Bittersweet Symphony

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I hope you enjoy this chapter.

CALLIOPE

She heard Addison saying something to Arizona, but it was as though the words echoed through her head, forming an incomprehensible noise.
Arizona answered. Although Callie didn't understand a word of it, she knew the message wasn't friendly.
The next moment Addison stared at her, as though she expected some reaction. She saw Addison's lips forming words, but she couldn't understand. She didn't want to understand. When Addison walked out the room she kept standing in the exact same position. Addison reached out her hand and she stared at it. She heard noise and guessed Addison was asking to follow her. She looked from the open hand to Arizona, who was standing with her body turned away from her. Callie had no idea at all what to do, so she kept hopelessly staring. The noise slowly disappeared and was followed by a silence. Although the circumstances were different, it felt as the same silence from the day she was about to close the door of the bedroom and give up on Arizona. Maybe it was the fear of making decisions that kept her bound to the floor. So she listened to the silence, hoping that somebody else would say something. Instead they kept standing in the same position. All three of them on a row, Arizona's body half turned away, Addison stretching her hand out and Callie standing between them, listening to the silence. She looked at Arizona, hoping she would suddenly apologise. When she turned her head 180° she saw Addison and Callie hoped that she would say something, tell her what to do. Instead the two other woman refused to take any decision, because the presence of the ominous silence told them that their actions would have great consequences. Eventually, when the thought of standing there seemed something she could do forever, Addison softly tried to grab her hand, but managed only to touch her fingertips. Callie looked at her, then to Arizona and thought it made no difference at all to her, so she carefully stepped towards Addison, without looking away from Arizona. Callie looked at the blonde woman. She had done this before, on the day she kept standing in front of the door… The process of leaving Arizona had started long before this silence and although it seemed they had solved their problems, the old frustrations kept lying beneath their kindness towards each other. So Callie did what she had tried to do before, the one thing she had never done, the one thing she had learned from Arizona: she ran away. She left her problems behind her. She walked towards the door and, different from her first attempt to flee, she succeeded. Her feet carried her away and the further she got, the less force Addison had to use to lead her.

Once outside that changed. With every inch she got further from Arizona an uncomfortable feeling within her started to grow. Callie started to think that maybe fleeing wasn't something for her. That there were people who were naturally good at it, who had this inborn talent for it, such as Arizona and that there were people like her, who were bound to stay close to their problems.
She was following Addison and stared at the way her hair moved when she walked, fearing she had just made the wrong decision. She had walked about 380 metres behind Addison and the horrible feeling was getting stronger. The thought that her place was in that apartment got stronger with every metre, although she feared of going back in, because that would mean she couldn't run away and she was caught. Caught like a meteorite in its orbit, circling around forever, unable to escape.
403 metres and the feeling was still there. Callie thought this should feel like freedom, but instead the horrible feeling was this omnipresent she was slightly panicking. She wondered how Arizona could do this over and over again. How she could have gone to Africa, while Callie was only 403 metres far and already had the feeling she would collapse. It made her fear she loved Arizona more than she loved her back. There is no thought more bittersweet than knowing you love somebody more than they love you… And although that thought was horrible, Callie had the feeling she had to turn around and go back, even though her love was bigger than Arizona's. She thought of George and thought that maybe it was just faith that she loved people more than they loved her back. And still she wanted to go back, even though she told herself not to. Callie didn't understand where this horrible feeling came from. Back in the apartment she had felt indifferent and right now this horrible feeling was swelling.
407 metres and her heart rushed and she had to concentrate to control her breathing. She had to force herself not to panic and kept following Addison, still staring at the movements her hair made in the wind. She had to go back in. No matter what. She just had to go in. Something within her told her she had to go back. When it struck her why she had that feeling, the Latina almost collapsed. She didn't understand how she could have forgotten…
"Sofia!" she yelled, and turned around, "Sofia!"

She ran this fast she almost fell twice on the staircases, refusing to wait for the elevator. No matter how many times she thought about the past few minutes, Callie still didn't understand how she could have forgotten about Sofia. How she didn't recognise the strongest feeling a person could ever feel.
Behind her she heard Addison trying to keep up with her. Although Addison probably had a much better condition, Callie knew she wouldn't catch up with her. This mad power that had taken control over her didn't stop because sprinting up staircases was dangerous and exhausting. Even though the door was still open, she slammed her whole body against it and rushed inside.
She saw Arizona from the corner of her eyes and walked straight to Sofia's room.
She noticed her wife was following her, but she didn't look around. She silently walked in the room. So silent she was surprised of the contrast it made with the power she opened the door.
"Morning Sofia!" she said happily, before quickly packing her daughters bag. The Latina could hardly believe how fast her movements were.
When Arizona finally arrived in the room, Callie had almost entirely packed Sofia's bag.
"What are you doing…" Arizona whispered. It didn't really sound as a question in Callie's ears.
When Addison entered the room, she was breathing heavily. "Where are your car keys?" she asked.
"The little green box on the kitchen table," Callie answered.
Half a minute later she met Addison back in the kitchen.
"I packed some of your stuff as well," Addison said, "it's not much but…"
Callie, who was carrying Sofia on her arm, gave her a small nod and hurried towards the door.
She knew that if it took them too long to get outside, Arizona would surely start a fight.

