Chapter 10: Afraid to Fail
Seville, Southern Spain
Later that evening Arizona opened the door to her apartment to be greeted by a sheepish looking Addison Montgomery
"Addison!" Arizona said, shaking her head at the sight of her Interpol counterpart who was holding out not one, but two bottles of wine.
"I know you said you were tired…," the redhead said as she marched past the smaller woman into the apartment.
Arizona had earlier that day declined Addison's suggestion of dinner and drinks claiming a bad case of jetlag. The truth was, that after traveling around the world on various operations, Arizona rarely experienced jetlag, and Addison knew this, meaning she suspected something was up with her friend.
Arizona closed the door to her apartment and turned to look at the older woman who was now opening kitchen cupboards looking for wine glasses. She considered asking her friend to leave but realised she could actually do with a drink and the distraction. When she wasn't focused on the operation, her mind was busy processing the events of the last few days. She had spoken to Tom earlier that evening, who had called to inform her that he had signed the divorce papers and that he was going to visit his parents to tell them the news in person.
Arizona knew that his very Catholic parents would be upset by the news that their only son was getting a divorce, but she suspected Mary and Buddy weren't her biggest fans anyway, due to the fact that she hadn't given them their much-coveted grandchild.
She was putting off telling her family the news as she knew they would blame her. Her mum was always going on about her putting her career first. It was always poor Tom this, poor Tom that. Arizona would end up getting annoyed with her mum who didn't understand what it was like to have a career. Barbara's career had been the wife of a Marine Colonel and mother to two kids, she couldn't possibly understand what Arizona's job meant to her.
And there was Tim who treated Tom like the brother he had always wished for. They were close and Arizona could just hear her older brother moaning at her from ruining their traditional Thanksgiving weekend road trips. She knew the breakdown of the marriage would be seen as a failure, and that wasn't something Arizona Robbins was used to experiencing. She didn't fail at things.
Arizona watched Addison hand her her wine, and after a quick clink of glasses, the two women let out little groans of pleasure as they took sips of the delicious, fruity Rioja.
"Ohhhhh, that's amazing!" Addison announced before plopping herself down on the sofa and turning her attention to her friend.
They chatted about the operation for a bit, before Addison filled the CIA Officer in on her work. Arizona had nodded and made suitable noises at the right time, but she was distracted and could feel the redheads' eyes studying her and waited for the interrogation to begin.
"So...you gonna tell me what's going on?" Addison asked, getting straight to the point "...and don't give me any more bull about being jet-lagged…"
Arizona looked over guiltily at her friend who had called out her earlier lie, she noticed the concerned look on her friend's face.
"Should I be concerned that you're not wearing your wedding ring Arizona?" the redhead asked in a friendly voice.
The blonde looked down at her bare ring finger and took a deep breath before looking at her friend.
"Tom and I have split up," Arizona said, saying it out loud for the first time. Telling someone made it seem so much more final than how it had felt in her head these past few days.
"I'm really sorry to hear that Arizona. Are you sure there's no coming back?" Addison asked with concern, "you know, sometimes a bit of space can really help put things into perspective".
Arizona shook her head, "no...we err...we should have done it months ago if I'm honest with you. Things haven't been right since Iraq. He resented me so much, resented my promotion, his own career going backwards, and that was all my fault. He refused to take any responsibility for his actions...and we just weren't the same. He umm, he would get angry if I talked about work at home, even though he worked in the same building. We would never drive in together or meet for lunch, he seemed to blame my work for everything."
"Whose decision was it?" Addison asked
"Mine. I've actually been sitting on the papers for a couple of months," Arizona admitted
"And Tom...how did he take it?" Addison asked. Having spent time with the couple she knew Tom sometimes had issues with playing second fiddle to her job. She also knew that he had been drinking a lot recently.
Arizona looked down at her lap avoiding her friend's gaze before rather sheepishly responding "He umm, he was angry to start off with….I actually left the papers for him the day we flew out here." It wasn't how she envisaged ending her marriage and she knew it was a cop-out, but she was at the end of her tether. She had tried time and time again to get Tom to sit down with her, but he refused.
"You didn't! Well, I can't imagine that went down well?"
Arizona took a sip of her wine "I know, it certainly wasn't how I intended on telling him, it's just he refused to sit down and talk to me, he is still drinking too much, and it became clear to me that we were just making each other miserable. I was making Tom miserable and I couldn't give him what he wanted."
"A baby," Addison said softly
Arizona looked over at her friend and nodded
"Well, you are a workaholic!" Addison said.
"So are you!" the blonde responded to the claim.
"I know, but my childbearing days are long gone….not that I think I ever had them in the first place," the older woman added with a chuckle as she had never personally wanted children.
