Arizona was standing at the nurses' station going over her patients' charts before starting her rounds when she heard her favorite sound in the whole world, "Mommy," and turned to see her favorite person running towards her. Laughing when her daughter ran right into her and wrapped her arms around the tops of her legs, she declared, "Well it looks like someone is feeling better." The little girl looked up to see her mommy and said, "It still hurts a little bit, I think it needs a mommy kiss." Arizona's smile lit up her face as she asked, "You do huh?" Sofia nodded her head and Arizona bent down and made an exaggerated kissing noise as she softly pressed her lips just to the side of her daughter's cut. Standing up she asked, "There, how's that?" The little brunette nodded and replied, "Much better." Hearing a clearing of a throat, Arizona looked up and saw her ex-wife standing several feet away, nervously biting on the inside of her cheek and shaking her leg. Arizona wondered what this was about since Callie usually seemed so aloof around her. Raising her brow in question, she waited for the other woman to say what she had to say.

Callie stood back and watched while her daughter took off running to her other mother and her breath hitched when she saw the blonde turn and that super-magic smile, complete with dimples bloomed across her face. She couldn't remember the last time she saw a genuine smile come from her ex-wife, though she had to admit, their paths didn't cross often. In that moment though, she couldn't help but think about a time when that smile was reserved especially for her. She watched while the woman who didn't want children softened instantly and turned from hardcore surgeon to loving nurturing mom in a millisecond. She felt a small pain in her chest when she recalled how many times in their last year of marriage she threw that particular argument in her wife's face when it was clear she was a mother the minute she heard the baby's first heartbeat. Clearing her throat to get past the lump that had formed there, she waited until she had Arizona's attention, then nearly forgot what she was going to say when she looked into those sparkling cerulean blue eyes that seemed to lose their shine once they focused on her. Taking a deep breath she suggested, "We ah, we were on our way up to daycare and I thought um, I thought you'd want to see her and maybe check her over before she went up."

Surprised by both the thoughtfulness and the request, Arizona nodded, looked down at her daughter and declared, "I always have time for my favorite patient. Please step into my office Ms. Sofia." The little girl giggled and skipped down the hall to her mommy's office, stopping in her tracks when she heard two voices call out, "Walk please." Both women looked at one another for a brief moment, then Arizona nodded toward her office, silently inviting Callie to join them. She didn't have much to say to her ex-wife and was still kicking herself for her little outburst, but she was starting to feel like something she said, or something that happened yesterday made the stubborn woman behind her change her behavior towards her. She stood at the door, let Callie in first, then told her young patient, "Have a seat on the couch please." The little girl giggled, replied, "Yes, Dr. Robbins," and sat on the couch as she was asked.

Arizona pulled up a chair, reached into the front pocket of her white coat and pulled out the pen light. Before she could lift it to her daughter's eyes, the little girl interrupted, "Aren't you apposed to listen to my heart first?" Arizona sucked her lips between her teeth, widened her eyes and answered, "Oh my goodness, where is my head? Of course I'm SUpposed to listen to your heart first." She made sure to place the emphasis on the word her daughter pronounced incorrectly, then pulled her pink stethoscope from around her neck, put the earpieces in her ears and placed the chest piece on her little button nose. Furrowing her brow and pursing her lips, she claimed, "Good thing you made me listen to your heart, I don't hear a heartbeat. I think we need to call Aunt Maggie." Sofia giggled, took her mommy's hand, moved it to her chest and explained, "That was my nose. Do you hear it now?" Arizona nodded her head and replied, "Whew, much better! I was worried for a minute there." She placed the stethoscope back around her neck, picked up her penlight and instructed, "Follow the light with your eyes please." The little girl nodded and Arizona sighed in relief when she saw her daughter's pupils weren't dilated and there was no delay in reaction as she moved the light. Holding the light still for a brief second, she turned it off then proclaimed, "WOW!" Sofia and Callie both asked, "What?" at the same time, making Arizona smirk and reply, "Your reaction is great, no sign of concussion, but I think your brain got bigger from all that learning you are doing in school." Callie's entire body relaxed, she put her hand on her heart and declared, "Oh my god, you scared me." Arizona could see the panic on the other woman's face and replied, "Sorry." Callie smirked and answered, "You still suck at jokes." Sofia snickered and said, "I thought it was funny. Can I go to daycare now?" Arizona nodded, tapped her daughter's leg and replied, "You sure can big girl."

