Disclaimer: Characters belong to Shonda Rhimes and Grey's anatomy. I keep borrowing them just to have fun writing stories. I'm delight if someone besides me loves them.

Chapter 11: "Memories of love should never be erased"

Arizona had taken a long bath, trying to calm down, and cope with all the events that had just fallen on her head. A ton of bricks would not have knocked her out any more. Everything was so far from who she thought she was, and the life she had dreamed of for herself, that what she had just understood seemed almost impossible to imagine.

After long hours of trying to figure out what her life might have been like, and how she was going to manage it from now on; she leaves her room.

Night had fallen, the house was in the dark, and an agonizing silence reigned around. Convinced that Callie must had gone back to Meredith's and that she should be alone, the blonde was about to go downstairs to find something to nibble on, when she hears a noise coming from the green room.

She pushes the door, an emotional half- smile drawn on her lips as she sees on the wall in front of her, the letters forming the name of Sofia hanging. Callie, a screwdriver in her hands, looks up at the blonde who stood still in the doorway.
There was a deep sadness in her big dark childish eyes that seemed to apologize, and Arizona could not help but feel an immense tenderness for this woman, apparently her ex-wife, who had nevertheless looked after her for days.

- You ... You're here? ... I thought you were gone

- I finish this and leave you alone... Don't worry

- It's okay... Take your time. Showing the various things piled up in the room, the blonde asks. What is that?

- That's Sofia's stuff... She was supposed to come back to live with you and you were preparing her room when you fell, so while you were in the hospital, I came by to remove everything and avoid an emotional shock when you go back home. You know, as Koperman recommends, but even that... Callie sigh bitterly... I could not avoid it... Everything I do, it always goes wrong with you anyway, I guess there's no reason for that to change... Resigned the Latina deeply inspires... I brought back everything, this frame is the one missing in your bedroom. I 'm gonna finish putting the bed back together and I'm just gonna leave...

Arizona was reviewing all the evidence from her past stacked in Sofia's room. The frame with Sofía's pictures catches her attention, she approaches and looks at it carefully.

All the emotions passed over the blonde's face, before this accumulation of smiles, of holidays, of expressions which evoked nothing to her.

The pediatrician that she was, frowns at the image of the newborn baby who weighed barely more than one lb. and whose life was visibly hanging by a thread. On the front of the incubator was written Sofia Robbins -Sloan -Torres; a silent tear runs down her cheek. Then, her eyes move towards another image. A shy smile appears on her lips before Sofia's obvious happiness a couple years later; hair in the wind and all teeth outside, bubbled with laughter, while she was on a swing. She wasn't in the picture, but looking closer, behind the swing, she distinguished a young Callie. The Latin woman's smile was as big as the little girl's. Maybe she was the one who had captured one of those banal scenes of life but that we like to watch later, because it reminds us that just before or just afterwards, we shared a kiss, or an ice cream or a laugh. Photos always tell more than a moment.
But despite all her efforts, nothing more came to the blonde's mind.

There was also this man she didn't know, who was holding proudly her daughter in his arms. She understood it was Sofia's father.
Her eyes kept moving from one photo to another. She does not hold back an emotional giggle when her gaze lands on one of them. She and Sofia ate ice cream, the cream overflowing widely from their mouths, and both had some ice cream on the tip of their noses. It must have been a familiar game that she made as a reflex, when, just a few days ago in the tea room, she had put whipped cream on Callie's nose to make her laugh thought the blonde smiling.

In another photo, she was huddled romantically against the Latina and looked tenderly at the two brunettes as Sofia was sitting on Calliope's lap. Arizona inhales deeply, letting out all her emotion slowly in a jerky breath between her tight lips.

So, that was her life, and at one point she had been really happy. She could see it in some pictures, but in others, she could also guess in her own eyes, the same sad little shadow that she had seen as soon as she woke up in Calliope's eyes, or in some of the photos, in those of Sofia too, telling her that her family had gone through hard times.

Callie had stopped working. She watched at her ex-wife trying to decipher her life through these moments immortalized on paper. The Latin woman was still wondering what tragedy of their dramatic past might have caused the emotional shock that prevented the blonde from remembering.

- We have a child, Calliope... I mean I have a child... It's... It's unbelievable. I... I am the mother of a seven-year-old girl of whom I know nothing about. You know, everything is weird here. Nothing I find out sounds like me and I don't like a lot of things I learn about myself ... In one second, I found myself married, unfaithful and divorced; and above all, the mother of a LITTLE SEVEN-YEARr-OLLD GIRL! Who apparently had to go through hell to get to live and of whom I have no memory.
Tears that she wasn't trying to hold back, flowed on the blonde's face. With her eyes marked by pain, Callie listened to her express her sorrow and her fears without restraint as she had never been able to do... It's...it's like if there's two me who don't look alike. And I don't quite understand who I've become and how any of this ever happened, how I could hurt the woman I loved to the point of marrying her. Incredulous, she shook her head; everything she said, seemed so surrealistic to her...But what I do know is that I never, never thought I could hurt a child, let alone my own child, and that's what I did, though...

