A/N WOW thanks so much for all the wonderful reviews. I have loved hearing what you all think. Sorry for the delay. My wife and I took a weeks vacation and I promised that I would keep the internet time to a minimum. So here we go again.

Chapter 7

"I asked you a question, Sof. How do you know Arizona?" Callie said as she stalked toward her young daughter.

"Mom, I can explain." Sofia said nervous. She had seen that look in Callie's eyes before. Toward Mark or Cristina or Lexie, but never had she seen her mother look at her this way. It was a mixture of shock and anger.

"I am waiting." Callie said as she stopped right in front of her daughter, crossing her arms across her chest.

"Mom, it was my fault only mine. I just wanted to met her..."

"Get your things." Callie glared. Sofia in shock didn't move. "NOW! Get your things, we are going." Callie started to walk off.

Teddy remained silent and Sofia spoke again. "Mom, please." The request cause Callie to stop and spin around not speaking only looking at her daughter. "You have surgery with Teddy."

"I am only in as a consult and a favor to Teddy. Bailey can take my spot. Besides, Teddy seemed to have be keeping things from me lately so I don't think it's a good idea."

"Mom, this isn't her..."

"I am not going to tell you again, Sofia Torres. Get your things and lets go."

This time Sofia did as she was commanded. She looked at Teddy and gave a sympathetic look to and mouthed that she was sorry. Teddy patted the young girl on the shoulder as she started to leave the room.

The ride home was quiet. Callie was lost in her thoughts and Sofia was drowning in hers. She wondered how she could have done this. To herself and her Mother. Arizona didn't care about them and she had hurt Callie for nothing. She knew that when they walked into their house she would have to tell Callie everything. She would have to explain why she was so upset, to tell Callie that Arizona didn't care. It was going to be a long night.

When they arrived home they walked into the house and Sofia followed Callie to the living room. She watched as her mother sat heavily on the couch with a loud exhale of air. She watched as Callie placed her face in her hands and began to rub her face in typical Callie fashion.

"Mom?" Sofia said softly.

"Yes." Callie answered as she rubbed her temple showing signs of the headache that was starting.

"I need to talk to you."

Callie looked up at her daughter. "What happened?"

"Can I tell you something?"

"Sure."

"I need for you to promise me that you won't get mad."

"I am not making any promise, Sof. What you did..."

"Mom!" Sofia stopped. She saw the look of surprise on her mother's face. "Sorry. I just really need to talk to someone. I want...I need for that someone to be you. So please, promise that what I say you won't break out into a Spanish rant."

"Sof….."

The little girl looked at Callie with tears in her eyes. "Mom, please."

Worry took control over anything that Sofia could have said that would have made her angry. "Ok….I promise. Tell Mama what's wrong."

"I was at the hospital and I heard some people talking."

"About what?"

Sofia dropped her head. "You."

Callie took a deep breath and wondered what someone said about her to make Sofia upset. This upset. "Ok. Wanna tell me what they said?"

Sofia joined her mom on the couch. "That you weren't happy. That you hadn't been happy in a really long time."

"Well that's just crazy. I'm happy. I'm happy with you. You make me happy." Callie tried to smile but it fell when her daughter continued to look down.

"No Mama, they mean like happy. Like that you have someone, you know, to love you."

"Sofia…."

"So they started talking about this woman that you use to make you happy." Callie felt the cold chill that went up her body at the mere implications of who her daughter was speaking. "They said that she made you happy, but that you hadn't been since she left."

"That's not true, Sofia. I am happy…..in a different way." Callie rubbed her daughter's shoulder.

"I know that you and Daddy told me not to ease drop on adult conversations. I know that, but they were talking about you. They said her name was Arizona Robbins." There it was. Callie's stomach almost did a flip. "And that she worked with you at the hospital."

Callie nodded. "Yes, yes Dr. Robbins was a big part of my life for a long time."

"So I may have blackmailed the people that were talking until they told me who she was."

"WHAT?" Callie stood up and paced the floor. Here is came the Spanish rant.

"Mom, you promised!"

Callie stopped and looked at her daughter. "What. Else?"

"So they told me some things." Callie huffed, but Sofia knew it was too late to stop now. "I know that you two were together. You didn't just work together."

"Yes, yes we were."

"I know that she lived here and worked at Seattle Grace for 3 years before winning an award that sent her to Africa."

"She did." Callie was now focused on her hands that she was steadily ringing. It was like she was playing 'Callie Torres, this is your life'.

"They said that she returned from Africa just two months later. That she abandoned her award more than two and a half years early."

"Um, yeah, something like that."

