Walk Tall...by lilscout

Chapter 5

A/N – Here's the new instalment. Kinda short, but I wanted to post it quickly. Thank you to my faithful readers, especially those who pm'd me about the whole 'disconnected from the story ' thing. I really appreciated your feedback, and it helped a lot.

...

Callie leaned forward in her chair, trying to get a closer look at Bailey's handiwork. She debated moving to the front row of the nearly deserted surgery gallery, but stayed put instead. It seemed silly to move now, when the procedure was almost done. Just her and a doctor's who's name she didn't know. Miranda could remove a person's gall bladder with her eyes closed. Callie had seen her do it about a hundred times. There was something oddly reassuring about watching the smaller woman operate. She wasn't the flashiest or the fastest, but you knew she was going to do it correctly. No scalpels left behind in any of her patients. No missed bleeds or ruptures. Slow, and methodical. Textbook. Comforting.

Callie lifted her legs to rest them on the seatback in front, and leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. She shifted her torso a little lower in the seat. The room was cool and dark. Maybe a good place to take a much needed nap. She got very little sleep on the weekend, but that tends to happen when you can't be around the person you're crushing on. Her mind had been on overdrive since Friday's class.

"Gall bladder, huh?" a voice asked. "Pretty intense stuff."

Callie cranked open one eye to peek at the new occupant of the room. She smiled. "Yeah, you know...not as hardcore as paeds, or anything, but Bailey's rockin' it."

Arizona discreetly looked down at Callie's almost horizontal position, admiring the way it elongated her body, then sat beside her, their arms pressing together lightly on the shared armrest.

"How was your weekend?" the blonde asked. If it was anything like mine...torturous, long and lonely without you.

"S'okay, I guess," Callie shrugged back. I missed you a lot and I really want to tell you that.

"You weren't in class last night," Callie said. "I thought you normally teach Monday's class." She tried desperately to hide her disappointment at Arizona's unexpected absence.

Arizona looked at Callie with slight remorse. "I'm really sorry about that. You're right...I do normally teach on Monday's, but I got stuck in emergency surgery with one of my appendicitis kids, and I just couldn't get away." She paused. "I was looking forward to seeing you, too."

"It's okay, Arizona. I get it. Believe me, you don't have to apologize," Callie told her. "It's just...I don't know...I prefer when you teach the class. You're not mean to me."

Arizona's eyes went impossibly wide. "Mean?" she questioned, her voice a little louder than she intended.

The other doctor cleared his throat as he got up and quietly excused himself from the room.

They silently watched him leave.

Arizona turned back quickly to face Callie.

"What are you talking about, Callie?" she asked. "Was someone mean to you in class last night?"

Callie pulled her legs off the chair in front and thumped her feet onto the floor. She sat up in her seat. "I guess mean isn't the right word...just...she has a crush on you, you know that right?"

Arizona was lost. She shook her head. "Who has a crush on me?" You're the only one I want.

Callie turned fully to face the blonde. She narrowed her eyes skeptically at Arizona.

"Joanne does, Arizona."

She watched with amusement as the blonde's face went blank.

"Sh...she does?" Arizona quietly asked after a few seconds.

Callie nodded slowly, smiling broadly at the baffled woman. "You have to have noticed. I could tell the first day I was there."

Arizona's mind worked to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Joanne's eagerness to help her out, endless hours spent together in class, stray glances in the change room that Arizona had unconsciously chosen to dismiss. It finally made sense.

"Huh," she responded. "I think you must be right. But how could I have not seen it before?"

"Maybe you just weren't looking for it." Callie hesitated. "I assume the feeling is not mutual..."

"No..." Arizona absently shook her head, then registered what Callie was actually asking. "No! Callie, honestly. Definitely not...mutual." She laid her hand on Callie's arm and leaned in to whisper, even though they were alone in the room. "Besides, brunettes are more my type..." she teased.

"Yeah?" Callie asked, her voice low as she leaned in closer to the blonde, eyes glancing swiftly from blue eyes to pink lips. Her eyelids began to flutter closed.

"Wait. What did you mean, she was mean to you?"

