title from "i can't breathe" by bea miller tw: panic attack until: "C'mon, Arizona, please."

don't know how to admit that i'm broken (how can I be alright?)

She tried to breathe but she couldn't. It hurt, it ached, it felt like a punch in the chest. It felt like free falling thousands and thousands of feet and screaming and trying just not to die. It felt like dying and watching everyone die and living, and God, why did living have to hurt so much?

Her fingers dug into the ground, desperate for something, anything to ground her, to hold her down before everything was pulled painfully away from her. They burned and hurt and she just had to hold on.

She bit down on her tongue in a poor attempt to stem the tears, to stop herself from crying out.

"Tears are for blood and dying, Arizona."

But, Dad, she wanted to say, there was definitely blood and she was pretty sure she was dying and she wanted it to stop.

"No matter what, you're a good man in a storm. You don't get to give up. You're a Robbins and you will not give up."

Was this how her grandfather felt? Like he couldn't breathe, like the weight of the world was pressing down on his chest. Had there been a moment where he decided to stop fighting? Had he realized in that moment that he was dying? That he would never see the love of his life again, that he wouldn't see his son grow up? Did he know that his time had come? Did he know he was a hero, or was he just a man dying, drowning despite his actions?

Had Tim felt this way? No, she knew the answer to that. She knew for Tim, for him, things had been almost instant. And she felt jealous. She felt jealous because she was tired of hurting. As Nick told it, one second, Tim was smiling and laughing and telling an awful joke, the next second, he was gone. Just like that. Gone. Tim didn't die like their grandfather. There was no grand gesture, no daring heroics. No, Tim had died because of a coward.

Arizona felt like a coward all of the time.

And maybe it was cowardly to wish for death.

Something crashed and banged and echoed through the world and Arizona curled in on herself instinctively.

The sharp stinging smell of burning, so much burning. She didn't know what was burning, was it her? Her leg felt like it was on fire.

She tried to open her eyes, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She knew what she'd see. Death and destruction. The earth wrent apart by broken metal.

Why was her heart beating so fast? Why couldn't she breathe? She had to breathe, didn't she?

She tried to curl her fingers deeper into the ground but there was no give, it was solid, digging painfully into her knuckles.

She wanted to move, to leave this place, but her body wasn't responding. She couldn't move. She couldn't move. She had to move. She had to get away from here. She couldn't stay here. Here was dangerous. Here was death and pain and suffering and destruction.

But she couldn't move.

She couldn't move and she was going to die.

Just like her grandfather, stranded at sea, staring up at the blue, cloudless sky. Just like Tim, in an instant, alone, smiling and laughing and then gone.

She was going to die alone, just like her grandfather, just like her brother.

She tried to make a sound, any sound, and all that fell from her lips was a sob, a quiet, broken sound.

Why couldn't she breathe?

Each gasp tightened the band around her chest, stealing just that much more air from her.

Her leg hurt so badly, and tears spilled down her cheeks. And she wanted to tell her dad she was allowed to cry this time because she was dying and there was blood and she didn't mean to and she's sorry.

Pain throbbed through her body and part of her wanted to scream, but she couldn't. It stuck in her chest and burned. All of her felt like it was burning and she could smell fire and fuel and burnt everything and why wasn't she burning, why wasn't she dying?

She gasped for air, a desperate, rattling sound. Her fingers had long gone numb and the rest of her wasn't far behind. She couldn't feel her legs, why couldn't she feel her legs?

Please, please, please, she wanted it to stop. She wanted to be like Tim and just be gone. She wanted to be like her grandfather and stop.

Nothing felt real, nothing felt tangible. She couldn't open her eyes. Or maybe she couldn't see. There was just darkness around her. Just unending, unwavering darkness.

She didn't want to be here. She wanted to be gone.

She couldn't breathe. Every breath was a gasp, a fight, a prayer.

Her senses were overwhelmed by burning and death and the antiseptic from the hospital and Callie's perfume. That wasn't fair. That wasn't fair at all.

Someone was touching her, holding her shoulders. Why was someone touching her?

Something crashed and she flinched and she was free falling.

