She's in the old roller-rink with the disco ball and the purple strobe lights that makes Cindy Freedman look a little like an angel, standing at the edge of the shiny, plastic wood when it happens. The music is loud and pounding and she thinks she might've just kissed Cindy in the alley out back but she isn't sure. It doesn't feel real.

Arizona is standing at the edge when it happens— when she realizes she is no longer her body. That she is separate from her body.

She's clutching a pair of skates in both hands, and she remembers what to do but she doesn't know how to do it. Not anymore. Maybe not ever.

"Hey, kid," Tim throws an arm around her shoulder. "What's the holdup?"

His hair is buzzed short instead of grown out and floppy like it's meant to be. He looks… older, now. Older than the Tim who should be at the old roller-rink with her. Arizona feels older, too.

"I don't know." Her fingers push underneath the laces of her rented shoes. Tangled up in the scratchy material of it. Visceral. "I, I don't think I have a leg."

Tim laughs. "Arizona, you're not even here."

She jerks up in bed, strangling a scream because she doesn't want to wake Callie. But Callie isn't here. Callie hasn't slept next to her for a long time.

Before her mind has a chance to catch up with her body, she's stumbling out of bed and into the hall. Her hand hits the wall opposite her bedroom door with a dull thud and she realizes that she forgot her prosthetic. Arizona steadies herself, leans her whole body into the wall.

Her heart hammers inside her ribcage. She needs to come back to herself if she wants to do this. This is her body. She lives in it. She just needs a second to remember that. Arizona runs her fingers from her hairline through to her split ends, taking a deep breath.

Then she braces her hand against the wall again and uses it to limp down to Sofia's door.

Sofia sleeps with her door cracked open so that the light from the hall can get in, and Arizona just has to push it slightly wider to see her daughter. Sofia is snoring loudly, knees pulled to her chest. Her nose twitches occasionally and her eyelashes cast delicate shadows across her cheeks.

It's calm, and it's good, and it's safe. Arizona puts two fingers to the base of her neck to feel her pulse slow, then steady. Sofia is home, and her life almost makes sense again.

Almost.


"Hey, I've got something for you," Liz says, hovering at the entrance of Arizona's office.

Arizona looks up from her computer. "What is it?"

She's still typing away, probably making typo after typo on this grant proposal but she's finally found her rhythm now and she doesn't want to lose it. Arizona hasn't been able to stop thinking about Callie and their last conversation all day, so she's feeling possessive of the one thing keeping her busy.

Liz shrugs. "Come look," she motions her head in the direction of the lobby and sets off, forcing Arizona to follow after her. Which she begrudgingly does.

They make their way through the lobby quickly, and Liz holds open the door for Arizona as they step out of the building. The August heat hits her immediately, filling her lungs with something slightly sharp. Liz turns her back to the road, eyes on the Robbins-Herman building, and Arizona follows suit.

And there they are: the window-box planters she'd asked for months ago. Bright, pale yellow and built into the building's face. Gorgeously permanent. And empty. Somehow, Arizona hadn't realized they'd be empty at first.

"So? What do you think?" Liz crosses her arms expectantly.

Arizona ignores her, steps up to the planters. She runs a fingertip along the edge of one, feeling for wood-grooves and the intuitive cling of dust, strangely surreal.

Beginning anything new is like filling up a hole.

Liz shifts uncomfortably behind Arizona. "Are you okay?"

Arizona snaps out of her thoughts. "What? Oh, right, yeah," she bites her lip and raises her eyebrows, minimizing movements. "I didn't sleep well last night."

"That sounds hard." They do not know each other well enough for this.

Another long silence before Arizona hums, more to herself than to Liz, and says, "I, I have some things I need to take care of. Can you hold down the fort?"

"Really? I mean, I guess I could but you know that we've got the meeting with—" Liz cuts off her own nervous ramble when she notices the expression on Arizona's face. "Sure, yeah," she eyes Arizona with open concern. "I can handle it."

"Awesome."


She goes on a walk.

It feels ridiculous that Arizona still goes on walks to clear her head, but she's a stubborn woman. Arizona is the daughter of a soldier. Her body will do what she tells it to.

So she sets off in a random direction and she walks, damnit. Because she wants to, because she resents being forced into anything, even this. She needs to prove something to herself in this moment— that she still has autonomy. When it really comes down to it, the leg was always about control.

Before the plane crash, Arizona thought of herself and her body as the same. Without disconnect. She couldn't control the world around herself, and that scared the hell out of her, but no matter where she wound up she'd have herself. Wholly and totally.

Now her body is an obstinate thing that she commands. It will not be led by her, and she will not be cowed by it, and they have yet to reach any understanding of each other.

