Thank you for your feedback and reviews, I really appreciate hearing from you. I'll post a few more chapters to see if it's worth it for you guys and you're interested in me progressing forward. If it sucks, I'm sorry.
There's only one more short chapter after this, then I promise much meatier chapters will follow. (Is there a reader preference on size of chapters?) The short chapters are just to set up the story. Callie and Arizona will meet again soon enough, I promise. Also after I introduce all of the children, I'll post a chart at the end of that chapter for you to follow the children. I have one next to me while I write to keep things in order so I imagine reading can be just as confusing.
To answer the guest question about Arizona's age, she's 48.
Beta help, please?
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Benjamin was giving her the silent treatment, Molly was trying to dress her up as a teenager going Lord knows where, and the twins were currently chasing the rest of their siblings around the house with Nerf guns Owen had given them on their last birthday all while her mother remained suspiciously quiet in the background.
"Molly Quinn Robbins, I hope this is some repressed childhood lack of Barbies thing for you and that you don't think dressing this way is at all acceptable because if I ever catch you dressed in this manner for any reason you can be sure I'll send you to an all-girls college after you finish up your last two years at an all-girl military academy." Arizona threatened her 17-year-old daughter.
She laughed in Arizona's face. "That's a wild assumption that I'm straight, Mom, and insulting you aren't open minded enough to imagine you have any gay children. Coming from a lesbian, that's rich." Molly was Arizona's most trying child. She was the perfect likeness to Angela and was everything that made Arizona fall in love with her wife. And everything that made her want to murder her wife, too. Molly gave Arizona the most sleepless nights and back talk, but she wouldn't trade her for a well behaved and polite child, not for anything.
"I assume your grandmother catching you kissing the new neighbor boy was your experimentation with heterosexuality then?" Arizona smirked as blush grew on her daughter's cheeks. Yes, she knew about her daughter's welcome to the neighborhood. She might have strict dating rules, as in, "Hello, I'm an Admiral in the US Coast Guard and I know just where the sharks feed, specifically their feeding frenzy times, so when I say 9 p.m. curfew, I mean not a minute past," but she knew her daughter's type and it did not come with breasts.
Molly sent her an evil look.
"Look, we are just going to dinner at a very nice restaurant, nothing extraordinary or special which would require something with more … flare." Arizona tried to explain why a short dress from her daughter's closet and her knee-high boots weren't acceptable.
"You're allowed to go out and have fun, Mom. Mama wouldn't want you to sit around the house every night pining over her. She said you loved with the biggest heart she'd ever seen and that it would be a shame to not share that love again." Molly grew serious, something Angela could do in any situation when it called for it, go from one extreme to the voice of reason.
"I am going out, Molly." Arizona tried to smile.
"Only because Hunt didn't give you a choice. You'd have never done this without whatever it is he blackmailed you with. Mom, I'm serious. Mama didn't want you to have to keep suffering. She loved you so much she wants you to find that again."
Arizona knew Molly wasn't just speaking what she knew was needed, they were words from her wife's mouth. Words she'd heard a bunch of times before Angela passed away and now, it was obviously Molly's job to keep reminding her.
"I'm trying." Arizona's voice hitched. "But it's not like everybody here is happy about this anyway."
"Gram isn't unhappy, she's just worried about you getting your heart broken again. And Benny will figure it out, he thinks he's supposed to take care of you and protect you and you are now going out to replace him. He's 18, he thinks he has to be your right-hand man. And the kids don't really get it and they don't have to yet. Until you bring someone home and then God save them." Molly chuckled when she saw her mom's expression soften.
"When did you get so wise, Kiddo?"
"I'm seventeen, Mom!"
"I love you. Make sure you're in bed on time." Arizona reminded her as she pulled at the hem of her dress. She felt exposed and nervous.
"Do I need to remind you about curfew?" Molly teased as if her straight-edge, by the books, Admiral-mom would ever need to be reminded of rules.
Arizona laughed. "When have I ever done anything spontaneous?"
To be continued . . .
