Thank you, thank you, thank you, for the amazing response to the last chapter!
You guys are seriously awesome.
She calls again at around eight the next morning, just as she's watching Sofia skip into her classroom.
"Bye, Mama!" she yells over her shoulder as she digs through her purse, looking for the phone.
"Shit," she mutters as she picks up, disappointing both Sofia, who flounces away, and Arizona, who says-
"You can't possibly hate me that much!"
"No, not you," she says hurriedly. "Not you. I'm sorry, I just dropped her off at school."
"You could have called." she says pointedly, clearly in a sulk.
"I ...forgot, okay." she says lamely. More like was too busy texting the hot new surgeon to remember to call her ex-wife.
But the ex-wife doesn't need to know that.
And calling the ex-wife always gives her a weird swoopy feeling, which she doesn't have the time to deduce, and therefore she just avoids it.
"No you didn't." Arizona accuses. She's particularly pissy today. "You just didn't want me to talk to her!"
"Do you hear yourself right now?" she asks, swerving to avoid a gaggle of moms.
"Shit." she mutters again.
"There! You said it again!" Arizona wails, and she ducks into an empty classroom.
"Not to you." she fairly roars. "The PTA meeting, it's tonight and I totally forgot about it and I'm a terrible mother and Sofia is going to hate me and I have surgeries scheduled and-"
"Tonight?" Arizona muses. She can totally hear the gears turning in her perky head.
"Oh no. No no no no. Stay, Arizona. Stay right-"
"I can be out in time for the meeting." she says defensively. "And you're busy, and you can't go, and I can go, and-"
"You live," she hisses, smiling at the janitor who is now glaring at her to leave the room so he can clean. "In Seattle."
"So?" she says cheerily. "See you tonight, Callie."
"Don't you have patients?" she makes one last desperate attempt.
"Nope," she says. "Karev isn't in jail, so he can handle stuff for a few days."
A few days?
"Wait, what? Karev? Jail?" she sputters. She can't find her car keys. Damn.
"Oh, you have so much catching up to do." she says. She can hear a keyboard clattering in the background.
Trust Arizona to still book flights on her office computer.
"We can go to dinner after the meeting," she's saying happily. "That place you told me about, with the pizza that Sofia likes, and we can all catch up."
"I...uh, I already have dinner plans." she says, a heated flush spreading through her cheeks and down her neck at the thought of how Arizona's face will probably crumple at this news.
"Oh," she says, slightly subdued. "Okay, just me and Sofi then. Is it...a date? A hot date? Oh. My. God. Callie! Did you meet someone?"
The last two words are laden with meaning. To Arizona, everything means something. A random kiss in a public bathroom means something. A starry eyed intern means something.
"Kin...da?"
The answering screech nearly blows her eardrums.
"We just met." she clarifies. "A few days ago. She awesome, a surgeon, into sports medicine...that's how we met actually, over a patient and...yeah. She's great."
"So I can watch Sofia tonight!" she says, obviously thrilled. "And you can mm hmm."
She keeps humming and giggling on the other end.
"Arizona, no."
"What?" she giggles. "You like her, right?"
She does. Like really likes her.
"It's just..." she starts uncomfortably, wondering where the boundaries lie. "I'm not.."
How does she tell Arizona she's not ready yet?
She wasn't ready for Penny.
She isn't ready now.
She's still...searching. For what, she isn't sure, but she hasn't found it yet and doesn't think she will anytime soon.
It scares her.
Because, very possibly, the thing she's looking for is bubbly, blonde, has butterflies on her scrub cap and has totally and completely moved on from the ruin of their marriage.
"Wear black." she's saying. "You look awesome in black. And Callie-"
"Huh?"
"Have fun."
Okay, New York is definitely not for her. It's so...loud. And so fast. And no one wants to chat. Or be human, apparently, since that guy totally stole her taxi.
She's just looking around for another one, hoping desperately that she won't be late and ruin Callie's date with her mystery woman, when a small ferocious object collides with her legs.
"Mommy!"
"Hi, baby." she gasps, clasping her tightly to her body. She smells comfortingly of tropical fruit shampoo and Callie's fabric softener and that unexplainable Sofia smell, like she always does, and she hugs her tighter, breathing in and letting herself forget the awful week she's had.
Sofia pulls back, her little hands tight on her shoulders, Mark's gray eyes laughing back at her. She has Callie's dark hair and Callie's humor and Callie's mouth but those eyes are all Mark Sloan, and she can almost hear him saying chin up, Blondie.
"What are you doing here?" she asks breathlessly, letting Callie yank her to her feet. Her leg locks a bit and she shakes it out surreptitiously, hoping Callie won't notice.
"I got off early," she answers. "And madam wanted to see you, so here we are."
"I'm so happy you came," Sofia squeals, leading her by the hand, taking Callie's in her other, skipping along between them. "You can finally see Miss Brewer, and see my pictures, and read my story, and-"
"See?" she murmurs to Callie over her chattering head. "Totally worth the long distance PTA meeting."
"This is Mama's house," Sofia says proudly and rather unnecessarily, since she's seen about a bazillion pictures of the townhouse before. "Terry said I can't have two houses but I have Mama's house and your house, so I do."
She looks at her anxiously, like she's asking for confirmation, and she feels awful. Ten more months before she has her baby back in Seattle.
"Of course you do." she says warmly. She wants to find Terry, the little snot, and yell at her.
Or him.
"I'll just...get dressed." Callie says vaguely, gesturing to the stairs. "You know where everything is, so go ahead and make yourself at home."
She frowns at her retreating back. She's been spacey since the airport, her head in the clouds.
But Sofia is tugging at her, wanting to show her something or the other, and there's no time to think.
"Just a minute, Sofi." she says. "Let me get the door."
The bell rings again, followed by a brief, decisive knock. She freezes in her tracks.
No. Way.
"Mommy, open it." Sofia says, confused.
"I'll get that!" Callie bellows above their heads.
It can't be. She flew across the freaking country to get away from pierogi and parking-lot kisses and car sex and secret dates and -
"Eliza." she breathes as Sofia goes ahead and opens the door.
I promise a longer chapter next time...until then, please review and let me know how it's going.