I love you.
I love you.
Penny had said those three words, that had no other uncertain meaning outside the obvious.
I love you.
And Callie said thank you. In response to something so important, a milestone in their relationship, she said nothing but an expression of gratitude. That was not the way to answer. Not when you were in a good, committed relationship.
Hell, she even told Mark years ago that he shouldn't say that when someone mentioned the word love.
But then her girlfriend, her girlfriend announced it and she couldn't find it in herself to say it back. Not in the days that passed, not even after telling her so many other things. And she should have, she had said it more than once, to George, to Arizona, probably she even said it to Owen when he brought her some coffee the other day, but for some reason it didn't just feel natural. Didn't feel like something she could say without stuttering, or half meaning it.
She could've told her te quiero and Penny would've never noticed the slight difference between querer and amar. She would've never cared. They could just follow with their lives. Maybe she will tell her that, make her girlfriend brush it under the Spanish rug she never made an effort to understand and get it over with.
Something was clearly wrong if she just wanted to get things over with.
Except, nothing was wrong, because Penny was beyond amazing. She loved Callie, with all the letters in that phrase. She tolerated Amelia's abuse, she fought so hard to be accepted by Meredith, and she was working all her way to the top. Penny was kind, and smart, and they could be happy, Callie could see a future of them being happy.
Yet she wasn't happy now, and something was wrong, and how could something be wrong if everything was so perfect.
Meredith asked her once, if she knew before discovering Arizona or George were cheating on her. If there was any clue, any indication of what might be happening. A part of her knew things were wrong, she knew how much her wife was hurting, but they seemed to be doing so well that she didn't want to disturb the smallest amount of peace they had. And George, her relationship with him was a trainwreck from the get-go.
But Penny, there was nothing wrong with Penny.
Except the whole "Perfect Penny killed my husband", and the whole "I'm sorry I lied to you about my ex-wife saying she didn't want you to meet our daughter, when it was me", and lately the "I won a prestigious grant and I need you to tell me if you want me to move to New York".
Okay, maybe some things were wrong with her, or not with her, but with their relationship.
They could work it out. They could probably work it out, talk about it, have a proper, adult conversation about where they were heading, what their goals were, and what they were expecting from each other. But God, that sounded so tiring, and tedious, and she really didn't want to sit through hours of sorting through introspection and trying to understand each other.
That left Callie between the sword and the wall, because something was wrong, but she had no desire to solve the problem, but also the relationship wasn't bad, per se. Just a bit disturbed, troubled.
Maybe she should just say te quiero, it was the perfect compromise.
Why was everything so hard? Why couldn't she just make a choice?
She married George on a trip to Las Vegas. She slept with Mark because she was upset, on more than one occasion. She got pregnant. She became Arizona's fiancé after having a car crash. She was almost the mighty queen of Seattle Grace Mercy West impulsive decisions, which, at the time, was a title not so easy to earn. She even brought the hospital in an almost thoughtless action.
But now she was overthinking and hating it.
It could be Sofia, or she wanted to think it was possibly Sofia. She was the reason she changed. Becoming a mother, having a daughter to raise and take care of. She had told Mark, screamed at him in front of Lucy Fields how much she didn't want her baby to turn into a disaster, how paralyzed with fear she felt.
At the time it was about Arizona, before cars crashed and planes crashed. Before people died and cheated and their lives turned into a goddamned catastrophe. But if something stood, amidst the chaos, was how much they tried to protect their daughter.
So maybe Sofia had made her more prone to not throw herself at things. Yet it didn't explain why she couldn't get the three words out of the way. It wasn't a life commitment, it wasn't even a promise to move with her to New York, but saying them would relieve pressure. Allow them to be on the same page, at least for some time.
Callie was trying too hard. And when she tried too hard it wasn't good.
She tried too hard with George, all the time. He wasn't into her, and she took a chance, attempted to make it work, and she thought it was going to be good, fine. And she tried too hard to forgive Arizona after the cheating, wanting so badly to maintain what was left of their relationship, to not fail again.
