A/N: Thanks for your patience! Working on Ch 10 now :)

Chapter 9 - Hard Way Home

Callie hesitated for a second as she went to knock on the door, her nerves finally getting to her on this last step of the journey.

She shook herself out of it, but before she could move again, ideally with more conviction this time, Sofia had already let go of her hand and started pounding with both fists.

The door swung inward and revealed Arizona, dressed in a sensible, light blue button-up blouse and some black slacks. Her hair fell in waves down her shoulders, and Callie couldn't help but notice the smell of her orange blossom perfume, though she tried very hard not to notice pretty much every aspect of her ex-wife as a point of principle lately.

She had her coat on.

"Hi, sweetie! I've missed you sooo much," Arizona crouched and swept Sofia into her arms.

"You always say that," Sofia said with a sour look, bobbing and weaving to dodge her mother's overflowing affection. She whined as Arizona pinched her cheeks. "Mom, stop."

"Fine, geez. Rude," she muttered as she stood.

Sofia was in the door and out of sight in an instant. She didn't really linger when her moms were together anymore. It was an awful force of habit that had recently started up again.

Callie looked her ex up and down in the most respectful way she could manage. "Are you going somewhere?"

"Yeah, Nicole wanted to meet to go over some grant proposals." Arizona scrutinized some wrinkles as she smoothed the front of her shirt.

She absolutely forgot. "Oh, um. Are you sure you can still-"

"Yep. I'm sure!" Arizona's eyes met hers, smiling politely as she cut her off. "I was going to take her with me. There's a toy store next door to the cafe we've been meeting at." At Callie's incredulous look, she scoffed, "Do you think you can read minds now? I didn't forget!"

Callie's eyes sought her feet, realizing she had already made this uncomfortable interaction worse. Barely a minute might be a new record, but knowing their history, it probably wasn't.

Her fingers twisted around each other, picking at her nail polish as she thought about the car, downstairs, with her luggage in the trunk, waiting to take her to the airport and fly her across the country to the one place she had been so determined to avoid for the rest of her existence.

Just the idea of returning to that car made her want to punch a wall, or find some discarded plaster and fiberglass upon which to release her pent up rage. If she could just get one good hit in, she was sure that she would be completely fixed. Probably.

Arizona cleared her throat, interrupting Callie's internal monologue, along with the only somewhat satisfying images of catharsis her mind had conjured, shards of bone exploding into pale fireworks behind her eyelids. Her eyes were shy and searching. "Do you… want to come in?"

"Sure." God, yes. Anything to stay in this awful city for even a few more minutes. It felt intensely pathetic to admit that she would rather be here with her ex-wife, who almost certainly hated her, or worse, couldn't care less about her, but there was no competition. Between her parents' house and Arizona's apartment, it wasn't even close.

She slipped past Arizona, coming far too close to her for comfort, and she walked toward the kitchen to lean on the counter.

Arizona took a glass down from a cabinet and a carton out of the fridge, pouring an orange looking juice. Callie recognized the label from somewhere, but it took her a moment to place it.

She had made mimosas one morning, waking Arizona up with breakfast in bed.

Correction, mimosa. One, just for her. The mango orange juice she had served on its own in a fluted glass, because Arizona couldn't have alcohol, and Callie still wanted her to have something fun to drink to celebrate their fortune.

It was the day after they found out Arizona was pregnant. It scared her half to death that she almost didn't remember.

Callie's hand shook slightly as she accepted the glass and crossed the room to the couch, careful not to spill any of the precious liquid.

Arizona came over with her own glass, sitting in a chair although the couch seated four comfortably. She looked down at her drink, setting it on the coffee table.

"So, um, why are you going to Miami?" she inquired lightly.

That was the million dollar question.

"My dad invited me. They're having some kind of party, I guess." Don't know why I need to be there, they've been managing pretty well for years now without me, she thought dimly.

Arizona bit her lip and opened her mouth before quickly closing it again. Then she took a breath and spoke anyway. "Did he mention your…" she trailed off, raising her eyebrows.

It took Callie a couple seconds to realize Arizona was trying to refer to her mom and Aria. She managed a dark laugh as her leg started bouncing up and down.