Dammit. Almost. Callie leaned back in her chair and sighed.

"Not so much mean, I guess, I just felt like she was being harder on me than the other students."

"But...can you give me an example?" Arizona looked a bit distressed. "I've never seen her act like that...ever...and I would hate to think that one of my students...you especially...was being treated unfairly in class!"

Distress was slowly turning into anger.

Callie tried to pacify her. "It's okay, Arizona. I'm fine...really. She just singled me out a few times when I did something wrong, and...I guess kinda got mad once or twice when I asked her a question about one of the blocks. She said I should know it by now." Callie tried to make light of it. "You know, I can't blame her. She clearly does like you, and you've given me more personal attention than any of the other white belts. So I guess she sees me as a threat...as competition."

"Well, still..." the blonde stated, shaking her head, her loose ponytail swinging side to side. "I'll have to talk to her, of course..." Arizona began.

"God no! Please don't do that. Can't we just let it go?" Callie pleaded. This conversation wasn't turning out how she had envisioned it.

She decided to switch tactics.

"Actually," she wondered aloud, "I was thinking that..." she paused, her already velvety voice taking on a decidedly flirtatious tone, "maybe a little one on one time might help to improve my...technique." She let the last word hand in the air, and it's suggestive nature made Arizona melt.

"Why, Dr. Torres..." Arizona played along, "are you asking your sensei for some...personal instruction?"

Callie leaned in, the corners of her mouth turning up in a mischievous smile, savouring the moment she had been thinking about all weekend. She licked and parted her lips slightly, and her body shuddered imperceptibly when she saw Arizona's pupils dilate. Arizona dreamily whispered Callie's name as she placed a light hand on the brunette's cheek, gently pulling their faces together for the moment they so desperately wanted.

Callie got an odd feeling as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She briefly shifted her gaze from Arizona's waiting lips to the gallery window, and felt the cold hard motionless stare of Dr. Miranda Bailey gazing up at them.

Busted!

Callie cleared her throat and pulled back from Arizona, still suspended in mid kiss, unaware of the attention they had garnered.

Miranda, I love you, but man, are you gonna get an earful from me today!

"Umm...Arizona?" Callie whispered, then repeated it a little louder. "Arizona!"

The blonde reacted, and quickly opened her eyes.

Callie gestured towards the window. "Maybe this isn't the best place for this...conversation."

"Oh, right," Arizona giggled. She was too new to know about the wrath of Dr. Bailey yet.

They stood up quickly, Arizona giving a friendly little wave to the smaller woman below. Callie swore she could hear Miranda growling through the window pane.

Callie ushered them both from the room and closed the door behind her. They stood in the hallway feeling a little like guilty teenagers caught making out behind the school.

Arizona kicked at a scuff mark on the floor. She leaned against the wall and looked down the hall at nothing in particular. Turned her head and smiled back nervously at the brunette.

Callie thought the blonde's sudden shyness was beyond cute, and leaned in to tell her as much.

"You're adorable when you're nervous, you know that."

Arizona visibly relaxed as she laughed at herself. "Silly, right?"

"No," Callie answered, shaking her head as she tucked a stray curl back behind Arizona's ear, "just impossibly cute."

Arizona sighed and closed her eyes as she leaned in to Callie's touch.

"I was serious before, you know," Callie announced.

Arizona quickly opened her eyes.

Callie smiled and pulled back. She turned to lean back against the wall as well.

"About the extra lessons. If you're into it, I would really like some help with the blocks and stuff."

"OK...umm, how about tonight?" Arizona answered. "The last class gets out at 8, and everyone is usually gone by 8:30 or so." She chanced a quick glance down at Callie's full red lips once more, then continued. "Why don't you meet me around 8:45?"

Callie flattened her hands against the wall and pushed herself off. "I'll see you then..." Callie nodded as she turned to walk away, giving the blonde one last radiant smile before she left, "and try not to miss me too much in the meantime!"

Yeah right. Not possible. Arizona smirked and turned to make her way down the other end of the hall towards the bank of elevators.

...

I realize some of you may want to throttle me 'cause they haven't even kissed yet. Patience. It's coming, I promise.