- You have never hurt Sofia. I called your parents and she's fine. Actually, she was thrilled that you called her, and plus, you apparently promised her she'd be here soon, so she's overjoyed and...

- Looks like, I went out of my way to screw up our marriage and her family's stability anyway! The blue eyes jumped from place to place in the room, betraying the uneasiness of the blonde who sought to avoid the Latin woman's gaze. I... I shouldn't have promised her she'd come, right? Asks Arizona suddenly in a panic... I... I didn't know what to say. She looked so sad and she said she missed me, and you know, she called me mom. She… She said mom when she was talking to me, like if I had to take the best decision for her...like...Uh... As moms must do. Good moms know how to make the best decisions for her child... And…and I'm not sure I'm a good mom...or if I can make the best choices for her, and... And maybe I shouldn't...

- Stop Arizona! Stop. You are rambling here. You did great, sweetheart... Neither of them brings up the tender word which they once used in the intimacy of their home. That was what she needed to give her peace of mind. I Just want you to know that you haven't hurt Sofia. Never. I mean, you've always paid close attention to her. But you know, even good moms sometimes take the wrong call... Callie gives a sorry look to her ex-wife... Wanting to take her to New York with me or rather away from you, was a mistake. But I hope, that most of the time I'm not a too bad mom. Please, believe me, you always make the best decisions for our child... and I realize how confused you should be...

- Oh no, I don't think anyone can understand how you feel when a child calls you mom and you're not aware that you're her mother... The blonde stands up abruptly. As she used to do, even after giving in to despair, she always straightened up and moved into the pragmatic phase. Callie smiled; she loved this Arizona so much. You're obviously the best person for telling me about my life story. And I can understand this whole thing about not causing shocks, about wanting to bring things back naturally, but here's the urgency, Callie. I have a little girl who seem to have no idea what's going on, and... and... I need to figure out the way to do it with her and ... Oh, I have so many questions jostling in my head!

As her legs could no longer support her, the blonde had slipped against the wall. Despite all the courage she wanted to have, the task seemed insurmountable. Sitting on the floor, curling up on herself she hides her face between her knees. Callie gets up and comes to sit at her side, passing an affectionate hand on the blonde's back.

- Okay, Okay Arizona. You need to take a breath, and you need to cool off... I know I can't feel what you're feeling and I am not pretending to ... But please don't lock yourself in with all these questions... I'm here... Talk to me... Ask me what you want and I'll try to answer. The blond lifts her head out of her knees with tears in her eyes.

- You know what she said? She thinks I'm saving babies instead of taking care of her. Arizona was sobbing... I guess

I'm not that great mom, as you say ...

- That's what we've been saying to her since she was born every time we are paged! We tell her we have to go and save people and leave her in daycare. So, you, you have to save babies! That makes sense for her; she is so proud of you...

- ... She needs us as well! I mean, when you're seven you just need your parents, and...and it sounds like we leave her all the time, sometimes to save people, or because you live in New York, or because I've lost my memory!... She can't understand that! Calliope, she's worried. She asked me if she was not my baby anymore. She's a child, she just thinks I prefer babies to her!

- She doesn't think that. She's a little dramatic because she knows it still works with you, and also because you really missed her while we were in New York. Oh my God, she does with you what she wants. At least, that hasn't changed, you are and always will be the good cop. The brunette chuckled as Arizona felt even more lost

-Calliope, I need ... I mean ... it's... it's so hard.

Relieved, the Latina smiled.

- You're not alone, Arizona, do you hear me? I'll be on your side. I'll help you and you'll see that everything will be easy with Sofia. You always worried about not being a good mother enough. Oh my god! You asked yourself a thousand questions before she was born and then things came naturally... As Callie passed her thumb on the back of the blonde's hand, that she had taken between hers, deeply inspiring, Arizona had put her head on the brunette's shoulder, and slowly the anguish went away... Do you know, for example, that you were the only one who could put her back to sleep at night. When Mark was babysitting her, if she woke up, he should pick you up in the middle of the night so you could put her back to sleep; and you, who hated to be awake in your sleep; you've never complained, not once. I even think that if by chance she slept all night, you were a little disappointed in the morning. You were so proud to be the only one who could put her back to sleep.

Arizona sniffs, she loved that story. While Callie told her some reassuring anecdotes about her role as a mother, the blonde whispered.

