It's You, It'll Always Be You

Chapter 11

[Flashback]

Arizona felt her whole body shutting down. For months she had been doing everything she could to block out the pain in her heart and now the cause of her pain was standing right in front of her. "I can't do this," she whispered to herself. "I, umm, will you please excuse me?" she barely gets out before nearly running off; somewhere, anywhere away from the woman with the soulful eyes who held her broken heart.

"Dr. Robbins!" The Chief called out.

"Arizona!" Derek yelled immediately after.

He took a step towards following after the fleeing blonde, but an arm came up to his chest to stop him. "No, let her be. This is all my fault." Callie uttered sadly.

Now that Arizona was out of Callie's presence, a whole range of emotions flooded her at once. She felt panic, pain, anger, and sadness. It felt like a dream, no, more so a nightmare, that she couldn't wake from. She moved as fast as her legs would take her so she could be alone and escape the scrutinizing eyes of those whom she passed.

She ran out to the stairwell and slumped down onto one of the steps. What is going on? Why is she here? How can this be happening? What did I do wrong to deserve this? Why would she show up to my work like this? How did she manage to go to this "shadow a doctor day" visit? I can't work with her here. I can't think if I have to be around her. God, why does she still have to be so beautiful? All I have to do is get through this day without being alone with her and I'll be fine. Just get through this day. Arizona sighed. Easier said than done.

Her inner monologue was interrupted when the sound of her beeping pager echoed throughout the stairwell. It was a page from Derek telling her to go to the pit, so she quickly pulled herself together and ran off to the ER. To her dismay, Callie was standing there observing Derek as he was tending to a patient. "Ahh, there you are Dr. Robbins. I was just getting finished here and was wondering if you could take Mr. Wilson here for a head CT so we can check for any brain damage."

"Of course, Dr. Shepherd."

"Great, thank you." He finished signing off on the chart before handing it off to Arizona and heading towards the door to get to the other patients. He stopped suddenly, causing Callie to nearly bump into him. "Actually, Callie, do you mind going with Dr. Robbins here?"

Arizona looked at him in shock and horror. "Oh no, Dr. Shepherd, that's not necessary. I can totally do this on-"

"Oh non-sense, Dr. Robbins. This day is meant to be a learning experience and she can decipher the scans with you when they come in and learn how a CT works and everything. Callie, you don't have any objections, do you?"

Callie opened her mouth to say something. "I…" Anything; but nothing seemed to come out. "I, umm…"

"Great, it's settled then. Callie, you accompany Dr. Robbins for this CT scan and you two find me when you get the results."

Arizona's figure visibly slumped. Oh great, she thought. So much for not being alone with her. This is going to be a very, very long day…

Arizona took the gurney and wheeled Mr. Wilson over to CT with a visibly nervous Callie pushing it and walking alongside her, obviously lost in thought in how to initiate a conversation with the blonde intern. "So how are you liking being an actual doctor so far?" she started off tentatively. When she got no response from Arizona, she decided to keep cautiously asking her questions. "I mean, it must be so cool to finally be living out your dream, right? Four years of med school teaches you a lot but it's nothing compared to actually doing all those things they taught us about." Arizona still remained silent, ignoring her and doing her best to keep away from personal matters and stay professional. "Arizona… I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I'm-"

"No."

"I-"

"No, no! You will not hold me hostage and make me listen to you. I am taking my patient up to get a CT scan and doing my job. That's-that's why I'm here. That is the only reason. No talking. None."

The two went about doing the CT scans in relative silence. Every time Callie opened her mouth to try to apologize again, Arizona would turn her head and give her a glare that told her not to dare say another word to her. So Callie would just shut her mouth and try to focus on the task at hand. Everything with the patient went smoothly as they relayed the results over to Derek who determined the scans were clean and that the patient could go home.

After Arizona took care of the discharge papers and got Derek to sign off on them, she looked at her watch to see that it was the end of her shift. She checked in with Derek to see if she was still needed, and when he told her she could go home, she let out a sigh of relief. She couldn't wait to get back to her apartment and collapse onto her bed, letting the softness of her bed envelop her and let her drift off to dreamland to forget all about this day. Her plans were thwarted though when she saw a very familiar set of raven locks and chocolate brown eyes waiting for her outside of the hospital. Seriously, can this day get any worse?