She was overthinking, and trying too hard.
That wasn't going to end up great, but for some reason she was ready to do it all again. To promise herself that it would pass, that sooner or later it'll become everything she had expected. Ignore the problem as she always did and expect a new outcome like a madwoman.
Callie needed to stop thinking, and she needed to get a break from it, for at least a good minute.
She grabbed the keys of her car, considering from a moment picking up the other ones. The ones from the storage out of the way, almost a forty minutes ride, to pick up the old 1957 blue thunderbird. She had stopped using it shortly after Sofia was born, and only took it out every once in a while, yet it still was part of some of her favorite memories.
She decided against it, not in the mood to make any long commitment such as driving back and forth for almost an hour and a half. That was pathetic. She couldn't even make the commitment to pick up the car she loved. She could love her car and not her girlfriend.
God, that was so wrong on so many levels. That was a teenage boy kind of problem, not a woman in her forties.
She finally went downstairs, and got in the car. Leaving her phone on the passenger's seat, she turned on the engine. Callie didn't mean to, she almost didn't realize, but between driving and hearing music she ended up just in front of Arizona's house.
In front of her new house, the one with two floors, with the big white door in front. The one she brought after they sold the last house they lived in together. The house in which her ex-wife and Sofia were currently in.
It was a force of habit. Nothing more than that, and she had to stop overthinking things. Most of the time her driving ended up in either the hospital, Sofia's school, or Arizona's house. It was her routine, picking up her daughter or dropping her off, going to her job or going back home.
It was nothing out of the ordinary.
Except that the lights were on, the ones she knew came from Arizona's bedroom, from the time she showed her the house just after buying it, in case she ever needed something and for Sofia's safety. The kitchen lights were also on, and some other room she couldn't remember. It wouldn't have been strange, except that it was five and a half in a Saturday morning, and as far as she knew her ex-wife wasn't on call nor working until Monday.
Callie should've considered it twice, but she couldn't restrain herself from knocking the door, a sudden worry filling her.
At least she still had it in her to make hasty, spontaneous decisions.
Maybe it was easier to be worried about Arizona and Sofia rather than spiraling into the abyss of what it really meant to be with Penny. Maybe if her ex-wife had a sudden, very important case and Callie could spend just a few hours with their daughter it would be a good thing.
Their irregular schedule, the one they never care much to keep, meant that sudden changes were likely to occur. They were surgeons, after all, and people don't plan to break bones or to have babies with little, deathly diseases. The tentative maybes and planning with a few days in advance instead of weeks or months like other parents allowed them more freedom, to not necessarily depend on people outside the two of them to take care of their daughter.
She had knocked. Hoped for a second that Arizona wouldn't answer. She shouldn't be doing this, no matter how many justifications she could come up with.
I love you.
But she really needed to have something else on her mind. And no one had a broken bone near her. And Arizona was her friend. They were friends and everything that happened was in the past. They were friendly. Sort of. Most of the time. Almost.
She really shouldn't have done this. What was she thinking?
How could she be impulsive enough to knock on her ex-wife's door, but couldn't bring herself to say some words to her girlfriend?
"Callie?" Arizona asked, opening the door.
She took a second, accidentally staring. Her ex-wife was wearing pajama shorts, the prosthetic leg not hidden at all, and a sweater. Blonde hair tucked into a messy bun, one of the ones she wore when she had nowhere to be except home. And she was holding Sofia, who, at five years old, was slightly too big for her mommy to hold her.
"Hey."
"What are you doing here?" She wondered, blinking, unbelieving. "You can trust me with her, you know that, right? I'm a pediatric surgeon, I know I say I don't do little diseases but I know about them." There was an edge to her voice, a slightly aggressive tone. "How did you drive so fast?"
"Driving so fast? What do you-" Callie sighed defeated, stopping herself from finishing the question. "Can I come in?"
Arizona nodded, stepping out of the door so she could step in, and started moving towards the living room.
That was the light she couldn't quite place, the living room.