But someone was holding her, someone was catching her.

"...Arizona, please, please, please," Callie, or someone she thought was Callie, was begging her, what for, she wasn't sure. "Please, open your eyes."

The steady pounding of rain echoed through the small room, but wait, it wasn't raining. It wasn't raining on that mountain. She was on the mountain. She was in the middle of broken trees and scarred earth.

"Arizona, sweetheart, I need you to look at me."

She couldn't open her eyes. She didn't want to. She didn't want to see the forest and the plane and broken bodies. She wasn't strong enough.

Thunder clapped and she whimpered.

"C'mon, Arizona, please."

Arizona blinked her eyes open and found Callie staring back at her, wide eyed and terrified and was she crying?

"Calliope?"

She blinked again and everything came rushing back to her.

She wasn't in the forest, she was in her office, she was in Seattle. She was safe. She was safe. Callie was with her and Callie wasn't on the plane. Callie wasn't on the plane, so she wasn't in the forest. She was in Seattle, in her office, with Callie.

With Callie….

With Callie who she broke. With Callie who left, who walked away, who left her behind. With Callie who didn't love her anymore, with Callie who loved someone else. With Callie who wanted to take Sofia and move across the country.

Callie who she had a lawyer's card in her desk for. Callie who had forced her hand.

Callie who Arizona never wanted to hurt and somehow always did.

Callie who broke her heart.

A snap of thunder caused her to flinch, even as Callie tried to hold her still.

And selfishly, awfully, Arizona needed Callie to hold her. She needed Callie to ground her.

"Arizona?" Callie asked, her voice soft, soft like it had been after the plane crash, when Arizona only had rage and pain inside her. "Can you talk?"

Arizona didn't even try, she just shook her head. She was terrified if she tried all that would come out would be a sob.

Callie started to pull back, dropping her hands from Arizona, falling back as if Arizona were a wounded animal she didn't want to spook.

But Arizona managed to move one of her hands and catch one of Callie's wrists, gently tugging her back. Callie tilted her head and Arizona didn't know how to communicate that Callie was the only thing grounding her, that she needed Callie to touch her in some way, to keep her anchored.

Because Callie had always been her anchor. At least until Callie let her go, walked away, leaving Arizona unmoored.

Arizona pleaded with Callie silently, finding only kindness where there had only been resentment and hostility lately. Wordlessly, Callie joined her against the wall, wrapping an arm around Arizona's shoulders and pulling her closer. Arizona greedily let her head rest against Callie's heart, trying to memorize the rhythm, the sound that used to ward off her vicious nightmares, used to bring her back to earth.

Callie carded her fingers through her hair, gently tugging against any tangles.

If Arizona didn't know any better, if she closed her eyes and forgot the past five years and the hurt and the screaming and anger and the emptiness, it would almost feel peaceful, it would almost feel like how things should've been.

But it wasn't. They weren't together and Callie wanted to move a world away and take Sofia.

A sob bubbled out of her chest despite her best attempts to stop it.

Even in the face of Callie's softness, Arizona hated herself for showing weakness in front of Callie. Who was to say Callie wouldn't use this as leverage to take Sofia away? If Arizona couldn't even handle a thunderstorm without having a severe panic attack, how could she look after their daughter?

She averted her eyes from the drawer with the lawyer's card.

She should just give up.

What was the point?

Sofia would be better off with Callie and Penny.

Arizona would be nothing more than a memory.

Better that than the alternative of Arizona fighting and losing and breaking her heart all over again.

Because she always lost. No matter how hard she tried, how hard she fought, she always lost. It was always her on the other side, always the losing side, always the bad guy. It was always her, no matter what.

No one told her being a good man in a storm meant losing everything over and over again.

A sob shook her body and she hated herself.

Callie's grip tightened, holding her ever closer and Arizona should hate this. She should hate this and she shouldn't want Callie touching her.

But she was selfish and she couldn't help herself and she needed Callie like she needed air.

Because it was always Callie. She could tell herself and anyone who would listen a million lies, but it'd always be Callie.

Callie shifted slightly, pressing a kiss to Arizona's hair and it felt so natural, so right and how could Arizona have lost this?