Before they left the room, Callie looked at her daughter and asked, "Sofia, can you wait outside for mama for just a minute please?" Arizona took a deep breath, she had no idea what was coming, but she was sure she wasn't going to like it. She was absolutely positive when she watched Callie close the door. She opened her mouth to make an excuse about needing to see a patient when Callie proclaimed, "Arizona, I'm really sorry I brought you into that whole thing yesterday. Our focus should have been on Sofia…I mean, yours was, until I, I shouldn't have brought you into it." Arizona stared at her ex-wife in disbelief. This most certainly wasn't what she expected. She thought for sure she was going to be scolded for feeling the way she felt and that it wasn't Callie's responsibility that she felt that way. Her thoughts were interrupted when Callie continued, "As for some of the other things you said…um and I said, if you would be okay with it…I mean it doesn't have to be right away, but I'd like us to talk about it. A lot was said and I just…" Arizona held up her hand and interrupted, "Nothing will get back to Penny, Callie you know I'm not that person." Callie shook her head and clarified, "No, no, this is about you and me…I mean, I'd like to start clearing the air if we can." Again Arizona was caught off guard and didn't really have an answer. She knew it was a dirty thing to do, but she needed to test her ex-wife's patience and sincerity and replied, "I'll think about it. I mean, it's been so long, I don't know if it even matters now." She watched as her ex-wife's face dropped and she solemnly replied, "I uh…okay. That's fair enough. But I wish you'd at least consider it."

Arizona was perplexed. That wasn't the answer she expected at all and just because in her mind Callie passed that little test, she gave her a half smile and offered, "Thank you for apologizing and I will. I'll consider it. I shouldn't have said it doesn't matter. We share a child and have an entire lifetime of being in the same room together. I'd like it to be more comfortable than it is now." Callie smiled in return, that's all she could ask right now. When she turned to leave, she put her hands in her pockets, felt the small box and exclaimed, "Oh! I almost forgot. Uh, Sof was sleeping with me in the guest room and I had a bit of trouble sleeping. I um, I wandered into the other room and was looking for a pen and found this in your…uh in the bedside table." She pulled out the small white box and watched as Arizona's face paled and she swallowed thickly while staring at the box making no move to take it from her. She could see her ex-wife was fighting back tears and added, "Um, I didn't open it, I swear. But it says Gma Robbins and I'm guessing it belonged to your grandmother and I just thought, um…maybe you forgot it." Arizona stared at the box for a moment, reached out a shaky hand to take it, then croaked out, "Th…thank you." That's all she could get out before she turned away. Knowing whatever was in that box held some kind of sentimental value for the other woman and she was near tears, which she hated to shed in front of anyone else, Callie quietly left the room.

XXXX

The rest of the day turned out to be a strange game of hide and seek. Penny was looking for Callie, Callie kept slipping into patient rooms, storage closets, on-call rooms, and once into Bailey's office to avoid her, and Arizona was avoiding both of them. At one point, Bailey was sitting in the cafeteria having lunch with her former chief and mentor Richard Webber when they watched as the red-headed resident walked into the cafeteria, headed straight to the table where the Chief of Ortho was sitting, leaned down to kiss her and watched as Callie turned her head to allow her to kiss her on the cheek instead. Bailey and Webber looked up just in time to see Arizona appear in the doorway, watch the scene and disappear just as quickly. Then they watched as Callie looked down at her pager, stood up, threw her garbage away, then walked up to their table and greeted, "Hey Bailey, hey Webber. I uh, I just wanted to let you know that Sofia is doing well. I kept her home from school today though. She's up in the daycare." Miranda eyed her suspiciously and asked, "Didn't you just get paged? Callie looked down at her pager, furrowed her brow, remembered she used the excuse to get away from Penny, then replied, "Uh yeah, right…right. I uh, I should go." She took off out the door at a sprint. Webber looked at Miranda and asked, "What was that all about?" The chief shook her head and responded, "I have no idea, but I have a feeling my hospital is about to get turned upside down." Webber took a sip of his coffee and replied, "Bout damn time." Bailey laughed, lifted her smoothie as if to raise it in a toast, agreeing with his statement.