She made a mental note of how different the house looked, now full with furniture. Some photos of Arizona's parents decorated the walls, a few she could recognize of Tim. Sofia growing up. Of her with their daughter. There were some of the three of them, Callie, Sofia and Arizona, of what had been their little family. Even one of the four of them, way before Mark passed away.
Callie didn't even think about the possibility of Arizona keeping that photo.
"I promised she was alright, you didn't have to come." Her ex-wife said, breaking her out of her thoughts. "And if something new happened, I would've called. We always call each other, we did that in the emergency room the other day."
"What do you mean?" Callie finally finished her question from earlier. "What happened?"
"You didn't see my message?"
She denied with her head, watching as Arizona sat on the large couch. She carefully placed Sofia on her, leaving her head rested on her shoulder, while laying back and brushing her hair with her hand.
"I woke up around maybe four, and she was a bit warm." Callie restrained herself from asking why she was awakened at that hour, but the answer was probably going to be nightmares, or phantom pain, or one of those things they didn't talk about anymore. "I thought it was maybe because she was in my bed, maybe she was getting too hot under the covers. So I took her temperature and it was ninety nine. I waited but it didn't go away, and I took it again around thirty minutes ago, it was up to one o' one."
"Have you started her on ibuprofen?"
"Yes, and I was planning to take her to the hospital for a check up if she's not better."
"It's probably a cold, there was one running around the school. Meredith told me Zola and Ellis caught it, she's not sure how Bailey didn't get it, but that happens with children."
That happens.
Children get sick.
For the longest time they argued about it, the fear of something going wrong. And then it wasn't just a fear, they had a baby in the NICU. For weeks she couldn't even see her daughter, let alone hold her. Arizona had stayed through it all, ran from room to room, checked vitals and rechecked them again until they were out of the woods.
But children get colds, and they get sick, and that was totally normal.
"I know, I know." Arizona's frightened face remained the same. "I'm just so worried."
"It's okay, if the ibuprofen doesn't help I can drive you two to the hospital. We have all the resources. And we're both doctors, so we don't have to worry, just be careful."
She had to remember it was totally normal.
Her daughter having a cold was normal. Standing in the middle of her ex-wife's living room wasn't, but they could make it normal. Divorced parents who were in amicable terms sometimes did that. It could be normal.
"I know." Arizona repeated, pressing a kiss to Sofia's forehead, resting for a second, taking it the high body heat. "You didn't see the message?"
If she tried enough, things could seem normal.
Callie fidgeted with her hands for a moment, still hadn't taken a seat. "No, I didn't."
It went unsaid.
Then what are you doing here?
If only she could answer that question sincerely.
But she didn't know. She didn't know why, in the heat of needing to clear her mind, the only place she drove to was Arizona's house. She didn't have the smallest idea, or cause to knock on her door. She couldn't give a reply of why she was acting like she was.
Callie didn't have a motive to be in front of her ex-wife. And she didn't have a reason why she couldn't tell her girlfriend she loved her.
"Do you want to sit?" Arizona asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "You can take Sofia, and I could make some coffee."
She denied with her head. "You stay, I will make some coffee."
"You don't know where things are."
"The coffee pot is on the right counter, you keep everything in the drawer under it. The mugs should be right on it." Callie explained, by heart. "You had them like that in your apartment, and the apartment, and the house."
For a second, she felt embarrassed about remembering it, of still bearing it in her mind, with all the instructions given. But as soon as it came, it disappeared. It was Arizona. They were married, they dated, they knew each other. There was nothing wrong with it. Nothing to be ashamed of.
"I could've changed."
"Have you?"
She shrugged. "No, not really."
Knowing each other was normal.
Callie offered a smile, which her ex-wife only half matched.
She took tentative steps towards the kitchen, remembering how the order should be. Arizona was efficient, she was a planner, just like her father. She had a place for things, and it was constant. It wasn't the organized mess that the ortho surgeon was so used to living in, it was attentive and thoughtful.