- So, we were all living together?

- No, Mark lived in the apartment across the hall, but he spent more time with us than at his place, which you didn't always like. We were always looking for girls to set him up so he could give us some privacy. He was totally screwing up our sex life.

Arizona chuckled awkwardly. She had not yet had time to imagine that part of her former life, which she had evidently shared with the brunette, all her thoughts had been consumed by Sofia; but this explained the comfort she felt with the Latin woman.

- You...Did you ate something?

- No, I wanted to finish this and go back to Meredith's

- How about we share the pizza while you talk to me about my life? And please, no more lies, stop sparing me, I want to hear the truth, even if it's raw and harsh. Callie frowns with doubts. She was going to open her mouth to express them, when Arizona's finger lands on her lips, the blue eyes getting lost in the charcoal-coloured eyes... Calliope, I don't care about this emotional shock and the breaking point and about all the defense mechanisms of my fucking brain. Nothing can be bigger than learning that I have a child, and I need to figure it out and learn as much as I can right now; because tomorrow morning I'm going to call my parents, and we're going to bring my daughter back.

The connection between her and the blonde was visibly still there. The Latin woman was finding again the complicity they had when they still knew how to understand each other without having to utter the words, when their eyes still knew how to speak to each other.

- Our... Our daughter. Stammers the brunette, troubled to recover the feeling that they were a family.

- Yeah, our daughter. Arizona repeats pensive... She called me mom, Calliope, she kept saying "mom "when she was talking to me.

The blonde sobbed. Her emotion triggered a few tears on Callie's cheeks, feeling overwhelmed by an immense tenderness, while she watched at her ex-wife revel in the feeling of being a mother.

In the living room, the pizzas in front of them, the two women were seated on the sofa. Callie seemed not to be very at ease. She takes a bottle of beer and all of a sudden, under the stunned look of the blonde, in a single sip she drank half of it.

- Arizona, about everything I've said over the last days, I only lied to you because Amelia wanted to follow the protocol of...

- Koperman, I know... That was the famous little lie to make me feel better. Right?

The brunette's face freezes

- Do... Do you recall that?

- I don't. Sofia said to me about the cranberry pies. The Latin woman broke into laughter. Like her, their daughter tended to take the words out of her mouth without thinking about them. Oh my God! She's so talkative... The remembering of the child's conversation makes Arizona smile so hard that her face hurt. I learned more with her in a few minutes than I did with you for days.

- Yeah, she got this from you. When she's happy she talks all the time, but as soon as she isn't, she closes up like an oyster.

Sorry, Arizona is gasping. She knew this about her, she had still acted like that a few hours ago, but once again what surprised her, was how well Callie knew her.

- I'm sorry to have said I didn't trust you... I should not have talked to you like that. I was upset, but you didn't deserve that. As a matter of fact, you're the only one I trust right now. But now let's forget Koperman and Amelia Shepherd and all of their secrets... Calliope, I could handle it. I can't be that porcelain statue that everyone's afraid to break, it's not me. I don't want it to turn out that way

- You never been, and you've always refused to be protected, that was even been part of the problem ...Mumbles the brunette

- All right, you can't keep talking through implication and innuendo! You have one night to explain everything about our child and our life, so let's start at the beginning.

Callie chuckles. It was this Arizona she fell madly in love with, a little less than 10 years ago. Extremely effective in emergency situations, her ex-wife was still that good man who had strayed in a storm, but who had obviously found her way back.

- Uh... the beginning?... What do you want to know?

- So, you said that your girlfriend at the time... thus me... Came back after three months and you were pregnant with Mark. How many weeks of pregnancy were you?

- Eight

Arizona shakes her head by grimacing. She had counted quickly in her head; it must not have been long since she had packed. But she wasn't here to get into that kind of controversy, and she clearly wasn't in a position to give lessons on faithfulness.

- And you were saying I've been gone for three months? Where have I been?

- In Africa.

- And what was I going to do in Africa?

- Living your dream...

- What?! Flabbergasted the blonde shouts aloud... I got the Carter Madison?! and ... Calliope I really got the Carter Madison grant and I came back. But why?

- You said you missed me too much and you were so in love with me that you would have accepted anything to be with me ...The brunette sneers sorely... But the day you said it, you seemed totally to regret it.

- Oh, I get it now. That's why you kept smiling when I said I couldn't accept such a situation even out of love. And wait a minute… And the French restaurant? Was I the one who invited you in this fancy place?... The Latina nodded with a blinking of the eyelids...Oh my god, I totally made a fool of myself the other night at that restaurant. Didn't I?