XXXX

At the end of her shift, Callie paced her lab, building up the courage for what she was about to do. After the events of the past couple of days, making her list, her conversation with Arizona this morning, and a lot of soul searching, she finally realized what she wanted, what she needed, so she paged Penny and just hoped she would respond and meet her here. She left her wife so they could both find themselves again, so they could both love themselves and together love and focus on Sofia. She wanted them to focus on their careers, become the people and the doctors they wanted to be, to find happiness for themselves again. They were both just so angry all the time. She started dating again, she had that right, she was free, then she found Penny and everything else was put aside. She couldn't keep her girlfriend waiting any longer. She went through the list she wrote out last night in her mind and thought of everything she needed to say, everything she wanted to say and knew she just needed to finally allow herself the chance she was searching for when she walked out of Dr. Dawson's office two years ago.

When the door opened revealing her girlfriend, she took a deep breath, knowing the other woman was already angry at her and this wasn't going to be easy. Penny walked into her girlfriend's lab, closed the door and leaned against it. She almost didn't answer the page…almost. She didn't know if she was more hurt or angry that Callie had been avoiding her all day, but she was hoping to get some answers now. By the nervous look on her beautiful face, she was nearly certain it was going to be the answer she wanted to hear. Maybe Callie just needed some time away from her to gather her thoughts, to think about what she wanted before she told her she loved her. Until she got an apology and heard the words though, she would stay right here by the door.

Callie realized Penny was waiting for her to talk and blurted, "I've been avoiding you." Penny scoffed, "Really? I didn't notice." Callie cringed and replied, "I'm sorry, that didn't come out right. I needed some time to think about everything and it's not really easy to get that time when we see each other every day at work." Penny nodded, that made sense. Callie started again and explained, "When you told me you loved me, I, I panicked. I need you to understand, there's only one person who's said that to me for 6 of the past 8 years and it just, it came so naturally to you and I…I didn't know how to respond." Penny closed her eyes; she was almost sure she wasn't going to hear those words now and just wanted to walk away. Callie's voice softened as she continued, "I've always jumped without thinking things through. I left my marriage for a few reasons, but I've come to realize that maybe I…I think I tried to put myself out there too soon. I didn't do some of the things that I wanted or needed to do for me before I tried to bring another person into my life and I don't want to make the same mistakes." Penny had tears running down her cheeks as she realized not only was she not getting the 'I love you' she expected, but she was being dumped. Closing her eyes, she sighed and commanded sharply, "Just rip the band-aid off Callie." Callie nodded her head and replied, "I'm sorry I hurt you Penny, I really thought I was ready, but I'm not and I don't think we should see each other anymore." Callie rubbed her hand over her face. She felt horrible for the other woman, she hated seeing her cry, but she felt even worse because her only regret, the only thing she felt was guilt for leading her on when a large part of her knew she wasn't ready. She just wanted to be ready. That year before she started dating was the longest she'd been single since she was a teenager and at that very moment, she realized that was part of her problem. She always felt she needed someone else to make her happy.

Penny stood by the door for a moment and let Callie's words sink in. Starting to feel the anger, she snapped, "So you were just leading me on? Just what…I was the rebound? Dipping your toes in the dating pool again to see if the temperature was right yet?" Callie shook her head and started to argue, "No, it's not like that. I really enjoyed our time together it's just I don't know when I'll be in the same place you are and it's not fair to you. You said you would wait, but I have no idea how long you would be waiting Penny. All of this, it just made me realize that I need to work on me." Penny scoffed and replied, "You sure as hell do!" She opened the door, turned and looked at Callie then proclaimed, "Just know, when you do figure your shit out, I won't be here waiting for you." Callie nodded in understanding then watched as her now ex-girlfriend stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

XXXX

Arizona slid her laptop into her leather bag when her phone rang displaying the number from the daycare. She quickly answered, hoping nothing had happened to Sofia when she was told she hadn't been picked up yet and they were about to close for the evening. Arizona furrowed her brow, wondering if Callie got pulled into an emergency surgery and questioned why she didn't text her like she normally did. Informing the worker she would be right up, Arizona grabbed her things and headed toward the daycare. When she arrived, Sofia was sitting with one of the workers reading a book and hopped off the chair and ran towards her as soon as she saw her and asked, "Mommy, what are you doing here? Where's mama?" Arizona replied to her daughter, "I think she got pulled into surgery big girl, but that just means we get some extra time together." Sofia let her little dimples pop as she smiled at her mommy and took her hand as she led her out the door. Arizona apologized to the staff for making them stay late, told them there must have been an emergency and left with her daughter to find Callie.

