FIX YOU

A/N: Hey guys! So, as you can probably guess, I am supposed to be studying again, but I thought writing this would be way more fun! Dinoflagellates may be pretty cool and all that, but Calzona beats plankton every time.

Thanks for the responses to the last chapter, I'm glad you enjoyed it and that I haven't totally lost my mojo! Having said that, not exactly sure how I feel about this one.

One more thing (I know, I can't help myself), but has anybody else noticed how delicious the portmanteau Calzona sounds? I can almost taste it right now ;)

Now onto the party!

Disclaimer: You guys already know all that jazz, right?

Chapter 6: Work Hard, Play Hard

If anyone would have asked her, she would have openly admitted it. She was nervous. You know, the kind of nerves where it feels as though your stomach is about to jump out of your throat, your heart is beating a mile a minute and anything eaten in the past 24 hours must have been poisonous. It was those kinds of nerves that Callie had right now, just amplify that by about a million.

Also, if you asked her another question, the question of whether she knew why she was so nervous, she would admit that too. And her answer would be, "I have no frickin' clue." Sure, meeting the people who you are going to spend every day with, working cases with, some of them more taxing than others, is going to get you a bit nervous, but not enough to justify her impending panic attack. No, that wasn't the reason for all of this. That left only one other variable that could be the reason for her stomach doing the hula.

Arizona.

When wasn't it Arizona? Arizona Robbins. The woman that she couldn't keep out of her mind for more than a minute was coming with her as her date. In public. Probably looking, like, completely hot, because, let's be honest, when paired with those dimples and icy blue eyes, what wasn't hot?

If she had analysed it with an outside view, was able to put all her feelings aside and be completely objective about the matter, Calliope Torres would have to say that she had the world's biggest crush on her date. Crush… Was that the word she was looking for? Maybe not, but words always escaped Callie when Arizona was in the room, or in the next room, or across the city, or just in her thoughts.

Smoothing down the front of her dress, a tight black number that made her chest look amazing, hugged her hips perfectly and cut off at her legs mid-thigh, Callie inhaled a deep, supposedly calming breath. After the hours she'd spent getting ready for tonight, she was certain that she, herself, looked amazing, but that didn't stop the insecurities nagging at the back of her mind. In her home,when Arizona had joined her for dinner, Callie had had no competition, no other women present that might distract Arizona's attention away from her, to show her up. But out in public… That was a different matter. And, just to remind you in case you had forgotten, Arizona was HOT.

Callie's head snapped around as a sharp sound suddenly penetrated the silence. It was now or never, judgement time had arrived and now it was time to bite the bullet, to throw three sheets to the wind, to leap off the precipice, because the doorbell had just rang and that could only mean one thing.

Arizona.

There was no reason that Arizona should be feeling like this. If a doctor opened her belly right now, she was sure that one thousand and one butterflies would come fluttering out, because that's how her stomach felt at this precise moment, like a butterfly breeding ground.

It was ridiculous really. Ever since Callie had, sort of, asked her to go out with her tonight, Arizona had been more giddy than a kitten with a ball of yarn, but as the time got nearer that Arizona had told Callie she'd pick her up from the beach house, the more nervous the blonde had become.

Arizona was hot. She knew it and she didn't think she was being big headed when she said so. She looked after her body as best as she could, the hours of physical labour and the work-out regimen she'd subjected it to had paid its dues, so it wasn't as though she should be insecure about her body or her appearance. Yet she was. When standing in a room next to Calliope, everybody else paled in comparison. She'd make Cindy Crawford look like Quasimodo. All Arizona could hope was that the rest of the women in the bar tonight were straight or asexual. Yeah, fat chance of that happening.

The blonde looked down at the outfit she'd chosen for tonight. She wasn't really one for wearing dresses, she didn't really feel comfortable in them – maybe because she'd always hung around her brother and his friends and had been the epitome of a tomboy when she was a kid. Arizona wasn't sure, all she knew was that she could definitely pull off a dress if she wanted to, but she was never as confident. And tonight, Arizona wanted to make sure she was 110% confident and on her game.

