In The Mind's Eye II, The Sequel

Disclaimer: This is an AU story and a continuation of In The Mind's Eye. This story mixes two of my favorite shows together, The Godfather and Grey's Anatomy. I borrowed these characters. I OWN NOTHING.

Chapter One

Trigger Happy

"Surgeons are often evaluated on speed and efficiency, but that doesn't mean faster is always better. You jump the gun, you risk making the wrong diagnosis. We don't always have the time to think before we act and that's what gets us in trouble. Once that first shot is fired, we're committed. There's almost no way to take it back. The question becomes: do we keep firing back and declare an all-out war?"

"She's what?" Callie questioned as she stepped away from a meeting. Walking into the hallway, the brunette listened again to what she thought she heard Al Neri say.

"I said Arizona's gone! The kids are gone! The damn car is gone!" The tall assassin's voice was laced with concern and confusion. He had just stepped inside on a grocery run that Arizona already had planned. She had a long list of items for the man to get.

"Where? Where are you? What do you mean the car disappeared?" Callie was dumbfounded. Astonished at the news she had received.

"I went into the store. She had a list of groceries and I left Arizona and the kids in the car. I was only in there for fifteen minutes at the most. Maybe not even that long Callie. I came outside and, the escalade is gone. It's not here!"

"Wait. Maybe she moved it Al. Come on, she's got to be in that parking lot somewhere." Callie was in total disbelief that her wife and her kids were gone. This trip to the grocery store was a weekly routine and Callie found it impossible to believe Arizona and the boys had vanished.

Looking around the parking lot to be sure, Al once again informed his boss of exactly what he had just claimed to be true. "I'm telling you Callie she's not here. I have called her cell phone and I don't get an answer. She's not in this parking lot." Out of breath from walking around and frustrated to no end, Al pushed the grocery cart back to the front of the store.

"I will call her. She probably had to move the car for some reason and you are just to stupid to see her sitting right in front of you." Once again, Callie was in total denial of Arizona abilities. And, she was more than aggravated by her wife's body guard.

Receiving no answer after calling Arizona's cell, not once but three times, Callie called Al back. "Have you found her yet?"

"I told you. She is not here. Did you get her on her phone?" Al's patience and frustrations were growing by the second. He even called Rocco to come and help him out with this.

"No." Callie answered. Then the thought dawned on her, something that she knew could always a possibility, but never anticipated it actually happening. "You don't think someone took them?"

"I dont'..." Looking around, Al said, "I don't know Callie. I just don't know. I called Rocco to come and pick me up and we are going to ride around to see if we can find them."

"Okay. Let me pack up from this meeting and I will call you back."

Two hours later...

"We are here guys!" Waking Gavin and Monty, Arizona turned around and smiled. Both little boys were out within the first twenty minutes of their road trip.

"Are we home yet?" Monty asked.

"I don't think so." Gavin said as his big brown eyes looked up at the tall hotel standing in front of them.

Arizona stepped out from the suv and grabbed her purse. Motioning Gavin and Monty to the trunk. "Get your bags and we will go in. I picked you both up some cheeseburgers and fries from the drive thru a few minutes ago," the blonde mother explained, handing her sons their belongings.

"When are we going home?" Monty was very attached to his surrounding. He hated change. But what was Arizona supposed to do...leave their children behind? Callie was out of the country. She couldn't just leave their children with trained assassins. No mother would do that.

"Soon. Hey, I think they have a huge indoor swimming pool. Anybody interested?" Arizona asked. She tried to change the subject. Knowing that a Monty meltdown could commence shortly, the blonde mother tried to keep her sons busy and their minds occupied. And, it worked.

"Yes!" Both little boys squealed. Running on ahead of their mother, they raced to the lobby entrance.

When Arizona left Lake Tahoe that afternoon, she steered her suv north. The traffic had been moving slow, so it took longer to get there than Arizona anticipated. Looking around the small town she had driven into, Arizona liked the atmosphere. It was...different. But, she was a little nervous about staying in the same spot too long. You see, she and the kids were a little over sixty miles away from their home in Lake Tahoe, and to be honest that concerned Arizona.

Unfortunately, Arizona couldn't move out of state without a court order. Knowing that was not an easy feat, she took a different route. She wasn't out to hurt Callie. Arizona just needed to be away from her life for a while. And, the only way to do that was to leave her Lake Tahoe home. Of course anywhere she went in Nevada, Callie had easy access to her. After all, Callie had been here long enough to establish roots. Roots that in this state, ran very, very deep. Looking around the quaint town, Arizona thought, Sixty miles is room enough to breath for a night to two. Right?

Callie had constantly called Arizona's phone since she had gotten the call from Al Neri. Over the last couple of hours, the calls continuously came from the brunette's cell. Message after message filled Arizona's voicemail. Some were audible. Some messages were not. Listening to a couple of them, Arizona could tell that Callie hadn't yet realized what she had done. Hearing the distress in her wife's voice brought tears to Arizona's eyes. So much so that she stopped listening to them. They were too painful to hear. So she turned her phone off.

Receiving no answer had Callie distraught. But after a couple of hours, Arizona's phone went straight to voicemail. Almost as if it were cut off. Callie was horrified, because she didn't know if someone had taken her family. Maybe it was a payback of some kind. The last year the brunette had found herself being pulled deeper and deeper into the life she wanted to get away from and she wondered if someone had taken revenge and snatched her family.

"I am boarding the plane now and heading back. Have you heard anything? Did you drive around the lake? Try Barton Health. Maybe she got called in for an emergency and just didn't let you know." Callie said.

The brunette had called her security at least a dozen times in the last hour. In fact, they could hardly look for Arizona for answering Callie's calls. The reception from where Callie was in Cuba was not the best and dead spots were encountered too many times for a descent conversation to take place.

