They're in that mismatched phase where some of their feathers are still fluffy down and some are ugly, mottled feathers. And they love Arizona. Arizona brings them food.
But then the chickens get older and figure out that Arizona, bringer of food, lives behind that little door on the porch. That's when the flocking turns into swarming, and the clucking turns into screeching.
She takes to keeping an old broom on the porch so she can chase them away from the door, yelling "Back! Back off!"
The first time Arizona harvests eggs from them, she doesn't yet know fear. Sure, she survived four days in the wilderness with a broken leg and Mark Sloan dying in her arms, but, really, she tries not to think about that.
No, fear is the day Arizona pushes open the coop door, hunching herself low to avoid banging her head on the ceiling and finds herself face to face with what can only be described as rage incarnate.
The hens are broody and angry, huddled up in their nests like coiled vipers. That is, perhaps, an unnecessarily strong simile but right at this moment, Arizona doesn't particularly care. She coos softly at one of the hens, Barbara, then reaches out a trembling hand. "Good birdie, good. Don't mind me, I'm just here to…" she tries to snake one hand under the chicken and screams when a beak flashes towards it. Arizona yanks her hand back, a small cut on the thumb.
"Okay, not a fan of that method," Arizona mumbles to herself. Barbara somehow manages to look unimpressed and withholding.
After a few seconds of contemplation, Arizona decides to scare the hen off by making loud noises and flapping her arms. They call people chickens as an insult for a reason, right? They've gotta scare easy.
Arizona stretches her arms out wide, trying to imitate what the roosters do when they're fighting but it's just too much. Her arms drop back to her sides. "What do you want from me?" she asks the chicken woefully.
Barbara shifts a little, pushing one of her eggs to the edge of the nest. She stares at Arizona expectantly, and a bright smile takes over Arizona's face. It's an invitation, she's sure of it. An acknowledgment of Arizona's hard work as a chicken caretaker. Arizona reaches her hand towards the nest for a second time, and she sees the moment Barbara decides to teach her a lesson but by then it's too late for her.
The chicken has already started her attack.
Arizona scampers out, tripping briefly over her still-clumsy metal foot, one hand flailing for balance and the other one clutching onto a single egg. She doesn't even remember grabbing it— as soon as Barbara lunged at her arm, the only goal was to escape with all of her fingers. She can't be a lesbian with only nine fingers. She can't. Even a pinky.
Callie looks up as Arizona stumbles back inside the house, obviously concerned. Arizona's breathing heavily and her eyes are hollow. After a beat, she holds the egg in the air victoriously, still panting.
"Uh, we can't eat that," Callie says.
"Why not?"
"We have roosters… it could be fertilized." Callie has this special gift of being able to convey the word duh without ever having to actually say it.
"Oh. Right," Arizona frowns, setting the egg down gently on their counter. Her mouth tugs down in total disappointment. "Fuck. I bled for this thing, Cal. I bled blood."
Callie picks it up, lifting the tiny egg towards the light. "I mean, technically we could eat it but I'm assuming—" Arizona scrunches her face in disgust and Callie nods. "Yeah, that's what I figured."
"Stupid roosters," Arizona groans.
"We could always get rid of them," Callie suggests, shrugging when Arizona shoots her a betrayed glare. "Yep, figured that too."
"They're our responsibility now, Callie. We can't just get rid of them!"
Callie presses her lips together into a thin, disappointed line. Then she picks up her coffee mug and heads to the living room to read her book, like she does every Sunday morning. "Sure, babe. Whatever you say."
"Calliope!"
"Whatever you say, Arizona!"
Arizona is in the kitchen again, staring out her window at her little green coop with a warm mug of tea. Maybe owning chickens isn't everything Arizona imagined it would be, but still– looking out into their yard and seeing them walking around, fluffing their wings and looking for bugs fills her heart with this sense of calm. It might not be perfect, but it's good, mostly.
Right now, Eliza– who turned out to be a rather aggressive rooster, much to Callie's delight– and George are playing what seems to be some sort of game of tag. Eliza runs at George, flapping her wings. George squawks and falls onto his back, kicking his feet and—
"Oh my God," Arizona yells, watching a puff of feathers dissipate in the wind. "Calliope!"
"What? What? What happened?" Callie rushes into the kitchen holding a butter knife like a weapon.
Arizona points out the window. "They're killing each other!"
Callie turns to the window, taking in the scene outside. The two roosters are screaming and pecking at each other, wings puffed aggressively.
"I'm sure they won't actually kill each other," Callie reassures her, wide eyes still glued to the fight outside.
Sofia pops her head in from the living room. "I just looked it up and this says that they definitely can and will kill each other."
"Oh my God!" Arizona repeats.
Before she knows what she's doing, she runs out the door, grabs her chicken-control broom and starts waving it in the air to scare them into stopping. When this doesn't work, she tries making a sweeping motion in their general direction, which also does nothing. She's hovering uselessly, yelling, unsure whether or not it'll do more harm than good to start whacking them with the broomstick when the fight comes to a screeching halt.
