Disclaimer: I don't own Grey's Anatomy, I just borrowed the name of the characters for entertaining, no intention to violate any copyrights.

A/N: Chapter 7 is my favorite, the plot and the title weren't like this before this chapter. One of the typical blue evening, I was looping Rachael Yamagata's Horizon over and over and over again... Then I finished this.

I really hope you guy like this ;-)

Chapter 7

"Excuse me? You are still married?"

"Yes, I am still married to one George O'Malley." Callie nodded her head and sipped her glass of wine.

Arizona looked at the woman in front of her in disbelief, so many questions in her head but didn't know where to start. Suddenly, there was a knock on the front door, and then it opened from the outside.

"Callie, Yang told me you didn't feel well, I came to see… Oh, hey Arizona, you're here." It was Mark who came through the door.

"Hi Mark." Both women said in unison, they exchanged a sight then it was Arizona started to talk.

"Joe sent me up to make sure Callie's still alive, apparently she is." Then she stood up from the coffee table and walked to the kitchen to refill her glass.

"I am feeling alright, Mark, thanks." Callie looked at Mark and bit her lips for a second. "Can I ask you something? Since you are here."

"Ya sure." He sat down on the other couch and put his feet up on the coffee table.

Callie looked over to the kitchen locked eyes with the blonde, then she turned to Mark and asked with narrowed eyes. "Why didn't you tell Arizona I like girls?"

Color drained from the guy's face and his smile had frozen. "What? I umm… I didn't know that was my thing to tell, and you said you hate the label, you said people won't make it a conversation topic about liking the opposite gender then why do you have to tell people you like the both?"

"That is bullshit Mark, you told me Arizona is gay the first time we met, and you told me Derek's wife screwed random guys in daily basis before she and Derek were together. You didn't have filter in your mouth, why now? Why didn't you correct me when I talked about Arizona and the woman I thought was her girlfriend?" The Latina was getting angry by Mark's explanation, exhaustion was getting the best of her as well.

"Does it matter? So I left out a little details, that is just … technicality."

"But why? Mark? Just… why?" Arizona came back to the living room with her glass in one hand and the bottle in the other to fill up Callie's glass. "We are not mad or something, just wonder because this is so not you, to withhold gossip like this."

"Oh I am mad, I knew what he is up to." Callie leaned back to the coach with her arms crossed her chest, gazed over Mark angrily.

"Callie… I just don't want to see you get hurt, I am trying to protect you."

"From Arizona? We haven't even started anything!"

"Wow wow wow, excuse me?" Arizona stopped while she was half way sat next to Callie.

"Oh my god, I can't believe I put myself into this." Mark stood up to pace in the living room, he ran his hands through the hair to gather the thought.

"OK, listen, I love you both, very much. I know how lousy you two are when it comes to relationship, and I could see the goo-goo eyes you gave to each other, I got panic. Arizona you don't know how to maintain a relationship, you bailed when someone got clingy. And you Callie… You didn't just bail, you fled, you actually fled, or you did stupid things like married to some guy, you are way over his league Callie." Mark stopped pacing and now was standing right in front of the two women, one looked at him completely dumbfounded, the other just closed her eyes with head against the back of the couch.

"I don't want to see you two hurt each other, so I kept a little information under the table to buy us sometime, now I am the bad guy? Come on."

Finally Callie opened her eyes and stood up to look the man in the eyes "I don't need you to protect me, I don't need you to interfere with my life. If I needed that, I would call my parents!"

"No? No? How many times did I pick you up from the bathroom floor? How many times did I knock on your door to make sure you didn't end yourself? I slept in your living room for weeks after Malena left you… "

"Don't say her name! You do not say her name!" Callie was basically screaming to Mark, that made Arizona nearly jumped from the couch.

"I am sorry Callie, but the way you looked at Arizona, it was the same way you looked at Mal…" Mark tried to walk around the coffee table to hug his friend, but the teary Latina held up her hand to stop the man.

"You have to leave, now!"

"Callie…"

"Now! Before I physically remove you from my home!" A big drop of tear streamed down the brown eye, Arizona shot up from the couch, ran to push Mark toward the front door. "You need to go, will talk to you later."

"But…"

"Seriously Mark, I don't think she would listen to you now, you should go before she killed you, from what I see in here, she really would kill you." Arizona whispered to Mark while she opened the door.

"Ok ok, I'll go now, call me later?"

"Just go." Then she just shut the door.

Turned around from the front door, she saw Callie was sitting on the couch sobbing with hands on her face. Slowly walked toward the weeping woman, Arizona didn't know what she should say, so she just sat next to Callie and rubbed around her back.

