Title: It's All Your Fault
Author: Trance-Faith
Rating: M – suicide and suicidal tendencies.
Pairing: Callie/Arizona
Disclaimer: I do not own Grey's. All characters in this story sadly do not belong to me; they're simply being borrowed for a little while, and then will be returned. This story was not written for profit and no copyright infringements are intended. Also the song words used in this fanfic are Paramore's "emergency" and Pink's "It's all your fault".
Author's Note 1: In terms of Grey's storyline – this is set after their break up, in 7x07.
Author's Note 2: For the purpose of this fanfic the events of 6x10 happened before 6x08.
Beta: No beta was used while I wrote this, so all spelling and grammar mistakes are my own.
Reviews: Are much wanted please!
"I hold my breath" - It's all your fault by P!nk.
"Well I can't pretend that I don't see this" – Emergency by Paramore
Callie POV
A whole week. She had been lying in that bed for a week. Officially the line she had been spun was mandatory counselling. She had to see a counsellor every day for that week, which was dropped to three days the first week of release, then twice a week once she had returned to work. This was to continue until the counsellor thought she was ready and no longer needed the addition support. The first week it had been done so she could be released, the second so she could return to work, after that was so she could carry out operations. That was the official explanation, the unofficial reason she believed had been she was on suicide watch.
She wouldn't do it again. She knew that, and had tried to tell anyone who would listen. Rebecca Jones, the woman she had been referred to for counselling was nice enough. Oddly Rebecca looked like an older version of Addison, she had similar mannerism, and same curve of the mouth when she spoke. Callie had been quite surprised at how easy it was for her to talk to the woman. In the beginning she had talk to her because she had to; telling her things she knew the other woman would want to hear. Just going through the motions of a 50 minute hour session. However somewhere between the first session and maybe her sixth, something clicked and Callie actually opened up. Not just about her suicide attempt, not even just about Arizona, but things like her parents and older sister, her relationship with Mark and George. Even once she had spoken about Erica. Rebecca listened, nodded, smiled encouragingly and asked questions in all the right places, but not in a patronising manner.
She was talking, and yet the one person she wanted to talk to more than anyone else, wouldn't stay near enough for more than a few, few minute bursts. When she had been in hospital as a patient Mark and Lexie had come to see her, both as her doctors and as her friends. According to Mark, Lexie had taken the news of them sleeping together considerably well, though it wasn't something she had brought up with the older brunette. The day after Mark had told Lexie, the woman in question had appeared in her room as she had done the four previous mornings, but this time she had had the Latina's cell. Lexie had informed her that Arizona had moved her stuff out the hotel room, and Mark was now storing it at his apartment if there was anything she needed, Mark or herself could fetch it in.
From the small pieces of information she managed to get from Mark and Lexie, Arizona had been rehired by the Chief only this time under Stark. She felt sorry for the blonde she had heard from Alex what an ass he was, however the small piece of hope she clung to was no one knew if Stark would remain at the hospital once his current contract ran out. If he did he would have to work under Arizona, and hopefully this fact kept him for being too bad. Neither Mark or Lexie seemed to know where Arizona was staying, all three had made the assumption she was staying with Teddy. This assumption was made more possible by the warning to "stay away until both are you are ready to talk" she had received from the cardio surgeon on her one of the days she'd visited the hospital in her week off. She hadn't meant to end up on the PEDs floor the first time, somehow her feet had simply carried her, and she had been caught staring at the blonde by Teddy. Then whenever Arizona's floor paged ortho for consult, she made sure it was her who took it. She knew it was unfair, and wished she could actually accuse the blonde of avoiding her, but she was always with another patient.
There had been a few times where they had been at the nursing station at the same time, but Arizona only ever called her "Doctor Torres". It seemed that was all she was to her these days, a work colleague. However on one occasion she had come face to face with Arizona as she had been wiping the front of her white coat, which was covered in what looked like blood. They had quite literally been inches away from banging into each other. "Oh sorry … Calliope" the blonde had apologised before looking up, and it seem was then surprised to see who she had just nearly banged into. She had spoken to her, and the thing which made her heart dance was the fact it seemed the blonde hadn't noticed her slip in calling her by name. Not only her name, but her full name.
She couldn't deny that she was still upset and angry at the older woman for leaving her, something she quite frequently ended up crying and shouting about to an unfazed Rebecca Jones. However she genuinely believed if they talked, even if they screamed and shout at each other, saying all the horrible things they had been thinking, that they could work. She believed they could and would work out, if only she could get the blonde to stand still along enough and get her to talk.