Callie tried to keep her order. The one her ex-wife tried so hard to teach her. Over the years, almost accidentally, she had held onto the little habits she had adapted to, and the few mannerisms that she had adopted. It was almost invasive, yet comforting.
Arizona would probably be able to tell her girlfriend that she loved her.
After all, she was the one who told her those three words. At that point she thought she might be dreaming. She was so tired, and it was such a bad idea to throw a surprise party. And her heart was almost breaking inside her chest at the sight of her then girlfriend crying. But she loved her.
She loved Arizona, she loved Arizona when she was crying, she loved Arizona when she was awesome, she loved Arizona when she screamed at her and she loved Arizona before realizing what it meant.
And I love you too was so easy to say, almost falling from her lips. Because she had been wanting to say it, to find a perfect moment and finally say it.
With Arizona, she was genuine.
She could've used any language, and she probably had. In the middle of the sheets, while resting on their bed, she had surely called her mi vida. Te amo, too, crossed her lips more than once, crossing her mind more times than that.
Callie glared at the machine as it boiled, as the drops slowly filled the coffee pot. The chamber became void of liquid, and she took it off the burner, preparing two mugs the way Arizona and her always took coffee.
Except that maybe the other woman didn't take her coffee like that anymore. And maybe Callie was being too trustful. Too willing to believe she knew the person that sat a few feet away.
They were friendly, ever since things calmed down after the divorce. They weren't precisely friends. They've never been friends, not even after that break up before Africa, when they promised to see each other at the hospital. But they orbitated each other, like magnets, not touching, not precisely close, but still attached by a force. A nonconcurrence of poles, unable to form the bond they had longed for.
She loved Arizona. How couldn't she?
She was the mother of her daughter. Sofia, who looked up to her as if she was the one making the world spin in its place, loved her. And Callie loved Sofia, so she loved Arizona. They had been happy once upon a time, and even if she sometimes wanted to erase those memories, they were some of the best.
She was capable of loving, and what was once her relationship with Arizona was a proof of it.
So why, if she was capable of it, she couldn't feel it when it came to her girlfriend?
Callie settled the mug just in front of Arizona, who didn't take much time to reach for it. She sat, borderline uncomfortable, at the edge of the opposite single sofa chair. Taking in the moment, what used to be a common sight once upon a time, she took a long sip of her coffee.
"Where's DeLuca?" She asked, an attempt to create some small conversation.
"I think at the hospital. He and Warren, they," she took a deep breath, "they didn't have a good day. The mom and baby, both of them died."
"I heard something." She commented, remembering the interns who gossiped about it.
"It never gets easier, losing a mom." She looked to the side of the room, almost lost in a trance. "And you never forget them. DeLuca was with me in the OR and he just kept trying, even when there was nothing to try for. He was so desperate." She sighed. "I tried to talk with him but he wouldn't listen, I texted him and he said he's staying at the hospital. I hoped to help him, maybe if they call me in to explain what happened I will try to look for him."
"That's good." She mentioned. "He will probably need someone to talk to."
"I just remember the first time. It was one of the things that made me want to follow through with the fellowship." There was a small silence, an understatement of it being a sore subject. "I didn't want to feel so powerless ever again."
They shouldn't be talking about this.
And Callie shouldn't have knocked the door, or drove to her house, or any of the things she did.
But there was something so familiar, so intimate. It was their family, the family they tried to build for years. With their daughter, with each other. With broken promises and long abandoned dreams, it was still them. Still the people who once formed a home.
It was easy to just think of a blue apartment door, to believe that they had made it through. Because for a second she could almost confide in her, in her wife, even if they had dissolved the domestic partnership years ago.
But it all came crashing back to her mind, how a ring pinned to a scrub top could ruin everything.
Arizona cheated. Callie couldn't trust her, she couldn't conceive how the woman who was going to beat the crap out of her if she ever did something like that could do it. Arizona wasn't supposed to break her heart into a million pieces and to deceive her in that way.
And she wished she never found out. She wished ignorance was bliss. She wished planes stayed in orbit, not touching the grass, as she should've stayed in her orbit, not attempting to be friends with her ex-wife.