Tight black jeans caressed her legs, blending seamlessly with her knee high boots that Teddy liked to refer to as her 'hooker boots'. A blue polka dot shirt that matched her eyes and lightly cupped her bosom completed the top half of her outfit, her hair flowing in gentle curls around her shoulders - dressy but still casual enough to look effortless, with a light dusting of make-up to complete the look.

Taking in one last, deep breath, Arizona took the final step towards the door, pressing the doorbell she'd fixed not a week ago, a sudden sing-song tone reaching her ears.

'Be cool, Arizona. Be cool…'

Feeling a rush of air around her body, the door ahead swung open and Arizona had to remember how to breathe. She'd said, and thought, many times that Callie Torres was a goddess, but she had never meant it more than she meant it now. The black dress she'd chosen to wear fit her perfectly, hugging her curves in all the right places that had the blonde's mind racing just imagining what was hidden underneath. The fact that the dress cut off at mid-thigh, giving the carpenter a view of the Latina's flawlessly sculpted tan legs only added to the wetness pooling in Arizona's mouth, not to mention other places…

"Calliope…" Arizona breathes, not exactly sure how she managed to get a word out when her breathing function was still severely impaired. "Beautiful."

Blushing at the compliment, Callie can't help but smile shyly at the way Arizona looks as though she is about to eat her right there and then on the front porch. Usually, the Latina wasn't one to find the whole piece of meat thing attractive, but on Arizona, and when she was thinking the exact same thing about the blonde, Callie didn't find it anything but hot.

"Thank you." The Latina replies, the shy smile never leaving her face, the pink blush on her cheeks receding slightly as she takes in the sight of Arizona before her. Unlike herself, the blonde bombshell wasn't wearing a dress, but damn… The jeans were almost like a second skin, the way she wore those knee high boots adding a commanding quality to her outfit, her persona, one that Callie couldn't help but get slightly excited about. "You look stunning."

"What? This old thing?" Arizona's face mirroring that of Callie's, a cheeky grin greeting her lips as she gestured up and down her outfit before holding a hand out to the Latina. "You ready to go?"

Taking one last peek into her purse to make sure that she had everything she needed, double checking the keys and phone, Callie nodded her head in affirmation.

"Ready." Callie answers, taking the blonde's proffered hand, a shiver of energy shooting down her spine as she stepped into the cool night air.

Joe's bar was a small place, but homey. The lighting was ambient, pooling the room in a soft, comfortable light, mirrored by the plush leather padded barstools outlining the bar area. The place wasn't packed, but it wasn't empty either, in fact, there seemed the perfect amount of patrons – enough to keep the place lively, but not too many that you couldn't see two inches in front of you.

That was one of the reasons Arizona liked the place so much, that and the fact that the owner, Joe (of course) was such a nice guy. Not to mention the fact that the women here always seemed to be smoking hot, not that that was anywhere on the list of the blonde's priorities tonight, not when she was with Callie, a woman who could make even the finest fillet mignon look like chuck in comparison.

"There they are!" A voice yells from across the bar, pulling the blonde from her reverie, a smile coming to her face as she waves at Teddy, standing, rather precariously, next to the dart board.

Sitting at the back of the bar, in their usual spot, were the rest of the Ronald Reagan gang, well, the members of the gang who had managed to avoid being on call tonight, that is. Looking at the rag-tag bunch, Arizona couldn't help but smile. A strange bunch they were, but each one of them was her friend and they'd welcomed her into their fold with open arms. She never felt inadequate or out of place with them, although she knew that it would be so easy for every single one of them to shove their fancy M.D. in her face.

"Want to go and say hi?" Arizona responds, kind of wishing that she had the Latina all to herself again, just like the night before. Perhaps the sooner the introductions were made and the sooner the alcohol was flowing, the less tense Callie would become. As they'd approached their destination earlier, Arizona couldn't help but chuckle at the Latina's nerves becoming more and more obvious. What started out as a soft tapping of the foot to the floor of the truck ended up as a full on leg pump, Callie achieving a good work-out within the 20 minute drive.