"Tom believed that a baby would help us, bring us together." Arizona took a sip of wine, "but it wasn't what we agreed. It wasn't the plan. When Tom asked me to marry him we had a long discussion about having a family and how that would impact our, well mainly my, career. We agreed that we would both focus on our careers until I was 35 and then we would try and have a family".
Arizona pictured the arguments they would have as Tom accused Arizona of caring more about her job than him, of putting the damn agency first all the time, of preventing him from becoming a father. She had been so angry at him for not acknowledging the sacrifices she would be making by having a baby. For not standing by the agreement they had made before they had got married. Tom would play the victim every time it got raised by one of their family members and make some snide remark about his wife being too busy or how her country came first. In the end, Arizona stopped having sex with her husband and had asked a divorce lawyer to draw up the papers.
It was only her fear of failure that had held her back. She hated to think that her marriage had not worked. Even though, if she was totally honest with herself, the odds of it working out weren't in their favour from the start. They had only been dating for around six months when Tom had proposed and they had married just six weeks later.
Arizona had a particular reason for getting married so quickly, she had wanted to make her dad proud by walking her down the aisle.
"Arizona, I'm sorry you went through that. I literally had no idea. You seemed, well you seemed fine when we last saw you guys," Addison said as she remembered a weekend ski trip the two couples had taken.
"Ahhh, well that's what you get being the daughter of a Marine Colonel, stiff upper lip…don't let your emotions show and all that." Arizona scoffed, "what was it my dad used to say to me….be a good man in a storm"
"Anyway...I'm sorry for the overshare….the truth is I actually feel a lot better knowing that Tom and I have finally faced up to the issues and I hope we can be friends….if I'm honest…..it's probably what we should have stayed all along." Arizona headed to the kitchen to get the second bottle of wine.
"Well, you know where I am if you ever need anything….you don't have to go through these things on your own you know," Addison said, giving her friend a look to check the message had got through.
"Thanks, Addison. I know I'm gonna be the bad guy when I get home, but for now…" Arizona paused as she focused on pulling out the cork, "for now all I wanna do is catch this son of a bitch"
"You and me both, sister," Addison said as she happily held out her glass for the blonde to top up with the new bottle.
"So tell me…..what's the deal with you and Agent Torres?" she asked, changing the subject.
"Deal? What do you mean?..there's no deal," Arizona replied a little too abruptly? Keep it together, Arizona told herself. Addison had a way of reading her like a book.
"Oh, it's just that I heard about your threat to have her kicked off the team," the redhead explained. However, given the way the blonde responded, she was now starting to suspect there was more to this than she first thought.
Arizona looked confused at how Addison would have found out about her talk that morning, she couldn't imagine Callie telling her.
"Agent Sloan," Addison said, putting the blonde out of her misery. " He told Carina when they got back from Cadiz. Between the two of us, I think he has a massive crush on her."
"Probably," Arizona replied as she realised Callie would have told Mark about their exchange on the drive to Cadiz. She wondered how much else she had told her fellow FBI agent? Did Mark Sloan know about their past?
"I just needed to remind Agent Torres of the rules and she well...she isn't a big fan of rules..," Arizona said, hoping that Addison would settle for that.
"And that's it?" the redhead asked, "nothing else you wanna tell me…?"
Arizona felt those green eyes bore into her as she absently mindlessly fiddled with the necklace Callie had given her. She now had a decision to make as to how much of the truth she told Addison. How honest should she be? She knew the Interpol chief would pick up if she was lying, that was part of their jobs after all, but should she come completely clean? She trusted Addison with her life, and the wine was starting to kick in.
She looked up and took a deep sigh. "Fine! Callie was my roommate during training, and we errr, we got….close."
Addison's eyes widened at Arizona's hesitation over the last word.
Arizona looked down at her wine glass and hoped that Addison would fill in the blanks.
"How close?" the redhead asked with a raised eyebrow as she watched the red blush start to appear on her friend's neck. God, her friend really did get embarrassed easily.
Arizona had never talked about this to anyone before, and so she was struggling to find the words to explain her relationship with Callie. It had been all-encompassing. Like nothing Arizona had experienced, before or after.
"Oh my God…," Addison said not needing Arizona to say anymore, her hesitation was enough. "Arizona Robbins….are we talking the Vagina Monologues close here?" she asked as she watched the blonde's body language react to the question.
"Well, if you must call it that, then yeah, I guess we are," Arizona responded awkwardly, still fiddling with the silver chain, as she felt the red blotch creeping up her neck.
"You and Torres shagged!" Addison said, expressing her thoughts out loud
"It was more than just a shag," Arizona responded defensively.
"Shiit...were you in love? How long did it last? Does Tom know?"
"God, NO!" Arizona responded at the thought of her husband knowing about her past relationship. "No one knows...you're the first person I've ever told," Arizona admitted. Tom had never liked Callie whilst they had been at training, and so had been delighted when the two formerly thick as thieves roomies had unexpectedly lost touch as soon as they graduated.
