Callie walked into her apartment, dragging her feet as she went, and dropped her bag off of her shoulder. She slumped onto the sofa covering her eyes with her arm. Her body and her brain were giving up. They were telling her in no uncertain terms that her day was over. It was barely lunchtime but between Sarah recovering from drinking herself stupid and Harry threatening to smash people's faces in it had been an intense twenty four hours. And then there was everything that had happened with Arizona. That hadn't ended badly but it had still taken it out of Callie.

Wait. She thought to herself. Shit!

Just as she was about to drift off she remembered. Arizona. Lunchtime.

She reached for her phone and hit speed dial.

"Hey you. I was getting worried." Came the voice on the other end.

"I... I'm sorry, I forgot about our plans."

"Oh, okay." Arizona sounded calm even if a little disappointed. "Where are you now honey?"

"Home. I... I'm just so tired all of a sudden."

"Alright well go to bed. I'll just come home and work from there. We can eat when I get back."

"I might ... already be asleep."

"Okay. I'll see you in a bit."

The line went dead and Arizona started to pack up her belongings. She'd seen Callie barely two hours ago and everything had been fine. It was clear from her voice and the effort behind each word that was no longer the case.

When she got back to the apartment her girlfriend was already in bad fast asleep. Arizona set up her laptop and continued with her paper as she picked at the pasta salad she'd bought. Two hours passed and there was no sign of Callie. The blonde took a bottle of water out of the fridge and went to check on her. She perched on the side of the bed next to the woman, who was lying on her back and moved a piece of dark hair behind Callie's ear. She could feel her temperature was pretty high.

"Hey." The brunette said as she opened her eyes ever so slowly.

"Hey yourself."

"I'm so sorry. I can't believe I..."

"You don't have to apologise Calliope."

"I just..."

"You just have a brain injury." Arizona shrugged.

"Yeah." Callie sighed.

"You're pretty warm. You might need to lose a layer."

"I think I'll just get changed into my bed stuff. I mean it's two in the afternoon but it's not as if I'm going anywhere."

"I thought you might be thirsty too." Arizona said as she offered the bottle of water.

With great effort Callie sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She pinched the bridge of her nose as her head began to sting with pain. Her partner repositioned herself so that she was sat next to her. Callie removed the lid and brought to her lips, her hand shaking slightly as she did. She chugged the water down practically in one go. When she tried to put the lid back on though she fumbled and it fell to the floor.

"FUCK!" She yelled in frustration and, with a sudden burst of energy, threw the empty bottle across the room. Arizona jumped at her girlfriend's outburst but soon regained her composure.

Callie looked down into her lap like a child who'd been caught misbehaving. "Sorry." She refused eye contact even when Arizona knelt down in front of her.

"It's okay. I'll get you a glass next time."

"A Sippy cup might be better." Although Callie often made comments like that it was usually as a joke. The surgeon knew that it wasn't a joke this time though.

"Why don't you get changed? Have you taken anything for your head ache?"

"No and I should probably eat something."

"Okay." Arizona stood up and left her to get changed whilst she emptied some pasta into a bowl and filled a glass with water, knowing that Callie had a stash of painkillers in her bedside drawer. She found the other woman sat back under the covers.

"I hate when you have to be my carer." She mumbled before taking some pills with a swig of her drink.

The blonde put the bowl down and moved her hands to the waistband of her pants. She casually removed them and then pulled back the covers that were over the other woman.

"What are you doing?" Callie asked confused as Arizona straddled her legs.

"Being your girlfriend and not your carer." She explained as she placed caramel hands onto her own hips. She then leant across and picked up Callie's food and started to feed her piece by piece.

"This isn't exactly the picnic on the roof and the dirty sex we had planned." Although she still sounded annoyed with herself, Arizona took it as a good sign that Callie was at least smiling now.

"We've got forever to do that type of thing baby." She reassured as she offered her another forkful. "Besides I got a lot more work done this way."

"Oh, you're welcome then." Callie joked as she squeezed her girlfriend's hips ever so slightly and accepted more food.

Eventually she had finished and Arizona returned the bowl to the side and rested her hands on her partner's shoulders. The Latina kept looking down. She often found it hard to make eye contact when she was this tired. It's part of what made her seem so small and distant.

"I hardly did anything today." She whispered.

"You did plenty."

The blonde rolled onto her side of the bed, on her back and opened her arms. Callie quickly lay down against her side and allowed them to hold her close. She kept her nose close to Arizona's neck so that she could focus on the smell of her perfume.

"I know helping those kids is important but I also know it affects you more than you let on. It reminds you of what you went through."

"Yeah well Sarah's drinking I can handle. I just have to hope she realises how bad it is before she does some real damage."

"What about Harry? How'd that go?"

"It took a while for him to calm down. He was pissed at his sister."

"Wasn't he pissed at the kid who'd called him the name?"

"Ella drew more attention to it. He thinks more people are gonna call him it now because they know what reaction it gets."

