Disclaimer: Characters belong to Shonda Rhimes and Grey's anatomy.

Chapter 15:"A person's memories are his own library."

Sofia had run out of the X-ray room to join her mothers, while Alex handed the images of the scanner to the blonde

- It's all right. I guess even though I'm telling you she may not even have hit her head, it won't change anything and you'll wake her up every three hours all night long anyway.

- No, I'll let her sleep. Turning rational again, Arizona giggles... I'm sorry, I... I panicked Alex, and I think I'm gonna have to apologize to April, too...

- Buying our drinks at Joe's should be enough. The man laughed

- I will, Alex, even several. Conscious that she had overreacted, Arizona winces. And we should invite the intern as well.

- Oh Fuck, you looked like Herman or maybe Callie Torres. Taunting his two friends, he gave a playful elbow to the Latin.

- Don't ruin my perfect picture, Alex! She got no memories of me at all. I guess I should be thrilled about it, it gives me a chance to look good, and if I remember correctly, you should find some perks in it too.

Even if she hadn't really understood the seemingly funny innuendo that the two surgeons shared by laughing heartily, Callie's sarcasm didn't escape the blonde.
She didn't need to be told about it; she had already got an idea of her ex-wife's temper, although for the moment Callie seemed to take quite nicely the fact that she was the only person the blonde still couldn't remember.

Compassionate, and sorry Arizona looked at her with a tender smile, while the brunette's eyes moved away with a frown

Callie saw at the end of the corridor an Italian woman on whom she had discreetly taken some information from Meredith. Facing the brunette's pout, Arizona follows with her eyes the place that caught her attention. Seeing Carina approaching with a determined step of the group, she also grimaced.

- We'll be waiting for you in the cafeteria. Says the brunette pulling Sofia against her... This little girl deserves a jelly to get over her emotions. Join us when you're free, and I'll drive you home. I'm done here.

A desolate smile on her face, Arizona approves by blinking eyelids.
Things were getting a little out of her hand right now. She wished she could have stayed with her ex-wife who was apparently struggling with unpleasant feelings, to reassure her. Moreover, and she did not truly understand the reason, but the arrival of her mistress, just then in the presence of her daughter and Calliope, bothered her beyond reason.

- Hi Arizona... I heard about your daughter, and your panic. So, I came to see if I could do something...

- Oh, my goodness, I didn't freak out at all!!... Uh... Anyway, Calliope was there, and...

- Oh ... Dr. Torres is always around you lately...

- She's my daughter's mother. So yes, when our daughter is taken in an ambulance to the ER, she must be there. Riled up to have to justify herself, the blonde answers sharply.

- Okay... okay... I'm just saying. I mean, your ex-wife hasn't always been there, and we...

- Look, I... I don't think this is neither the time nor the place to talk about us or even about my relationship with my ex-wife. Sofia and Callie are waiting for me in the cafeteria and I have to go home with my daughter now.

- Let's talk about it later then, tomorrow night we could meet at Joe's?...

Half-heartedly, the blonde nods. She now fully remembered her relationship with the Italian, and she would have to face this situation sooner or later anyway.

She remembered that she found this relationship pretty nice, and also that before falling off the step ladder, she had clearly made the resolution to reconnect with Carina and pick up where they left off.
Yet today deliberately deciding to get so little involved in a relationship seemed totally insane to her.

She was torn by conflicting thoughts; this rule of life behind which she remembered having always taken refuge, and everything that had been said to her about her story with Calliope proving that she had deviated outright from this concept, but also this present life that attracted her like a magnet, definitively distancing her from this philosophy of life.

The serenity she felt just because of the presence of the Latin woman, as well as all the delicious family moments they shared since Sofia's return, made her really want something else. It was really about building a life too, a relationship as superficial as she had with Carina suddenly didn't seem as great as she would have liked to think.

Yet another thought came to titillate her regularly. Callie had chosen a life elsewhere and without her. There was a Penny in her ex-wife's world now. And it wasn't the Italian woman's fault that suddenly Calliope's return changed everything.
So, since in order to make amends for her behavior, she had just invited April, Alex and the intern to Joe's for the next night, why not take the opportunity to apologize to the obstetrician as well?

- Tomorrow night? Yeah... I'll... I'll be at Joe's. Consents finally the blonde.

- I'll text you to confirm the time. Carina kisses the cheek of Arizona who stayed frozen

She noted the delighted face of the Italian, wondering for the first time, if in reality Carina was not more involved than she was in this relationship.
Caught up by the tumultuous thoughts that rushed into her head, she goes to meet Callie and Sofia to go home.
Along the way, the little one had fallen asleep in the car, and each of the two women, busy analyzing the vicissitudes of their own lives, was silent.

- Uh... About your patient, by the way... How'd it goes? Asks Arizona trying to fill the awkward silence.

- What? ... Ah ... Uh yeah... Well, he's not great... But I'll try to avoid amputation, I'll do surgery in the morning.

- Ah ... That's great... This is gonna be all right... You're awesome.

The Latina turns a closed face towards the blonde. Arizona had never seen this glimmer in those eyes that looked even darker than usual.