- You? You're never ridiculous, Arizona. But the other night you were certainly sincere. It wasn't the life you wanted and you didn't really say it or I didn't really hear it. I mean, you yelled it at me when we were in couples therapy, but it was too late...

- In couples therapy? Mumbles Arizona as she winces ... Okay, Let's move on ... So, you were eight weeks pregnant and I was out of here for three months... Arizona takes back as if she had to learn by heart the details of their lives

- Um... you were leaving for three years, dumping me in the middle of the airport at the time of boarding for Malawi where I was supposed to go with you

The blonde opens astonished eyes, attempting to play the scene in her head

- What? Oh my God... I broke up with you in an airport?... I... I left you and I got on a plane?! I... I can't believe I did this...

The blonde closes her eyes in the naive hope that when she reopens them again, she would discover that those enormities that Callie would reveal to her, would turn out to be a bad dream, or a nasty joke. But when she opened her eyelids, the way Callie looked at her suggested that this was really her life... Okay... I can't deal with this, right now, it seems so ... I don't know...

- Okay, Okay… I was just saying that because it makes me look less bad.

- Yeah... But me!... Well, whatever. Let's get back to Sofia. What are Sofia's health problems?

The features of her face marked by concentration, Arizona resumed her investigations

- She has none... Yeah, she is allergic to peaches, but she knows that and never eats them.

- Calliope, she looked like a little chicken in the photo at her birth

- Hey, you told me she was beautiful...

- Well, it must have been a little lie to make you feel better... Callie smiled remembering all the nonsense that Arizona made up for her when she showed moments of discouragement and worry, after the accident... Because she looked really bad. And why, should I tell you what she looked like, you hadn't seen her? Did your delivery go bad? Did you get ill? Where were you?

In the blonde's head the questions popped up faster than Callie could answer them; so the Latina takes her hands to calm the blonde down and tells her about the car accident.

Arizona had long borne the guilt of this accident, even though her wife had told her dozens of times that it was not her fault, the blonde had been traumatized to have been the one who was behind the wheel and who had barely killed the woman of her life. This guilt came back in force when they had learned that the effects of the injuries of this accident would permanently deprive Callie of bearing another child.

As the days went by, when she realized that the leg was not the problem, the Latin woman convinced herself that the car accident and the birth of Sofia could be the potential blockage.

- ...And then until the plane crash where Mark and Leslie died and you lost your leg, we were really happy. Happier than that, I've never been in my life. Sometimes there were issues, but you know, we knew how to fix them. We had come to have a truly stable, incredibly understanding, compassionate and loving relationship that should have lasted our entire lives.

Callie felt like she was talking into the void. Arizona's eyes were lost in the distance, she didn't seem to listen to her anymore, but the brunette continues trying to tell the blonde all the good moments.

- ...You and Mark got into this stuff of cooking, you were spending your free time together, and I was glad you became friends, which, as I told you before, wasn't won at first. But you know, I was under the impression that between Sofia, who was a baby and Mark, who was taking up your time, you didn't have any more time for me, so I kicked him and his coq au vin out of our apartment, telling him that he was ruining our libido...

- I have miscarried? Interrupts Arizona

- You... you remember that

The blonde shakes her head

- You mentioned that your ex-wife had a miscarriage and... since your ex-wife was me... I guess that

- You think that might be the blockage?... I think it was harder than you let it appear, everything has been always harder than you let it appear... In reality you didn't let anything out, you...You were always a pretty secret person, but after the plane crash I got the feeling that you had locked everything inside of you... And ... You didn't really let me in anymore.

Absorbing everything Callie had just told her, Arizona nodded her head. She had frowns and a disillusioned pout on her face

- What kind of relationship did we have? Me, finding no other option to my ill-being than to close myself in silence and deceive you. You, making a baby with your best friend when I had barely landed in Malawi. So, I would have agreed to be part of that kind of family. Why? This is so unlike me. How could we love each other as much as you say, and hurt each other so much? Oh my God, I think that's worse than not knowing. It's not me... I can't be that person... I don't want to hear any more about us, not now ... I 'm sorry I can't Callie... I have to... Let me just focus on Sofia. We need to focus on our child Calliope...

Arizona gets up from the sofa and heads towards the stairs.
Considering that these words invited her to leave, Callie a little disappointed, also stood up and heads toward the front door.

- What are you doing? Are you coming? You got some furniture to built and I got a wall to paint.

- Now?!...Exclaimsthe Latin woman... But it's almost midnight... You slept for three days, I didn't, Arizona.

- And... And besides I married a wimp !... Who the hell are you Arizona Robbins?

Looking up to the sky in a dramatic manner, the blonde goes upstairs, Callie walking on her steps was laughing.

Thanks for reading and for your always very nice reviews