Wooo! An update! Sorry it took me a while. Life is chaos at the moment.In this chapter there are discussions of Michelle, Amelia's friend from private practice. I tried to stick pretty close to the storyline on the show so if any of you haven't seen private practice, spoiler alert I guess. Enjoy :)
Arizona POV
I've known for a long time that Amelia is an amazing person. I've seen her nurturing side many times with Sofia, and even experienced it a few times myself, but this break away has shown me how much I really need her. Because of the situation of how we met, more often than not, I am the one who does the comforting. I've always been okay with that. I've grown to love Amelia so strongly that I will do anything for her. But this weekend I have seen a new side to her. Of course I knew that she could be caring, but what I hadn't expected was how well she knew and predicted my needs. She managed to realise the moments that I was spiraling, or just hurting in general, often before I noticed that it was getting bad. She always knew exactly what to do and exactly what to say to make the situation better.
I've been thinking a lot about the conversation we had yesterday, about my Dad. I know I should call him, I'm just not sure what I could say. He will want to talk about me, and I'll want to talk about Tim, and things will get awkward. Things will get uncomfortable and then we will say goodbye and I'll end the phone call feeling worse than I did to begin with. I fumble with my phone in my hands and Amelia makes her way to sit next to me. "Call him, it'll be okay. I'll be here for you to rant about him afterward, I promise." My girlfriend tells me, placing her hand in mine and offering a comforting squeeze. I take a deep breath before clicking on my dad's name.
The phone rings a few times before I hear the familiar voice at the other end of the line.
"Hi Dad."
"Hi honey. How have you been? Were you working yesterday?"
"I'm okay. I'm not working, I'm in San Francisco, like I am every year for Tim's Birthday."
"That's nice. And how is Amelia?" He asks, clearly attempting to change the subject.
"Amelia is okay too, I promise we are both fine." I explain, looking to my girlfriend and rolling my eyes slightly. I had told her that he asks about her every time we talk.
"And when will I finally get to meet this mystery woman huh? You've been together over a year. I need to make sure she really exists." My dad jokes, and I can't help the small smile that appears on my lips.
"I spoke to her about it and she would be happy to meet you next time you're in Seattle, so you can see for yourself that she is real and that I'm not imagining our entire relationship." I huff and Amelia grins.
"I promise I'm real Mr Robbins." Amelia says leaning in toward the call.
"Was that her? You took her with you?"
"I did. She is helping me. Coming here hurts but she is helping."
"I'm glad you're happy sweetheart."
"I am happy. Amelia makes me happy. How is Mom?"
The conversation continues for another fifteen minutes or so, I make sure to engage, trying not to let him hear the hurt that I'm experiencing. When I end the call I collapse into Amelia's embrace.
"Was that really so bad?" She asks me and I twist my body to look at her.
"No, but also, yeah, kinda."
"What do you mean?"
"The conversation wasn't so bad, but it still hurts that he won't talk about Tim. Tim was awesome, he deserves to be talked about. He doesn't deserve to be forgotten."
"And he won't be. You won't let him be forgotten. What do you want to do today?"
"How would you feel about ice cream for breakfast?"
"I thought you would never ask." Amelia says with a grin.
We get washed and dressed, ready to go out. I feel a lot better than I had felt yesterday, I'm still feeling a few too many emotions for my liking, but they feel more containable. When we leave the hotel I have my arm wrapped around my girlfriends waist, wanting all of the contact that she is offering. We make small talk, laughing about the little things and we send a quick text to Sofia to check in.
Amelia POV
When we arrive at the ice-cream store, it's more of a small diner, not quite what I expected. The ice creams are all homemade and it's calming. The warm colours and soft chairs in the booths make it feel like home.
I scan the rows of flavors, unsure which to try. I've never been good with this many options.
"You should get the rocky road, it's my favourite, it was Tim's too." Arizona instructs but I stop and look at her.
"I can't. Maybe I'll try the raspberry, ooo or maybe lemon."
"You can't?" Arizona looks towards me, questioning my choice of words.
"I don't eat rocky road, not anymore anyway." I explain, trying to remain neutral but my emotion toward the topic seem to show through my voice.
"Another weird trigger?" Arizona asks with a small laugh, clearly joking but I nod my head.
"I guess you could say that. I used to love it." I say honestly, my voice sounding a little more vulnerable than I planned.
"What changed?"
"I erm" I stutter, carefully considering my words. I think about lying, I've been trying to avoid this topic for quite a while, but I can't lie to her. "I can't tell you. At least, not right here, not in public." I try to explain the best I can without getting into details.