"Are you okay?" Callie asked, her voice barely more than a whisper, as if she thought it would shatter the moment.

Arizona inhaled a half breath, her chest still aching. "Yes, no, yes, I don't know."

Callie's chest rose and fell in a sigh. And Arizona knew that sigh intimately. That sigh meant Callie was as always endlessly frustrated with Arizona. That sigh meant Callie didn't understand Arizona and she never knew her.

"Does that happen a lot?"

Arizona curled her hand into a fist in her lap, almost hissing at the pain spread across her knuckles, rubbed raw by the carpet. "Sometimes."

"When was the last one?"

She couldn't tell her that it was less than a month ago. She couldn't admit how weak she was. She couldn't show Callie how utterly broken she was.

"Not sure," she settled on, "I don't always remember them. I mean, they're always, always the same. Always the… the…"

"The plane?" Callie offered tentatively.

"Yeah," breathed out Arizona, "the woods mainly."

"I'm sorry."

"Hm?"

"I'm sorry you have to go through that, have to relive that. You know how I was about getting in the car after the accident. I can't imagine what it's like for you."

Arizona froze. She almost couldn't process Callie's words. First was Callie mentioning the accident. They never talked about the accident. Because Arizona asked her to marry her and a truck came out of nowhere and Callie was dying and Sofia didn't have a heartbeat and she was nothing. Like everything, they didn't talk about it. Because if they talked about it… well, then Arizona would know for certain that Callie blamed her and like always, Arizona couldn't handle that.

But the softness, the gentleness, the empathy in Callie's voice was almost more startling than the mention of the accident. She never doubted that Callie was an empathetic person, she knew Callie was one of the most empathetic people she'd ever meet and she loved her for that. But sometimes, and she felt awful for even thinking it, sometimes it felt like Callie's seemingly endless empathy never extended to her.

Callie expected so much of her. She expected her to bend and change and she held her to an impossible standard. And Arizona crumbled under the pressure. She knew that. She knew she was the one who failed. The one who faltered. She'd never forget that. How could she? She ruined the best thing in her life.

"It's… I shouldn't have come to work today."

Callie's fingers drew random shapes across her side, the patterns oddly soothing. "What do you mean? Can you tell when they're going to happen?" Arizona's words caught in her throat and she knew exactly how they would sound: like an excuse. Callie froze and Arizona knew she knew. "The storm?"

Arizona nodded and braced herself for Callie leaving. Because why wouldn't she?

"I'm sorry," Arizona all but mumbled, and she knew she could apologize every hour of every day for the rest of their lives and it'd never be enough. "It's… I think it's the thunder. It sounds, sounds like…."

Like metal wrenching apart and screaming and falling and so, so much pain.

She blinked as the sound of her own screams echoed in her ears.

"The crash," Callie said and for once, Arizona was grateful for Callie's habit of jumping to her own conclusions.

"I'm sorry," Arizona repeated, "I don't… I try not to work on days where there's a storm."

"What do you do then?"

Arizona managed a sort of sad, sharp half-laugh, dragging out of her aching chest. "I take a sleeping pill and pray to God I sleep through it. Otherwise, well, this." She waved a hand in lieu of greater description. In anticipation of Callie's question, well, it would probably be more of an accusation, she added, "I always try to make sure Sof's with you, or with Meredith. She's never been home, or around, I promise. I would've told you."

"I wasn't-"

"Yes, you were. I would've too."

"I know you're a good mom, Arizona. I've never doubted that."

Arizona hummed in response, unsure even what to say to that. Because, honestly, it felt like Callie doubted that. It felt like she constantly doubted that and now she wanted to take Sofia and move across the country.

Arizona would later blame it on the emotional exhaustion, on the sheer lack of filter because of her panic attack and the abject vulnerability of being in Callie's arms, but she said, "And yet, you want to take Sofia across the country and I probably won't ever see her. But that's fine because it's about your happiness. Isn't that what I told you when I left for Africa? Be happy? And now you're going to go be happy, regardless of how it affects everyone around you."