Looking at the woman beside her after her question was met with nothing but silence, the same smile that had adorned the blonde's face in the truck makes a reappearance.

"It's okay, Calliope. They don't bite." Arizona jokes, trying to ease Callie's tension, the quirking of the Latina's lips bringing a wide grin to the blonde's face. "Except Mark. Watch out for him."

"Okay." Callie breathes, letting out a long breath in an attempt to centre herself. This was the reason that she'd come out tonight, even though she had work early the next morning. One of the reasons, at least. The fact that Arizona was accompanying her was just a happy coincidence… Kind of...

"It's fine, I'll be right here." Arizona adds, taking the surgeon's hand in her own before giving it a quick squeeze, the contrast between the surgeon's warm fingers and her own icy ones sending a pleasant shiver down the blonde's spine.

"Let's go." Callie answers, squeezing the blonde's soft yet muscular hand even tighter, as if to make sure she wasn't about to float away.

Heading over to the guys Arizona rolls her eyes. They couldn't not get drunk before she got here, could they? Getting increasingly closer to the men, Arizona back-tracked her thoughts. Okay, not they, but him. It seemed, to her eye at least, that Mark was the only one who seemed in the least bit tipsy out of him and his best friend Derek. If she had to guess, Arizona would say that around five of the seven empty whiskey glasses she saw on the table belonged to Mark. Nothing new there.

"Hey, hey, hey, look what the God of all that is good just brought to us! Two beautiful, intelligent women!" Mark grins, holding a half finished glass of scotch in the ladies' direction.

"Damn straight." Arizona replies, her eyes never leaving Callie, her body looking even more perfect in the ambient lighting of the bar than it had when she'd opened the door.

"Thank you…" Callie answers a little more reservedly, a soft blush daintily flushing her cheeks.

"See man! I told you she was hot!" Mark hollers, slapping the man to his right, who just so happened to have perfectly sculpted jet black hair and a killer smile, hard on the shoulder.

"Good call, Mark." The man sitting next to Mark replies, a wry smile appearing on his face at his friend's antics. Turning his attention to the Latina, the smile never leaves the man's face. "Hi, my name is Derek, I don't think I've had the pleasure."

"Callie Torres, Ortho, and the pleasure is all mine." Callie blushes as she takes his hand. If she was honest, she was just theteeny-tiniest bit star-struck. Everybody who was anybody in the medical field knew of Derek Shepherd. The man had practically written the book on Alzheimer's after all, and that wasn't even mentioning his perfectly quaffed hair or pearly whites.

"Derek Shepherd, Neuro. Welcome to Ronald Reagan." Add a gentleman to that list. That guy sure was a keeper, if that was your thing, anyway.

"Thanks." Callie mumbles, the words seeming to get stuck on her tongue as she tries to say them.

'Great job, Callie,' The brunette mentally berates herself. 'You need to work with this guy day in day out, and you can't even speak to him like a functioning human being? Get a grip!'

"You want a drink? I was just about to get us another round." Derek asks, his eyes locked directly with the Latina's own.

Callie bites her lip, not certain whether she should accept or not. She didn't really want to get super wasted on her first night meeting her colleagues, but she didn't want to seem like a prude or killjoy either, especially when on most occasions Callie was more than down to drain the bar dry. However, now just seemed too early to let her new workmates see that side of her. Maybe next week…

"Umm, yeah, thanks." Callie finally replies, earning her another flawless smile from the Neuro God.

"What's your poison?" Derek continues smiling, making Callie wonder how any straight woman could resist the man.

"Bourbon, straight up." Callie replies in a heartbeat. If she was going to drink, she was going to drink the hard stuff, and seeing as no-one else seemed to be indulging in her usual weapon of choice, Tequila, that only left one choice.

"Hot." Arizona whispers into the Latina's ear. There was something to be said about a woman who wasn't afraid of hard liquor, drinking it in the way the makers intended.

"'Zona, water right?" Derek turns to the blonde who had been enjoying the transformation of expressions that had weaved their way across the Latina's face since the beginning of her conversation with, as many of the hospital staff liked to call him, McDreamy.

