Hello Readers!

Sorry for the extremely long delay. I have been working on this chapter for over a month now. And I am still not done :( I have decided to split it up in to a few parts, in part because it is incredibly long. Also because I owe you guys an update. Anyway, here is Part 1. Part 2 will be coming soon. Please comment and let me know how you like it.

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There was a time I knew exactly what I wanted.

I was that young girl that daydreamed about her wedding day. I imagined walking down the aisle in a big white dress, with my beautiful bridemaids dressed in pink by my side. I imagined my future husband kissing me as we said "I do".

I daydreamed about marriage. Waking up in the morning with his arm draped around my waist. Making breakfast for him before work while he read the paper. Coming home to him starting dinner, maybe steak kabobs and sweet corn. Making love before falling asleep in one another's arms.

Most of all, I daydreamed about my children. 3 girls and 1 boy. Their dark complexions and curly black hair. Kissing their baby toes and sending them off to kindergarten. Watching them navigate through life with two adoring parents at their side. That, I wanted most of all.

So I fought for it. I married Owen, a good man, a strong man, a man whose ideal aligned with mine. A man who made sense. I thought the comfort, the security I felt with him was love. It was all I knew, then.

Years passed, he was gone. More than that, absent, because of the military. I coped, excelling in my career. I love being a doctor. Owen and I...we were okay. I thought that was enough for me. I thought my dreams were fulfilled. Or, close to fulfilled. I just needed my babies.

There are moments in life that define us. There's the before, and the after. The moments that change us on a fundamental level.

For me, it wasn't becoming a doctor. It wasn't marrying Owen. I'm ashamed to admit it, but it wasn't the birth of Sophia, though that was surely pivotal. No, it was the most common of days, in what was supposed to be the most common of moments. Walking out of the physician locker room to my first surgery of this ordinary day, when I saw her.

Arizona.

It was so instantaneous, the thing between us. At the time, I didn't know what had hit me. But I know, she felt it too. It was written all over her face. She never has been one to hide her facial expressions.

So that was it, the before me, who wanted all of these superficial titles and labels.

And there was the after me, who had to reconcile with the fact that all of those dreams paled in comparison to my love for Arizona.

I fought it for a while. Not long, it was too strong, this thing between her and I. I tried to ignore the way she tilted her head slightly to the side when she looked at me. I didn't want to acknowledge her longing gazes from across the OR. I resisted opening up to her, despite falling into her deep blue eyes every time we spoke.

I could have ignored her. I could have never invited her to the physician's lounge, or shown her that heart surgery. I could have sent her home right after my surgeries were complete, instead of having her hang around and chat with me as we finished up the charting. I could have treated her as every other physician treated their scribe; as if they were just an other person in my OR.

I was walking a fine line then. And as much as I was trying to tell myself then that I was 'just being nice' or 'helping out a young student', I knew, deep down, that it was so much more than that. Even then, I was flirting with the devil. I could still go back then, if I had wanted to.

But then she caught me dancing in my office.

I used to love dancing. I was in salsa dancing classes from diapers to high school. I would go to clubs in my early twenties, just to dance it off. I danced in my underwear regularly in medical school after a long day of sitting in class. Ironically, I had stopped my random dancing outbursts. Maybe it was because Owen looked embarrassed for me whenever I danced. I thought maybe I was just over a stage. But then Arizona came, and I was dancing again.

Instead of watching me dance with mild embarrassment and discomfort, she made me feel sexy, carefree. I hadn't been allowed to feel that way in so long. So we fell into a rhythm and I danced with her. At that time, I wasn't ready to admit that I was attracted to another woman, especially one ten years my junior.

But I still remember the look on her face that night in my office, bright eyed and nibbling on her lower lip. Her long blonde hair and perfect breasts bouncing to the beat. She told me later that when I ground my ass into her crotch, she almost lost her cool. I remember feeling the same way. How close were we to fucking each other right then and there? We will never know. But I am glad it didn't happen then. It would have been too much for that moment.

Something changed with that dance. Because it felt right. It felt real. And that was entirely the problem, it was now all too real.

I tried to cross back over that line. I wanted to go back to when we at least had a collegial facade. So I fired her.

I knew it wouldn't work. I knew one of us would return to the other, whether it was me begging her to come back or her begging for her job back. I didn't think it would be so soon. So as surprised as I was to see her the next day, nothing could prepare me for what we went through next.

It's hard for me to think back to that day. Some days, the guilt is too much to bear. Over and over, I go over what I could have done to prevent such a horrendous outcome. There are no easy solutions. There are no quick answers. But that tragic day will live with me for the rest of my life. It is my cross to bear.