"Yeah but still that kid called him a..." Arizona couldn't finish her sentence especially when she felt a tear on her neck. Callie's tear."

"Harry feels like he is a retard. He knows he's got all of his problems and for somebody else to see him that way they must really be having an effect. He must really be one if other people are able to see that he's struggling."

"We aren't talking about Harry anymore, are we?" The blonde asked as she stroked Callie's hair. She could feel her crying in her arms. Her chest was moving up and down more and more quickly.

"That's why I tried to kill myself."

"Oh, Calliope." Tears of her own threatened to fall and she placed gentle kisses on the top of her girlfriend's head.

"I've never told you this." Callie sniffed.

"You don't have to if you don't want to honey."

"I had this friend. Ruby, her name was Ruby." Arizona attempted to steal herself as she realised Callie was gonna tell her. "She was a good friend. Good enough to know about my injury at least. We ended up in bed together at a party. We slept together. And then it kept happening. I kind of fell in love with her only she wanted something that was just fun, with no strings, you know. So I walked away. It was gonna be too painful to get any closer with a girl who didn't want a commitment. Two weeks later she got a girlfriend. About three months later there was a house party and Ruby showed up with that girlfriend. They were still together. I just wanted to leave and fade away. But..." Callie stumbled over what she was gonna say next and closed her eyes. She felt Arizona's arms around her, one hand had slipped under her shirt and was rubbing circles on her back. "But Amber confronted her. Ruby said that I was a good lay but that was it. Nobody would ever want to be in a relationship with a retard like me. Amber lost it. Almost kicked the crap out of her. I snuck off to a bathroom and raided the medicine cabinet. That wasn't unusual for me only instead of shoving the pills in my bag for later I shoved them all down my throat and washed them down with whatever was to hand. Vodka, I think. Then Amber found me and had to..."

"I know. She told me." The surgeon didn't need to hear anymore.

Callie raised her head and saw Arizona weeping.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry."

"Calliope don't be ridiculous. You can tell me anything." She soothed as the brunette rested her head back down. "So you believed her?"

"I was seventeen. It made sense that nobody could love me. After that I didn't see the point in being around anymore."

"And that's why you separated sex from feelings. Why you never let anybody get close to you?"

"The next day I hated myself for almost giving up. For almost putting my family through hell again. I realised that I was fragile but I wasn't gonna end up in that position again. I wasn't gonna let anyone in who might hurt me again."

"Until me."

Callie raised her head again. "No. I wouldn't be here if I thought you were gonna really hurt me."

"Well things haven't exactly been plain sailing."

"We've been together six months. It's just been teething problems. And it's not exactly been one sided." The Latina took Arizona's left hand and brought it to her mouth, kissing the wrist to demonstrate her point.

"That wasn't you. Not really." The blonde lifted her head ever so slightly in order to kiss Callie gently on the lips. "And she was wrong. Ruby was wrong." She kissed her again. "Take it from me, people fall in love with you all the time." Arizona smiled when the woman above her broke into a grin but there were still tears down her cheeks from where she had been crying. She hated to see Callie cry. Then again she often thought that if Arizona was the one with the brain injury she'd cry a lot more than Callie ever did. Callie was stronger than anybody she'd ever met and she felt honoured to be so close to her in every way. Arizona wiped away the tears with her thumbs and rolled them over so that she was now on top and kissed her again, only this time she didn't break away.

Callie closed her eyes as she kissed her back and enjoyed the feeling of Arizona's body resting on hers, her arms still enveloping her tired body. She moved her own hands up those arms and into her blonde hair. Eventually the Latina broke the kiss and looked up to see the bright blue eyes she wanted to see forever.

"I think you should go back to Malawi."

"What?" Arizona had not expected her to say that.

"I am so happy that you want to make my dream come true but you still have one of your own. Don't pretend otherwise. I'm not saying go back for three years but I don't know... maybe every couple of months or so. Or you know maybe go back once and see if you still enjoy it. If you don't like it at least you've gotten closure."

"Calliope..."

"I want to wake up in twenty years and still have you by my side but I don't want you to wake up in twenty years time regretting what you didn't do."

"You're amazing you know that?"

"You're the one who set up a clinic in Africa."

"You talk about me taking care of you; You take care of me all the time Calliope. You pay attention. You see what nobody else ever has."

"So is that a yes?"

"I'll have to make some calls and see if they still want me and talk to the hospital. It won't be for a while but... yeah. On one condition."

"Wait you're gonna leave me for weeks at a time and you're the one demanding conditions?" Callie teased.

"On the condition that we find somewhere to start building that house you dreamed of."

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Author's Note: Apologies for the delay in updating and my other fic is going to be even further in the future. Sorry. I think there are probably about two more chapters for this one. I might have said that before but hey I lied.

Thanks for reading. Sorry if this is a bit intense.

Also, I was wondering how many people agree with that last review I got? Do you think they had a point? All feedback is helpful.