"You know me too well Derek. Thanks." Arizona nods quietly, smiling internally at the jaw dropped look Callie had been fixing Derek with since the first second she'd seen him.

"No problem." The neuro-surgeon smiles amiably before sliding himself out of the booth, heading directly for the bar.

Sliding herself into the booth in Derek's place, dragging Callie with her by the hand, Arizona plops herself in front of her tipsy friend, fixing him with an unblinking stare.

"Yo, Sloan, who's that that Teddy is with?" Arizona kicks the older surgeon lightly on the leg to catch his attention, the lothario too busy eye sexing a pretty red head sitting at the bar, a half-finished margarita in hand, to pay much attention to his friend.

"Meh." Was all the reply she got. Kicking the man once again, this time a little harder, Arizona smiled triumphantly when a pair of unimpressed icy blue eyes met her own. "Some townie, dunno what his name is."

"Eurgh. Again?" Arizona rolls her eyes. This was probably the third time this month that Teddy had decided to get overly drunk and drown her sorrows. It was fair enough, the blonde did have legitimate sorrows to drown, but doing this, going around fucking everyone who would give her the time of day – which was a lot of people, Teddy was hot after all – was simply self-destructive.

Callie couldn't help but watch as a range of different emotions passed across Arizona's face in the matter of seconds. Anger, sympathy, fear, confusion. Each of them lasted no longer than a millisecond before the blonde's face returned to neutral expression, but Callie hadn't missed a second.

"Seems like it." Mark nodded, looking over his shoulder at the woman in question before taking a long swig of whiskey.

"When are her and Tim going to pull their heads out of their asses and just fuck already?!" Arizona cries, literally waving her hands in the air in the way you'd imagine an aged Italian grandmother would when her grandchildren are running her ragged, just as Derek returns to the booth, handing around the drinks to a round of thank you before making himself comfortable once again.

Still trying to process what Arizona just said about her brother and his sex life, Callie can't help but get the incredulous look off her face before the blonde notices. The less she knew about her sister, Aria's, bedroom activities, the better, and Callie was sure that her sister felt the same way.

Taking in the shocked look the Latina was giving her, Arizona could only smile, squeezing the Latina's hand in her own, the two having been intertwined since the pair had sat down.

"Callie, believe me, the interactions between the two are… maddening! I mean, PLEASE! Everyone can see it apart from them!" Arizona laughs, getting a nod from both the other surgeons at the table, wide smiles plastering their faces.

"Speaking of, where is your brother, Robbins?" Mark inquires as if he's only just realised that Tim isn't with his little sister, his head turning in every direction to find the absent Robbins.

"He's ill…" Arizona sighs, pushing her glass around the table with the tips of her fingers. Having a compromised immune system really made life awkward sometimes, but, better to be safe than sorry – she couldn't necessarily stop getting ill, but she could avoid her ill brother, and that was a loose sort of prevention.

"Oh… And how is that with…" Derek asks, keeping the details on the down low, for which Arizona couldn't thank him enough.

"My parents don't mind, I mean, they understand and everything so…" By this point the carpenter's glass had made a perfect figure eight across the wooden tabletop.

Callie scrunches her nose at the interaction. The conversation had taken a strange turn, one that was mysteriously cryptic onto a subject that it seemed everyone knew apart from her. Before she could dwell on the strange exchange, the very person who was perplexing her mind caught her attention.

"Want to dance?" Arizona asks perkily, a mischievous smile tweaking her lips.

Always one to be ready to shake her stuff on the dancefloor, especially when she was accompanied by a smoking hot blonde, Callie didn't even bother to reply before yanking Arizona out of the booth and onto the dancefloor.

'Oh yeah…' Arizona thought, a chill running down her spine in anticipation. 'This is going to be good.'

"Theodora Altman, shut up, I did not!" Arizona exclaims indignantly. "Don't listen to her, Calliope, she's drunk and doesn't know what she is saying."

Callie just laughs, watching Arizona be thoroughly pwned by her extremely drunk friend.