Eventually, the sob stopped and the breath became even, Callie stood up from the spot avoided the gaze from the blonde next to her. "I go fresh up a little bit." Then she went to the bathroom without looking back.

Arizona went to the kitchen to get herself a bottle of water, and tried to gather her thought. Knowing her crush liked her back was great, but Mark was right, she didn't have a good track record, was she ready for something serious? More importantly, Callie seemed kind of mess up too.

The door of the bathroom opened, Callie walked out with puffy-eyed but at least the tear stains were clear. She sat down on the previous spot of the couch, released a sigh and asked Arizona to bring her a bottle of water as well.

The blond handed over the bottle, Callie patted on the couch and then Arizona sat next to her. Callie stared afar and started to talk.

"I am sorry about tonight, didn't meant to get so …dramatic." Arizona put a hand on top of Callie's hand on the couch between them. "I was saying… Yes, I am still married."

"Callie you don't have to …" Arizona tried to stop this conversation because maybe it was too much for a night, but Callie interrupted her.

"No, I want to. I don't want you to hear this from someone else, not from Mark." Turned her hand underneath Arizona's, they were palm to palm now. Gave a firm squeeze and Callie started to talk again.

"I met Malena the second year I moved to New York, we were madly in love, I was in heaven for three years when we were together, I was the happiest woman on earth and Mark was there teased me every time when he saw us together." Tears started to gather in brown eyes and she pursed the lips to stop the wail. She didn't glimpse at Arizona for once but kept staring the space ahead, liked she was watching the scene unfolded in front of her.

"We didn't talk about getting married or kids because we were living in the moment, and I didn't even think that one day we won't love each other anymore. That morning, more precisely, 4am when I arrived home from work, I opened the door and found the love of my life was sitting on the couch waiting for me. But she didn't look at me when I stepped in the apartment. I looked around, something was off, something missing, literally missing, not in there anymore. Things that you saw at home everyday but you couldn't recall what were in there, you just knew they weren't there." Callie took her hand back from Arizona's for opening the bottle of water, took a sip and then used both hands to grasp the bottle liked it may slipped away anytime.

"I sat down next to her on the couch, took her hands in mine," Callie looked down to her own hands, "I asked her if everything was OK. She told me…." Tears finally flew down from brown eyes, but she had no attempt to wipe to off. "She told me… she didn't love me anymore, I suffocated her, she had to leave me and she already moved her stuffs out from the apartment."

Arizona gasped, she tried to move a hand to cover her mouth to hide it but it was too late. The weeping woman gazed over her for the first time since they sat down together on the coach, and said "yep, that was my reaction."

"I begged her, I begged her to give me a chance to redeem what I did wrong, I promised her everything I could, I hugged her so tight to try to keep her from leaving me… But nothing worked, she left me sitting on the floor, bawled till my mind went numb."

"I tried to call her, I went to her office, I went after our friends, her friends, but she just disappeared like a puff of air, nobody got a hold of her. I was devastated, I couldn't function without her. Mark was so worried that he slept on my coach for 3 weeks, finally he dragged Addison back from LA to kick my ass." She sneered to herself, Arizona took this time to intrude the memory lane by holding Callie's hand with both hands.

"I am so sorry that you had your heart broken so badly, I don't know you well but I could say you didn't deserve this."

"I… I knew I had to gather myself because my friends were worried, Addison just started to work in the practice but she took 2 weeks off to stay with me. Mark delayed his departure to Seattle for a month because he didn't dare to leave me. Joe's boyfriend almost broke up with him since he put all the energy in the pub while I was dead to the world. So, I got back up." Arizona gave her hand another squeeze as for appreciated.

"After Mark left, George and I grew closer and closer. He was always around even when Malena and I were together, everyone knew he liked me but I was too in love with Mal to notice him. Anyway, I was lonely, he was there, so we shacked it up. I didn't even care at that time, I just wanted to have someone to help me forgetting the pain in my heart."

"That was why you married him, that was what Mark talked about?" Arizona asked.

"Not even closed." Callie sneered again. "Mark didn't even know what I am going to tell you now." She took a deep breath to continue.

"Four months after Malena left, I received a call from her sister. She told me… Malena went back to Palm Beach to stay with their parents, she was there to linger the very last moment of her life. My Malena... was diagnosed with end stage pancreas cancer, she broke up with me to spare me from seeing her die…" The poor woman broke down to another bawl again, tears flew down uncontrollable, Arizona released the hand and then tugged the crying woman in her embrace, Callie's head was on her shoulder and both hands grasp the back of Arizona's shirt as for a life vest.

