"So umm…" Callie blushed, lowering her gaze as Arizona got ready for work "you know what tonight is?"

The blonde turned to look at her while fixing her hair into a ponytail "Don't tell me there's an anniversary or something that I've forgotten?"

"No" the brunette laughed "but it is the last night of my current hotel booking"

"Ohhhh" Arizona smiled and bit her lip "and have you given any thought to…umm…what you might do tomorrow?"

"Well firstly I was hoping to wake up in that exceptionally comfy hotel bed with a certain hot blonde…I wouldn't want it to go to waste"

"So you and I have a hot date tonight then?" the blonde grinned.

"Who said I was talking about you?"

"Fair enough" Arizona pouted, giving the brunette a wink before turning back to the mirror to check her make up " So what's your plan after you stay up all night fucking your bit on the side?"

"Well uh…after that…" Callie walked up behind the blonde slowly, placing her hands on her hips and meeting her gaze in the mirror "I was kind of hoping my girlfriend might let me come stay at her apartment?"

A wide grin spread across Arizona's face and she turned in the brunette's arms so that she was facing her "Really?"

"Really" Callie smiled back warmly.

"I'm so happy right now that I don't even care that you joked about hooking up with someone else"

"Can I take that as a yes?"

"Yes yes yes yes yes" the blonde threw her arms around Callie, causing the brunette to laugh.

"In that case, I guess I should get over to the hotel and get packing"

"You know you have like twelve hours til I'll be back from my shift, right?"

"Hey, there's a lot of stuff to fit in my…small holdall"

Arizona paused to think "How about I give you a key, and you bring your stuff over today whenever you're ready? That way you could take my overnight things back to the hotel and I could come straight there after my shift"

"So just you and me having a dirty night in a hotel?" the brunette clarified.

"Absolutely" Arizona leant in and kissed her slowly "bit of an upgrade on a dirty night in the Newport motel"

"Not hard to do"

"Right" the blonde pecked Callie on the lips again before moving out of her arms "much as I would love to stay here all day talking about what I'm going to do to you tonight…I have to get to work"

"Shame"

Arizona walked through to the kitchen and found her spare key in a drawer, handing it to the brunette "You ok sorting my things for tonight?"

"I'm sure I can manage. Sorted your dress last night didn't I?"

"Uh huh"

Callie smirked "Don't even think about complaining"

"Wouldn't dare"

The blonde gathered her belongings and kissed Callie again.

"Have a great day" the brunette smiled "and I will see your sexy ass later"

Despite their previous jokes about her rooting through Arizona's underwear drawer, Callie hadn't actually looked in it at all the night before when choosing her outfit. Today, however, was a different matter. Overnight things definitely involved sexy underwear, and she decided that she was therefore entirely justified in searching the drawer fully. Satisfied with her selection, and having gathered everything else that she figured Arizona would need in the morning, she locked up the apartment and headed back to her hotel.

Once she was back in her room, she began packing her stuff into her holdall. She smiled, acknowledging that she had butterflies in her stomach for a very different reason to the last time that she was packing the same bag. Then, all she had been able to think about was getting away, how everything in her life that she had thought was constant was over. She had an eye on the future in the sense that she knew that she was leaving with Arizona, but beyond that, everything was just a haze. Now it was different. She was packing her things and taking them to her girlfriend's apartment. Sure, they hadn't exactly had the conversation about moving in together, but it seemed as good as settled. Even a week ago, Callie would have been second guessing everything about her earlier conversation with Arizona, but every day that she was in New York she found herself growing in confidence.

She decided that given her good mood, she would start some of the background work for her article for the New York Times. She'd already reached out to some of the women whose stories she'd read on the internet, and slowly some of them were responding. But there was one person who was central to her whole pitch. The one who made it personal.

Alex.

Neither she nor Arizona had heard from him since he left Newport. At the time, she had been hurt. Not even really by the fact that he'd been her 'kind of boyfriend' at the time. More by the fact that he'd been her friend, one of her best friends, and he'd disappeared without a word. But now she understood. He, just like Arizona, had been forced out of her life by Eduardo. By threats.

So she decided that the best place to start looking for him would be social media. She tried a general search engine, and then all of the common platforms, but there was no sign of any Alex Karev. A lot of Alex's, but Karev was clearly an unusual surname and Alex appeared to be a ghost.

Changing her tact, she decided to focus on the surname Karev only, figuring that Alex was such a common name that it would get her nowhere. And if he'd avoided her and Arizona, there was no way that they would have any connections in common on any platform.

There were three results on Facebook within the US with a matching surname. None of them were Alex's parents, but she figured a surname that rare must mean that at least one of them was related to him. Taking a deep breath, she composed a generic message, saying that she was an old friend of Alex's, and that she'd really like to get in touch with him if they knew him. She then copied and pasted it and sent it to each Karev on Facebook, before closing her laptop to wait for a reply.

For the next couple of hours, she began a very rough first draft of her article, leaving gaps for the inputs she was expecting from her sources. When she heard a notification sound from her phone, she felt her heart beating in her chest. Seeing that she had a reply on Facebook, she opened the message from an Anya Karev, but the first line made her heart drop immediately. The woman had no knowledge of any Alex, but wished her well in her search.

She took a shower, and when she checked her phone again she had another notification. This time it was a message from a George Karev, who also apologised but told her he didn't know any Alex in his family.

At that point she decided to call room service for lunch, figuring that she might as well take advantage of her last day in the hotel. Although the second that she hung up the phone she was overwhelmed with guilt as she realised that everything was in all likelihood being charged to Arizona's credit card. Pulling up the room service menu on her phone, she made a note of the cost of her food and promised herself that she would pay it back to Arizona as soon as she got hold of her bank details.