When Callie spotted Arizona walking towards her, she quickly rose to her feet and placed her best smile upon her face. "Arizona!" she called out to her. "Arizona, please wait up. I was hoping we could talk."

"There's nothing to talk about, Callie."

"Please, just give me another chance. Let me explain-"

"Let you explain what? Let you explain how you have a fiancée that you never told me about? Let you explain how you kept me a secret from your family? Let you explain how you blindsided me with George at my own graduation? Let you explain how you chose to stay in your engagement with him instead of being with me? I mean, honestly, I don't want to hear anymore from you because all it seems to do is give me more heartache. So if you don't mind, I just want to go home now and get some sleep. I had a really long day today."

"Well at least let me buy you dinner or walk you home or something."

"Just go home, Callie. Just go home to your precious fiancée, wherever that is, and leave me alone here in Seattle. Just leave me alone. I can't take much more of this from you."

"But I love you, Arizona! I love you and my life is miserable without you. I love you so much that-"

"Stop. Just stop! You don't get to prance in here and bombard me at my work. You don't get to follow me up here to Seattle and suddenly transfer to the University of Washington in the middle of your four years of medical school then show up during their shadow a doctor day visits and coincidentally get paired up with the doctor whose service I was on that day. You don't get to do this to me. You don't get to come back into my life after I just spent all this time trying to pull myself back together. You don't get to break my heart and then tell me you love me. So please, just go. Let me move on and learn to live my life without you."

"I can't do that. I can't do that, Arizona."

"Why the hell not, Callie? After everything that you've done to me, why can't you do this one thing for me? Why can't you just let me go and let me try to rebuild my life and forget about you?"

"Because I need you. I need you in my life because if I don't have you, I have nothing else that matters to me anymore. And I'm sorry that I hurt you. I am so deeply, deeply, deeply sorry because I am so in love with you. And I will apologize to you every day if that's what you need because I need you and you're the greatest thing that ever happened to me."

Arizona's face softened and Callie thought she was going to cave in and let them talk, or better yet, fall into her arms and tell her she loved and needed her too. "You should have thought about that before you decided to lie." Arizona said in a pitying way, before turning and walking away from a devastated Callie.

In a way, Callie honored Arizona's wishes and stayed away. Well, at least in the physical sense. Callie didn't stalk the hospital or Arizona's apartment building, nor did she randomly bump into her at various places around Seattle. That being said, she hardly left Arizona alone. Every morning Arizona would arrive at the hospital and have a new rose awaiting her, complete with an "I'm sorry" card, not needing anymore to know who it was from. Every morning she would toss said rose in the trash or hand them to a thrilled co-worker who always thanked her for the "sweet gesture" they'd call it while she always assured them that it "wasn't a big deal."

For the rest of her internship, she received a rose of varying colors every morning with an unsigned "I'm sorry" card that occasionally accompanied a larger box on the days that should have been another "monthiversary." She never kept the presents, never even opened them. She always made sure she sent it back with a "return to sender" written to let Callie know of her rejection. They didn't seem to faze her though as the gifts kept pouring in every month and every month, Arizona sent them back unopened. Arizona wasn't going to let Callie off the hook with her buying her way back to the blonde's good graces. The gifts and flowers were cute, at least that's what the other doctors and nurses said at Callie's romantic antics, but Arizona needed more. She needed to know that Callie truly was sorry for hurting her and not just taking the easy way out in apologizing by flashing her money around, which did nothing to impress Arizona whatsoever.

But today was a new day. Arizona was beyond excited because she passed her intern test with flying colors and it was her first day as a resident. She decided to stay in Seattle and do her residency at Seattle Grace, much to the excitement of the hospital staff. She shrugged on her new white coat, freshly engraved with her name, before giddily making her way to the surgical floor's nurse's station to find out what her assignment for the day was. She was ecstatic about getting her own team of interns to teach, motivate, and inspire while at the same time bettering herself as a doctor and dedicated teacher.