"He did not," she replied, taking a sip from her glass.

Her ex-wife stared at her for a moment, eyes narrowed in thought.

She stood abruptly and sped off down the hall, shouting behind her, "Don't move!"

In an effort to avoid rocking the boat more than she already had, Callie sat there obedient for what felt like too long. She hadn't been all around Arizona's apartment. She'd been avoiding it, actually. Most of the custody changes had been happening outside, on neutral ground. In any case, her home was not big enough for her to take nearly ten minutes doing whatever it was she was doing back there. It was a tiny apartment, to put it nicely. And she felt like she should put it nicely, since she was the reason Arizona was living here in the first place.

After a short while, Arizona walked out holding what looked to be some fabric scrap, worn with age, and slightly yellowed all over. Attached to the middle of it was an oval-shaped lump, with two smaller long bits sticking out on either side. It looked like there used to be more to that larger oval, but it had been hand-stitched back together in a few spots with mismatched colored thread. She always was good at fine suture work.

Like a cat who had just brought home some dead creature as a prize, Arizona held it out to her, and Callie was immediately thankful for the amount of extra space she had available beside her to scramble backwards, scooting down the cushions and far away from the gross sight.

"What the hell is that?" Callie's nose wrinkled at just the thought of how it must smell as she recoiled into the opposite corner of the couch.

"What do you mean? It's BeeBee!" Arizona shook it, and it wriggled horribly.

Callie looked once more at the sad looking toy, really examining it with a detail that she did not want to. Sure enough, it was BeeBee.

Sofia didn't know how to say blanket when she had received BeeBee, being one and all, so when she wanted it, she would say the closest thing to 'blankie' that her little baby brain could manage. That was 'BeeBee'.

BeeBee used to be a unicorn, but like most toys that were given to babies, she had been so well loved that she went from being a fluffy white blanket, with a furry unicorn head, rainbow mane, two silver hooves and one shining golden horn, to whatever this weird lumpy thing was before them.

Callie was not entirely convinced, no matter how sentimental the thought. "No, it is not, that is…" She gaped at the entirely serious expression on her ex-wife's face. "Arizona, it looks like it got run over!"

"She's had a hard life! Don't insult her!" Arizona screwed her face up in a defensive frown, but a puff of laughter escaped from her scowling lips.

Callie found herself giggling right along in spite of herself as Arizona held that shitty little blanket so protectively. It was hard to breathe as she tried to avoid eye contact with the rag, each look at it sending her into fits. At a certain point she had to cover her face to stop staring at BeeBee, her wretched countenance, trying to get her laughter under control.

It was pointless, because she started up again when she peeked and saw Arizona silently doubled over, shoulders shaking.

"Oh my God, she's so old now! The years have not been kind." Callie wiped a tear from her eye as she gradually regained control of her diaphragm. "Wait, why did you get her out?"

Arizona was still recovering, red faced, and trying to even out her breathing. She took a gulp of air and suddenly grew serious. "You can't judge me."

"Wh- Okay?"

An affectionate smile graced her face and she held up BeeBee again, clutching it to her chest. "It still smells like her baby head."

Callie's jaw dropped. "No freaking way."

"Yes, way! It makes no sense!" Arizona strode over to the couch and sat next to Callie. "Seriously, try it." She made a face. "Okay, I feel like I'm pushing drugs."

A familiar ashen smell hit Callie for a passing moment, almost but not quite covered by a generous perfume application. She stared at her ex-wife for a moment, trying to decide whether to make a comment. In the interest of avoiding a serious conversation, she gave into her baser interests. "Oh, you are. Now give it."

Callie took the blanket out of Arizona's hands delicately, and she was glad she did, because it felt like the poor old scrap would disintegrate in a stiff breeze.

She started with a nervous waft. It really did look like it would be old and gross. There was no way it could possibly smell exactly the same after nearly eight years. But then the sweet scent hit her nose, and she inhaled it like the addict she was.

It was like baby formula, the slightly milky smell you got when you walked in the NICU, and something inscrutable yet delicious, but it was probably notes of ambrosia and nectar.

