"Look, no one is even staring at us,"Meredith replies at lunch the next day. "They don't even care, I have to say, I'm a little disappointed," she says laughing.
Arizona is sipping her tea and smiles at her, then looks around quickly and sets her cup down and says, "Good, then I can do this," she leans forward and kisses her lightly on the lips.
"You can do that anywhere, anytime," Meredith says playfully.
"Good to know," Arizona says winking at her and sitting back in her chair.
"Hey, can I join you?" Callie asks before sitting down.
"Now they're staring!" Meredith laughs as she glances around.
"What?" Callie asks confused.
"Meredith has been disappointed that no one cares that we're seeing each other," Arizona explains.
"But now that you're sitting here, interest is up," Meredith says amused.
"Uh, you both are the talk of the hospital." Callie remarks.
"We are?" Meredith asks excitedly.
"Uh, yeah. I guess that's why Bailey sent out the email." Callie explains.
"What email?" Arizona and Meredith ask in unison.
"You guys didn't see the email?" Callie asks surprised. She pulls it up on her phone, "Here," she says handing her phone over for them to read.
"Did you ever talk to Richard yesterday?" Arizona asks Meredith as she hands Callie back her phone.
"No, did you?" Meredith replies.
"No." Arizona says, "I don't understand, no one really cared when we started dating," she says to Callie.
"Uh, they cared," Callie reminds her. "But I wasn't exactly straight, they'd already seen me with Erica and they hated Erica."
"Okay, why would Bailey not tell us about a Diversity Seminar? Meredith asks.
"I don't know, maybe you should ask her." Callie replies.
Meredith and Arizona exchange glances as both of their phones buzz at the same time.
"Bailey wants to see me at 4 pm," Meredith reads hers first.
"Same," Arizona replies setting her phone down. "Guess we'll find out at 4," she says taking another sip of her drink.
Entering Bailey's office, Arizona is surprised to see Carol from HR there.
"Where's Grey?" Bailey asks.
"Right here," Meredith says entering the office right behind Arizona.
"Sit, both of you. Carol and I need to go over a few things with you," Miranda explains.
"Okay, but you do realize that we are both department heads, so the relationship contract doesn't apply," Meredith points out.
"This isn't about the relationship contract Dr Grey, it's about diversity awareness," Carol replies.
"Diversity awareness?" Arizona asks. "I wasn't aware that we had any diversity issues," she remarks.
"Oh, we don't have any issues. But we also don't want any issues and now that we have a prominent same-sex couple in the hospital again, I wanted to schedule the Diversity awareness program, it will address issues pertaining to co-workers as well as patients. It's long overdue in my opinion," Carol adds.
"Why did you send out an email about this and exclude us?" Meredith asks.
"The email was sent prematurely," Carol says looking over at Dr Bailey. "We excluded you both because we wanted to ask you to speak during the program."
"I'll speak, I've done this before. In fact, do you want additional speakers?" Arizona asks. "I volunteer at the LGBT Youth crisis center, I'm sure that I could line up all kinds of speakers for this. And I agree that it's very important that our staff be aware of the issues that face the LGBT community, but this is all new to Meredith, it's not really fair to ask her to speak."
"But what if I have something to say?" Meredith asks the women in the room. Then turning to her girlfriend, "Arizona you don't speak for me and you need to stop trying to protect me."
Arizona turns to Meredith and touches her shoulder, "I just.."
Shrugging off Arizona's touch, Meredith turns to Miranda, "Dr Bailey, I'll speak. I'd be honored to speak. Now is that all? I need to get my children out of daycare."
Arizona looks at the other two women, then turns to follow Meredith into her office.
"I'm sorry," the blonde says closing the door behind her.
"I'm in this. Stop trying to protect me from it." Meredith says angrily.
"Okay, you're right." Arizona replies smiling at her.
"I am right," Meredith says surprised the blonde gave up so easily. "Was this our first fight?"
"That depends on when we started dating," Arizona says laughing.
"Oh right, we've kind of been fighting for a month," Meredith says amused, "And I'm still winning," she adds moving in to kiss the blonde.
"I seem to benefit from letting you win," Arizona replies playfully returning the kiss.
"You're learning," Meredith says deepening the kiss.
"Uh, kids. Daycare." Arizona says pulling back.