Ex-wife, ex-wife, ex-wife, a part of her brain chanted.
She had to remember it, she had to remember how she could love her ex-wife, but couldn't trust her. She could trust her girlfriend, but couldn't love her.
Some piece was missing, and she couldn't put her thoughts together.
"DeLuca will be fine." Callie mentioned, in an attempt to get the conversation back on track.
"I think Bailey might call me to talk about it. Meredith, Alex and I, we were involved in the case. If she does, do you think you can take little goose for a few hours?"
She smiled. "Of course."
Sofia moved slightly, her hands forming fists around Arizona's sweater as she held her closer. The blonde took the opportunity to tighten the embrace, and start rocking the kid back and forth. Callie could tell she must've been awoken by the conversation, but not enough to really register what was going on. To notice her mama's presence, so bizarre at her mommy's house.
It was quiet, deathly so, but she didn't dare to open her mouth.
It was almost as if she shouldn't be witnessing it. As if the moment was too personal, too private for her to be just sitting there. An intimacy they had lost. Something between a mother and a daughter. A family she wasn't a part of. Arizona barely showed any vulnerability around her after she walked out, after that last therapy session.
And it wasn't like Callie had consciously missed it. She hadn't really stopped to think how much of what they had been was lost.
Something so natural, so organic as sitting with their daughter, rocking her back and forth, had opened the door for a wave of memories. An odd sense of desiring to recall past times. Years worth of them, of moments and papers and jewelry and the little habits and little knowledge that now didn't seem so small.
Arizona was, still, all over her mind.
Maybe it wasn't an accident driving to her house. It wasn't as thoughtless as she had originally hoped for it to be. It being a muscle memory reaction would've been better than the overwhelming amount of longing.
The blonde kept moving, rhythmically, as their daughter held on to her.
She started murmuring something, barely audible for Callie. Some promises, reassuring words that seemed to help their daughter, who was slowly falling back asleep, her body relaxing again under her mother's touch. Like a kind of spell that bonded them together.
And she was nothing but an outsider, staring at them.
She missed the absentminded intimacy. The way her hands would draw patterns through Arizona's skin, how she would brush through her hair with her fingers, the rising and falling of the blonde's chest. How she would rest her head on her shoulder and sleep for hours in that position.
The closeness, the nearness of their relationship. Knowing someone so deeply.
Having someone who knew her so well.
Maybe that was why she was there, in desperate need of feeling like herself again. Of feeling somewhat close to the girl who got kissed in a dirty bar bathroom, and accidentally interrupted dates. Remembering how it was to belong to someone, to love someone so deeply that she could repeat the word for days.
Feeling again like Arizona made her feel, back in the good days.
Loving her had been always overwhelming, to the point her heart might come out of her chest or just break in a million pieces. There was no middle ground, no ordinary days, no time to process. They were either on the top of the world or on the lowest layer of hell. Like a mouthful of senseless affection.
It was intense, almost rare, even for her.
And it went so bad.
"I think she's back asleep." Arizona announced.
Callie took a sip of her coffee, which went from too hot to lukewarm while she was lost in time and thoughts. "Should we check her temperature?"
Her ex-wife nodded, asking if she could go and look for the thermometer. After she did, she carefully placed it, making sure it would take measures properly. Callie tried not to look too anxious, focusing on looking at her daughter.
"Ninety nine, again."
"It's getting down, that's good."
"It's still not perfect." Arizona considered for a moment. "We should take her upstairs, she'll be more comfortable. Can you help me?"
Callie nodded, carefully taking Sofia in her arms. She was usually a heavy sleeper, adding that to the tiredness of the fever, it should be nearly impossible to wake her up. Yet she woke up once, and they weren't planning on risking it again.
They never jeopardized it either when she was a baby. The second she fell asleep, they would walk on their toes, afraid of the idea that the smallest of the noises might start another bout of crying. Sometimes Mark would walk in, unannounced, with a loud crash of the door, and Callie might've never been closer to aniquilate her best friend.