"It said that she came back to Seattle, then 2 months later she was working at a Johns Hopkins."

"She went home to Hopkins, yes." Callie had still not looked up.

"She was there for 5 years and then she opened her own practice. Like Addie. She has lot of different surgeons that work for her."

Callie was hearing something new. 3 years after she left, Teddy told Callie that Arizona was settled, happy. That she was dating again. After that, there was a long period that Callie stopped keeping with her ex. It was just too much. "I heard she was thinking about that ." When Sofia didn't continue after a moment, Callie looked up. "What happened next, Sof."

"I told the people that heard talking that I would tell you what they said if they didn't help me."

"Help you? Help you what?" There wasn't an answer. "Who did you blackmail?"

Sofia lowered her head in shame. "Cristina, Lexie and Teddy."

"WHAT?" Callie blurted out a line of Spanish that even Sofia didn't understand. At 13, she was very fluent in Spanish and for her not to understand, she knew what that meant.

"Mom, please stop cursing and listen."

"I am TRYING, Sofia. You're making this promise thing really hard."

"Don't be mad at them. It was me. I made them."

"You? At 13? Made 3 grown, very intelligent women, do what you demanded?"

"Yes." Sofia simply answered.

"What else?"

"Her practice…..it's….well it's….."

"It's WHAT?"

"It was one of the sponsors for the conference."

Callie was now pacing the floor again. "Please, please, please tell me that you didn't go to Maryland and go looking for Arizona." The look of pleading was in Callie's eyes. "Sofia, please. Tell me you didn't."

"I just wanted to see her."

"Dios Mio." Callie looked up at the ceiling. She quickly looked back at her daughter. "Did you see her?"

"Yes."

Callie sat heavy in the chair next to her daughter once again. "Is that why you've been upset?"

"Yes."

Callie took a deep breath. "What happened?" Again, Sofia didn't answer the question. "Oh don't clam up now, young lady."

"She said that she doesn't miss us and that she likes her life now."

Callie knew that didn't sound like Arizona. "Wait. What? She said that to you?"

"In so many words, yes."

"I know Arizona and I can't imagine her saying anything to hurt a child."

"I am not a child. I am 13."

"Like I said, a child. Why would she look at you and say that?" Callie asked confused.

"Well….."

Callie raised an eyebrow at Sofia. "Well?"

"She didn't actually know who I was."

A frustrated chuckle came from Callie and Sofia, like most people, could tell the difference in Callie's frustrated chuckle. "So you bombard the woman and didn't even tell her you were?"

"I didn't bombard her."

"Yes, yes you did so let's just be clear on that. You bombarded her! What happened?"

"I went to the office and asked to speak to her. They asked if I was a patient and I told them no. I told them I attended a prep school in Baltimore and that I was doing a paper on influential women in medicine. That I wanted to interview her."

Callie looked at her daughter in amazement with an almost proud grin on her face. "Seriously?"

"Yep." Sofia returned the smile. "So I asked her questions about her life and she said that she didn't want children and was happy with her life."

"And you said?"

"I left."

"Just like that? You left?"

"Yes. I didn't tell her who I was."

"Now this is starting to make a lot of sense. You and I need to talk. If you're old enough to go off halfcocked looking for her, you're old enough to hear the story." Callie braced herself to a moment that she had convinced herself would never come. The moment she had to re-live those last few months. "Arizona worked at Seattle Grace. She was…" Callie smiled at the thought of the perky woman. "She was amazing. She was caring, intelligent, happy all the time. She was….infectious. Being around Arizona made you want to be better. Her level of compassion for people that were sick, was amazing."

"That's the second time you called her amazing, Mama."

Callie's smile grew wider. "That is the only thing that describes her." Callie's mind wondered briefly to the woman. "Anyway, I had never met anyone like her. She was so different than I was, yet I just wanted to be around her."

"So why didn't you?"

"We had been together for almost 3 years and she won that grant. I was supposed to move to Africa with her, but I… well…..I tried to want to go. I was used to certain things now. I had friends. Friends that were like family. I hated to leave them and my job that was just taking off and all my research. There was a lot that still had me tied here. So Arizona staged a huge fight with me in the airport and left." Sofia watched the hurt in Callie's eyes. "She just left me standing there. I begged her not to go, but she left."

"You didn't go after her?"

"No I didn't. Arizona and I never really fought. I mean there were a couple things, but nothing major. Nothing we didn't work out."

"Like what?"

Callie chuckled. "She really didn't like your dad."

"Really?" Sofia giggled.