"Yes, I do! I may be drunk, but I can remember this like it was…" Teddy gestures vaguely into the air, pausing in her sentence to do so, not being able to manage both gesture and speech at the same time. "Yesterday."

"I did not make out with a hot dog." Arizona deadpans, her face completely unimpressed, but infinitely amusing to Callie.

"Well then, Miss Smarty Pants, if you didn't make out with a hot dog, as you claim," Teddy answers, shooting a quick wink in Callie's direction, making the Latina laugh lightly, "then where the hell did I get the idea that you did?"

"Mean Girls." Callie chimes in with a smirk, saving the carpenter, whose face had transformed into a beet red from arguing with her friend.

"Come again?" Teddy answers with a hiccup, the way she was looking at the Latina in her drunken haze making Callie think that she'd suddenly sprouted a third eye.

"Mean Girls, the film." Callie repeats, trying her hardest not to laugh at the obviously drunk woman.

"Oh…" Teddy sloshes, her body swaying dangerously on her bar stool as she brings a hard fist down upon the wooden bar in front of her. "Oh yeah! I know!"

Not ten seconds later, the blonde surgeon was making a very close inspection of Joe's' nicely polished mahogany tabletop, Teddy obviously having decided that it was easier to break her fall with her face rather than her hands.

"Jesus Christ, Teddy, how much have you had to drink?" Arizona cries, taking a whiff of the taller blonde's breath before jumping backwards and scrunching her nose at the smell. "Tequila."

'Guess somebody was on the tequila tonight', Callie thought. They'd just gotten here too late for her to partake – a good thing, looking at the state of Altman.

"Maybe we should get her home." Callie almost laughs, the inebriated state of this woman, a woman she barely even met was like something out of a bad teen movie.

The pouty look Arizona gives Callie makes the Latina laugh further, the brunette wanting nothing more than to take the blonde in her arms and kiss the pout from tender lips.

"Here, I'll take one arm, you take the other." Callie offers, bending down to position herself beneath the drunken woman's arm, giving Arizona a heart stopping view of mouth-watering, caramel cleavage that ignites a smouldering fire in her core.

"Thank you, Calliope, this isn't really how I'd envisioned the evening ending." Arizona sighs, using her free hand to push a stray lock of hair that had somehow escaped the drunken woman's intricate up-do behind her best friend's ear, a small act of tenderness that Callie can't help but smile at. She wished her friends back in Seattle had been so good to her, but they never were. It wasn't until much later that Callie discovered that they weren't really her friends at all.

Callie could have said the same thing regarding the end of the evening, she had magined ending the night with Arizona in or at least around the vicinity of her bed, or any bed for that matter, preferably only wearing her birthday suit.

" know, but it's okay, Arizona, really. I've been having a really good time, but it is getting late and I do have work tomorrow…" Callie shrugs sadly. She really had been enjoying herself, but she took this moment as a sign. Being late and hung-over on your second day of work probably wasn't the best way to win over her superiors, her patients and the nurses, was it? And although having Arizona's strong hands gripping her hips tightly, pulling the Latina's core into her own was definitely not going to be matched by her cold, lonely bed, at least she had the fresh memories to keep her company.

Approaching the door, their progress being extremely slow seeing as Teddy periodically refused to lift her feet, the pair were met, or, more aptly, blocked in the doorway by none other than the Nazi herself, Dr Bailey.

"Hey Dr Bailey, I didn't realise you were here!" Arizona calls happily, always enjoying getting a chance to see the woman. It wasn't often that Bailey slummed it out with the rest of the plebeians, but when she did it always seemed a much more classy affair – much more appropriate for a group of their age and, in the majority of surgeons, at least.

"I was just talking over some things over with the chief about new micro incision equipment for general surgery, so I'm afraid that I didn't get to party quite as hard as Altman apparently did…" The 5 foot walking whirlwind said with a raise of the eyebrow, shaking her head at the mess of a woman in front of her. Teddy was definitely not going to be able to live this one down.

"I don't think anyone did that." Arizona snorts, earning her a chuckle from the surgeon holding onto the other side of her passed out friend.