She looked out into the sea of overeager, though frightened, interns. She smiled at them encouragingly as an attempt to reassure them that everything was going to be alright. Her smile faltered and then soon fell altogether when her eyes swept across the beautiful face of a certain Latina in the middle of the crowd. She soon tuned out the Chief who was debriefing the interns before assigning them to their residents. She didn't snap out of her trance until she heard the Chief utter the one thing she did not want to hear. "…and Torres, you're with Dr. Robbins."

After the announcements, the Chief left and the other residents and interns took off in their own directions to start a quick tour of the hospital and go over a brief summary of the rules and breakdown of their intern years. Arizona, however, stayed glued to her spot with four sets of eyes staring at her, one set in particular drawing all her attention. Once the initial shock wore off, a blind rage came over Arizona. She dismissed the other three interns to go observe a surgery of their picking until she paged them later while grabbing Callie's arm and leading her to the stairwell. "What the hell!"

"Good morning, Dr. Robbins."

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm starting my first day of work as one of Seattle Grace's newest interns."

"But this isn't your workplace, this is my workplace. I work here, me. Not you."

"Well…now we're both working here! Cool, right?"

Arizona took a step forward so she could look Callie directly in the face. Callie couldn't help but take a step back when she saw the fire in Arizona's eyes. "What did you not get in the past couple years?"

"Arizona, what are you-"

"I never wrote you back or picked up the phone to call you or text you, hell, I never even opened any of your presents and always sent them back. I had no interest in seeing you. I had no interest in you being in my life."

"Well, I think you're playing a game with me. I think you're testing me to see if I really mean it when I said that I would apologize every day and -"

"My lack of interest in seeing you is not a strategy. I'm not, uh, playing hard to get. I don't want to see you. You're untrustworthy, so I don't want to see you. You're self-centered, so I don't want to see you. I am 100% certain that if I let you back into my life again, you will hurt me again. So I don't want to see you. This isn't a ploy, I'm not- I'm not pouting. I don't want you in my life! So go get your things together and request an immediate transfer, now." And with that, Arizona turned on her heels and marched out of the stairwell, leaving a stunned Callie in her wake.

[Present Time]

"Mark, do you think you can be in love with two people at the same time?"

"You talking about Torres and Catie?" Arizona nodded. "No, I don't think you can, Blondie."

Arizona's face fell and she frowned. "I just don't know what to do anymore! Every day I keep fighting this battle and soon enough, I will lose the war."

"I know you love Catie. I honestly do. She's an amazing girl and she's been perfect for you. I don't think I've ever met a more caring human being."

"Which is what makes everything so hard! Caitlin has got the biggest heart I've ever seen and I don't want to be the one to break it. I really do love her, how can I not after everything she's done for me?"

"There's no doubt in my mind that you love Catie, but I don't think you're in love with her. I know you want to because you're so comfortable with her, but you can't make yourself fall in love with someone just because you want for it to happen. You're in love with Torres. Always have been and always will be. You thought you two were able to hide your love for each other and cover it in the mask of friendship all those years ago, but everyone around here knew the truth. You gave me hope because even if you didn't want to say the words, all your feelings could be seen in your eyes. I wanted to one day look at a woman in the way that you look at Torres."

"I've never stopped loving her, Mark."

"I know, Arizona."

"Even when she broke my heart the first time on my graduation day, I tried pushing her out of my mind and squishing her into a box that I could store away forever. I tried throwing myself into my work so I could forget about her. I tried ignoring her when she showed up in Seattle, but she's always found her way back into my heart. Before her, I was great at protecting my heart. I was great at always keeping a distance so I wouldn't get hurt. Calliope's been the only one who has broken all my rules and make me hers. It's like she's branded my heart. She's the only person who has ever broken me, yet she's the only one who can put me back together."

"If you still feel this strongly, you should talk to Torres and tell her how you feel. And you also need to talk to Catie and be honest with her."