"She told everyone not to let me know anything about her illness, she assumed that it could minimum my pain if she just disappeared from my world. But her sister loved her so much, couldn't stand the thought that 2 people who loved each other so much that didn't get the chance to say the final goodbye…" Arizona's chest was soaked with tears, she just ignored that but concentrated on rubbing the back of Callie's to offer some comfort.

"I flew over there as soon as I put down the phone, by the time I arrived there, Malena was dying, her dad said she was drifting in and out of her consciousness." The sob had die down, Callie had her eyes closed and now she was whispering. "I held her hand, I stroked her face liked I did the thousand times, I murmured her name over and over again… Finally she stirred, she couldn't open her beauty eyes but she called my name, she called her Calliope… I lay down on the bed to hold her the last time, she opened her eyes to look at mine, smiled… I told her I'd always love her, I would never stop loving her… Then she was gone."

Arizona didn't say anything, she tightened the embrace and rested her cheek on top of Callie's head, tears flew down silently, this was a heartbroken story and she couldn't imagine the pain this woman suffered from.

"So Mark didn't know Malena broke up with you because she was dying?" Arizona asked quietly.

"No, I didn't tell him I flew to Palm Beach because he would stop me from going. And I was too broken after Malena died. After the funeral I stayed there, totally shut down for weeks. George tracked me down and stayed with me, took care of me after saw me poured gallons of tequila down my throat." Callie finally sat up to grab a tissue to clean up her face.

"One of the morning after picked me up from the cold toilet floor, he told me he loved me so much that it hurt to see me destroy my life liked that, he promised me that he would make me the happiest person again if I give him the chance. I was in the worst case of hangover, and heartache, it was a surprise because I thought my heart died with Malena, but it still hurt. Anyway, I didn't care of anything anymore at that moment. The next thing I knew, I was standing in the Elvis chapel married to George by a guy dressed up like a priest."

Callie started laughing when she saw the horror look on Arizona's face. "I am sure Mark had the same face when I called him, too bad that I only got to tell him over the phone."

"You were joking, right?"

"Nope, I am Mrs. Callie O'Malley, married by a priest from Elvis chapel."

"That… was terrible. He took advantage of your vulnerability!"

"Well, I let him." Callie shrugged, stood up to walk to the kitchen "The wine is getting warm, I get you another one?"

"Yes that will be great. So Callie, what had happened afterward?"

"Let's see, everyone was angry with me for making such an irrational decision of my life, and I was angry with everyone for not being happy for me getting married. I think George was the only one who was delighted." Callie handed a glass of cold wine to Arizona and sat back next to her.

"Well, I think that was the right reaction, I mean angry with you because marrying someone should be a serious matter, it is a sacred commitment to …" She gazed over to Callie and saw the Latina was staring at her. "And you knew that."

"Of course I understand the sanctity of a marriage, I was just too sorrowful to care. I was so lost."

"I am sorry."

"George and I stayed together for 3 months as a married couple, we lived together but I was barely there, I lived like a zombie between the pub and home. Mark flew over one weekend to try to knock some sense into me, but I shut him out. However, as I told you once, I woke up in a morning and decided I couldn't live like that anymore, so I packed up and left."

"How did George react?"

"You'd think I'm a terrible person." Callie sighed and scrubbed her face with both hands. "I called him and said I wasn't going to work on that night, we need to talk when he came home. The poor man came back with a bag full of Chinese take outs, and 2 movies in hands. He thought his wife was staying in for a cozy evening with him, instead, I told him the whole thing was a mistake and I was going to divorce him, or get an annulment if he agreed."

Arizona didn't say anything but nodded in her agreement, so Callie continued. "He didn't like the idea. Anyway, I didn't stay to argue, just took the red eye to LA to stay with Addison for a month, left the attorney to take care of the everything. The last I hear from the lawyer, George refused to sign the divorce paper."

"What are you going to do then?"

"I don't know. I just felt like everything in my life is always a disaster." Callie threw her head back to the coach. "I don't want to move or breathe."

"Hey hey hey, everything will be fine, OK?" Arizona grabbed the Latina's hand and kneaded it with her both hands.

"How?" Callie huffed.

"I don't know, yet. But we'll see, just one a step at a time." Arizona sat closer and then wrapped her arm around the other woman. "One step at a time."

Callie put her head on the blonde's shoulder, they just sat there without saying anything.

After a while, a tipsy Cristina passed through the door. "Oh hey, you two are in here. Lexie said something about Mark was upset and ran home after came up to here, something had happened?"

The two looked at each other, Arizona talked after slightly squeezed Callie's hand "Don't worry, I'll talk to him, you just relax, OK? I should get going, talk to you later? "

Callie let go of Arizona's hand and then the blond stood up to leave.

"Arizona…"

"Yes?"

"Thank you… for listening."

"Always."