They made their way upstairs, with Arizona behind them.
Her ex-wife indicated the way through the hall, finally arriving at Sofia's bedroom. The bright colored letters they used to have up in the apartment spelling their daughter's name, in a background of the most easter-basket-like pink she had ever seen. It was closer to what it had been in their past houses, but Arizona's taste shined through. It wasn't the compromised combination of them both like they had before.
The small, white bed was in the middle of the room as she settled their daughter and went back next to her ex-wife.
"She's okay." Arizona said.
"She is."
They looked at each other, standing together.
And she could make the traces of the person she knew. The blue eyes, the slight scars after too many tragedies, the way she pressed her lips together. And her breath caught on her throat. They haven't been so close in years, not since Herman's surgery and the long days that followed it.
Callie could reach for her, she could pull her in a hug. Try to wash away her worries, promise that things were okay, and that everything was normal and that children get sick and that they were still the same people.
But it was a lie with so much truth in it.
Because nothing was normal, but it was familiar. Because they weren't the same people, not after so many problems. Parts of them had disappeared between twenty-ninth night sex, and thirtieth day break up. But the phantom of what they had promised lingered around them, around the things that never changed.
"I need to take a shower." Arizona said, breaking the silence. "Are you going to stay?"
She nodded, barely registering how it wasn't an offer, but rather a simple question.
"You should take a nap. I will get you some covers and a pillow."
Arizona moved without Callie registering, and before she realized she was back in the living room. She tried to keep her composure, to just sit on the couch, maybe try to let sleep take over. But her mind was going at too many miles per hour, and she couldn't stop herself from pacing through the room, her footsteps muffled by the rug.
Callie saw Penny.
When Miranda Bailey confronted her about it, she saw her.
She didn't mean to deceive anyone, to lie. To introduce her to her daughter if she wasn't sure of picturing her as her friend advised.
She could imagine her girlfriend, next to her, not understanding what was going on, nevertheless supportive. She could see herself, cheering for her daughter, screaming a million words in Spanish as Sofia was playing soccer. She could picture the emotion, the happiness, the fervor of the moment.
And she could see Penny. Or a faceless stranger, or a dozen of them. But she couldn't unsee Arizona.
Standing next to her as their daughter slept. Her hair in a messy bun, without all the pretenses of makeup and her Doctor Robbins persona. In front of a room a little too similar to the ones that were in the homes that they had lived in through the years.
It was impossible to ever conceive something important happening in their daughter's life without her around. She had never missed a milestone, a school recital, a parents talk. Arizona had gone to every single one of them. Even in their worst moments, even when Callie had pushed her away, she would never be far from Sofia.
She loved Arizona.
Since she met her, she couldn't conceive her life without Arizona somehow present. As her girlfriend, as her fiance, as her wife, as her daughter's mother. She couldn't imagine a life of not being connected to her, of not ever again talking to her.
If only she didn't love her as much, she could just move on with her life, continue to find herself again, enjoy the freedom she had so badly craved during the last year of their relationship. Not just having her thoughts gravitating around her would allow Callie to just breathe. Live.
It wasn't so simple.
She knocked the door, she drove to her house, she came back to Sofia and her when thinking about love, when thinking about why she couldn't say it to her girlfriend. And she felt like an outsider longing to be a part of the house. Craving light grey walls, and beige couches, and coffee pots that sat on the right counter.
The words Arizona had said years ago came to her mind. She had been so angry, so hurt, tired. So desperate to finally step out of the woods, to finally put the past behind them and not have it crawling back to them.
I do know that I need you. And I need Sofia, and I need you.
Callie could choose New York. She could keep patching the relationship, applying little bandaids to a gunshot wound, hoping for it to turn into what she so vehemently desired for. Eagerly evading the idea of loneliness by surrounding herself by meaningless connections.
Or she could stop thinking of te quieros and introducing Sofia, and finally face it. Be humane enough to admit her mistake.
Let Penny go.
Because she didn't want a girlfriend. She didn't need the affair, the contact.
