Thanks for the reviews! Please keep reviewing and hope you enjoy the next chapter. Btw any lyrics used throughout the story are not my own (I'm no songwriter hahaha)
Arizona was furiously scribbling down anything that came to her mind regarding a romance song. It should have been easy for her, given her whole situation with Lauren. But she'd trained herself to block any feelings about Lauren from affecting her. Besides she was worried in case she did reveal her true feelings. Chances are they wouldn't be pretty and most definitely not the romance song Jo Wilson had in mind.
Arizona thought it was weird when Callie revealed the genre of the song, considering she was going to be doing a duet with Jo Wilson. Her mind went into overdrive and she wondered whether or not Jo Wilson had a crush on Callie. A secret google search revealed she was into men, which made Arizona sigh with relief for some unknown reason.
Arizona glanced up, expecting to see Callie Torres sitting in front of her pretending to play the piano. A couple of hours ago she was really playing the piano, which drove Arizona crazy and made her snap and say she couldn't write a song with all the distractions going on around her. But Callie wasn't in front of the piano anymore and suddenly Arizona was aware of the smell of homemade cooking that was wafting through the kitchen. Placing the notepad to the side, she made her way into the kitchen where she saw Callie preparing dinner.
"You cook" Arizona blurted out in surprise. Callie smiled at her as she checked the chicken in the oven.
"I cook" she confirmed. "I was going to ask whether or not you were a vegetarian but you seemed so focused"
"That's fine, I'm not a vegetarian" Arizona smiled. "I never expected someone like you to cook" she admitted, firmly believing that Callie was the sort to live on take-out and microwave meals.
"I've had a lot of time to learn" Callie replied. "Do you cook much?"
"I am a known disaster in the kitchen" Arizona laughed. "So no, I don't do much"
"Everyone can learn. Come and help me" Callie instructed.
"You know I should keep writing…" Arizona admitted, knowing she didn't have much already. Callie dismissed this immediately.
"I think you deserve a little break" she raised her eyebrows. Arizona obeyed her and came to stand right beside her. Callie made her cut up all different sorts of vegetables and season the potatoes with different herbs. They were rapidly running out of things to talk about, like you would if you invited a near stranger to live with you. Knowing this was the case, Callie decided to ask Arizona some details about her life.
"So do you live with your parents or?" she asked the first question.
"No no" Arizona laughed, hoping she didn't come off as the type of girl who lived with her parents aged 40 plus. "My parents don't live here, just me and my brother here"
"What made you decide to move away from your parents?" Callie asked.
"Nothing much" Arizona lied. "I didn't move far away for college so by the time college ended I wanted to move away. Tim had just returned from the army, his wife Beth was an army doctor. So I stayed with them for a little bit, found myself the odd job and then Beth got pregnant so I moved out" Arizona smiled, noticing that she was rambling on a little bit, but she knew Callie probably wanted to know things about her so technically she was fulfilling her wish. "Do your parents live close?"
"I haven't talked to my parents since I was in the band" Callie admitted, bringing out two separate pots, one for potatoes and one for the other vegetables.
"Really?" Arizona widened her eyes, unable to think of a life where she didn't keep in contact with her parents. "Why?"
"They didn't take the fact that I was gay too well" Callie shrugged. Arizona guessed it must have hurt her badly a long time ago, but now too much time had passed so the pain wasn't as raw.
"That sucks" she gave Callie a sympathetic smile. "My parents took it quite well and I'm grateful for that" she smiled. Her parents admitted they did already know but that nothing would ever change. Arizona wished it was like that for all people coming out to their parents.
Callie smiled, not having anything else to add.
"So did your band write all your own songs or did you hire lyricist's too?"
"No we wrote our own" Callie revealed. "Well, it was mostly Cristina and I who worked on them together. Meredith and Izzie were more focused on performing rather than the actual composition"
"So Cristina was lyrics and you were melody then? Otherwise, I wouldn't be here" Arizona laughed, placing the vegetables into the pot that now contained boiling water.
"Got it in one" Callie smiled. "So are you seeing anyone? I feel a little guilty asking you to drop everything immediately" she covered herself. She was interested in Arizona's relationship status.
"Not at the moment" Arizona replied. "I haven't been for a while, I guess I need to find a way back into love" she laughed, before a lightbulb went off in her head. Callie opened her mouth to respond but instead noticed Arizona's weird reaction. "Title" Arizona stuttered, immediately leaving the kitchen to retrieve her notepad. She came back into the kitchen and showed Callie to ask her opinion. "Way back into love" Arizona told her.
"Sounds good to me" Callie muttered watching the blonde brainstorm ideas of how people manage to find their way back into love. Callie continued stirring the vegetables and the potatoes seeing as it was obvious that Arizona had bigger things to worry about. Maybe Arizona could use her own experiences to form this song. Callie wasn't blind, there was something in her eyes that told Callie that she'd been hurt badly before. Callie knew the look because she'd been hurt badly before too. Determined not to think about Erica anymore, Callie kept glancing over Arizona's shoulder. She was impressed by the scribbles she saw on the paper, some of which confirmed her theory of Arizona getting hurt before. Knowing Arizona wouldn't be that personal with Callie, Callie decided not to question it. The dinner was done so she served up two platefuls. Maybe a good meal would give them both some inspiration.
