A/N: Greetings all. No worries, I haven't abandoned Lucky Enough. I was watching this episode the other day and thought, what if this went totally off the rails? So, I took it there. I have lots of great ideas for this story, but I'm wondering what you think so far. It will probably be on the back burner until I get to the end with my other story.
All credits belong to Shonda.
Dr. Callie Torres stood in the ER looking on as her ex-wife checked over their daughter after her fall. She watched how she lovingly caressed her head, how her facial expression softened and concern filled her dazzling blue eyes. Looking at her daughter, she noticed how the love and adoration filled her dark brown eyes when she focused on her blonde mother. Callie felt her breath hitch just slightly when both sets of dimples popped as they smiled at one another when Arizona declared their daughter was going to be just fine. She couldn't help but feel empathy for her ex-wife who never wanted children, primarily for this reason alone, that she would have to see her lying in a hospital bed. Sadly, this is the second time in her young life it's happened. The first time…well, if it weren't for the pediatric surgeon's expertise, none of them would be standing here now. Callie closed her eyes briefly as she thought about all the realizations she had come to over the past two years since their divorce. Many of them were hard pills to swallow.
Looking up at the loving scene before her, she tried to fight the uncomfortable feelings she was having about the fact that she was waiting in line to see her daughter. She most certainly wasn't thinking about how she should be sitting on the other side of the bed holding her daughter's hand; that would make them look too much like a family, a cohesive unit. She definitely didn't just glance down at the floor and count how many steps it would take her to walk up behind her ex-wife, put her hand on her shoulder and comfort both mother and child. She absolutely ignored the fact that when the blonde turned to leave, she barely glanced at her and definitely didn't feel the pang in her chest because she couldn't remember the last time she even attempted to make eye contact with her. She couldn't understand how she was so chipper when she turned to the young resident and thanked her for taking such good care of their daughter.
The young resident, Penny. Quiet, calm, sweet, understanding Penny. Her girlfriend. Her girlfriend who didn't know her daughter but just treated her. Her girlfriend who told her she loved her. Her girlfriend to whom she responded, "Thank you." Callie walked up to her little girl, smiled down at her, tapped her shoulder and offered, "I'll see you in a little bit okay?" Sofia nodded at her and smiled then she turned to walk away and breathed a sigh of relief that this time there was only a little bump on the head and she could take her daughter home with her when she left for the evening.
She couldn't explain why she tensed up when she felt her girlfriend come up beside her asking, "You okay?" She looked over and replied in a high pitched tone indicating the opposite of her response, "Okay? Of course." She crossed her arms and continued in a more normal voice, "And Sofia is okay which is what really matters." Penny looked at her in confusion and replied, "Okay." Callie stopped walking, faced the red headed resident, arms still crossed and stammered, "It would've been nice to get a page, um, before you treated her." Penny defended, "Well I just wanted to have all the information before I pulled you out." Callie's voice raised in pitch again and she glanced at her daughter across the room and replied, "No, right, of course, or you could've tried Karev, he's in Peds, or Grey who Sofia's grown up knowing…" "Grey has the day off and Karev just left." The resident interjected. Callie nervously added, "Or Bailey." Penny stared at her girlfriend incredulously and asked, "You want me to page the Chief of Surgery for a head lac?" Callie nodded like it was the obvious choice and replied, "Mmm hmm." Callie knew she was being irrational and again she couldn't quite explain it and was certain she was about to be asked to do just that.
Penny had no idea what was happening here. She thought her girlfriend trusted her and worried that maybe she didn't have as much faith in her skills as a surgeon as she claimed to have. Sticking her hands in the pockets of her white coat she asked, "What's going on?" Callie knew it was coming and scrambled for an answer. She started with the truth, the part that she knew was really concerning her and replied sincerely, "She's my kid and she doesn't know anything about you. We haven't even had that conversation." Penny was taken aback and felt a sharp pain in her heart. She told this woman she loved her and she didn't even warrant a mention to her child. She took a deep breath and responded, "Oh, okay." She fought back the tears and asked, "This is about what I said last night isn't it? The last thing I wanted to do was make things weird." Callie could see the devastation on her girlfriend's face, from her reaction today, the fact that she hadn't even told Sofia about her, and of course that she didn't return her confession of love and out of nowhere blurted, "It's Arizona. She's glad that you helped obviously, she's not mad. But she's not ready either and you and I it's all happening so fast and we're so new." Penny immediately felt terrible and lamented, "Oh God, what was I thinking?" Callie rushed to make her feel better and try to cover her lie and not make it so bad by soothing, "It's fine, it's fine, your heart was in the right place and she'll be ready one day." Penny swallowed the lump in her throat, not sure if it made her feel better or worse that her girlfriend was allowing her ex-wife to dictate the speed at which their relationship progressed and replied, "I'm sorry. I can wait," then quickly walked away before she made any more of a fool of herself. Callie glanced over at her daughter, smiled when she saw that she was looking at her, then swallowed thickly knowing she just made a bigger mess.