Eliza-the-Boy-Chicken looks up at her, flesh on his beak and victory in his eyes. His cold, dead eyes that are so full of bloodlust it makes Arizona slightly afraid.
After that, they only have one rooster.
Arizona is exhausted. Every single goddamn morning, she's woken up by the sound of goddamn Eliza screaming at the top of his lungs right outside her bedroom window. And it doesn't help that Callie can sleep through anything while Arizona is a notoriously light sleeper. Her wife doesn't even stop snoring while Arizona glares up at the ceiling, contemplating the morality of homemade chicken piccata.
She finds herself in the kitchen again, squinting at the microwave clock and cradling a cup of coffee.
She feels like she's going crazy as waves of desperation and sleep deprivation roll over her. She just watches the bright green minutes click click click away on the microwave. 5:13. 5:14. 5:15. Her body jingles and she can't remember the last time she felt the need to blink.
"Okay, what's up," Callie's voice, steady and uncompromising, snaps Arizona out of her haze. She turns away from the microwave and its weird, chicken-related powers of hypnosis.
Callie is leaning against the far wall, observing Arizona seriously.
"I—" Arizona starts. "I hate them."
"What? Who?"
"The chickens," Arizona hisses. That same manic desperation rises in her throat. "They're monsters, and I feel terrible about it because it was, it was supposed to be some stupid symbol for our life together and I always wanted chickens and you built me a coop!" She's not even pausing to breathe, sentences running into themselves in a long stumble. "But I hate them, I hate them so fucking much, I think I might actually go crazy if I have to hear that rooster one more time. Bad crazy, Callie, psych ward crazy."
Callie's mouth shuts with a click and her eyes get wide. "I didn't build that coop."
"Huh?"
"I lied," Callie confesses. "I waited until you'd gone to work for the day and then I paid a contractor double to come out here and have it done by end of day. Then I grabbed a hammer because I knew it would turn you on."
"Calliope!" Arizona laughs. She straightens her face so she can pretend to be outraged. "I cannot believe you did that!"
"Not my finest moment, but in my defense I just wanted you to be happy."
Arizona pulls her wife against her body, looking up at Callie through her lashes. "I am happy. I'm… incandescently, disgustingly happy."
"And you hate our chickens," Callie laughs, tugging Arizona even closer.
"And I hate our chickens." Arizona confirms.
"I'll have a guy here to pick them up by this afternoon," Callie says, and for once Arizona is happy to let Callie fix a problem for her.
"I love you so much."
"I love you so, so much."
True to her word, Callie does have a guy out there by that afternoon. He's some big-shot farmer who's got acres of property for free-range, well-loved, ethically treated chickens, Callie assures her.
It's weird to say goodbye.
Arizona expects to feel something more about it. Something closer to failure and disappointment and the feeling she gets when something she wanted doesn't work out. The feeling of inevitability that always seems to find her.
She watches Sofia load chicken-Barbara into the truck and doesn't feel any of that. Arizona looks at Barbara and Barbara looks at Arizona and there's a begrudging respect there. It's run its course. She tried.
I should really call my mother, Arizona thinks.
"That's the last of it," Farmer Guy says, holding his hand out for Callie to shake. "Pleasure doing business with you. Give your father my regards."
Callie clasps his hand. "I will. Thanks again, Bob."
"Don't mention it," he responds before hopping into his truck and taking off, his stuttering engine leaving behind a trail of black smoke. Sofia scrunches up her face in disgust.
"So, how are you feeling?" Callie asks Arizona, who hasn't moved.
Arizona hums. "Like I love you," she jokes lightly and Callie grins.
"Well, we already knew that."
"Hmm," Arizona hums again. Callie leans down for a kiss and Arizona turns her face to meet Callie's. They both let out a sigh of relief. "We still have to figure out what we're doing with that coop."
"I vote we burn it," Callie says.
"We could. We could do that," Arizona pauses meaningfully. "Or…"
"Or?" Callie begins walking them back into the house, one arm strewn protectively over Arizona's shoulder.
"How do you feel about rabbits?"
"No. Absolutely not."
"Hear me out," Arizona pleads but Callie runs up their front steps faster than she can keep up with. Callie spins around to face Arizona, but she's not listening– she's sticking out her tongue as she jogs backwards, getting farther and farther away. "Calliope, that's not fair!"
"Life isn't fair!" Callie yells back, the sound of her laughter reaching Arizona at the bottom of the stairs.
Arizona huffs. She doesn't actually want rabbits anyways, she just wanted to give Callie the opportunity to say no to something.
Marriage is about compromise, after all.
This fic is brought to you by my burning hatred of chickens and absolute conviction that Arizona Robbins, military brat extraordinaire, has spent at most three hours collectively with them.
Feel free (feel pressure, frankly) to hit me up on Tumblr pearlcages. I really love talking to people!