So much occurred in such a short time frame. Arizona and I were still sorting through this complex dynamic that had just been added to our relationship before the shooting. Then suddenly, we were forced into a life or death situation. Arizona, ignoring every lockable door and every innocent life in her path until she found me. She saved me that day. I am forever grateful and she wouldn't do anything differently, but that doesn't make her guilt disappear either. Unlike me, she never fully allowed herself to digest the trauma we had gone through. To this day, there are nights she wakes up in a cold sweat, screaming for me to run. Those nights I hold her, like she held me in the medicine closet. We will always protect each other, she proved that to me that day.

The night and morning after the shooting, was the culmination of weeks of built up sexual attraction and hours of paralyzing fear, sprinkled with the grace of a near death experience. Not to mention we were alone for the first time since we had crossed paths. I didn't sleep that night. Instead, I watched her toss and turn, hoping she would move just an inch closer, within my reach. After hours of watching her, with no progress made in my direction, no hint that she was interested in more than sleeping, I put my hand out and traced her torso. Immediately, she stiffened but shortly returned my small attempt at contact. There was security in the darkness, I could feel her, touch her, without having to face the truth. I remember her pulling me close, feeling her breath on my lips. I wanted her in the most organic way a person can want another person. The desire hung thick in the air between us. I was almost there, ready to make that leap. But then the tears started falling before I could even comprehend them.

So I rolled over, leaving her alone with my wet tears still on her hands. And I realized what I crying for was more than what we had experience together the day before. I was subconsciously mourning the loss of how i thought my life was going to go.

In that moment, on some elementary level, I chose Arizona. In that moment, I disregarded my vows and my marriage. I disregarded my cheating, emotionally absent husband. I pushed down my desire for children and my future perfect family. I forgot about my career and my pride and my unremitting need to control every aspect of my life.

And I chose her.

I crossed another line I could never uncross.

I left my bathroom door open that morning, taunting her, inviting her to join me. It frightened me, how much I wanted her.

I lost my virginity to Owen towards the end of undergrad. It was nothing special, really. It was a Saturday night, we both had been drinking. We had hooked up before, but never had sex. That night, I told him I was ready. I anxiously awaited as he slipped the condom onto his erect penis, both of us laughing nervously. He asked if I was ready and I said yes. I thought it would be this mind blowing, life changing experience. But today, all I really remember was slight pain and the discomfort of something foreign thrusting in and out of me. I remember laying there thinking, this is it? This is what making love is supposed to be? There was nothing sexy about it. I rolled over after with an empty feeling in my stomach.

We had better sex, after years of practice. I got used to the grunting and the thrusting. Sometimes, it was nice simply because it was just to be close to someone.

My first time with Arizona, well there aren't words for it. This, I thought after, was what I have been missing out on. This is what sex is supposed to feel like. Never in my life has someone been so tuned into what made me moan, what made me wet. I felt cherished, adored, loved.

And Arizona, her hair pulled back and dripping down her wet back. Her bright blue eyes shining with desire. Her flat stomach, perky breasts and firm ass. She flipped a switch for me. A good looking woman, I had always appreciated in a physical sense. But this was different. Her naked body, I was so attracted to. Her womanly, soft features were more appealing to me than Owen's gruff face and chiseled muscles. It was unexpected, my physical attraction to another woman, but I embraced it. How could I not? I had the sexiest woman alive right in front of me, making me cum with the flick of her wrist.

The next few weeks were so complicated by my efforts to make things simple. While we were sorting through the grief and guilt over the shooting, our physical relationship took precedence. It felt so good, trying to make things as simple as they could be. When I was with Arizona, we were just two people who were crazy about each other, having amazing sex. We were getting to know each other too, but I kept her at arms length when it came to my marriage and Owen. I wasn't ready to let those different parts of my life intersect. I wanted to have it all.

It was selfish of me.

But at the same time, I needed that time with her. I lived for my time with Arizona. Because it was so simple, she was so simple. I had a beautiful, blonde, breathtakingly stunning woman right in front of me, who understood me unlike anyone else had before her. And she adored me. With her, I had it all. Almost.

The fact that I was cheating on my husband, breaking my vows, was something I wasn't ready to think seriously about. Whenever those thoughts bubbled to the surface, I suppressed them with justifications. He was checked out of our marriage, he was in love with another woman, etc etc. I wasn't ready to leave my wonderland.