All babies smelled good, but her baby smelled divine, and she hadn't smelled it in so long that she had nearly forgotten the effect it had on her, so she just sat there breathing deeply as Arizona grew more and more amused.

"It's good, right?" she chuckled.

Callie was trying very hard to be at least a little upset that Arizona had held out on her, for years, apparently, but she smiled softly as she rode out her high. "It is."

"It was nice to have when she was here, but it got packed away in the move and I hadn't had the chance to get it out." Arizona leaned back with a look of thoughtful peace. "It was a birthday gift, right? I can't remember who got it for her, but I should really write another 'thank you' note for how much use I've gotten out of it."

"Mark," Callie said softly as she placed BeeBee on her lap. "It was Mark. It was the week before-"

"Oh. Yeah," Arizona spoke, her smile faltering as she stared at the ceiling. She was somewhere else for a brief moment, in a place and time that only ever lasted a second when other people were around. It was one Callie knew all too well.

May 2012

"Happy birthday, dear Sofia..." Callie's voice hit dramatic, near operatic levels of vibrato as she sang with everyone. Mark and Julia, Cristina, Meredith, Bailey, and even Addison made time for the birthday girl on her big day, forming a small, discordant choir. "Happy birthday to you!" Her voice held that final note while everyone clapped and cheered for the chubby, squealing little girl in her high chair, the light of her life.

She couldn't resist getting a little pinch in on the squishy baby cheeks as she placed a kiss on Sofia's head, breathing in as she did. It smelled just as heavenly as it did five minutes ago.

Mark whispered something to Julia and she went to grab the gift he'd set on the kitchen counter earlier, a purple paper bag with glittering white ribbons and tissue. She passed it off to him with a supportive peck on the cheek and he walked over to Callie and Sofia.

"I'm going to win the best present tonight," he bellowed, a proud grin splitting his face. He held the bag out to Callie.

"No freaking way, Sloan. I don't care if you're her dad, I have 'god' in my name," Cristina shouted from her place next to Meredith on the couch, pointing to a comically large box sitting across from her.

Meredith arched a brow as she feigned a nervous glance between the two of them."Callie, I brought a normal present for her. I hope that's okay," she said, chuckling.

"Yeah, I brought a normal present, too. Completely normal." Addison's voice dripped with pride as she shook a teal Tiffany box, with the traditional white ribbon.

Bailey scoffed loudly. "Fools, all'a you." She took a long sip from her glass of wine, the bottle she had brought with her waiting close by. "Presents are for the parents, who can actually appreciate them," she enunciated, punctuating her thoughts with the pinky finger of her occupied hand.

Callie grabbed the bag from Mark, sending an uncomfortable glance around the room. "You guys know it's not a contest, right?" Her hands rose in mock surrender. "I mean, I'm not mad, but..."

Mark furrowed his brow. "Sure it is! I'm trying to rank number one, out of three," he said, looking pointedly at Cristina, who was rolling her eyes so hard they could've fallen out of her head. "That means being better than you and blondie. This is just step one."

"You know my name, Mark! At least use it when I'm right here." Arizona strode out of the bedroom, her head blocked by the precarious stack of boxes she was carrying.

Callie swooped over just as the topmost box started to teeter and removed it from Arizona's vision. Apparently the assistance was unwanted, and an adorable scowl graced her lips that didn't match the detachment in her eyes.

They had been red and sunken for the past week. Nick had gone to Belize, and she had seen him off at the airport like any true friend would. She didn't want to talk about it. As counterintuitive as it felt to avoid the subject, Callie let it go.

"I had it," Arizona insisted, setting the boxes down on the counter with the rest of the gifts, jokingly yanking the remaining box out of Callie's hand.

"Sure you did, honey. Next time I'll let you run into a wall, okay?" she teased lightly, dropping a kiss on her cheek and grabbing her hand. "Now come open stuff with me."

They settled on the couch and Callie set the bag between them, peeling back layer after layer of tissue paper to reveal a baby blanket, with the head of a unicorn and hooves sticking out on either side of its fuzzy mane.

"That is your number one super awesome gift? Wow. Do better," Cristina chuckled, looking proudly at her own gift as she sipped her margarita.