"I was bluffing. Maggie's taking them home tonight." Meredith says reaching behind the blonde and locking the door and wrapping her arms around her again.
Kissing her again, Arizona mumbles, "Hmm, shame your office doesn't have a couch."
"There's an on-call room right across the hall though," Meredith replies barely breaking the kiss.
Arizona pulls away and looks at her a moment, "Tempting, but our first time isn't going to happen in the hospital or on a couch."
"You talk big Robbins," Meredith says nibbling on her ear. "Maybe we should just go to your place now?"
"I have Sofia tonight," Arizona says gently pushing her away. "I switched with Callie," she explains.
"Hmm, children free on New Year's Eve," Meredith says, her eyes twinkling. "I think I know the perfect way to start the new year," Meredith says kissing her again.
Breaking off the kiss before they get too carried away, Arizona remembers that she has something to give Meredith. "Hey, I wanted to give you this," Arizona says pulling a house key out of the pocket of her scrubs.
Meredith looks in her hand, "Wow, lesbians do move fast!" she teases and winks at the blonde.
"It's for tomorrow night, in case we don't leave here at the same time," Arizona explains, "we are still both getting ready at my place, right?"
Meredith's pager goes off, "Damn, it's the ER," she says glancing at it. "And yes were are."
"You need to go, and I need to go get Sofia from daycare, she has dance class tonight," Arizona says reluctantly breaking the embrace.
They leave the office and walk towards the elevator holding hands, Arizona pushes the button and the doors open right up to an empty car. They enter it and as soon as the doors close, Meredith kisses her again.
They break the kiss just as the doors open. Cross and DeLuca enter nervously and keep their eyes forward.
The doors open again and Arizona turns back to Meredith, "Bye, I'll call you later," she says.
"Wait, I'll walk you out," Meredith says after reading a text from Warren.
"I thought you were paged to the ER," Arizona asks.
"It's a consult, Warren's already there," she says slipping her phone back into her pocket and taking Arizona's arm. "I have time to say goodbye," she says pushing the blonde against the wall.
"The only thing better than saying goodbye to you, is saying hello," Arizona says laughing into the kiss.
"I was just thinking the same thing," Meredith says as her pager goes off. "Damn," she exclaims.
"Go, I'll see you later." Arizona says watching her run down the hall.
Sofia's dance class went a little longer than usual, so Arizona stopped for take out on the way home. Entering the house with her hands full and trying to herd the dancing child, Arizona is a little distracted. But as she sets down their dinner and walks over to hang up her coat and help Sofia remove her coat and boots, she realizes that something feels off. She turns on the overhead light and there in the middle of the kitchen island is a vase of red roses and a small box. She recognizes the box, it's the gift that Meredith tried to give her at Christmas, but she wouldn't accept it.
"Sofia, go wash your hands for dinner," she instructs the little girl.
Curiously Arizona walks over to the box and picks it up and unwraps it. It is a piece of costume jewelry that she can't imagine ever wearing, a small single stem rose pin. Utterly confused, she looks in the box but there's no note.
Still not getting it, Arizona sets it back down.
As she and Sofia eat their dinner her mind wanders back to the flowers and gift. What in the world is this about, she wonders.
Finally, she gets Sofia put to bed and pours herself a glass of wine and sits down on the couch to watch TV before bed.
As she scrolls through the list of programs on the DVR, she realizes what Meredith's gift is about, so she goes over to the vase and counts the roses, there are eleven, plus the pin makes 12. Laughing now, she picks up her phone to call her.
"Hi," Meredith says waiting to see what Arizona's reaction is to the gift.
"Hello, it would seem that you've already used the key?" she asks amused.
"Maybe," Meredith replies nervously.
"So this is either the oddest gift that I've ever received or the cleverest," Arizona says laughing. "And proof that you snooped in my DVR!" she teases.
"There was no snooping! You were sick and Sofia and I were looking for something to watch," she exclaims. "Besides you should be glad that I found that pin, I was considering buying you a Bachelor box set, there's a Christmas edition," Meredith teases.
"Wait, this pin is what you were going to give me in your room on Christmas Eve?" Arizona asks.
"Yes, until you ruined it!" Meredith exclaims.
"But I was only getting one rose then?" Arizona asks playfully.
"It was early in the show, now you've earned them all," Meredith teases.
They both laugh and then Arizona says, "Thank you. You're amazing and I love it."