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Arizona stood at her computer pulling up a patient's chart in order to give her resident and former roommate Jo, her next assignment and doing her best not to think about her daughter lying in a bed in the ER. She knew it was nothing to worry about and her daughter would be just fine, but she hated that she wouldn't be the one taking her home, giving her ice cream, kissing it to make it better, and checking on her 15 times during the night. She was trying her hardest not to be angry at her ex-wife, trying not to picture them comforting her together, taking comfort from each other. Instead she was fighting the images in her mind of Callie waiting behind her with her new girlfriend standing off to the side. While she did appreciate the young woman treating her daughter, she didn't appreciate being one of the last to know and quite honestly, she was more than a little tired of playing nice, being the professional, and putting on a fake smile while she died a little more inside every time she saw the woman she loved moving on without her. She had no choice, she had no say, Callie chose this and apparently she had no problems with flaunting the other woman in front of her, so what could she do but smile?
Arizona turned to talk to her resident when none other than her ex-wife's girlfriend appeared before her greeting semi-frantically, "Dr. Robbins." Reminding herself to be the professional, the gracious ex-wife, Arizona looked up and simply replied, "Huh?" She then kept working until the young woman went on, "I'm so sorry, you are Sofia's mother and I never would have interacted with her if I knew that you had a problem with it." Arizona looked at her with confusion written all over her face and asked, "What?" Her resident, Jo whispered, "What did you do?" making Arizona look at her as if she had the same question. Sympathetically, the young resident continued, "Callie explained to me that you weren't comfortable with me meeting Sofia, you're not ready. I totally understand." Arizona could feel her blood start to boil. She had no idea what was going on with her ex-wife and her girlfriend, but she'd be damned if she were going to be brought into the middle of it. She learned her lesson with Jackson and April and the whole baby debacle. Holding out her hand, she interrupted, "No, wait! Stop!" She turned to face Penny and declared, "No, I never said that." Penny scoffed and argued, "Well, however you phrased it, it's fine. I just wanted to apologize…" Arizona was trying to maintain her composure and interrupted, "No! The subject has never come up." Jo gasped and proclaimed, "She was lying!" Penny didn't know what to think, furrowed her brow then looked at the clear anger on the fetal surgeon's face and asked, "Callie lied to me…about you?" Arizona replied somberly, "It sure seems like that," then walked away to find her ex-wife and clear things up once and for all.
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Callie stood in the x-ray room staring at the images but not seeing them. She was doing her best to fight the images she was seeing though. She'd dated many people and there have been several proclamations of love, in retrospect, she'd always been the first to say it, except on two occasions. The first time she didn't say it first, she'd felt it and was bursting at the seams to say it but vowed to herself she would never be the first to say it again. When the words came out of her girlfriend's mouth, so calmly, so clearly, she could feel every nerve stand on end, the butterflies flitting around in her stomach, her heart doing somersaults, and she immediately said it back and they both knew the words they spoke and the words they heard were true. Neither of them needed fancy dinners or roses or romance, they just needed each other. The second time she heard it, her heart flipped but more so because it dropped to her stomach. She hadn't heard those words from anyone else for eight years and they didn't fall on her ears as sweetly, nor were they ready to fly out of her mouth as easily, so she said the only thing she could think of, the first thing that came to her, "Thank you". She felt horrible for it, but for some reason, not horrible enough to correct it, to say it if she didn't mean it. She wondered then if she would ever be ready to hear it from or say it to anyone else again. To her, love meant something completely different now and it didn't come as easily as it used to.
Trying to focus back on her scans, she was startled when the door burst open and none other than her ex-wife appeared and this time she did make eye contact and man were those eyes blazing with fury and this time it was she who didn't want to look the other woman in the eye. When Arizona finally found Callie, she whipped the door open and started in immediately, "Hey, whatever is going on between you and Penny, leave me out of it." Callie realized her girlfriend confronted her ex-wife and mumbled, "Okay, she does not waste time." She then looked back at her confused ex and tried to explain, "Um, look, I said a thing." Arizona interjected, "I know, I know what you said. So listen, I mean, we've never even discussed Penny meeting Sofia, which I'm fine with by the way, but then you go and throw me under the bu…" "I know, I know, I wasn't thinking," Callie cut her off then continued, "I was just, I blurted it out and it was so dumb." Arizona was still confused but held out her hands and said, "Great, so if you have a problem with your girlfriend, don't put me in the middle of it because I'm, I'm done being stuck in the middle of things." The second she turned to leave; Callie realized in that moment how much her actions had hurt Arizona as well and didn't know how to fix it.