"Shut up, Yang!" Mark yelled. He cringed at his own volume and looked over for a reaction from Sofia, who continued to babble incomprehensibly.

He stood and crossed the room to Callie, holding his hand out. "Give it."

"Uh, okay!" She held it up and he snatched it, walking over to Sofia's high chair.

He leaned in close and held up the blanket, gripping it by its hooves. Blowing spit bubbles had become a recent favorite pastime of Sofia's, and she let a big one rip right in Mark's face, earning a peal of laughter from the audience sat around him. He wiped some of the fallout off of his chin, but his focus was unbroken. He made a scrunched face as he began to speak.

"Hi, Sofia. Is it your birthday?" He waved one hoof, moving the unicorn head as he spoke for it. Without waiting for an answer, he continued. "Wow, you're so big and strong. Que fuerte, chiquita!" Sofia batted at the toy and he reacted with all of the emotional depth of a trained thespian, holding the hooves up to protect the unicorn's face. "Oh nooo, don't get me!"

Callie sat in horror as her friend made the dumbest voice she had ever heard in her entire life, and Sofia, her daughter who she had nearly died for, sat eating it up, her arms flapping wildly, giggling and shrieking hysterically.

He held a hoof out to her teeny little hand, and she grasped it in her chunky fist.

Every single other person in the room was holding back laughter, wheezing at the sight of this womanizer, this man among men, who had somehow failed to mention to them that he was a rejected Sesame Street puppeteer. It didn't seem to matter in the slightest to Mark, and he was earning his keep as he stood hunched in front of Sofia, making the unicorn blanket dance and whinny and gallop around her, immersing her in a world with this newest of friends.

Callie didn't register anything else around her as she stared, dumbfounded.

She would never live up to this. How could she be out-parented this easily? And by Mark, no less.

Arizona noticed her stillness and scratched the small of her back lightly.

"You good?"

Callie's eyes were still glued to Sofia and Mark. "He's going to be number one. It's so obvious," she mumbled. "We'll be afterthoughts to our own daughter, all because he bought a blanket and sounds like- like Grover. He'll get a… whole carriage house attached to her giant mansion, and we'll end up in a home."

Arizona laid her head on Callie's shoulder, sneaking her arm around her waist and scooting closer. "Will it at least be a cool home?"

She shook her head absently. "No way, she'll put us in one of the ones where all the old people sit inside and stare at the corner of the room." She really might lose it now. "We won't even have windows."

"Then I'll buy us some windows. Or I'll punch a hole in the wall, or something," Arizona murmured, pressing a sweet kiss to her shoulder.

"We'll have to punch a lot of holes. You need your sunshine." Callie wrapped an arm around her shoulders and dropped her head against Arizona's as Mark handed off the blanket to Sofia. Her lips curled and she sighed dreamily. "She's kind of perfect, huh?"

Arizona smiled softly, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "She got it from her Mama."

They watched as Sofia sank her mostly useless gums into fluff, her five baby teeth doing the difficult work of tearing into that plush fabric. Callie beamed with pride as she gazed lovingly at their little girl.

Sofia spit the toy out, blowing a loud raspberry.

"BEEBEE!" she squealed, shaking the blanket by the unicorn's arm, like she was greeting it with a handshake, or introducing it to her family.

Present

"You can take her," Arizona said, inspecting her ex-wife's face.

Callie returned to the present and looked up, searching for any uncertainty in her eyes. "Really?"

"Yeah," she insisted with a wave of her hand. "I've got the real thing here."

"I know, but it's different."

She offered a sad smile. "It is. But it's good enough for me."

That had never been true for Callie, not for a second. She was always so fixated on that smell and what it meant. It drove her insane at certain points, especially after she discovered she would never be able to carry another baby. Even more so when she finally understood that Arizona's career would take precedence over their family, again, and that it likely always would as long as she stayed.

She'd finally gotten how Addison felt. The world just kept inflicting babies on her, babies that weren't hers and could never be hers, because her family didn't matter as much as an opportunity for Arizona to work eighty hours a week as a student all over again.

