Callie slowly woke up and tried to stretch her aching limbs and surmised that just must have fallen asleep on the couch. Why? She didn't know; her bed was literally in the same room, less than 10 steps away. She also couldn't figure out why she had let Kelsie sleep on top of her, that just didn't seem safe and not like something she'd do at all, especially when Kelsie is already sick, if anything, they'd be in her bed sprawled out, not cramped up on the couch.
She sighed, deciding to just drop it and worry about it later. She tried to stretch her legs again and moved her arms to wrap around her little girl to pull her closer when her eyes shot open; that wasn't Kelsie's weight resting against her stomach, it was Arizona's. Wait, Arizona was…is asleep between her legs…
She did a quick check of her surroundings; they were both still fully clothed, and Kelsie was still sound asleep, that was a relief. Then she noticed the time. Shit.
Forgetting the situation, she attempted to jump up to get ready, successfully tossing Arizona onto the floor as she managed the stand upright for a couple seconds before their untangling limbs brought her down with a thud, stirring Kelsie from her slumber.
Arizona groaned and rolled onto her back. Did she just fall? It felt like she fell asleep in one of the on-call rooms. And was that a child starting to cry? Why weren't there nurses attending to it? Callie watched as Arizona laid there and grumbled to herself, it was actually pretty adorable. "Morning…" She cleared her throat and watched as the blonde shot up and turned to look at her and around at where she was. "Morning…" she offered up, groggily "Guess we fell asleep talking last night." She smiled at Callie and Callie forgot what she was even worrying about in the first place.
Arizona stood and held her hand out to Callie, who seemed to snap back to reality at the sight of the wall clock behind the blonde's head. "I really, really want to make you breakfast but I have to go or I'm going to be late again and I can't be late again…and thank you so much, again for…well, everything…" Callie rambled off while moving around the room the get ready, leaving Arizona in a daze as she watched Callie toss off her shirt and move to her wardrobe to find another. She gulped at the sight, that caramel skin on display was all she could think about…she knew she should have averted her eyes, but she just couldn't.
Figuring she should probably get ready as well, and having nothing to change into, she went about getting Kelsie ready, changing her diaper as well as getting her a bag together to take to the hospital. In the midst of making sure all the "necessary" toys were in the bag, the small apartment had become a suffocating environment; the feeling of familiarity and home hit Arizona in the face, she wasn't a parent, nor did she plan to ever be, but this was making her feel like one. All of the feelings of commitment, responsibility and expectations that she desperately tried to avoid in her personal life were crashing down on her. Suddenly, instead of wanting to run into the Latina's arms, she wanted to run away; far and fast. That wasn't an option though, she had basically dragged herself into the line of fire by volunteering to, essentially, babysit Kelsie for the rest of the week until she could return to daycare.
Callie was too busy engrossed in her rushed morning routine that she didn't notice Arizona's struggle and handed her a travel mug full of coffee and kissed her cheek as they left the apartment and went on their separate ways.
Callie realized what she had done...30 minutes later when she was standing on the bus getting ready to get off at her stop, and almost dropped her coffee. She'd kissed Arizona. Kissed her like it was no big deal and happened all the time. Kissed her after the woman had spent the morning getting her child ready…to take her to work with her for the day. Callie hadn't even asked her if she needed anything or offered a change of clothes or…anything. She just kissed her cheek and left. She groaned and let her head fall against the cold metal bar in front of her, quickly grimacing and wiping her face with her sleeve when she realized what she was leaning against and how many other hands and things had touched it.
Arizona made her way to her car in the parking lot at Callie's building just to realize that she didn't have a car seat for the little girl and held her groan as she called a cab. Another thing to add to the list that she'd need for the week.
She was torn; she was still glad that she was able to help Callie, but she was no longer as secure as she once felt about her role in the helping. She could have just found Callie a babysitter or something…that would have been easier, or at least a lot less stressful for her. Now she was going to walk into a hospital full of colleagues that knew about her opinion of not wanting kids, with a baby on her hip and she didn't really have any way to explain that, and with the ridiculous gossip at Seattle Grace, she'd need some explanation, or the nurses would just take it upon themselves to make one up. She closed her eyes and clenched her teeth as the cab pulled up to the hospital. She could do this; she's Arizona Robbins, Head of PEDs, and PEDs is badass, she's badass. Yepp, she could do this, if anyone could pull off confidence while in the midst of an internal war, it was Arizona Robbins.
She was busy debating with herself, calculating the weight on each side of her with the child and her belongings, deciding on whether she could kick out her heelies and keep her balance and avoid injury to her or the tiny human when a voice next to her caused her to jump.
"That looks an awful lot like a baby." Teddy stated, grinning while eyeing Arizona and Kelsie.
Arizona rolled her eyes before narrowing them at the taller blonde "It is a baby."
Teddy cooed at the little girl while prodding Arizona for more information about why the tiny human was with her, finding out very little from the PEDs surgeon other than the obvious fact that the tiny human wasn't hers.
Teddy tagged along the rest of the way to the PEDs floor, continuing on with her mission of prying information from her best friend about the mystery baby, only to have her interrogation interrupted by the gossip queen himself, Mark Sloan.
"Robbins! I hear you have a love child in the hospital!" Boomed his deep voice, causing Arizona to wince as she noticed it had garnered the attention of almost every nurse, as well as doctors, that were around.
"If I have Sloane Sloan, is this Robin Robbins?" He continued, in true Sloan fashion, ignoring the obvious fact that Arizona didn't want to talk about it. He offered his big fist to the tiny human, as if willing the baby to give him a fist bump for what he considered to be clever. "How does that happen, anyway?" He eyed the blonde up and down, he knew that the two were often referred to as "Man Robbins" and "Lady Sloan" by the nurses from time to time, as if it offered some sort of explanation for someone who knew of one of them but not the other; neither one of them was big on commitment, and he knew they both 'made the rounds', so to speak, but he knew how he'd end up with an unplanned child…how did Robbins end up with one? It was the only reason he could think of why Arizona would willingly be taking care of the kid.
When Kelsie leaned in closer to Arizona as Mark tried to get her to fist bump, she couldn't help but smile. She knew Kelsie was a good kid. She sighed and looked back and forth between Teddy and Mark "You realize I'm not telling either of you anything, right?"
"But – " "I'm your best friend!" "I'm your partner in crime!"
Arizona ignored them and walked down the hall to get little Kelsie settled into her temporary crib and inform the nurses on shift that she was to be cared for and to page her if anything came up. Mark and Teddy followed her back and forth as she got everything set up for Kelsie. They knew something was up with all the special attention that the little girl was getting; Arizona was great with the kids, and was much more accommodating than a lot of surgeons in regards to actually talking and playing with the patients, but it seemed like she was really going the extra mile with this particular little girl. They just couldn't get it out of her, even the pretty nurses weren't having any luck and just ended up gushing over the cute little girl like Mark had witnessed several of them gush over himself or Arizona.
Mark huffed as his pager went off. "This isn't over, Robbins. Until I get the story, I'm calling the kid Baby Robbins!" Of course he had to yell it while running towards the stairs.
I see Arizona stars from here, but Peter Pan is miles away!
Bonus points for anyone who catches the reference ^^
So it's been awhile, eh?
