Sorry for leavin' my fics for so long. I'm going to try and update them soon! Thank you!

Gooooood evening Hawkeyes! The weather tonight looks to be pretty bad! Stay inside if you can and ride it out! Temperatures will be below freezing for the next 48 hours and our radar shows that we can expect about 18 inches of snow by dawn! Grab your coats kiddos, tomorrow proves to be perfect for Snowman making if you get a snow day! The first day of spring is getting closer! Hopefully we will have thawed out by then!

Callie hummed along with the local news jingle and tapped her fingers against her steering wheel. She was excited to go home and veg. It had been a stressful weekend. Even though the Clinic was closed and it was technically her rotating weekend off, some idiot had tried to enter the very closed facility which - of course - set off the alarm that only Callie had the number to turn off. So, she was determined the make the most of her last day off solitude.

"íQue ching-" Callie's yelp was cut off by the sound of tires screeching along on the pavement. It It took a second to register that it was her vehicle making the noise. The driver across from her, a mom in a minivan attached to her cell phone, flipped her off as the too-large SUV continued to barrel through the stop sign. The icing on the rancid sundae was when all of the kids in the seats flipped her off in between the stickered windows. Callie made the sign of the cross and prayed for a miracle - especially for the caravan full of little monsters. Hopefully they grew up to have better driving skills than their mother.

Callie took a look around and saw the intersection was now empty, thankfully. With haste she sucked down some quick breaths and gripped her steering wheel tighter.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

After a few moments, the panic subsided and all the muscles in her tense body relaxed. It wasn't every day that poor drivers made her panic, but she'd been so distracted thinking about her upcoming move and her big surprise she was planning, that the noise of the near-wreck set her off. Her car accident was nearly a decade ago and by some miracle she and Sofia were alive. However, that medical miracle didn't eradicate flashbacks and her visceral fear of being a passenger in a car. In the early days Callie would tell herself that if Arizona could get on a plane after losing a limb, she could get in a car. But, alas, everyone is different and the human body is a fickle puzzle that no one puts together the same way. So, a few years and lots of tears later, Callie learned to just ride out the feelings.

A honk from behind her startled her out of her reverie. Callie took a few breathes and pulled through the intersection, her panic subsided once more. Small miracles are still miracles nonetheless and she chided herself for thinking otherwise.

Barely upright after a particularly slippery ice patch, Callie stumbled into her cabin. With deliberate movements and a few balance corrections she set down her tea, mail, phone, bag, and food down on the table. She shook the slush off of her boots and took a moment to just let all the feelings from today wash over her. The urge to call Arizona after her panic attack on the road was still there. But, she didn't want to rush things. Part of the reason their marriage failed in the first place was because she forced the conversation to only be about her experiences rarely took the time to talk about Arizona's trauma. Sure they could sent each other flirty texts and make out like teenagers in a bathroom, but could they really talk about their mutual problems yet?

The smell of her food wafted throughout the cabin and soon the smell of General Tso's chicken engulfed the small space with delicious, enticing scents. The crew at Ting's Red Lantern knew her order and always gave her an extra handful of the mints at the front counter she loved. She unpacked her food and sat back, propped up on her pillows. The mail was boring per usual, political mailers and some card dealership ads. The very last envelope, although very nondescript, was her golden ticket out of the depressing midwest. The manila envelope bore Grey-Sloan's emblem and was pretty hefty in weight. Callie took a moment to just let the nostalgia wash over her. Seeing her best friend and Sofia's father's name made her heart thump just a little harder. She did miss him, and she knew that if he knew that she'd flown the coop to Iowa of all places...well she'd probably never hear the end of it.

After a few moments of respectful silence, she opened it and scanned the contents of it. It was her onboarding paperwork for her transfer to Grey-Soan. Her start date wasn't for almost three weeks, and even then she had a 90 day grace period until the hospital would hire her full time.

Everything was set, these documents had already been filed electronically but Callie had requested a paper copy because time and time again electronics had failed her.

She continued to munch on her food and putz around on Netflix until she found something to play in the background. She half-rolled off the bed and stretched to reach the bag she'd gotten from Walgreens on her way home. She pulled out the batteries and giggled - maybe she'd send Arizona a photo of them. On a whim she snapped a photo and sent it to Arizona with no context.

When didn't hear back immediately, Callie set her phone down and settled into watch the movie she'd chosen.

Long after the credits had aired, Callie was asleep on her bed, styrofoam container still in her lap, when her phone vibrated against her. She awoke with a jerk and quickly righted the haphazard container while she scooted into a cross legged position. When she read the message she received, Callie laughed so hard the non-existent neighbors probably heard her. The residual tension from her earlier encounter melted away as she bathed in the happy feeling of a well-deserved belly laugh.

She'd gotten a photo of Arizona, in her silk nightie with a tub of ice cream pointing to her bedside table where a 20 back of AA batteries sat with a little bow on them. The caption is what made her keep laughing long into the night.

"I bought batteries too. A lot of them!"