Oh, it's gotten easier over time. She understands her limits, mostly. In her better moments, she even respects them. This is not one of her better moments.

And, God. It hurts. It hurts all of the time, and it hurts now, and it will hurt when she stops. Whenever she does finally stop. But putting one foot in front of the other grounds her. It's the rhythm of walking, the cloying heat and the pull of air into her lungs on every upswing.

Some suit-and-tie businessman is yelling into his phone about stocks, barely paying attention to the people around him, and for a second Arizona thinks he's really going to run into her but he pivots just in time. Swings himself without a second thought. Cuts it so close she can feel the air around him move. She'll never be able to do that again. Every step she takes for the rest of her life will be deliberate.

An overwhelming grief and hope rolls through her. Intolerable hope.

Because, somehow, Arizona has walked all the way to Central Park. She made it. How is it possible she's lived in New York for months and not once gone to Central Park?

Well, she hadn't meant to go here this time, either. It's just kind of where she ended up, a bit like New York itself. Like a surly prepubescent tourist trailing after her I-Heart-NY t-shirt wearing parents.

Arizona finds herself a bench on the outskirts and collapses onto it.

She slouches, arches her neck against the back of the bench to watch the way the light filters through the leaves. Sometimes one will detach itself and tremble its way down to the ground.

When they were little, she and Tim used to climb the tallest tree in the neighborhood whenever they got stationed in a new place. They'd time each other and race to the top, and Arizona won every time even though Tim's arms were longer. She wanted it more, Arizona always wanted it more.

Once, she fell straight out of the sky and broke her wrist. She didn't even get to cry because Tim was watching. And while he was gone trying to find help, she sat with her back against the tree, watching the leaves. These days, she can't go to a park without thinking about Tim and broken bones and how she's always regretted wanting anything.

And then there's Callie.

Callie who she wanted more than anything.

Callie who can't just leave Arizona alone. Callie who always has to push, and push, and push until Arizona says something stupid like I miss you. Callie was never supposed to realize that Arizona still misses her, because she sure as hell isn't missing Arizona.

She loves Callie, but Callie doesn't need to know that. At the end of the day, Arizona is still that little kid who wouldn't let herself cry because her big brother might notice.

Really, honestly, Arizona just needs a break. She wants to be able to take a step without thinking about it first, she wants to bear weight on her left leg. And she wants Callie to stop showing up at inconvenient times or inconvenient places. Unfortunately, none of those things are gonna happen anytime soon.

A leaf floats past Arizona's park bench. And then another one. The world is still so beautiful, even like this, and even like this, she is still the kind of person who thinks the world is beautiful.

Arizona needs to fix something.


The shopping cart handle is slowly warming to the temperature of Arizona's palm as she pushes it up and down the aisles. She's taking her time, cognizant of how sore she's going to be tomorrow.

It's air conditioned in the Home Depot seed aisle, but soon she'll have to brave the outdoor department if she wants to pick up soil and fertilizer. Which, she does. Arizona is going to fill up those window boxes if it kills her. She's fixing.

A voice on the announcer informs her that for today only, she can get 50% off on curtain rods, which for some reason makes her consider buying curtain rods.

Instead, she gathers up a bunch of flower seeds at random without bothering to check the names or prices and throws them into the basket. She gathers up the rest of her supplies quickly, leaning bodily against the cart for support. Almost trips hauling the five pound bag of potting soil into the cart, but doesn't.

Her cab driver is in his mid-40s, bored, balding at the top of his head like an underwatered patch of grass. His registration says that his name is Martin, which feels appropriate. He reminds Arizona of an uncle she hasn't seen in years.

Martin glances back at her and her supplies. "Are you starting a garden?"

"Kind of." Arizona pulls one of the two bags of dirt onto her lap just so she can cling to it. "I work at the Robbins-Herman Center for Women and Children."

"That's nice. Flowers are good for children."

They lapse into silence, and Arizona stares out the window at the passing buildings. Soon, he's pulling up to the curb outside the Center.

"Thanks for the ride," she says, shoving some cash in his general direction.

Martin takes it, checks that the sum is right. "Don't thank me, I don't do it for free." He glances up from his hands. "Who's that?"

Arizona turns back to the window, looks at the building.

Callie's there, leaning against the wall next to the entrance, hands sunk into the pockets of her old leather jacket. Her hair is loose around her face like it almost never is these days.

And that stance Callie's always been the sort of person who has to think before she moves, with all of the stiff, cutting mannerisms of an awkward teenager who grew into it instead of out of it. Callie both is her body and is aware of its limitations. It suits her. Arizona is insanely, irrationally jealous.

"It's… complicated," Arizona says.

