CHAPTER 9

When your body's had enough of me

And I'm lying flat out on the floor

When you think I've loved you all I can

I'm gonna love you a little bit more

To say that Callie Torres was in shock was an understatement. She stared at the door she'd just shut. Arizona. Arizona was back. She was back and she was behind that blue door. Callie blinked and swallowed. But that speech the blonde just had made…it was both heart melting and was stirring the anger in Callie even more. So instead of dealing with the fact that Arizona Robbins no longer was in Africa but instead just outside that blue door, she just stood there.

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"Robbins? Is that really you?"

Arizona stiffened. Mark. It was Mark Sloan's voice. Suddenly she felt really embarrassed and very naked in the position she was in. Sitting on a floor, outside of an apartment, crying her eyes out was not a good place to be in of your name was Arizona Robbins.

"Hey, hey", Mark said softly and got on his knees and sank down beside the blonde.

Arizona looked up to him with tears in her eyes and apparently that was enough for Mark to get the point that asking questions was not the right time to do. So instead he took her by surprise and opened his arms for her to just crawl in to in an attempt to get some sort of comfort. He stroked her hair trying to soothe her and get her to stop crying.

"It's okay, it's okay" he said. "I take it that I don't even have to guess what just have happened here?"

"I'm so stupid", Arizona managed to get out between her sobs. "You of all people must think that I'm a real idiot with no heart at all."

"Well, I can't deny the stupid-idiot-thing", Mark replied and chuckled a bit. "But I KNOW that you have one of the biggest and warmest hearts on the face of this planet."

He let her go carefully and looked in to a pair of very sad, baby blue eyes.

"But you have to understand one thing", he continued. "Behind that door there is a very hurt, confused and angry woman. She has been struggling with the fact that she lost you. And not only losing you because in her point of view you left. You left her. Which leads me to my next question: What the hell were you thinking? I've seen you together for almost a year. You are not just two people killing time with each other. What you had was the real deal and I've never seen my friend so happy."

"Had?" Arizona whispered with a broken voice.

"Have", Mark corrected. What you two HAVE together.

Arizona managed to show him a small smile.

"I came back for her Mark. Only for her. In case you were wondering."

Mark laughed softly and gave the blonde his hand and helped her up from the floor so that they were standing in front of each other.

"It's not me you have to convince here."

"She clearly don't what to hear it", Arizona sighed. "She shut the door in my face."

Mark couldn't help but feeling sorry for the blonde. She obviously was and had been in the same that this whole time Callie had been in since Arizona left.

"Can you really blame her?" he asked very carefully.

"No."

It was a simple answer that didn't need to be explained further.

"You have to give her time. She has been abandoned to many times in her life when it comes to loving someone. O'Malley, Hahn, they have scarred her for life and even if you came along and deleted some of her insecurity she's still has a long way to go. And your job in the beginning is to show her that you only did not just came back but also you're here to stay."

"Thank you Mark…just, thank you." Arizona said in a small voice. "She has a very good and devoted friend in you. I'm so sorry that I haven't said that before."

Mark started to feel a little uncomfortable. Clearly, Callie hadn't mentioned the sex between him and her. He'd secretly been resistant from that idea from the beginning but he cared for Callie and his intensions with the sex had been to help her even though he knew that sex wasn't the way.

"I-I…uuhmm…you're welcome. Do you want to give it another try with her tonight? I can go in there and have a talk with her. Don't get your hopes up though. You know how stubborn she can be."

Arizona's smile grew a little wider.

"I don't know Mark. I just arrived from the airport. Maybe it's better for both of us if we postponed this for tomorrow."

Before Arizona had finished that sentence the door opened and a pair of big, brown eyes gazed with anger at both of them.

"I'll leave you to it" Mark said quickly and headed in the apartment and closed the door, leaving the two women alone in the hall.

"Callie…" Arizona started.