Taking another look around the room, she packed up all of the things that she didn't need for that evening. Which, considering that she intended on spending most of the time with Arizona, and in that time she didn't plan on wearing very many clothes, amounted to most of her belongings.

The weather was pleasant, and so after eating lunch she decided to walk back to Arizona's apartment. She stopped at a liquor store on the way, picking up a bottle of what she hoped she'd noted correctly as Arizona's favourite white wine (whilst also buying a bottle of her personal favourite red), along with a bunch of roses. She walked up the stairs to the apartment with her holdall, dropping it off in the bedroom. Walking back through the apartment, she smiled to herself. Although she'd spent plenty of time here since she'd been in the city, as of tomorrow, this was where she was actually staying. With Arizona. She hesitated over the thought in her mind that she was 'living with' Arizona, because they technically hadn't had that discussion, but it didn't stop the excitement building in her chest.

She put the bottle of white wine that she had purchased, a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, in the fridge, ready for when the pair of them would return to the apartment the following day. With a smile, she placed the bottle of red on the counter, telling herself that it was just the smallest stamp that she could place on the blonde's home.

Searching in the cupboards, she found what she assumed to be a vase (either that or Arizona liked to drink a seriously large volume of liquor in one go), and she placed the majority of the bunch of roses in it with the addition of some water. Having kept a couple of roses aside, she pulled off the petals and laid a deliberate trail from the front door to Arizona's bed. Satisfied that her romantic gesture for the following evening was all set, given that the blonde wouldn't be returning to the apartment until she'd finished her shift the next day, she locked the door behind her and made her way back to the hotel.

On her way back, she returned to the same liquor store that she had visited before, ignoring the surprised look from the clerk as she walked back in to purchase a bottle of champagne.

Aware that she was perhaps spending her limited funds with impunity, even after her advance payment from the New York Times, she stopped at the ATM outside the liquor store to check her balance. What she saw on the screen made her stomach drop.

The balance in her new account was over $300,000.

She pulled out her phone, calling the only other person that had her account details.

"Aria" she said sharply as her sister answered the phone.

"Callie, oh my god!" Aria's voice came down the line "I've been trying to call you since I got back from China…"

"Have you been using a withheld number? You know I'm screening my calls"

"Shit yes" Aria groaned "Sorry, I got a new phone and haven't changed the settings since I made some calls from work. I'm sorry"

"Look, I don't really care about that. I'm calling because I just checked my account balance at an ATM"

"Oh"

"Don't give me that 'oh' shit' Aria, what the hell is going on?"

"Don't be mad Callie…"

"Should I be mad?"

"Look Cal, I spoke to Mark. I heard about what happened when I was away. The whole police thing. That's why I've been trying to call"

"The whole police thing? You mean the thing where Arizona's entire career was on the line?" Callie asked sarcastically.

"Yes. That thing. Which you know I had nothing to do with, and I would have stopped if I'd had the chance. But I didn't. I wasn't here. And so when Mark told me what happened, I spoke to Papa. Well, spoke is probably a polite way of putting it. When I found out that he'd let it happen, that he didn't set the cops straight, despite knowing what he knew, I screamed the fucking house down. Told him that if he wanted me in his life for a second longer, he needed to make this right"

"Make this right?" Callie scoffed.

"He did the one thing he knows how to do, Callie. He threw money at the situation"

"Hang on, so you're telling me there's $300,000 that's appeared in my account as our father's way of trying to make up for the fact that Arizona got taken in for questioning because Eduardo reported her for abducting me"

"That's uh…yeah, that's kind of it"

"$300,000" Callie repeated.

"I might have had something to do with the exact figure"

"What do you mean?"

"I told Papa that if he thought it was worth $300,000 to pay Arizona to leave you alone all those years ago, it was the least he could pay as restitution for trying to ruin her life twice over. It seemed liked karma"

"But…he paid me, not Arizona"

"Right now it's the same thing, surely? I mean…you guys are a thing, right?"

"Aria…"

"Don't you dare tell me you fucked it up with her already"

"No!" Callie exclaimed "Everything with me and Arizona is great. But still I…I don't know what to say about all of this"

"Say 'thank you Aria' and be done with it"

"Fuck you"

"You love me"

"That might be so but my previous comment still stands"

"Arizona lost you for a long time because of what our father set in motion…none of us can erase that, not even you, but at least now she can pay off any debts that she incurred in the meantime and you guys can move forward in your lives"

"I'm sorry Aria I…I just don't know how to process this right now"

"You don't have to. But also, a little hint. Tell Arizona. Even if you say the exact same thing to her about not knowing how to process this, just tell her"

"Thanks for the lecture about being honest, Aria. Not exactly a family trait"

"Hey!"

"Sorry, that was a low blow" Callie apologised.

"You're allowed a few of those. Listen, I just want you to remember that I'm on your side, ok?"

"I get that. I mean…I really get that"

"Good. Because I'm gonna fly out and see you soon and I really don't want any awkwardness"

"There won't be, trust me"

"Love you Cal"

"Love you too"

Callie hung up the phone, her head spinning as she somehow made her way back to the hotel.

Her head was still spinning as she pulled out her phone once the hotel room door shut behind her. She had intended on texting Arizona, not that she even knew where to begin with all the things that she needed to say, but her attention was immediately captured by a notification from Facebook.

There was a single reply from the final person that she'd messaged.

Jo Karev: Hi. Alex is my husband. I think we should talk