Arizona waited a breath, then two for Callie to get up and leave. Because Callie wasn't going to listen to her, she never did. Like always, Arizona had broken the moment, had ruined things.

"Arizona…."

"What?"

"I'm not… that's not it at all! I just, I don't want to keep making the same mistakes! I'm trying to not be the disaster, the one that everyone always leaves! I let you leave. I let you go to Africa without me and we never recovered. I can't… I can't let Penny go too."

The tightness in her chest returned and Arizona just wanted to cry. She wanted to break down and sob but she couldn't because Callie was holding her so tightly and she wouldn't cry anymore in front of Callie.

"Got it," she choked out, her voice obviously thick with tears. What was she supposed to say to that? To the fact that Callie had so clearly moved on, that she must care about Penny far more than she ever did Arizona. Because she was willing to follow Penny, to give up everything, to ruin everything for her. She was willing to take Sofia away from Arizona, away from Seattle without so much as a second thought. For Penny.

There really wasn't anything Arizona could say to that.

Maybe someday, not today, not in this moment, she could look on this moment as a moment of release, as Callie letting her go once and for all. But right now it just felt exceedingly painful and she could barely handle the pain without crying.

"I keep telling myself if I try harder, if I push myself, I'll be able to love her." Arizona almost didn't hear Callie's whispered confession. "I should love her. There's no reason I shouldn't love her. She's perfect, right? She should be perfect. But, but she's not you. No one's ever you. It's only you and that's not fair."

Callie's words cut deeper than she expected but she couldn't bring herself to excritate herself from Callie's arms.

"I'm sorry."

"What?"

"I'm sorry for ruining things for you. Again. Like always." Arizona's confession was just as quiet, whispered to Callie's heart, a quiet plea for a forgiveness she didn't deserve. "You deserve to be happy. To be in love."

"I am in love."

Arizona finally managed to shift in Callie's arms, pulling away so she could see Callie's face, half shadow in the darkness of her office. "You just said-"

"I know what I said. I keep trying to love Penny, to love her like I love you. Don't you get it, Arizona?" Callie cupped her cheek and it felt like a brand on her skin, searing and almost painful but Arizona found herself leaning into it. "I love you. It's always been you. It always will be you. No matter what. It's only you."

"But I… then, why… you want to move to New York, Callie! What… what are you thinking?"

Callie shrugged and not for the first time, Arizona found herself deeply jealous of the almost easy, painfully impulsive way Callie moved through life. "Honestly, I don't know. But I know, right now, right here, with you in my arms, you're the woman I love. You always have been."

Arizona shook her head, biting down on her bottom lip to stave off tears. "Calle, please, don't… you can't… you can't just do this. Why now? Why here?"

"Because… because… I want to be the one who holds you. I want to be the one you lean on. And I know that I haven't always been that person for you. But we can do better this time. We've both… we've hurt each other a lot. But, but that doesn't change the fact that I love you and I think you love me too. I don't think I can be happy without you. I could move anywhere in the world and I don't think I'd ever be really happy without you."

Callie looked so hopeful and Arizona almost thought this might be a dream.

She knew she should tell Callie they missed their chance, that they weren't good for each other, that Callie could be happy without her. But at her core, Arizona was selfish.

"I don't know, well, I do know, I know I'm not happy without you. You walked out that door and took almost all the happiness with you."

Arizona knew she never would've admitted that to Callie of all people were it not for her nerves feeling tenuous at best.

A soft, brilliant sort of smile illuminated Callie's face and it really shouldn't have warmed Arizona as much as it did.

Callie brushed her thumb over Arizona's cheekbone, a painfully familiar motion. "Can I kiss you?" Callie murmured, already leaning in.

In an unfortunate flash of reason, Arizona pushed her away. "You, you have a girlfriend, Callie. A girlfriend who not even an hour ago you were planning on moving across the country for. We can't do this. This is insane."

Callie's brow pinched together. "This is not insane. You, you, if you love someone, you tell them. We love each other."

"All we do is hurt each other."

"Fine, then we'll do it right this time."

"That's what we say every time."