"Don't!" the brunette snapped. "I have nothing to say to you."

"But I have something I want to say to you", the blonde said with a clear voice.

The brunette rolled her eyes and it was clear to Arizona that she was in for a tough match.

"I love you", she said. "Despite what you think, I've never stopped loving you."

Callie just laughed sarcastically.

"Yeah, right. You showed perfectly clear what "I love you" means in your point of view when you left me alone on the airport and just took off to Africa."

"I-I'm sorry".

It was barely a whisper.

"Oh, so NOW you're sorry?

Callie felt the anger rush to the surface again.

"You have no right coming back telling me this. You hear me? NO right! I've been in pain for the last few weeks, I've been crying, hurting and on the edge every single day because clearly I thought that I at least could expect to hear something from you. I was willing to believe that I at least was worth a phone call, an email or just a text explaining this whole thing! But no. Nothing. All I got was nothing!

The brunette was screaming now.

"So you have no right to just waltz back in to my life and telling me that you're sorry! In fact there should be me telling you how damn sorry I am for letting you in to my life in the first place!"

"Callie…I'm not going back" Arizona interrupted. "I've talked to Chief Webber and I'm going back to work HERE again. I'm staying. And you're wrong…"

"I've slept with Mark! Callie blurted. "Yeah, you were right about not trusting me with Mark cause I ran to him the minute you left. He is my good man in a storm because I can count on him in that way I can't count on you. You've made that pretty clear."

Arizona had been having her suspicion about Callie could in fact been jumping right in to Mark's bed when she had left so she'd been prepared but she couldn't deny the fact that it was hurting her to hear that out loud. She tried to calm herself down but the look on her face revealed her true feelings about Callie's admission.

Much to Callie's dismay Arizona's obvious hurt to the fact that she'd been sleeping with Mark, got to her. It was then she felt like she had to get out of there, away from the blonde. Callie gave Arizona one last sad look and walked past her. Arizona let her. She was smart enough to know that if their conversation continued, one of them was going to say something they would've come to regret in the morning. Instead the blonde woman just sighed and let her shoulders drop and when she turned around Callie was gone.

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Callie walked around for hours trying to calm her self down. She thought that she'd be getting use to the mixed feelings by now but yet again, all kinds of feeling were surrounding her insides. She had been trying to hurt Arizona by saying that she had slept with Mark. It hadn't been her meaning to let that one slip like that. But Arizona just made her feel so angry and all she wanted to accomplish was to make Arizona Robbins feeling as hurt and angry as she was. Back at the apartment building she took the stairs back up again. It was with heavy steps she moved up in the stairs and suddenly she wished for some alone time. She missed her own apartment in that moment and stared longingly at the familiar blue door in front of Mark's. She was going to get it back in a couple of days though. She took a quick glance at her wrist at noticed the time. 23 PM. She had been walking around for about three hours. She opened the door and saw Mark standing behind the kitchen counter doing the dishes.

He smiled warmly.

"Are you okay?"

She just sighed.

"No. But I'm going to be."

"You sound pretty sure on that one", Mark said. "Does this mean you and Blondie had some good talking?"

Callie glared at him.

"I'm not in the mood for your stupid jokes right now."

"I'm sorry" he said quickly. I'm sorry."

"I'm going to bed", Callie informed.

"You have something on your bed. I think you would want to know what it is. I'll see you tomorrow."

He stepped up to Callie and gave her a soothing, friendly kiss on her forehead.

"Good night."

And with that he left her in the living room, quietly shutting the door to the bedroom. It was then Callie saw that he had made the bed on the couch for her again. And that it was a box standing on the pillow. She frowned and approached the box like she was afraid that it was going to jump up and bite her. It was a note placed on the box that read:

'You were wrong Calliope. I wasn't quiet. In fact I did write you. Every day.'

Callie swallowed hard and opened the box only to find 41 letters in envelops with her address on them. They were all handwritten.