"Are you okay? I'm sorry I didn't mean to pry or bring up any weird memories, I had no idea this went so deep or else I wouldn't have asked." Arizona explains. She is clearly worried about me, hell I would be too if the situation were reversed but that doesn't change the way I'm feeling.
"It's okay. You couldn't have known. I've mentioned my friend Michelle before right?" I offer, trying to open up a little to show I'm okay.
"Just that she died, not really much else."
"It was her favourite, we had a joke about it but, it's not a thing I can talk about right now."
"That's okay. Whatever you need. I'm sure the other flavors are just as awesome."
I can tell I worried Arizona, I mean, I practically freaked out over an ice cream flavor. I have told Arizona almost everything about myself, and she has never once hesitated, she has always been by my side. Yet still, I have never worked up the courage to talk to her about this. Michelle was my best friend. Lying to her about her test results was one thing, but she said she would kill herself if it were positive. That much I think Arizona would understand, but I made a deal with Michelle, the day I told her I lied. We made the deal that when there was a day that not even rocky road icecream could make better, I would help her end her life. And I intended to go through with it. I was going to euthanise my best friend. If she hadn't changed her mind last minute, I would have done. In the laws eyes I would have been a murderer. Arizona trusts me, she trusts me to look after her daughter. I'm scared that telling her the truth will make her question that decision.
"You okay?" Arizona asks, interrupting my spiraling flow of thought as we sit down after ordering.
"I will be." I say, and I hope I'm right. I hope she doesn't judge my actions too harshly.
"Can I ask you something? It's not about the icecream thing, I promise."
"What do you want to know?" I respond, happy she is willing to change the topic.
"I don't want to say the word, but the one you said is triggering, what's the story? You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, I'm just, curious I guess."
"I kinda guessed you would ask when I brought it up. It's okay. It was Ryan's go to compliment, he would call me that several times a day. It's the last thing I remember him saying to me before he died. He was hovering over me, and we were both high, our last high. My first night with James, he said it to me and well, you know the rest. Panic attack, locking him out of the room and such."
"Oh, right. I will try to make sure I don't y'know, say that word in the future." Arizona says with a bit of thought.
"We've been together over a year and you haven't said it yet, so I doubt it's in your regular vocabulary. Don't over think it." I instruct, not wanting things to get weird between us.
When we leave the ice cream store, we head straight to the beach. We have towels with us to sit on, and we can just talk. It's not particularly warm out, but it's not cold either. We have light jackets because it's windy by the water but it's comfortable. We sit side by side, my head rested on her shoulder, both of us having an arm draped around the other.
"What was your family like? When you were growing up?" I ask Arizona. She seems to know a whole lot more about my upbringing than I know about hers. While we are in this break away because of her brother, it seems a fitting time to bring it up.
"Pretty standard honestly. My Dad was in the marine corps, we moved around quite a bit, but it never bothered me too much. Whenever we moved to a new place, normally every couple of years, he made sure to take me out skating. It was our thing. My Mom did the odd part time job, but mostly she just helped out running charity events and stuff. She likes to cook, and she loves kids. She always offered to babysit for the other parents in the area. She was over the moon when she found out about Sofia, she bought her so many clothes and presents, I swear half of Sofias baby belongings came from my Mom." Arizona lists, thinking about her family.
"That sounds nice. I kinda wish I had that kinda childhood. I know it probably wasn't perfect but still." A part of me wants to be jealous she had such an idyllic upbringing but I know what wouldn't be fair.
"It wasn't perfect, but what home is. I was happy, safe, looked after. I don't even remember anything remotely bad happening until Tim died. I wish I could have known you back then, been there for you. At least you have your sisters though."
"Which sisters are we talking about here? Kathleen, Liz and Nancy or Addie, Mer and Maggie?" I ask, turning to look at Arizona. "Because if we are talking about my bio sisters, we really don't get on. I don't talk to them. Derek was the only one of my siblings that remotely liked me."
"I'm sure that can't be true." Arizona responds quickly, giving my hand a quick squeeze.
"I don't even have Liz or Kathleen's numbers saved in my phone. I was the youngest and I was a total screw up. They wanted nothing to do with me. I don't blame them, I was a mess." I explain with a shrug. I'm not exaggerating, I literally was never close to them.
"Surely it can't all be bad."
"When I told them I moved to Seattle they immediately presumed I must have screwed up and got fired, and the only reason I moved here was so Derek would offer me a job. I didn't bother trying to correct them, it would have meant talking about Ryan, and my baby. At the time I was sure they would find a way to blame their deaths on me too."
"If that's the case then they are total idiots. Sure, you're not perfect, but nobody is. I'm sorry you had to deal with them, you deserve better."