"I know, Mark, I know. But-"

"But nothing, Robbins. You're playing with fire here because you're holding the hearts of two incredible women in your hands and the longer you leave things untouched, the greater the fall. You're a good person and I truly believe that. We didn't start off on the right foot in the beginning and haven't always seen eye to eye on a whole spectrum of things, but you've grown on me these past few years and I also love Catie and Torres. You three are like family to me and I don't want to see anyone get hurt. You need to be open with the two of them because you can't keep stringing them along. Callie is still in love with you and Caitlin worships the ground you walk on and is oblivious to all of this. You need to make a choice."

"But I don't want to choose! How can I choose between my girlfriend who is the kindest person in the world and the married woman who has my heart? You can't just tell me to choose because there is no right and easy choice. No matter which way I pick, someone gets hurt. And I have so much to lose with either woman. With Caitlin, I feel so safe with her. I know that she'd never hurt me and that she'll always be there for me even when I'm at my worst. I don't have to pretend to be all happiness and rainbows all the time because she saw me when I was at rock bottom. She gathered all the broken pieces that Callie smashed of me together and didn't let me keep falling even further apart. I can't just leave her like that because the woman I never got over comes back into town. Calliope's still married for God's sake! I can't just come in and ruin her marriage like that. She's told me so many times how she has to honor this commitment and promise that I can't tell her to leave her husband for me. I can't tell her to drop her entire life and move back to Seattle with me. This whole situation is so messed up in so many ways. I'm going to ruin lives, Mark. I'm going to ruin lives and I just can't. I can't-" Arizona's voice broke as sobs racked through her body and she couldn't get another word out. Mark immediately rushed over and wrapped his arms around her, allowing her to cry on his chest. "I'm sorry… I can't-"

"It's okay, Arizona. It's okay. You don't have to say anymore."

"I can't…" she kept repeatedly whispering.

Callie was sitting in Carlos' room reading through some orthopedics-related articles in a medical journal. She glanced over to her father lying in the hospital looking peaceful in his unconscious state. She rubbed her temples and placed the journal down then grabbed one of Carlos' hand in both of hers. She looked at him for a while, examining every sign of age on his face, his thinning hair, the rise and fall of his chest. Tears started slowly trekking their way down her face as she took in a deep breath and released it, hoping to release all her built up stress and worries with it. "I don't know what to do anymore, daddy," she began. "For my entire life, I've never wanted to do anything other than to please you and mom and be the perfect daughter. I loved being your shining star, your pride and joy. I loved being the daughter that you praised to all your friends and business associates and to the rest of the family. I loved it so much that I never wanted to disappoint you. I loved making you and mommy proud so much that I let you dictate how I was going to live my life. I mean, I had to fight tooth and nail just to be able to go to LA for medical school. I loved being your ideal daughter so much that I let you set me up with George and I let myself say yes to his marriage proposal. I loved being the apple of your eye so much that I let you ruin my relationship with the greatest person I have ever met in my whole life and have the love of my life run away from me and flee to Seattle just to get away from me. You made me lie to her and break her heart. I loved being your angel so much that I pushed aside everything that I wanted and did what you expected me to do. I hid my feelings for so many years and became emotionally void.

"I love Arizona, daddy. I love Arizona so much that it hurts. I've loved her ever since we met at that end of the year party after my first year in medical school and I can't stop. Living my life without her is just so empty and meaningless. Seeing her now in a relationship with another woman breaks my heart because even though I'm glad that she's moving on, I hate that it's not me who is making her happy. My heart doesn't know how to beat for anyone else but her. I've only been here for a few weeks and I'm already falling in love with her all over again. But this time, I don't want to fight it. I don't want to try to exercise every bit of restraint I have to not give into my feelings.

"I'm not happy. Before when I was a little girl, making you and mom happy was always enough to make me happy as well. But now, now that I know what it's like to be with and fall in love with someone as amazing as Arizona, it's not enough. I knew what true happiness felt like and I tossed it aside because of honor and duty. But I can't do that anymore. I need to do what's best for me because life is too short to be living in the what if's. I know that you're probably going to be extremely angry and disappointed in me when you wake up, but I can't live my life like this anymore. I can't be with George and pretend to be happy when my whole being aches for Arizona.