When a pale hand pushed at the door, Callie's mouth over-ruled her head once again and she blurted, "She told me she loved me." The words hit Arizona like a knockout blow straight to her gut. She could feel all the air deflate from her lungs, the stabbing pain in her heart, and knew it was only pride and this door keeping her on her feet. Callie watched as her ex-wife physically recoiled from the words. This was the only sign she'd seen in two years that their divorce had any effect on her and she wondered what that meant. Without turning, Arizona took a deep breath, swallowed past the lump in her throat, fought the stinging of tears behind her eyes and said quietly, "Callie, I will always be here if you need me, for anything, but I…" She shook her head, cleared her throat and continued, "I can't be the one to listen to your relationship problems or offer you advice. You left so you could be happy. Apparently you've found that happiness. I see it everyday right in front of me and I…I'm trying to be happy for you…but I, I just can't be that person. I can't be the one you come to or the one you blame. Just…just keep me out of it."
Callie could hear the pain in the other woman's voice even though she tried to cover it up. She never wanted to hurt her, hell she didn't know she could. To her, it was clear Arizona was done. She didn't even try to come after her when she walked out of Dr. Dawson's office. She just took some things and moved into an on-call room. Just as Arizona reached for the door handle again, Callie blurted out, "I said, 'thank you'." Still facing the door, Arizona brought her hands up and rubbed her temples. Why was Callie doing this. She was hurt and frustrated and just wanted to get as far away from this mess as she could. "Callie…" she started but was cut off. "I mean, who does that? Right? No one but you has said that to me in nearly 8 years. It just…it didn't feel right. I've tried to move on Arizona. I have. I've dated and…and damn you Arizona!" The blonde spun around wondering how any of this was her fault. She crossed her arms and leaned against the door glaring at the other woman. "Callie…" she tried again. "You! You just…ugh!" the Latina said as she threw up her hands and started pacing. "What the hell do I have to do with this?" Arizona asked getting a little angry herself. Callie whipped around and stalked up to the blonde, "You are everywhere! You're in my bedroom. I can't even sleep in that room Arizona! This morning I scolded Sofia and she just crossed her arms and glared at me!" The Latina waved her hand up and down the blonde's body. "Where did she get that? Huh? Then you're here, and happy and all 'Sure date, go kiss everyone', you're like the president of the Penny fan club and all smiling and like…like you don't even care!" She stomped away then came back and towered over the blonde so close she could feel her breath on her cheek. "Why don't you care? How is this so easy for you? How Arizona?"
The two women stood face to face. Callie was out of breath, her face was flushed red, her chest heaving. "Easy? Are you fucking kidding me right now Callie?" Arizona asked with enough passion it caused Callie to step back. The blonde took to pacing now. "Easy? Watching you move on without me is anything but easy! When you were flirting with the policeman, I went into an on-call room and cried for two hours! Two fucking hours! Just the thought of someone else putting their hands on you made me physically ill. Then I had to come to work the next day and hear all about how 'Dr. Torres went back to men' because apparently her trip to lesbian land was a fiasco!" Arizona threw her arms up and turned on the other woman. "After I watched you kiss steak knives, I went home and drank so much I had to call in sick the next day. I don't call in for anything Callie!" The blonde stalked over to stand in front of her ex-wife and pointed her finger at her, "I have listened to you day in and day out talk about how happy another woman makes you Callie! What the hell am I supposed to do with that? Then you throw me in the middle of some crap because she told you she loves you! Fan-fucking-tastic! Yay you!"
Arizona stopped and looked at the other woman. "How do I make it look easy? I have to! I cheated! I made you miserable! You said I suffocated you and made you feel stuck. You needed to be free! You walked out on me. You left so you could be happy! I cry every night because I am not that person for you anymore. You don't want me to be that person anymore. That's all I want for you Callie. I want you to be happy. I owe you that much after crushing your spirit. So no! I don't get a say. I don't get to care because I am the one who broke us! But it is anything but fucking easy!" With that, Arizona stormed out of the room leaving Callie standing alone in the room having learned more about her ex-wife in the last two minutes than she has in the last two years.