"Callie we have searched everywhere. A couple of the guys drove over to Barton Health, and I called. There has been no sign of her there. She hasn't been called into work. And there is no sign of her suv, her or the boys. Maybe someone carjacked them, I mean it is possible?" Al was as shocked by this as Callie was. And, he felt responsible for the blonde and her children's disappearance. After all, you don't just lose Callie Torres' wife and kids and not answer for it. The nervousness set in as he knew that Callie was on her way back.

Trying to figure out what happened, Callie inquired as to what exactly happened before Al went inside the grocery store. Detail by detail. "Did you two get into an argument?"

Shaking his head, Al answered his boss honestly. "No. She didn't say a word the entire time. She just sat in the passenger seat Callie and looked out the window."

"She didn't say anything? You two never had any ill words?" Callie confirmed. She knew the two didn't get along very well. And at this moment, her annoyance was aimed squarely at Al Neri.

Once again, reaffirming his statement, Al said, "Nothing. She was quiet on the way to pick up Gavin and Monty."

"Did she say anything after they were picked up?" Callie asked.

"She talked to the boys when they got in and she acted fine. They were talking about how good it felt for this to be the last day of school and what they wanted to do for summer break. She acted just like always Callie. I swear nothing happened. I am just as baffled about this as you are." Knowing that his ass was on the line for this disappearance, Al was sweating bullets. Bullets...yea, that's exactly what would be going through his head if he didn't find Arizona and the tall man knew it if to be a fact.

"Alright. We will figure this out when I get home. I will be there in ten hours I hope. Just keep looking for her." Callie informed her employee.

It was as though Arizona and her children had disappeared into thin air. How strange? The more Callie rolled the ideas of what had happened around her head, the more concerned the brunette became. Something was wrong in this equation. Terribly wrong. It had been two hours since Arizona disappeared. This would have been the longest that she was unaware of her wife's or her children's whereabouts. Trying to remain calm, Callie continued dialing Arizona's cell. And still, there was no answer.

Sitting in her hotel room overlooking the lights of the town, Arizona thought, 'Callie is probably horrified at what she thinks might have happened to us.' But had she told Callie that she was leaving, Arizona knew she would have never been allowed to leave her home. Ever. The pregnant blonde felt like a virtual prisoner as it was. And if Arizona had tried to walk out of the door with Callie there, things would have gotten bad. Very bad.

Resting her head back against the tall chair, Arizona stared at the cellphone in her hand. She needed to call Callie. She did. And, as strange as it may seem with her having just made her escape, Arizona wanted to call Callie. She knew it would ease her wife's fears and calm the doubts of uncertainty that the brunette was most definitely experiencing tonight. The longer she stared at her phone however, the harder it was to place that call.

Around nine o'clock the following morning, Arizona and her sons went out for breakfast. The town of Sparks Nevada was a quaint town. It had an old fashioned kind of feeling to it. You could relax here. Unwind here. Walking around the town, holding her son's hands was a nice feeling for the blonde. A feeling of freedom. No one was following her. No one knew her. Arizona blended right in. It was Saturday, and the small town was busy with people. After browsing through several small shops, the boys found a toy store that they really wanted to see. Gavin and Monty seemed to be enjoying themselves so far on this little trip.

After lunch, they spent the afternoon at the pool. The boys loved swimming. They had a pool at home, but this indoor pool was much nicer. The slide was a major attraction for her young sons. Gavin and Monty were happy and seemed to be just fine with being away with their blonde mother.

Late afternoon came and Arizona decided it was time to call Callie. She dreaded this call, but she knew she had to do it. And, she did want to rest her wife's mind as to their safety. Powering up her phone she dialed her wife's cell phone.

Hearing Callie's voice; Arizona's heart beat faster. A million miles an hour it seemed. The moment of truth had arrived and Arizona must now confess her sins to her wife, just as Callie has done to her in the past.

"Hello?" Callie's voiced was laced with concern.

Arizona knew she had to say something. Silence at this point is not an option. "Callie. It's me." The blonde finally said softly.

"Arizona...Oh my God are you alright? Is Gavin and Monty okay? Where are you baby?" Hearing Callie call her baby, tears formed in Arizona's eyes. Callie may not believe her wife in the next few seconds, but Arizona still loved her. She did. She would always love Callie.

"Arizona can you hear me? Say something. Where are you? Are you in any danger? Tell me where you are and I will come and..."

Closing her bedroom suite door, Arizona left her sons watching television in the living room while she continued this conversation. Cutting her wife off mid sentence, Arizona took the the leap that she knew she had to take. Just say it and this will all be over soon, the blonde told herself.

Taking a deep breath, Arizona answered. "We are fine. We are safe. Callie, I'm not coming back."

"What?" Callie voiced through the line in a surprised tone. She wasn't sure she understood what Arizona was saying. It sounded like Arizona got trigger happy. Firing the first shot in Callie's direction. But that couldn't be right. Could it?

Sometimes one spouse may become so disconnected, so confused, so distressed that they consider a person doesn't know for sure, and divorce often looks like an attractive alternative. In such a situation, time apart where they both live in separate homes may be a way to give the couple time to heal and to work on improving the marriage. But that is a drastic step, one that Arizona knew Callie wouldn't go for under any circumstances.

However, time apart can sometimes allow for wounds to heal. Emotions really do take time to heal. As they say, time heals many wounds. They get easier to deal with once some time has passed. The wounds are not as fresh. People do heal if given the proper amount of time. Don't they? Well, to be honest, sometimes they do, and sometimes...they don't. It just depends on how deep the wounds really are.

Arizona took a deep breath an reaffirmed her position loud and clear. "I said I'm not coming back home. I need some time away. I need a break."