The taxi driver raises his eyebrows at her in the rearview window. "Well, it's complicated looks pissed."

"Where have you been?" Callie pushes off of the wall to hover near Arizona as she steps out of the car, instinctually taking one of the bags of soil before Arizona can wave her off.

"Liz called, and she said you disappeared this morning, and you didn't come back, and you haven't been answering your phone all day, and I was worried. You can't just disappear like that. What if something happened to you? What about Sofia?" Callie glances down at her own arms and finally notices what she's holding. "What even is this?"

Arizona closes the car door behind her, banging her palm against the window twice so the driver knows he can leave. He rolls away almost immediately.

Callie stares at her.

"I didn't," Arizona bites down on the inside of her cheek, turning her eyes up to the sky. She can't find the words to express herself, so she says the next best thing. "I didn't sleep well."

Callie's face softens. She knows. "Which one was it?"

"Both. The leg and Tim; this time, it was both."

If Arizona took a moment to see them from the outside, to look at them, she would've noticed how frozen they both are. Her, standing stock-still on the curb, surrounded by piles of garden supplies. Callie grimacing apologetically, watching Arizona with more pity than Arizona can stomach. Both of them afraid to move too quickly. As if the other might startle off like a wild animal.

"I'm sorry. I know…" she trails off because she realizes Arizona doesn't want to hear how much Callie sees of her. Too much. "What can I do?"

Arizona drops her bag of soil onto the sun-warmed sidewalk. "You can help me."

Callie considers her carefully, eyes running the full length of Arizona's face. Then she nods.

Callie drags the potting soil over to the planters and uses the teeth of her keys to tear open the bags, viciously utilitarian. Arizona fumbles around in her pockets for the seed packets.

She settles herself on the ground next to Callie with her legs spread out in front of her, aware of how the way Callie's kneeling puts her a full head above Arizona. Callie starts shoveling dirt into the planters with her bare hands, and Arizona realizes she didn't buy any tools.

Callie doesn't do dirt. Arizona can see her cringe visibly every time she has to take another handful, and she keeps almost wiping her hands on her jeans before remembering not to. Her lip is curling and her forehead is scrunched up irritably and she's barely making a dent in the bag.

Arizona snorts, watching Callie out of the corner of her eye. "That's gonna take forever."

"I'm sorry, is the way I'm doing this not good enough for you?" Callie snarks, waving a clump of potting soil in her hand.

"No, I'm, uh," Arizona holds both of her palms up playfully. "Grateful for the help."

"I thought so."

Arizona leans over, taking a handful of dirt for herself and dropping it into the planter. It gets under her nails and stains her cuticles, but it's cold and soft. Grounding.

She briefly entertains a daydream about her and Callie, washing their hands together after this. But then that feels too intimate, so she makes herself stop.

Callie and Arizona work in silence for a long time, taking turns either filling up the box or sprinkling those little white fertilizer bulbs throughout the soil. They don't have to talk to anticipate each other's next move, and Arizona discovers that it really doesn't take very long to undo emptiness. Not when she has someone to do it with.

There's a sense of mutual understanding that they haven't had in a long time.

It feels a whole lot like being taken care of. Like having a soft place to land, even if that soft place is Callie, of all people. Callie who she wanted more than anything, Callie who can't just leave Arizona alone. Callie who always has to push, and push, and push and now Arizona is letting Callie take care of her again which is disastrous, to put it lightly. Catastrophic.

"Why did you come here today?" Arizona asks. She braces for an answer that will hurt. "Why do you keep… showing up?"

"You're Arizona," Callie says simply. She pushes her sleeves up higher on her biceps before taking another handful of dirt. "I'll always look out for you."

It isn't true, Arizona knows that. Callie had stopped looking out for her before the ink was dry on the paper dissolving their goddamn civil union. But still You're Arizona. I'll always look out for you. It feels like something miraculous, something a little bit special, that Callie could say anything like that and make Arizona believe it.

Warmth fills Arizona's chest the way day breaks, slow and constant and absolute. Leaving no room for hesitation. Withholding nothing. It all seems just a little shameless.

"Thanks," she says, instead of doing something actually shameless like kissing her ex-wife who doesn't want her.

Callie gives her a barely-there smile. "I think we're ready for flowers."

Something fragile in Arizona is dangerously close to being cracked open. She's holding it closed with raw fingertips. She will not, she will not, she will not let herself be torn apart by this woman again.

Callie is the most terrifying thing Arizona has ever seen. And the most beautiful.

"Yeah." Arizona tosses Callie a seed packet. "I think we are."


Notes: Find me at pearlcages on Tumblr and Twitter! I love talking to everyone. Reviews make my day :)