- Awesome? How could you even know that? I'm not even in your world anymore. The acidity of the tone could not escape the blonde.

- Calliope, I understand that you're hurt, and I'm sorry. But... but, you can't blame me for not remembering you...uh...or us. I mean, I... I can't control that.

- Apparently both. You don't remember me or us. The Latin had become cold and closed ... You know, you're right, it's not your fault, but it just says much about what we've been. I mean, at least for you. Uh ... I ... I think I'm getting more shaken up about this, than I would want.

- I'm so sorry, Calliope

They had reached the house. Callie takes Sofia sleeping in her arms, while Arizona hurries to open the door for her, naturally finding again this routine dozens of times shared.

The blonde was all the more confused, as she was unable to have the beginning of a thousandth of explanation of the trick that her subconscious was playing with her.
Life seemed so obvious to her with her ex-wife, she couldn't even understand why it hadn't worked out between them.

- I think today's emotions got the better of her... I'm going to put her in bed, another night without toothbrushing... Sneers Callie, attempting a harmless conversation by walking towards Sofia's room with Arizona on her steps

- Yeah, I guess I'll have to put this in perspective. It's not that bad, she could have been injured today and.. . The blonde laid her hand on the Latin woman's arm... You know, some things sometimes seem very important, but at the end of the day, they may not really be, Calliope; and maybe we should speak about...

- Yeah, she's all right. Interrupts the brunette, unable to grasp Arizona's outstretched hand. She kisses her sleepy child... Look, I'm going to go...

- You ... You're not staying? I though you said...

- Arizona, you heard Alex, and you checked the scanner yourself, Sofia's fine. And I think that's pretty clear now. I am the...the breaking point. So being around you doesn't seem like the best idea. But you can call me if you need help with Sofia, I'll be at Meredith's.

Arizona opened and closed her mouth but no word came out, everything she had to say being stuck at the edge of her lips.
She would have wanted to tell her that this was not possible; because in all the memories she had found, there was not a single moment when she felt so good with someone. And that the mere touch of the brunette's hand on her, soothed her or sent shivers throughout her entire body, and that she still would not dream of those lips as soon as she closed her eyes ever since they had shared a kiss if that were the case, and that she didn't regret for a second having disrupted her life and her dreams because she was convinced that it was worth it.
But the blonde wasn't allowed to say any of it, because they got divorced, because there was a girlfriend in New York and an Italian woman who wanted to date her the following night.

Hand on the doorknob, Callie turns to her ex-wife.

- I just need to know... Do you remember her?...

- Whom? Carina?

- No Boswell... Do you remember her?...

Arizona closes her eyelids, guilt invading her.
She remembered everything about Lauren Boswell. The flirtation that the cranio-facial surgeon had exerted on her for three days. The rewarding feeling of being able to be desired for what she was from now on, by a woman who did not know her before her mutilation. Letting herself fall into the arms of that woman she barely knew to try to forget herself. And also the disgust and discomfort which had taken hold of her when she had come to her senses and realized what she had just done; and the light she had long sought in that dark night that was her life.
But here again Callie never appeared in the film.
She saw her wedding ring hung on Lauren's scrub top, she heard the story sewn with white thread that the cranio-facial surgeon told, but when Arizona, ashamed and dismayed turned her head toward the person to whom these words were addressed, there was no one, only emptiness.
The slamming of the door made her open her eyes. Calliope had left.

She had gone back to Meredith's. Trapped in the thoughts that were spinning in her head, the brunette was sitting on the sofa in the living room with a bottle of wine already well underway before her. She giggles sadly, Meredith was right. She couldn't resist Arizona, and then she suffered, and then she made her suffer, and then the infernal loop resumed, and they had never been able to get out of it. However, it would have to be done once and for all, and that was why she had left her, and since that was not enough, she had moved to New York.
At this very moment, New York once again seemed to the brunette as the only way out of this inextricable situation.

- Ah Callie, how's Sofia? I heard Arizona went crazy in the ER. Are we still on, with the girls' sleepover tomorrow night?

Not receiving an answer, the general surgeon comes closer her friend who lost in her thoughts and eyes in a void, had not even heard her go home with the children.

- Okay, I put the kids to bed, and I'll be right there... We could use some tequila tonight

An hour later, when Meredith found Callie, the Latina hadn't moved off the couch, staring at her phone.

- So, what's wrong.

- Do you mean in general, or just today? Sneers the brunette bitterly. Because since this morning, I feel like every minute that's gone by has sent its piece of shit into my pitiful existence. And as if that wasn't enough, I just got a text from Penny telling me she's gonna be here tomorrow

- That's good!... Realizing the look of sadness that her friend put on her phone, the general surgeon winks... Or not...

- It's... It's complicated.

- Callie, you were happy to go to New York, and you said that you and Arizona, despite the passion you shared, were in a toxic relationship, that with Penny it was easy and cool, and that New York would definitely help you turn this page for good.

- I know, I know, I know everything I said, Meredith. But you know, it's not that simple.

- Yeah, it's complicated... That's what you used to say about Arizona... and you wanted to go to something easier. Hammered at her friend Meredith.