Arizona pulled out her phone and checked her messages to make sure she didn't miss one from Callie, but there was nothing there. Then she tried to call her and found it odd that she was sent straight to voicemail. They had agreed early on after their separation that when one called or texted, the other would respond because of Sofia. She then went to the O.R. board to see if Callie got pulled into surgery and didn't see her name their either. Sofia looked up and asked, "You can't find mama?" Arizona pursed her lips and replied, "Not yet baby girl." She called down to the pit and no one had seen her, went to her office and she wasn't there and at this point Arizona was starting to get irritated. She took a deep breath and tried not to think about the fact that she was probably in an on-call room somewhere with her girlfriend and lost track of time. If that was the case, she was almost positive she was going to lose it again. Thinking of losing track of time, she decided to look in one more place, the one place Callie could go and spend hours and not even realize it, her lab. Turning the corner, she got angry all over again when she saw Penny coming from that direction then only became concerned when she saw that the resident's face was flushed red and she had clearly been crying.

Not sure if now was a good time or not, Arizona cautiously knocked on the door and called out, "Callie, it's me. I have Sof with me." She was surprised when her ex-wife quickly opened the door, seeming none the worse for wear given the condition of her girlfriend. Callie smiled down at their daughter, picked her up and said, "Hey princess." Both women bit back their laughter when the little girl scolded, "You lefted me in the daycare all by myself and they had to call mommy! I was happy to see mommy but I wasn't happy you forgot about me." Callie pouted and soothed, "I could never ever forget about you Sof. I'm happy you got to see mommy too. I'm sorry, I just had a meeting, there was something I had to take care of." Sofia tilted her head and asked, "Is that why that doctor was crying? Did she get in trouble? Did you fire her?" Callie shook her head at how quick their little girl was. She really didn't want to get into this with her daughter and certainly not in front of Arizona, but she responded truthfully, "Something like that. I just told her we couldn't work together anymore."

Arizona immediately put two and two together and realized that Callie just broke things off with Penny and from the looks of it, this time it was for good. She wasn't sure if her ex-wife was putting on a front for her and their child but catching a glimpse of the dark chocolate eyes she could always read like a book, she was certain she saw relief rather than regret and wondered if everything wasn't as picture perfect as it seemed or as Callie made it out to be. Deciding she'd done her part and delivered Sofia safe and sound, Arizona said, "Mommy has to go now sweetie. I have a big surgery early in the morning and I still have a little studying to do for it. Can I have a hug?" Callie put Sofia on the floor so she could say goodbye to Arizona and watched as they went through their little ritual. Arizona squatted as best as she could, hugged her daughter, they rubbed their noses together and she whispered, "I love you forever." Sofia turned her head, blinked her eyes on Arizona's cheek and gave her what they called a butterfly kiss and returned, "I love you for always." They hugged again and Arizona used the wall to help her stand and steady herself. She picked up her bag and though everything inside her told her not to, she looked to Callie and asked, "You good?" Callie took a deep breath, tilted her head and replied, "You know what? I am." She nodded her head, smiled and said again, "Yeah, I'm good. Thank you for asking. Have a good night and good luck on your surgery tomorrow."

As Arizona walked away, she smiled to herself when she realized that was the first time Callie ever acknowledged her new specialty in a positive manner or even said anything about her work in two years. She then groaned internally because it bugged her that it made her smile. It also irritated her that just a teeny tiny very big piece of her wasn't sad to see that Callie and Penny broke up. But it also made her wonder why and how long it would be before her ex-wife moved on to someone new. Callie stood in the doorway and watched Arizona walk to the bank of elevators. She couldn't remember the last time they got through an entire day without saying something snarky or sarcastic to or about each other. Well other than the days they didn't see each other at all. Today was the first in a long time and it felt good. She felt good for the first time in a long time. She led her daughter into her lab, started packing up her belongings and realized it was time that she actually did what she set out to do when she walked away from Arizona. She needed to find herself again and until she did, she wouldn't be happy with anyone.

A/N: Thanks for your reviews, they are pushing me to keep this story moving as well. I must admit though, the two are so different from each other, it's hard to keep up, so I update my stories depending on my moods.