A/N: Many, many thanks to those who have reviewed and asked me to continue this story. I am terribly sorry for the delay. As I mentioned in the A/N of my other story, I somehow managed to lose my usb drive that the story outline and 7 written chapters were on. This has been really frustrating and set me back quite a bit. I'm hoping this offering will help me get back on track. I have redone the outline but have chapters that need writing. Although my next updates may be slower coming, I will definitely continue and promise to finish this fic out. I'm enjoying this fanfiction thing ;) Please continue with any feedback as I go along as I have plans and ideas in my head but not fleshed out so feedback would be most welcome.
I have no beta so all the mistakes are mine... sorry.
Disclaimer: All Arizona and Callie awesomeness and the rest of the characters are property of Shonda Rhimes, Shondaland, and ABC.
"Compulsive much?" mumbled Alex as he shoved popcorn into his mouth.
"We are supposed to be getting our lab assignments today. I'm excited." Teddy continued as she tapped her fingers on the mouse, readying herself to hit refresh. "Ok, I'm a nerd, so sue me!"
"Oh, whatever. We'll all get picked one way or-
Alex was cut off by a resounding "Yes!" from Teddy. "I'm on Bailey's team. Got an email from Addison."
Arizona had been laying on her bed, tossing a tennis ball up and down in the air when the proclamation from Teddy interrupted her movements and the ball came falling down on her face. "Ow."
"Nice one, Robbins" smirked Alex.
"Oh shut it, Alex. Teddy let me see." Feeling more confident that she too would be selected for Bailey's team given her friend's selection and given she was in fact a more logical choice given her interests, Arizona was anxious to check her email.
"What?! I'm not with Dr. Bailey. My email is from Cristina. I'm with her mentor and their lab" said Arizona disappointedly.
Both Alex and Teddy watched the dejected look come over Arizona. They felt bad for their friend. This whole research experience thing was 10x more important to her than either of them. Sure they were all psych majors but Alex and Teddy had no clue what they planned to do as psych majors. They didn't have plans. Arizona though, she had a plan. She seemingly had a plan since high school. She took the Advanced Placement Psych class her high school offered and she fell in love. She wanted to go to grad school in clinical psych and she knew research experience was essentially a requirement to be competitive when it came time for applications.
"You still got selected, Z. Not all the applicants got selected," Teddy said in an effort to make her friend feel better.
"They work with adults in their lab. I wanted to work with kids. I've always wanted to work with kids," said Arizona. "And I wanted to work with Callie," she whispered inaudibly under her breath.
"Then maybe you work in their lab this year, kick ass and see if you can switch next year. Who knows you might even love it there once you get your hands dirty?!"
"Sure, I guess." Arizona pondered her position for a few seconds before a small smile appeared on her face. Never one to dwell or be upset for too long she started to mull over the benefits of just being picked as a URA.
Teddy noticed the cloud over Arizona's face start to fade. "That's better."
"Alright we done here?" asked an impatient Alex. You back to being all sunshine and rainbows and crap?"
Arizona responded with a swift kick to Alex's shin. "Now we're done."
The first day of class was always something Arizona looked forward to. Call it the nerd in her but she really did enjoy it. She sat in Weston Lecture Hall 200 waiting for Dr. Bailey's Health Psychology class to begin. Teddy sat to her left, texting Alex about plans to meet up for lunch after class let out.
"Subway?"
"Sure, I've been craving.."
Arizona was cut off by the abrupt and take notice appearance of one Dr. Miranda Bailey. As she walked down the row towards the front of the lecture hall, she spoke "Alright, alright… first day of class. Anticipation abounds, yaddya yaddy ya. Let's contain the excitement and get started. I'm Dr. Miranda Bailey and I will be your instructor of record for this course. Addison Montgomery, who is not present today, will be the TA and her contact information, along with mine, is on the syllabus which should be circulating." Arizona and Teddy each took a copy of the syllabus and began to skim the rather thick packet.
Dr. Bailey continued… "This is an upper level course which means I set high expectations in terms of demands and performance. The syllabus outlines every assignment and expectation in detail. Please review it and if you think you can handle it, by all means stay. If you think it's too much, then consider dropping the class." Dr. Bailey looked around at the group of concerned and frankly stunned students. "Ok then, let's commence lecture."
Dr. Bailey spent nearly 45 minutes talking about health behaviors and primary prevention and Arizona was mesmerized. This is the material she was passionate about. She loved the intersection of psychology and medicine. "Alright, so we have about 5 minutes left, any questions." Truthfully, Dr. Bailey didn't expect any. It was the first day of class and she had gone through her notorious weeding out process. From her experience, it was likely that out of the 100 students in the lecture hall, nearly half of them intended to drop so wouldn't be paying attention and wouldn't ask questions and the other half would be too nervous because of her demonstrative personality and wouldn't ask questions. "Typical," Dr. Bailey muttered inaudibly and was about to dismiss the class when her thoughts and musings were interrupted.
"Dr. Bailey, in thinking about obesity, for example, you would want individuals to alter their health behaviors such as physical inactivity and diet. But, do you think individuals' desire to change their health behaviors is likely influenced by the extent to which they think they would be successful at changing these behaviors? Like their sense or feelings of self-efficacy?"