"You might not be lying on that one." Bailey answers, looking Teddy up and down before turning her attention over to Arizona. "Anyway, where are my manners? How's my favourite pa..." Bailey began before pausing mid-sentence, the look the blonde was fixing her with, a look coupled with an ever so slight shake of the head that could turn even the most sprightly to stone. "Person doing?"

Okay, this time Callie was definitely not imagining things. The way Arizona cut off Dr Bailey mid-sentence couldn't do anything other than make Callie's already suspicious mind turn to any number of different scenarios. What was the blonde hiding from her? What was so terrible that she couldn't tell her? And if it was that terrible, then why did Dr Bailey know? Why did Mark know? Why did it seem that the whole God damned world apart from Callie knew?

Trying to rationalise, Callie calmed the raging thoughts in her head with the one simplest answer, and most probable answer that she could think of. That there was something that Arizona wasn't telling her, but they'd only known each other for a couple of weeks. Arizona would tell her what this big secret was in time, in her own time, and until she got the truth, she'd follow Tim's advice. She wouldn't let the blonde push her away, at least not yet.

"I'm good, Dr. Bailey, really good." Arizona tries to sound cheery, attempting to play off the awkward exchange between them as though it was nothing. Even to her ears, it sounded forced, and the perplexed look that scrunched Callie's eyebrows told the blonde that the Latina thought the same. "This is Callie."

"Hi…" Callie smiles lightly suddenly feeling all too self-conscious. For some reason, Callie couldn't say why, there was something about the woman standing in front of her that screamed 'do not mess with me', which was something, considering the petite woman couldn't have been much over 5 foot tall. There was definitely something about this Dr Bailey, and Callie was pretty certain that depending on whether she was your friend or your enemy, your life at Ronald Reagan could be a breeze in the park, or the hardest job you've ever done. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Callie's the new Ortho resident." Arizona interjects, with a hint of pride that makes Callie smile. They've not even known each other for more than a couple of weeks, and have only been on one date, two if you counted tonight, yet the blonde seemed to have become one of Callie's biggest supporters. The smile fades on the Latina's face when she realises that her Dad used to be the one whose voice would light up when he talked about her… Not anymore…

"Finally, a new Ortho surgeon! Dr Chang is a great guy and everything…" Bailey lowered her tone to complete her sentence, leaning in towards the brunette as if letting in on some Earth shattering secret. "But he isn't… Let's say… the most modern surgeon. A bit of new, young blood is just what we need."

After being let through the doorway and out into the parking lot with a wave and a see you tomorrow from Dr Bailey, Callie sucked in the fresh, clean air. It stung her lungs slightly to breathe so deeply into the cold, but it was something she rather enjoyed. It helped her clear her head, to try and make sense of things, and before she knew it, before she realised that her feet were even moving again, the pair, with their inebriated cargo, had reached Arizona's beast of a truck.

"So, you know a lot of the doctors at Reagan pretty well?" Callie enquires, trying to seem nonchalant as Arizona unlocks the car, Teddy moaning slightly at the sudden loud noise. Okay, so Arizona would tell Callie her big secret in her own time. Hopefully. But that didn't mean that Callie wasn't going to nudge a little to expedite the process…

"Yeah." Arizona nods quietly, adjusting her grip on her drunken friend. "I guess it's because I spend so much time being Mark's wing woman and mopping up after Altman's drunken ass." The blonde finishes with a laugh, quickly breaking eye contact with the Latina before any hint of misinformation can present itself on her face.

'Just play the long game,' Callie reminds herself, shrugging off, for now, the strangeness, 'just play the long game.'

A/N 2: So things are getting harder for Arizona to keep a secret! I've been switching backwards and forwards between Arizona telling Callie her secret, or Callie finding out some other way. What would you guys prefer to see?

I just wanted to take a second to say thank you to the police officers of Santa Monica City PD and my heartfelt condolences for anyone who got caught up in the whole affair at down there today. I can't imagine what it was like, but it really brings these kinds of occurrences home when it happens on your doorstep.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to tell me what you think! :)