"I've let us suffer for far too long now and I have to put an end to it. I have a chance now. I have a chance to make everything right again. It's fate, I have to believe it's fate. Fate would bring us back together after everything that's happened and give me another chance to be with her. This my probably my last chance with her and I can't let it slip through my hands again. I need to stand up and fight for her. I need to let her know that I can't live without her in life and that this friendship thing we've been trying to do just isn't working. Arizona can't be just my friend. I need to make her see and hear that because I don't think another opportunity like this will present itself again. She means everything to me and I can't bear to lose her again.

"Do you understand, daddy? Can you understand what I'm saying here? I love you. I love you and mom and Aria so, so, so much. And I would never want to do anything to bring shame upon this family. I wouldn't want to break my promises or ruin the bond we have with the O'Malley's, but I need to do this. I need to do this for me and for Arizona.

"I know you love her too. I know that despite her being the reason I almost backed out of my engagement with George and being 'sinful' in your eyes because she made me fall in love with her, you still think so highly of her. I know that if she weren't gay you'd jump at the opportunity to marry her into the family. I know how she's the only person in my life who you've taken an immediate liking to. I don't blame you because you probably got sucked in by her adorable dimples or super magic smile or incredible blue eyes or infectious laugh or overall awesome personality. I don't know who I would be if I hadn't met her. So that's why I'm going to fight. I'm going to fight and I am going to win her back and spend the rest of my life making it up to her and you can't do anything about it except love and accept me for who I am."

Meanwhile, Arizona was finally slowing down her tears and relaxing into Mark's arms. "Hey, you feel better now?" Mark gently asked.

"Yeah-sniff-. I'm feeling a lot better –sniff-. Thanks Mark. You've been such a good friend to me lately and I can't thank you enough."

"Well, if you really wanted to pay me back, you could…" he said in a playful tone, adding in a wink.

"Mark Sloan! Even when we're having an intimate moment," she stopped when she saw him raise his eyebrows as a sign of interest. "Not that kind of intimate moment, you perv!" Arizona laughed. "But seriously, thank you so much. It feels good to talk to someone who knew the both of us and about our situation. I've been going crazy trying to keep everything in and stay strong while trying to figure all of this out, so thank you for letting me get all emotional girl on you and letting it out."

"Don't mention it, Arizona." Mark replied, pulling her in for one last hug. "Seriously, don't mentioned it!" He joked again when he released her from his hold.

"Always trying to protect the reputation. Typical man. But don't worry. I'll keep it between us," Arizona went along with the light atmosphere. "I feel a lot better now that I let some of my feelings out. I should probably go check on my patients now though." She smiled making her way towards the door as her pager beeped. "Ah, perfect timing. Like I said, it was about time I-"

Arizona freezing mid-sentence made Mark look up to see her staring down at her pager with a mixture of panic, concern, and fear in her face. "Robbins? Is everything alright?"

"It's Carlos. I have to go…right now!" She barely got out the last part as she was already taking off in a run toward his room.

Hey, check it out! I wrote you guys another update and it didn't take me another month or 5 weeks to do so, hurray! I know that you want Callie and Arizona to get together already, but you know I can't just throw them together again just like that! As I've mentioned to those who reviewed the last chapter, if I were to do that, then the story would essentially be over and it would have skipped over everything and be anti-climactic, don't you think?

Anyways, I'm sorry, but my brain can hardly function these days for more than just a few minutes at a time because of the craziness that was Thursday night's episode, the ending made my heart stop two separate times in like the last three minutes alone, and then Sara's EP being released, which you all need to go buy on iTunes and listen to because it's been on repeat ever since I bought it and it's A-MAZ-ING. Trust me, you won't regret buying it. And then of course there's next week's musical episode that I will probably just lose all brain function before, during, and after, so yeah… I have no idea why I'm rambling so much really. I guess all the excitement for Grey's this weekend has got my all hyped up.

As always, a HUGE thank you to all of you who read and reviewed the last chapter. You guys are the best and any and everything you have to say always makes me smile. And I really love smiling. So make me smile, please? =]