This was the recurring argument that the Latin woman had given at the time to explain her breakup with the blonde. She never said "I don't love her anymore", she said "it's complicated", thereby telling that it was more the circumstances than the feelings that were involved in their failure.

- Yeah, but you know, it's... Callie raised her head, her eyes shone with the tears she held back, then she shrugged a shoulder, expressing with this gesture all the fatality of this truth. You know, it's... It's Arizona. She is my Derreck.

Smiling, the general surgeon nods her head expressing understanding approval. It was useless to say more. She herself would have given the last years of her life to have the chance to live again with this man whom she could never forget.

- And...And, I screwed up so much that even her brain doesn't want me anymore, she wiped me out, Meredith!

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Meanwhile, since her ex-wife left, Arizona couldn't focus on anything. Her thoughts were all tied up with Callie. She thought back at her closed face, the disappointment and sadness in her eyes.
She really felt like a real monster who sucked all the brunette's happiness out, and apparently, from what she understood, that was exactly what she had done for years. Nervously, she searches her bag to get the therapist's professional card and observes it carefully. She takes her phone.

- Hey April

- Hey, Arizona, how's Sofia?

- Well...Uh... About that, I wanted to apologize...

- Oh, then she has no cranial trauma. Teases the redhead

- Yeah, I was out of control. I'm so sorry, April, I shouldn't have yelled at you. It's just, you know, Sofia was kind of new for me. But now I remember her, I remember us, and it gonna be easier.

- Arizona, that's amazing! Is your memory back?

- Uh... Not completely... But... Well, almost...

-What do you mean?

- I ... I have no memory of anything about Callie. Arizona whispered the words as if speaking in a low voice made this terrible situation less real… Not a single image... I mean, even the places she necessarily was, I remember the moments but she's never there.

- How?... I don't understand…

- For example… Look, I recall Sofia's birth vividly. I see Mark and I completely devastated in the gallery and everyone in the OR, but if I try to see who's lying on the operating table; and I know I should see Callie, well, there's nobody there, it's empty.

- Wow… And…And your marriage?

- The same. I see plenty of times. Me dancing, you always taking pictures, Bailey officiating, but next to me at the altar, still no Calliope and yet I looked at the photos in the album. I'm trying, I really tried April, but when she should show up, the image becomes blurry, the movie stops. The blonde sounded pretty upset

- Wow! It's weird and it's kind of creepy. Oh my God, does Callie know that?

- Yeah

- Wow, wow, wow! That was exactly what she feared. She must be in such a state! Oh my god! When I think that we forced her to stay.

- What? What do you mean, April? She didn't want to stay?

- Uh... ! I... I mean, she jumped on the first plane, anyway. The embarrassed redhead was starting to stutter. Uh... Actually, uh... Originally... Uh... Meredith only called her to keep Sofia with her in New York. You know, she was supposed to come back and live with you, and... You know, you couldn't take her in because you were in a coma. But Callie came as soon as she heard. We didn't really expect that.

A silence settles in the conversation, Arizona pending further, felt that the redhead was reluctant to give it to her.

- And? ... Oh my God, I'm sick of all the secrets around Callie and me, April! Exclaims the blonde

- But when we learned about the amnesia, we all thought she was in the best position to help you, and we had to really push for her to stay.

- And she didn't want to? ... Oh shit, why did you guys put that on her?... She...You know, she's more vulnerable than everyone thinks. She shouldn't have gone through this . She was gone and she had a life in New York and I still...

- She was mostly scared to death about your reaction. She was afraid you'd actually hate her. Dude, she was looping about it!

- Yeah, she tells me I hated her. I can't believe it, she's so ...Did I really hate her at some point?

- I don't think so either. I saw you some times very mad at her, at other times sad and hurt because of her, many times very drunk too... ...

- Oh, that's why we were drunk dead in a closet wearing a cocktail dress? Oh, and also, that night at Meredith's when you were cooking and Amelia was accusing Penny of killing her brother. I couldn't stop drinking. I had the images, but I was unable to put them in perspective.

The blonde laughed despite the confusion in her head.

- Yeah, you drank way too in this period. But hating her? I don't think I've ever heard you say that, or even think it for a second... The redhead was quite well placed to assert it, she had been during many sleepless nights the confidant of her friend's despair. Do you really want to know what I think?

- I'm not so sure...

- I even think you've never stopped...

- Shh! Shut up, April. Don't say it.

- Not wanting to hear it won't change it. Are you not the one who says that even if we try to run away from our problems, they never run away from us, they stay exactly where they were and won't resolve themselves alone?

- Apparently, I'm good with words, and big speeches, but I'll have to do a lot better regarding deeds. I think... The blonde takes the business card back in front of her... You know what? I'm gonna do it.

- What? What are you going to do now?

Thinking that Arizona did not always show the greatest discernment when it came to Callie, the redhead was not far from panicking.

- I'm gonna do a hypnosis session, and I'm gonna remember her. It's the least I can do for her. Right?

- Arizona it is ...

- I know, it's not save ... But I can take it, I can't just sit here and do nothing.

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