They were already walking in the corridor when her wife caught up on them, yelling: "Come back! You can't just take Sofia with you Callie! You don't have that right!"

Callie tried to escape from Arizona's grip, but although her wife had to balance on one leg, Callie couldn't get loose. She gave Addison, who was walking in front of her, a hopeless look.

"Where are you going?" she asked, her iron hands still around Callie's arms. Callie tried to move, escaping while holding a bag and a toddler wasn't easy.

"You can't do this…" Arizona said, looking in Callie's eyes. Although her voice sounded aggressive, Callie saw in the bright blue eyes that her wife was scared.

"I told you that a million times," Callie answered calmly: "that you couldn't leave for Africa, that you couldn't just sit in the bedroom for whole days, but you did it anyway…"

"Don't!" Arizona said while Callie tried to turn around.

"Let me go, Arizona," Callie said, looking at the hands around her arms.

"You can't just leave and take Sofia with you!" she said loudly.

Sofia was startled and tried to escape from Callie's arms. "Stop yelling, Arizona. I don't want Sofia to hear us fighting!" the Latina said, also in a not calm way.

"You can't take her, Callie!"

The toddler started to scream and wrestle in Callie's arms, but Addison quickly walked to Callie and carried the little girl to the car, while her parents were still arguing in the hallway. Addison heard doors opening, Callie was angrily speaking Spanish, Arizona was yelling and Addison could hear Joanne's voice. While walking down Addison thought the her head would split because of the horrible noise they made.

While swearing in Spanish, Callie looked at the other two woman. Seconds ago Joanne had appeared and something within Callie had snapped. She had managed to get out of Arizona's grip and she had pushed her wife, using the same force from the moment she had discovered that Sofia was still in the apartment. Arizona was slammed against the wall, causing a loud bang when her head hit the wall.
Joanne had pushed Callie back from Arizona when she wanted to go closer to see if the injury was bad. She meant to push Arizona, but not to harm her in that way, so when she saw the blood streaming out of her wife's nose she immediately regretted her actions. When she stepped closer, Joanne pushed her away and came standing in front of Arizona, saying she would take care of that.
When Callie insisted, Joanne yelled that she had to step back, but Callie tried to get through, threatening the other woman in Spanish, ignoring her accusations. But when she heard Arizona's voice, almost broken, Callie stopped.

"Go away, Callie… Just go away…"

The Latina looked past the other woman's shoulders at her wife, whose face and hands were covered in blood. Seeing the tears mixing with the blood, Callie obeyed her wife.

"I didn't mean…" she muttered, but Arizona repeated: "Go…"

Back in the car she looked in front of her, while Addison was driving her way to the airport. She felt empty at the moment. As though her body was hollow. She kept staring in front of her, not really looking at the traffic. She had no thoughts at all and for the first time in her life Callie felt as though her body somehow wasn't her own. That she could just walk out of it and leave it there, sitting at the passenger's seat. She had deliberately stopped thinking, because the flow of thoughts was too much for her. She knew she would collapse if she allowed them in.

Addison gave her a cup of coffee. Callie thankfully accepted it while she was staring at the airplanes with Sofia on her lap.
"Our flight leaves within three hours," Addison said, giving her a worried look.
Callie gave her a small nod and kept pointing at all the airplanes outside. Sofia often pointed to one and said the name of its colour. It made Callie laugh how the closest ones were all blue in Sofia's opinion and how her daughter kept missing. She corrected her daughter, while pointing at the airplanes.
"Everything will be fine," Addison said, taking place next to her.
Callie noticed that every time somebody said that to her, something horrible had just happened. Probably was "everything will be fine" a way of saying: you survived the worst part, but now you have to climb out of the valley…
She placed a soft kiss on Sofia's head, saying: "We're going to a holiday to L.A."
Sofia turned around and stared at her with those tender brown eyes of her and tried to imitate her mother: El ey?"
Callie laughed at the attempt of her daughter: "Yes, L.A, where Addie lives…"
Sofia turned her head to Addison, while Callie kept staring at the airplanes in the attempt to keep her thoughts calm.

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