Growing their family didn't matter as much as Arizona growing independently of her, while Callie crushed herself into the small box saved for her off to the side.

The thing Callie had never been able to admit was that she'd never wanted any of that with Penny, not for a single second. She'd hardly tolerated her ex-girlfriend getting to know Sofia in the beginning. She'd confided her dream of having another child, and Penny seemed to accept it as an eventuality, but as the time went on, the whole idea had soured to the point of disappearing. None of it added up with her. Never did.

It wasn't that she just wanted some new baby. She wanted the family she had dreamed up with Arizona, the one that they had planned for. All she wanted was the dream of that life that had blown up in her face. It was gone now, though, not even a memory.

You did all of that to yourself. God, here we fucking go.

A wave of nausea and raw, numbing doubt washed over her as Arizona flashed her a sweet smile. The expression slowly melted away to confusion, then to outright worry as she sat locked within her mind for an endless moment.

Callie scrambled up from the couch, crossing the room, the blanket still clutched in her fist.

"My car is waiting."

The words sounded prissy as hell, even to her own ears, and her delivery wasn't much of an improvement. But she couldn't care less at that moment.

Arizona stood, eyebrows knit together. "O-oh, um, okay." She offered a restrained grin. "Good luck."

Callie forced her own weak smile as she walked to the door, feigning just the amount of nonchalance one might expect from someone about to see their family for the first time in a decade. "I'll text you. A-about Sofia, we can figure out the schedule when I'm back. And, thank you," she stuttered, gesturing to BeeBee.

"It wasn't always."

She turned back to see Arizona, her eyes trained on fidgeting hands.

"Enough, I mean. I didn't have a... I chose to let it be enough. It was that or just..." Arizona shrugged, a shallow breath escaping her lips. Her chin was quivering.

Callie's heart sank into the floor and fell all five stories to smack the ground.

Her mind raced with everything that was and could have been, everything that wasn't. The life they could have had, chasing two, even three screaming children around a big grassy yard, chickens out back in their coop. She dreamed of waking up to many sets of little feet kicking them out of bed. Nights on the porch at sunset, ignoring the small miracle of the sky to stare into each other's eyes, because even after all those years she couldn't look at her wife enough to be satisfied.

All she had now, here, was a shattered sense of self and a once familiar face with a tear on her cheek. A sadness that she'd managed to put there, yet again.

"I have to go."

She cut off Arizona's reply by closing the door behind her, and she jogged past the elevator, bounding down the stairs of that old apartment building two at a time.

In a turn of events that surprised even her, Callie found herself restless, with an itch down in her bones, for the private jet to land from the moment she saw the palm trees far below her on solid ground. Thankfully, she'd been able to convince her dad to put her up for the weekend in one of their hotels. She didn't want to even consider sleeping in her own room in that giant house. Realistically, she figured it would be full of her mother's QVC crap, an ever growing collection of useless junk that had already swallowed three guest rooms. It was pathological.

But it wasn't her room anymore. Guess that meant it was for guests, too.

The room her dad reserved for her was nice, because of course it was. She was his little girl, so when she begged him for a normal suite with no bells and whistles, he got her the penthouse, with a plate of fruits cut and arranged into a swan, a giant charcuterie board on a pristine slab of walnut, and a bottle of champagne sat between two flutes.

The cork popped weakly. She figured she should be environmentally friendly, sipping straight from the bottle.

The trip, among other things she'd rather forget, had taken it out of her. She considered taking a nap before she started getting ready for dinner, but she'd only really have an hour to rest and that wasn't nearly long enough to root out all of the things that weighed her down.

She blinked the exhaustion out of her eyes and laid her dress out on the bed. It was a long black gown, with thin straps and a plunging neckline. The satin of it shimmered dimly in the pale yellow light of one of the many chandeliers.

It would do fine.

Her phone buzzed on her nightstand. She was reluctant to flip it over to check, but she did it anyway.

Arizona had sent a picture. She hesitated, but opened the message to see a sleeping Sofia, her cheeks puffed out and a small pout on her lips making her look like a little goldfish. There were two words beneath the image. Her stomach executed a perfect back handspring as she read them.

Be brave.