Of course, something had to give. I didn't expect it to be Arizona half naked under my desk while Owen kissed me five feet from her, but I knew the time would come. I was teetering on the edge of a decision. But then she made it for me. She left me in my office, madder than hell. I didn't think she would come back. I didn't deserve her second chances.

Loneliness overwhelmed me so quickly I thought I was suffocating.

So I ran after Owen, pulled him into an on call room and had sex with him.

It had been months since we had even touched one another in a sexual way. I imagine my sudden, out of the blue advances took him by surprise. But he went along with it. Maybe he did it out of guilt and obligation. I will never know.

It was rough, forceful and emotionally painful. How had I pretended to enjoy sex with Owen for so long? Now that I had had Arizona's tender touch and soft body beneath mine, anyone else would never feel as good.

After, neither of us felt good about ourselves. Owen looked as guilty as I felt. How fucked up is that? A married couple, feeling guilty about sleeping with their spouse because of their love for their mistresses.

Little did I know, that one time, all precipitated by Arizona leaving me, my Sophia was conceived.

I never imagined my life to end up this way.

I went to Joe's that night, because Owen had to "work late". I just wanted to drink and forget about the mess I was in. And I missed Arizona so intensely that I needed to take the edge off.

Who would have thought I would see her there that night? It was both painful and comforting, watching her there. But I couldn't stop. She drew me in, intoxicated me.

Would she ever know how she moved me?

Would the universe ever stopped pulling us together?

There was a time during Owen and I's engagement, probably the peak of our relationship, when I saw another woman flirting with Owen. She was a cute, short, red headed nurse that he worked with regularly. I remember walking around a corner of the hospital, trying to find him so we could get coffee together, when I saw her hand on his arm, laughing obnoxiously at something he had said. There was a flicker in his eye, the excitement of doing something forbidden. I remember feeling my heart sink when I realized he wasn't going to pull away from her friendly touch. But, I turned around and walked away, shoving the whole encounter to the back of my brain.

Had they slept together? I doubt it. We were still sleeping together regularly at that point and like I said, we were relatively happy.

Even at the peak of Owen and I's relationship, that horrible feeling I had seeing him with that woman that day, was absolutely negligible compared to the blind rage I felt when I saw Arizona with Alex Karev.

And when he started to touch her against her drunken will, I lost my shit.

Like I said, we would always protect each other.

So I threw him to the ground and told him if he ever touched her again, that I would kill him with my bare hands. When he called me a crazy bitch, I told him not to mess with me. Remember, I said, I know our chief of surgery all too well. That shut him up, and I watched him scurry off to his next booty call.

Taking care of her that night wasn't a chore, it was a relief. I knew she extremely drunk, but safe and better yet, with me. I took great comfort in that.

I didn't expect what happened next. Her crawling on top of me, naked, extremely intoxicated, and telling me she was in love with me.

Those are words you can't take back.

Yet another line crossed.

But then, she passed out. It was like she had this mission to accomplish before she lost consciousness for the night. And that left me with a choice: ignore it, the much easier option, or acknowledge it.

I laid there most of the night, watching her breathe. She was beautiful, even with puke in her hair and booze coming out of her pores. I traced her outline with my finger tips, kissing the base of her neck ever so softly. Even then I knew, I loved her more than I had ever loved another person. It scared me. Again, everything I thought I was, everything I thought I would be, was shifted by this one person, this one beautiful woman laying right in front of me.

This one woman was going to blow up my life.

But that night, I didn't see her for what she could be, but for what she was. And what Arizona was, who Arizona is, is the girl with the brightest smile in the room. The girl with the brains to outwit most surgeons at Seattle Grace. The girl who loved harder and more fearlessly than anyone I had ever known. She was innocent, pure. She hadn't been scarred by the realities of life and medicine yet. She saw things through rose colored glasses. There were no obstacles in Arizona's eyes.

She loved me.

And I loved her.

So I told her more. I gave her more. Because I wanted us to be more.

She was never just a hook up. Arizona was never a just a distraction.

I loved her.

How could I take that away from her?

We had an amazing few weeks of us. Just us. We were having sex every spare twenty minutes we had. If we had less than twenty minutes, we usually tried to make do with that.

We bore our souls to one another. Not because it felt like the thing to do, but because our cohesion was such that I felt like we understood one another enough to do so. You know when people say "oh that person just gets me". Yeah, I never understood that until Arizona. But Arizona, she gets me. She feels how I feel before I can even feel it for myself. It's indescribable, but how do you describe a relationship with your soul mate? You can't. It just, is.

It was crazy and beautiful and everything felt so...indescribable. Our world was the world. At least, for a while.