She knew Arizona knew where Callie was staying, and who she was staying with. There was nothing kept secret in this place, everyone knew everything about everyone else. About half way through her week off, she had decided to go out. Just go for walk. She had to just get out of the apartment, stop looking at the same four walls. However as she had reached the street, she'd remembered she'd left her money on the side after she had bought pizza in the night before. On returning to her floor she saw the familiar blonde head dart into the apartment they had once owned. There stood Lexie surrounded by boxes. Lexie had then spun her some story about bringing the boxes over for the older blonde. Considered Callie had just the blonde in question sprint into the apartment opposite she knew this wasn't the case, but went along with it anyway. It seemed Arizona was now staying in their old apartment.
Every day this week she had walked out of 501, and had stood and looked at the blue door she had once called her own, and debated whether she should knock. Since neither Lexie nor Arizona had mentioned the other woman's present accommodation, she guessed she wasn't to know. But everyday it got a little bit harder to resist and to give Arizona the space she needed. It was even harder walking back passed the door on a night, knowing there was a woman on the other side who she would give anything to sleep with in her arms.
Then there was yesterday. She wished she hadn't been so happy about it, because poor little Penny had been in so pain, and had had to suffer. But it had meant that Callie had gotten to look at and be in the same room as Arizona for several hours. The only downside to this had been that Mark had been there too. Every so often she managed to catch Arizona's eye, there would be moment, which was then ruined by Mark talking to one of them. He wasn't doing it on purpose, everything Mark had "interrupted" with was medically related, but she had wished he wasn't there. They had been working in such a confined space, that more than once the women's hands would touch or they'd sweep past each other as they worked. At one point she was so close to her that she could smell the blonde's shampoo. It had been at this moment she realised who had been taking her shampoo and body wash. She had noticed it was going down every time she went back to her locker. She had at first been annoyed that someone had been taking it and had even tried hiding it underneath other objects in the locker. Only to find that when she went back there the bottles were at the front, with a little bit less in. This idea, the idea that Arizona was using Callie's shampoo and wash gave her hope, because perhaps it meant something to her, like the Latina's blanket did.
For the last half an hour Callie had been trying to find Arizona. There had been some abnormalities on Penny's blood work, but she couldn't for the life of her find the small blonde. Originally she had paged her, though because it had been her who paged, Arizona was ignoring it. Or that's what she had thought, because when she had gotten the PEDs reception to page her, the blonde still did not show. She knew the other surgeon was still meant to be working for at least another two hours, so she still had to be in the building. She had even looked in their usual on-call room and still hadn't found her. She considered finding Lexie and trying to get her in on the search and rescue, however she had been told by one of the interns that Arizona was in the locker room. Weirdly, and she wasn't sure why she hadn't thought of looking there in the first place.
Upon entering the small sized room, she hadn't seen the blonde; however she did hear a noise she recognised. Arizona was crying. Walking past the lockers that stood in the center of room enabled the blonde to come into sight. She kept forgetting that Arizona no longer owned the locker she had done for the last three years that she had been moved to around the corner. The blonde was sat on the short bench, head in her hands as she sobbed. She looked so defeated, small and lost. Callie didn't even hesitate, or question what she had to do, she just did it. She walked the small distance before crouching down in front of the bowed head, placing a hand on Arizona left knee causing her jump slightly and put pause in her crying for a moment. "Hey" the brunette reassured slightly rubbing the leg beneath her fingers. Arizona's head didn't rise, but the voice what spoke was raised and swamped with emotion, "Please Callie, I just can't do this right now…okay!" Arizona fingers dug their way into her face so tightly Callie could see them turning white.
Callie raised her own hands, pulling the smaller ones away from Arizona's scalp, though had to fight the blonde's strong grip. "I'm not doing anything. I just want to know if you're okay. Hey look at me", she encouraged again. It took several seconds for the blonde to comply with the request, and when she did, all Callie saw were Arizona's bloodshot crystal eyes shining with tears looking back at her. Still holding on to the delicate wrists of Arizona Robbins, Callie probed again, "Are you okay?" The blonde head shook and the Latina saw her bottom lip tremble, and she whimpered, "No". With that the blonde began to cry again, and Callie felt Arizona trying to move her arms so she could sit back into her original position. On instinct the Latina moved to sit on the bench beside the shorter woman. Rather than objecting to the move the blonde rested her head in the crook of Callie's neck and sobbed. Heart wrenching, soul destroying, primal sobs. All Callie could do was hold her. The small frame shook as she cried, and Callie could feel her shoulder getting wetter as time progressed.