She needed her family. She wanted her family, Sofia and Arizona. And she needed long nights of taking care of their daughter, and mornings of coffee and catching up. She needed letters spelling names and white furniture. She needed to be with them, not with anyone else who could just barely fill the place and be replaced by a faceless stranger.
Callie couldn't tell someone she loved them, not when she belonged somewhere else.
"Hey," Arizona said, "are you okay?"
Her hair was damp from the shower, with a set of fresh clothes she seemed almost rested. Except that she couldn't have possibly gotten more than five hours of sleep, and whatever made her wake up in the middle of the night was probably still bothering her, without counting on the worriedness of Sofia's fever wearing her down.
And Callie's mind kept going over her new found revelation.
"Do you miss me?"
Arizona sucked on her lower lip, the same way she always did when asked a difficult question, just to then exhale through her mouth.
"I do." Her voice wavered for a second, as her eyes finally stared directly at Callie. "What are you doing here? If you didn't see my message, why were you here?"
Why?
"I miss you."
"Hm."
She would have expected something, some form of caring, or screaming, or whatever Arizona did these days. She didn't expect a single word, if it could've been considered it. She didn't expect the way they stood, in front of each other, in the middle of the room. As things seemed to stop, as if the world wasn't moving anymore.
She missed her.
"Please say something." Callie begged.
"Penny won a grant. She's going to New York."
"I'm not moving with her."
"Are you afraid of being lonely? You're feeling lonely." Arizona said bitterly. She was right, and she knew Callie and how to read her, even better than how she could read herself. "We're not each other's safety net anymore. I can't just be here for you when you break up with your girlfriend."
"I don't want you to be my safety net." Callie said. "I want you." She studied her ex-wife's face, attentive for any change but there wasn't any. "I want you, and Sofia. And I'm tired of just barely co-parenting. I want family days, and I want dinners, and I want you in my life."
"Callie-"
"I love you and Sofia. And I'm not going a country away to realize that. And maybe I'm lonely. Maybe I should think this through. But I miss you, I miss talking to you. So I'm asking for a chance to be… friends. I don't want to tiptoe around each other anymore. But I want to know, if I try, will you?"
She could see Arizona's face falling, and Callie was suffocating.
It felt like a strange deja vu.
From when she had made her mind, she had a plan and she followed it. Callie had assumed it was going to be the end. She burned the last of their connection, assuming that if they were both going to end their relationship the next day it wouldn't hurt either of them.
But there was no plan this time around. She had no imaginary scenario of how things might play. All she had was the reality of having a girlfriend she didn't love. The phenomenon that she had just said to her ex-wife, in a completely defenseless act, how much she missed her. The fact that she still loved her.
The sadness about the remoteness, absent privation. Nostalgia about the people they used to be, yearning to obtain a fraction of them back. Of the happier times, before losing each other. Longing to know the person Arizona had become.
The intense sense of loss towards belonging somewhere that didn't exist anymore.
Añoranza towards what she felt for Arizona.
She wanted to let her guard down.
Where there was fire, ashes remain, her grandmother used to say. Callie wished for nothing but to start it again. To let behind the resentment that had fuelled her, to beg for forgiveness about her thoughtless decisions.
Meet the person Arizona became.
"I wasn't the one who left." Arizona's lip quivered, and Callie had to fight the urge to take her into a tight embrace. "You can stay here now." She gestured to the couch. "You can stay until we know how Sofia is doing and we will talk about this. But not now... I want to process what that means, and we need to focus on our daughter."
"We will talk. And I promise I'll listen."
Arizona offered the smallest of the smiles.
"You should take a nap, if we need to take her to the hospital it'll be a long day."
Her ex-wife took some steps towards the stairs, before turning around.
And Callie took a moment to memorize it. To not let her mind race as her heart was doing. Because she had realized what she wanted, she had realized more things in a couple of hours with her than she did in over two years apart.
And it was like the smallest fraction of her heart was beating again.
"Callie?"
"Yes?"
"Sleep well."