"No, it's really not. Because we never talk. We break up, find ourselves in some sort of traumatizing scenario, and then we throw ourselves back into our relationship."

"And how is that not exactly what we're doing right now?"

"Because we're older, wiser, we know what our patterns are. Arizona, we can be better this time."

Every part of her was screaming to just say yes, just fold to Callie and let her in.

"I… I can't…." Callie's gaze dropped, utterly crestfallen. "Callie, if, if we do this and it doesn't work, it will, I won't… it'll break me. Even more than I already am."

Callie reached for her left hand, her fingers idly brushing over where Arizona's wedding rings sat a lifetime ago in an old habit. "Arizona, please, we can do it right this time. We can take it slow. We can be careful. But please, I've tried so hard not to love you, to move on, and still, it's always you. It's always going to be you."

Almost against her better judgment, Arizona found herself nodding. And how could she not, it was Callie.

Like Callie said, it was always going to be her.

Callie smiled and it was the same smile as all those years ago in a dirty bar bathroom, the same smile that had caused Arizona to follow a pretty girl into that bathroom because she knew she had a beautiful smile, the same smile that had caused Arizona to throw caution to the wind and kiss Callie.

That had been a lifetime ago. They were almost unrecognizable now.

"I'm not, I'm not ready to be in a relationship. And you, you still have a girlfriend-"

"I'll handle it-"

"-we have to take it slow. We have to, to rebuild trust. We have a lot of work to do-"

"-but it'll be worth it-"

"-we can't rush into things like we always do-"

"-it's going to be different this time. We know what's at stake, we've grown."

"Callie, please…."

"Arizona, we'll take it slow, we'll be careful. If you want to spend a year, five, whatever you need, as just friends, then that's what we'll do. But I don't think we can just give up on us."

"We've done that every other time."

"This time is different."

Arizona swallowed back her doubts. There were a million things to discuss, but she was exhausted on every possible level. Maybe it was naive, but she wanted to trust Callie. She wanted to believe that this time would be different, that maybe this time love would be enough, that maybe this time they could make it work.

"Can, can you hold me?" Arizona asked, painfully aware of how vulnerable she sounded. "I just… I just need to feel like I'm here."

"Can we move to the couch? My back is killing me," Callie said with a laugh. Arizona recognized the silent offer underneath Callie's words, the quiet concern about her leg, the concern that Arizona had made Callie feel guilty for for years.

Arizona nodded. She had to learn to let Callie care for her. She had to be better this time. She could be better this time.

Callie stood to her feet, offering Arizona a hand. Carefully, she pulled Arizona to her feet, easily looping an arm around her waist as they moved towards the couch. It was almost frightening how easily they fell back into old habits.

Once they were settled, Callie pulled Arizona closer until the lengths of their bodies were pressed together and Arizona let her head drop onto Callie's shoulder. The post-panic attack, grand emotional confession exhausted settled over her heavily and it was a fight to keep her eyes open.

She couldn't remember the last time she felt this safe and comfortable. Probably the last time she and Callie had shared a bed. Not that she liked thinking about that.

But Callie had always been her safe person, the one person she felt most comfortable with.

Callie wound their fingers together.

"You hurt your knuckles."

Eyes half closed, Arizona mumbled, "I thought it was the ground. The carpet, I mean. It's just some scrapes."

Callie yawned. "I'll, I'll fix them up later."

"M'kay," Arizona hummed, resting more heavily against Callie's side. "I love you, in case I didn't mention it earlier."

"Love you too."

xx

to clarify, this takes place before the custody battle in s12 and before arizona even gave callie the lawyer's info sorry i've been so mia. i've been dealing with some mental health stuff and really wasn't in a great headspace for writing. but i really missed it and managed to kick this out in a few hours and i always forget how much i love arizona's doom spiralling. as always, i never promise a schedule. but i think i'm in a better headspace, so hopefully i'll have some more bits for you all soon. i defs feel a bit rusty haha so i'll have to work out the kinks lol

hit me up on twitter lavender_lenax or tumblr spookyrobbins (and join the anon chaos!) or in the comments here if you have requests! (for either drabbles or something longer!) much love xx