They sat locked in this embrace for about ten minutes. Even after Arizona's tears had subsided, and her breathing was back to a rate that didn't have Callie worried she might need to run and get oxygen, Arizona hadn't moved. Occasionally a small shaky breath would tickle her neck, telling her that Arizona was still fighting her emotions. Arizona made to move, and not wanting to overcrowd her too much Callie let her. "You okay now?" the brunette asked. "No, not really. But I will be", came the response. "Do you want to talk about it?" Callie soothed optimistically. "Yeah, but not…" Arizona managed to answer, before Callie cut her off as realisation hit her. "I can get someone else if you want. Lexie or Teddy", she suggested. The blonde head shook, but didn't look in her direction, choosing to stare at the floor. "I'm just … I'm not ready. Not ready to talk yet", Arizona managed to say, though Callie could hear once again the tears slowly creeping into her voice. "Okay. Okay", she said rubbing the closer of Arizona's knees. Arizona didn't flinch or pull away. "You can talk to me though. When you're ready, if you need someone to talk to…" the Latina said with a lot confidence in her voice, than she felt.
Arizona stood causing Callie's arm to drop the few inches on the bench. She felt the familiar twinge in her wrist and managed to repress a hiss of pain. The blonde walked over to her locker, effective putting several feet between them. "Yeah. Thanks", came the mumbled response as Arizona started to rearrange the objects in her locker. Callie was sure it was more of a distraction, something to do, rather than looking or talking to her, because she had just moved the same bottle of water four times. It was a start, Arizona had said, when she was ready she'd talk to her. Callie made to open her mouth to speak again when the locker room door opened. Both women looked at each other, silently telling the other not to speak. This was soon pointless when they both heard Mark's voice say, "Robbins?" The eye roll and slight huff of annoyance in any other situation would have been cute, and rather sexy. Except Arizona at this moment in time looked as if she could kill, though her voice remained fairly level as she replied, "Yes?"
Mark's head poked its way around the end locker, and looked momentarily shocked as to who was sitting with the blonde. "Erm… you have some visitors" came Mark's slightly timid response, as if he didn't want to do anything that might anger Arizona. It was at this moment that two women, who looked to be in their mid thirties, came into view. There was a look of complete surprise and shock took over the blonde's features, which was then followed by a breath taking smile. The long haired brunette out of the two new women let out a small squeal and rushed at the PEDs surgeon who immediately flung her arms around the taller woman. Callie just sat opened mouthed at the change in demeanour these women had brought on. The other woman who was about the same height as Arizona, but whose shaggy blonde hair was cut quite short, stood leaned up against the locker nearest her. The new blonde grinned at Mark and gave him an over the top wink, which cause Mark to grin back. Callie shot him a glare; Mark looked momentarily worried, before making a vague gesture, turning and leaving. When the two hugging women had stopped embracing, Arizona's eyes drifted over to the casual blonde grinning. "You remembered me now", the new blonde said with a grin. "Oh shut up" Arizona shot back, before embracing this woman much as had done the first.
It was now the brunette's turn to lean against the locker behind her, though Callie did notice her shooting a look in her direction. "Before you make something up, you are coming out with us tonight", the spiky haired woman said. As predicted Arizona went to make some comment, properly about being busy. "We won't take no for answer, so don't even try. Now give me your key", the tall dark hair woman said, literally oozing "swagger" as she moved forward, hand out stretched. Arizona looked momentarily annoyed before, plunging her hand into her white coat, and pulled out the small silver key. "I live..." Arizona said before she was interrupted. "Yeah, yeah we know where you live. I expect you home no late than two hours from now", the new raven said with warning in her voice. The surgeon glared at her two visitors before giving in, "fine". "Yey" came the response from the woman now clutching Arizona's apartment key, instantly losing all swagger creditability. "Just go", the PEDs surgeon said with fake annoyance in her voice. Both women grinned at her, before walking passed her and out of sight. Just before the door closed signalling the intruders' exit, a voice called, "We'll pick your outfit. You'll look drop dead gorgeous!"
Arizona sighed deeply rubbing her eyes with one hand, while Callie was still sitting the same position she had been for the last twenty minutes or so, open mouthed. "Erm…" Callie said confusingly, effectively breaking Arizona's train of thought. "Oh god, sorry. That was Nikki and Joanne" Arizona gave in response. Joanne? As in first ever girlfriend of Arizona Robbins, Joanne? Her heart skipped a beat. Not sure which of the two women was Joanne made the feelings she was having much harder to deal with. Both women had been beautiful. Beautifully hot! And who was this Nikki person? She couldn't help but instantly picturing Arizona kissing both of them, and then felt sick. "Sorry, you came in here for some reason?" Arizona said. Looking into the blonde's face she saw the wall. The wall Arizona put up every time something was affecting her that she didn't want to deal with. She saw she had pulled away, and it made her heart sink, and stomach churn. With a tone full of determination, Callie said "Err… yes it was about Penny Gavin".