They ate dinner in silence, both focusing on the meal in front of them than bothering to make small talk. Arizona was glad, she wanted as much silence to think about what to write in the song. She knew her own experiences would end up influencing the song, despite her best efforts not to let her past and present collide. Callie cleared the dishes away and put them into the dishwasher whilst Arizona watched, pen in hand. She glanced over at Callie a couple of times, not saying anything. Finally, Callie spoke.
"Why do you keep looking at me?" she questioned. Arizona went bright red but didn't apologize.
"I'm trying to get inspiration. So this song has to be something Jo Wilson would sing about?" Arizona asked.
"That's good. Yes I presume it would be"
"And it also has to be something you would sing about?" she questioned Callie further.
"I guess so" Callie added.
"So what do you sing about?" Arizona asked. She was familiar with some of Jo Wilson's songs thanks to them being overplayed by both the radio and Lena, but she hadn't bothered to search Callie's band and get a feel for their type of music.
"Whatever gets me the job really" Callie shrugged, having no real preference. Arizona widened her eyes.
"Oh, that's inspiring" she raised her eyebrows and clutched the pad close to her chest. She walked back into the living room and curled up on one of Callie's chairs.
Arizona was continuing to rack her brains about an hour later and still hadn't come up with anything that Callie could play to a melody. Which without Arizona writing any lyrics, she couldn't play a melody because Arizona found it so infuriating. Arizona was clicking her pen at an astonishing pace so Callie began to drum her fingers on the piano, her impatience beginning to get the better of her.
"You know it doesn't have to be perfect" she spoke to Arizona. "Just spit it out, they're just lyrics"
"Just lyrics?" Arizona questioned.
"I don't believe they are as important as a melody" Callie revealed. Arizona stood up, looking annoyed. Callie widened her eyes.
" I really don't think you get it Callie" Arizona made her way over to where Callie was sat and leaned over the piano, so much that Callie could see a lot of her chest. "Melodies are nice, they're pretty but they're also pretty simple"
"I beg your pardon" Callie questioned, wondering if Arizona was downplaying how hard it was to compose a melody.
"They are important" Arizona continued. "A melody is like meeting someone for the first time, there's that passion that sexual desire, it doesn't run deep because it doesn't have to. You write the lyrics because they are that person's story and everything about they're life. So I disagree with you, lyrics are the most important part of a song".
Callie struggled to disagree with the blonde again and noticed that she was staring down Arizona's chest. She couldn't help herself. She focused on looking at the piano instead, it appeared to be a lot less distracting.
"Let's go out" Callie blurted out.
"What?" Arizona looked as her as though she was crazy. "Callie, we're in the middle of writing a song here"
"Maybe being out and about will inspire us" she smiled, grabbing her coat and Arizona's. "Not much is getting done here, no offense"
Arizona decided not to rise to Callie's comment and took her coat from Callie. Maybe a little walk would do them both so good, they'd been cooped up in that apartment since Arizona arrived and she felt like she was going to start going crazy.
"So to cut a long story short, once Cristina left the band sort of fell apart. She had no problems leaving us behind, but for some reason going on without her just seemed unnatural"
"God Callie that's horrible" Arizona gave her a sympathetic smile. "How did you deal with that sort of betrayal?" she asked, hoping to get a feel for Callie's true feelings as if it would inspire her in any way.
"I admit I drank and partied a lot. I was young when I first got into the band, we had a reputation to uphold. I had a fiancé at the time who then left me. So alcohol soon became my vice"
"You were an alcoholic?"
"No" Callie said with such fierceness in her voice. "I didn't have a major problem with it. Anyway Mark stuck by me once Erica left. I struggled to make ends meet for a while until I recorded my own solo album"
"Cool" Arizona brightened up.
"It wasn't exactly a best-seller" Callie frowned. "But it gave me some extra funds. After that, I got booked for a couple of reunion shows and then after that people wanted to hear me again. The audience was older, as was I, but both of us were happy to see each other again"
Arizona stopped in front of Callie and turned to face her, giving her a smile.
"Thank you, for opening up to me. I know what it's like to live with a shadow overhead"
She pulled the same expression that she had in the kitchen when she was inspired. Callie was beginning to realize this was her lightbulb moment face. Without even thinking it through, Arizona grabbed Callie's hand, telling her she had an idea for some lyrics. Callie was pleased, it meant they were finally making progress. Arizona held her hand all the way back to the apartment. It amazed Callie how nice it felt to hold someone's hand again, even though she was 99% sure Arizona wasn't overthinking it like she was. Callie took a deep breath; it wasn't the time for feelings. Her career had to come first if she wanted to perform again.