Dr. Bailey was pleasantly stunned. "Your name?"
"Arizona Robbins"
"Well, Arizona, that is a great question. Self-efficacy is a component of many theories in health psychology. Which theory or model do you think may best explain the difficulties in preventing obesity?"
"I personally think the Health Belief Model offers the best explanation, particularly because it addresses perceptions of barriers," Arizona explained. She was nervous speaking in front of her peers and Dr. Bailey but she loved to talk psychology.
Dr. Bailey smirked. "Well said, Miss Robbins. We will pick up here next class. Have a great day, everyone. Miss Robbins, if you wouldn't mind sticking around for a minute or two, I'd like to chat with you."
Arizona nodded her head affirmatively and glanced nervously at Teddy. "Did I do something wrong? I thought she liked my question." Teddy just shrugged her shoulders. "I'll meet you at Subway."
Dr. Bailey walked up to where Arizona was standing. "Miss Robbins, walk with me. Have you considered obtaining some research experience?"
Callie, Addison, and Mark were working in the graduate student lounge when Dr. Bailey walked into the room narrowing her eyes at her three students. "Did I or did I not charge you three with the responsibility of selecting undergraduate research assistants for our lab?"
Addison began to respond, "Miranda…" but was halted by Miranda's hand. "Did I or did I not tell you three to pick students based on match between student interests and our research programs?"
Callie began, "Well… "but again she was interrupted. "Did I or did I not tell you three to get the best and brightest of the bunch?"
No one responded. "Well did I?," an exasperated Miranda nearly yelled.
"Are we supposed to answer her now?" whispered Mark. "I have no idea what to do.. talk or not talk."
"Y-y.. yeah you did," Addison anxiously spoke.
Taking a deep breath Miranda continued, "Then please tell me why an Arizona Robbins, undergrad and prospective research assistant, one who can cite the Health Belief Model and has a 4.0 GPA, was not selected by any of you for our team. And before you think about telling me that she somehow fell through the cracks, she told me that she spoke to you, Addison, and you, Mark, at length about her research interests which… surprise surprise… match ours exactly. She even told me that you all had a great discussion about the health belief model."
"Miranda.."
"I don't care for your explanations. I fixed it. I offered her a spot on our team," Miranda stated as she looked from one grad student to the next."
"Oh and one last thing, you will treat her well. She did not sell you out. I dragged the information out of her when I asked if she had participated in the research assistant recruitment process. She has lots of potential and promise and I'd like to help foster that. Do not blame her for your oversight or worse, your purposeful dismissal which I don't understand and frankly don't want to understand. Got it?"
"Yes Miranda," the three chorused.
With that, she walked out of the room leaving the sullen three behind. "Well, we sure screwed up," Mark said.
"No, we just did what we thought was best… given the circumstances," Addison said as she looked at Callie. "Callie, Miranda wants her. I'm not sure we can get around this."
"I know. I know," said Callie. "It was my screw up. I shouldn't have let my personal stuff get in the way. I shouldn't have asked you to keep her off our team. It'll be fine, right? I mean, we can handle this like adults. She's just another URA," Callie stated, seemingly to convince herself more than anyone else. Mark and Addison nodded in support.
Just then there was a knock on the door. They all turned to see the subject of their discussion. "S..sor…Sorry to interrupt but Dr. Bailey asked me to drop by and fill out some paperwork. She said one of you would be able to help me?" Arizona asked as she actively avoided looking at Callie.
"I'll help you," Callie volunteered, surprising herself as much as everyone else in the room. "I have copies of the forms in my bag. Arizona, you can have a seat and I'll walk you through them."
Mark and Addison took that as their cue to leave and left Callie and Arizona alone. As Arizona sat across Callie, Callie noticed how beautiful the blonde looked. Her skinny jeans accentuated the perfect shape of her legs and hips. Her purple scooped neck shirt hung off her right shoulder giving Callie a view of the strap of a lavender camisole which only partly hid smooth cream skin. Callie's eyes traveled to her neck and recalled their encounter at the nightclub and the feel of her nuzzling Arizona's neck and smell of her sweet perfume. Her eyes moved north and caught Arizona's but she taken aback by the sight she found there. Arizona's eyes were narrowed, like slits piercing through Callie.
"Arizona, I am…"
"Don't. I'm here to fill out forms with you and that's it. You made it perfectly clear that you think I'm just a stupid "kid" so I've got nothing to say to you. You've also made it perfectly clear that you are willing to ruin my shot at something that would truly benefit my future because you are too immature or too unwilling to face me head on. I heard you before I walked in. So, no, you don't get to talk to me about anything other than these forms. And let's get one thing clear. I really like Dr. Bailey and I really like her research and I really want to go to graduate school so I'm going to do my job and do it well but I will do it under Mark and Addison's supervision. Dr. Bailey said not all URAs work with all the graduate students so I only want to work with Mark and Addison. Got it?"
Callie was taken aback. She didn't expect this from Arizona but the look upon the blonde's face was one of anger, hurt and betrayal. Callie never meant to hurt her but realized she had done just that. The least she could do what the younger woman wanted.
"Ok," Callie quietly answered. "Ok."