"I had a family, but It never really felt like one. At first I felt like I didn't need one, but then I started at the practice, that became my family, and now you, and Sofia, Mer and Maggie, this feels right." I reveal, resting my head on her shoulder. I don't ever want to leave this family that I've got now.
I feel guilty keeping secrets from Arizona, it's not something I enjoy doing, but there are some things I'm just too scared to talk about. It's one thing to talk about the pains and horrors of my past, it's not like I had control over them, but what happened with Michelle I could control. I made a choice, a choice that goes against everything that doctors stand for. It's true, we didn't go through with it, but if she didn't ask me to stop I would have continued. If she were still here and she asked me again I would make the same decision, I loved her too much to see her suffer.
"What's going through your mind huh?" Arizona asks, walking through our hotel room, tucking my hair behind my ear and sitting down next to me.
"I've done bad things Arizona."
"We've all done things we regret, the point is that we learn from our mistakes." Arizona says with a comforting smile.
"But I don't regret it. I would do it again."
"I don't understand what exactly we are talking about, so I can't really respond to that." Arizona explains and I nod, but don't reply. I'm just thinking. "Why don't you tell me what happened huh? And we will go from there."
"You won't see me the same way. You won't trust me again."
"Try me. You're not going to lose me Amelia. Never."
"You promise?" I ensure, wiping the tears that had been building up in my eyes.
"I promise."
"I uh, I met Michelle when I was just getting clean for the first time. She was a little screwed up too, and we both knew each others problems, it was a base for a good friendship. She watched her Mom die slowly, Huntingtons. She never wanted to know whether she had the gene, but I convinced her to get the test done. I thought nothing of it until I was drawing her blood, she told me if it was positive that she was going to kill herself. She watched her Mom suffer and didn't want to go through that. So when the test came through positive, I lied, I told her she didn't have it. I was scared to lose my only friend." I look to Arizona who offers me an encouraging, non judgemental smile before I continue. "Of course I had to tell her I lied. It was around the time I was starting to drink more, and I told her about the cravings. We made a deal that if she didn't kill herself, then I wouldn't drink. And when a day comes, where not even rocky road icecream can fix her problems, then I promised I would help her die painlessly."
I hear Arizona gulp behind me, but her grip on my body doesn't change.
"What happened?" Arizona asks, hinting at me to continue.
"The day came. I kept my promise, I was helping her die, I had a needle in her arm when she changed her mind. I stopped immediately, called 9/11 and we staged it as an overdose. They got her back, and I was so grateful that she wasn't ready to die, she was my only friend so it meant a lot. Once she was discharged, I went to her house, the door was open so I let myself in to find she had killed herself. She left me a note saying she couldn't have it on my conscience, she needed to do it alone. I called the ambulance but it was too late. She broke the deal, she killed herself, so I had a drink. I planned on just one, but it wasn't enough. I kept drinking, and it was bad. Charlotte fired me from the hospital and I quit at the practice. Then I met Ryan. "
"I'm sorry you lost her." Arizona says, stroking her fingers through my hair.
"Why aren't you mad, you should be mad."
"I'm processing, that's a lot to take in, but I'm not mad."
"If she didn't tell me to stop I would technically be a murderer, and I would be okay with that. That isn't okay." Amelia says through fear. I hear how my voice rattles with pain and there is nothing I can do but Arizona pulls me closer into her arms.
"You're not a murderer Amelia, you just care too much to see her suffer. Euthanasia is a controversial topic, I'm not sure where I stand on it but lots of people think it should be allowed, and it is legal in some countries. I'm sure you had your reasons, and I still love you." She explains, placing a light kiss on her head and stroking my hand up and down her back.
"I feel guilty and I don't think I should feel guilty because I was just trying to do what she wanted, and she wanted me to help so she wasn't alone but then she couldn't let me be there because she didn't want me to feel guilty. And now I feel more guilty because this is your weekend and now it's about me and I didn't want that." I huff, wiping my eyes. This weekend has been anything but ideal.
"Just because it's my break away doesn't mean that you're not important too. Don't feel guilty, I really appreciate you coming here with me. Why do you think you agreed to it?" Arizona asks and I shrug.
"She was my best friend. I loved her and she was suffering. She couldn't control herself, she was trapped in her own body and-"
"And you know how that feels. You know what it's like to not have control." Arizona finishes for me and I nod my head. She knows me too well.
"Yeah so I understood her not wanting to live, and I didn't want her to be in pain."
"You're a good friend Amelia, but could you please not assist in any more deaths? Because technically it's illegal and I don't know what we would do without you. Also you're too pretty to go to jail."
"I promise I will try to avoid situations that could be considered murder."
"Thank you."
Well, I hope you enjoyed that chapter.
On a different note, the second part of my short amelink fic is up if you're interested :)