Callie had switched from the CIA to the FBI a week after they had graduated and headed off to Quantico for more training. Tom had never understood why Callie had switched, and Arizona had never wanted to discuss it with him, so he had pretty much forgotten all about Callie Torres.
Arizona had not... In fact, all through her marriage, she had never forgotten Callie...or Calliope as she had used to call her.
Arizona took a deep sigh. Fuck it! She thought to herself as she knocked back the rest of her glass before turning to look at her friend. She could not hold it in anymore. Seeing Callie again had stirred up so many memories, memories she had buried deep down. Memories and emotions that she had tried so hard to forget, for the sake of her marriage. But now...well, now that was over...maybe it was time to talk.
"It lasted six months and I...we...were so in love. She was possibly the love of my life….but it umm...well let's just say it didn't end well," Arizona said as she realised she was starting to get a bit emotional.
"Wow!" Addison said, still shocked by the revelation. "You little dark horse!" she said before chuckling "I never knew you had it in you Robbins...I thought you were as straight as they came."
"I am!" Arizona responded, again maybe a bit too quickly. "I umm I mean...it was just a one-off...I umm...there wasn't anyone else…. any other girl before or after….it was just Calliope." The way the brunette's name rolled off her lips still felt right. Whatever it had been, the now FBI agent had stirred feelings so deep inside Arizona that it had shaken her to the core. And it had changed her forever.
"Calliope, huh!" Addison said with a small smile at her friend, raising her eyebrow as she studied the blonde thoroughly. She took the last sip of wine from her glass and pursed her lips before continuing, "so what happened? Did it all fizzle out after training?" the redhead asked while she topped up their glasses.
"Kind of," Arizona lied. The truth of the matter was she had broken a promise they had made each other the day before graduation. But if she told Addison about that, she would be forced to open up the cesspool that had led to their demise. Arizona was not ready to talk about that.
"And so I'm guessing the two of you haven't kept in touch? No Lesbians Anonymous WhatsApp group? I mean...Callie is gay right?" Addison's questions were being fired like a machine gun. It was obvious the redhead was intrigued. "She has a certain mysterious, confident vibe about her, if I had a gaydar, I'm sure it would go off. But you, Robbins...I seriously had no idea you batted both ways."
"No, we haven't kept in touch." The look in Arizona's eyes gave away how much she resented that fact. Seeing Callie again now had made her realise just how much she had missed the woman. And not only the romantic side of their partnership. Aside from being a great lover, Callie had also been an amazing friend. "And for the record, I don't bat both ways, Addison. I may have, many years ago, tried out for the team" Arizona explained.
"What? And you didn't like it? Or maybe you weren't, you know….good enough for the team!" Addison said laughing as she felt her friend reach out and swat her arm. The older woman was purposely keeping the conversation light since she could see the maelstrom in the blonde's ocean blue eyes.
"Oh no,….I liked it a LOT…," Her voice trailed off as some of their sexual escapades now seemed to make an appearance. The sight of Callie's naked body was still etched in her memory. She had never experienced something so sexual and sensual since those months in training. Sex with Tom had not been bad but had never been as good as it had been with Callie. "...and I'll have you know I scored my fair share of home runs if you get what I mean…..but nothing has ever happened with another woman, okay?" Whatever she was, she was not gay. Nope.
"OK...I get it...you are 100% NOT gay in any way, shape, or form...unless that form is Callie Torres," Addison teased her friend with a mischievous smirk on her face. The blonde this time swatted her with a cushion.
Laughing Addison added, "I mean I don't blame you, Robbins...she is pretty hot!"
Arizona didn't answer immediately, instead, she pictured the brunette out in the hallway that morning, with her shirt half undone, that pink bra poking out, seeking attention. Arizona had pictured how Callie had looked after they had made love. The way those deep brown orbs would stare lovingly at her like she was the most important person in the world. Like Calie's life depended on it.
"Oh my God…," Arizona groaned, pulling a cushion up over her face to hide the blush that had now engulfed her cheeks. She was finally giving in to the temptation of admitting that she still thought Callie was smoking hot. "She is, isn't she!" The blonde said, surprising herself when admitting it out loud did not make the world stop spinning. "I mean she hasn't changed one bit….she umm looks exactly the same."
"And is it...you know..bringing back old feelings?" Addison questioned, scooting closer to Arizona as she practically hung on the other woman's lips.
Arizona pulled down the cushion and looked seriously at her friend as she mulled over the question. Seeing Callie again had had an undeniable effect on her. It was not a case of old feelings returning….there was nothing to return from. Arizona had never stopped having feelings for Callie. Not for one single day. She just never in a million years believed she would have this chance again. Have the chance to explain to the brunette what happened that day in the Summer of 2013. When she broke her promise and Callie's heart at the same time.
"They never went away," she whispered softly.