"Oh God no. Mark was always around and interrupting our dates and things. He was pretty annoying." Callie smiled disappeared again. "Mark and I were a….couple for a while, sort of. So Arizona was never a big fan of him because of that. I saw it as her being jealous of Mark, but now I understand it was more than that. She loved me and was really scared that I would go back to Mark."

"Wait!" Sofia stood up and looked down at her Mother. "They said that Arizona returned from Africa and then moved to Maryland. 7 months before I was born. She moved. OH MY GOD! Did you and Daddy cheat on Arizona?"

"NO!" Callie said firmly. "No. No one cheated on anyone. Arizona left me and I was angry and hurt and devastated and I just wanted that hurt to go away. One day when you love someone Sof, you'll understand. I was lost without her. I just wanted it to stop. Looking back I think I did it for one of two reasons. Either to hurt her as much as she hurt me or because I trusted him enough to make me feel….something. She was gone 2 months and one day there was a knock at the door and it was her. She gave me some mind blowing speech about how much she loved me and missed me. That she wanted me back."

"So what did you say?" Sofia returned to her seat.

"I listened to her, but about midway through it hit me. I wondered if I had to tell her about Mark. I knew it played into her worst fear. So I closed the door."

It was now Sofia that chuckled. "Cold Mama."

"I just didn't know what to do. I loved her so much and she came back, for me. No one had ever came back for me before. She came back."

"Well I know the end result so I know you didn't open the door."

"No. When I was leaving the next morning, she was sitting by the door."

"She stayed there all night?" Sofia grinned. "How romantic."

"Yeah, well it didn't seem romantic at the time. I told her that I didn't want to have anything to do with her and for her to go back to Africa. I was hurt, honey."

"I get it."

"So she begged for days. I do mean BEGGED!" Callie stopped. "I started feeling sick a lot. I knew that it could have happened but I tried to push it out of my mind. So after about a week, I took a test." Callie looked up at Sofia. "I knew that Arizona would find out. I knew that she would think I…..I knew I had to run her off. So when your dad and I left the house, she was across the hall moving her stuff back in. I explained to her that I wanted nothing to do with her ever again. That she hurt me and that if I let her back into my life, she would hurt me again. So I pushed."

"And she left?"

"No. She still begged. That evening after a crazy and long shift, she found me in the elevator. She jumped in and gave me another one of Arizona's priceless speeches. She said that she got scared and bailed that all she wanted was another chance. That I loved her and she loved me so I just as well forgive her."

"Annnnnd you didn't?"

"I asked her if she wanted another chance. She said yes and so I squared my shoulders, took a deep breath and told her that I was pregnant with Mark's baby, how about now."

Sofia didn't know what to say. "What did she say?"

"Nothing. When the doors opened she walked one way and I walked the other. I went home, to Mark's, which I am sure only added insult to injury, and tried to sleep. The next morning I went over to the apartment and knocked on the door. I was hoping that maybe she would be ready to talk. There wasn't an answer, so I turned the knob. The whole place was empty. It was like the morning before never happened. I saw a note on the bar and it only said, you win."

"She…..she left cause of me? I was the one that….."

"No! Do you hear me, no! Arizona left because of what I did. I destroyed her trust in me. It had nothing to do with you. It was all on me and the way I told her….yeah I still wonder if I was actually telling her the truth or trying to hurt her with it. How could I look at her and say 'how about now'?

"So which one is it? The truth or hurting her?"

"Depends on what day you ask. 13 years later and I'm still not sure. All I'm sure of today is that Arizona didn't know that was you. She didn't want to tell a 13 year old that some woman had broken her heart, took her dreams and spit on them. I know Arizona and she was defending herself."

"Do you think she would have liked me?

"Are you kidding? She woulda loved you." Callie grew quiet again. "How was she?"

Sofia smiled. "You don't wanna know."

"Yeah, I am pretty sure I do." Callie returned the smile.

"She is SO pretty."

Callie's smile widened. "Yes she is."

"Mama?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry you lost Arizona."

"Me too, kiddo. But there is one thing that I know for sure. You met the Arizona she wanted you to see. That's what I hate."

"Me too." The room grew silent as both Torres women were deep in thought. "I am gonna go and finish my homework."

"Ok." Callie was interrupt by the phone ringing. "I'll be in shortly to check on you."

"K." Sofia ran out of the room as Callie walked to the phone.

"Hello?" There was silence on the other end. Callie took a deep breath. "Hello?"

"Callie?"

The word that came out turned into a nervous whisper. "Yeah?"

"We need to talk about Sofia."

A/N Coming up next, they finally talk and soon you find out who Rebecca Culter is. Until next time...