She was reckless with it, she guesses, throwing caution to the wind. It's one thing to act like a horny teenager and a whole other thing to parade it around, she knows that by now. But she didn't intend to, honestly, she was just tired and distracted, not paying enough attention. It's her house, damn it, so she doesn't think much of it when she rolls out of bed in her pajamas to eat cereal in peace.
"Woah!" "What the hell?!" "Oh, my god!"
The loud chorus from her brother, his wife, and Alex Karev alerts her to the fact she has made a grave error.
"Jesus Christ!" She clasps her chest, trying to calm her racing heart.
"What the hell are these?!" Her brother asks, approaching her quickly.
"I think we all know what those are," Alex comments with a chuckle through a mouthful of breakfast.
"Stop, stop." She swats her brother's hands away from her neck, trying to cover it with her own hands. Oops.
"Who did this to you? Who the hell did this?!" Derek asks in a near scream.
"Derek, relax," Meredith thankfully chimes in with a giggle, "she wasn't beat up, it's just a couple of love bites. You give them to me all the time, you're just more discreet about it."
"Thank you, so much, for the save and for the awful mental image," Amelia thanks her sister-in-law, quickly bowing out of the room before the rest of her dignity is diminished.
But she knows full well this is far from the end of it. Crap.
"So, Danielle is fine?" Arizona asks Addison, catching up on the status of the mother of her latest couple hour old patient.
"She's doing perfect, I even-"
"Ladies!" Derek interrupts them suddenly, wrapping an arm around each of them. "I need your help."
"Sure," they happily reply in unison.
"So, little Amy appears to have been… seeing someone recently," Derek starts, and Arizona can physically feel her heart altering its previously calm rhythm. Seeing someone? When? Has it not been a literal day, a mere 24 hours, since she had her tongue stuck down Shepherd's throat? "And she's been on both of your services often lately, so I'm wondering if you happen to have… heard anything."
"Derek, way to meddle!" Addison laughs, rolling her eyes.
"Y-yeah, Shepherd, w-why would we know anything?" Arizona asks, hearing herself stammer and awkwardly laugh. Crap crap crap.
"Well, Addie and Amy are pretty sisterly, and Amy talks a lot about how much she loves your service and asks questions about you all the time, so I assumed one or both of you would know."
"W-well I don't know anything, I-I don't engage in hospital gossip." Addison's shapely raised eyebrow begs to differ, but it's neither here nor there.
"It's just that," Derek rubs his face and lowers his voice, as if he's even a fraction as embarrassed by this conversation as Arizona is, "she's got these two huge hickeys on her neck, so I want to make sure whichever intern she's been screwing is not a total jerk."
"Hey, woah!" Arizona finds herself saying before she realizes. "I don't think it's any of our business who Amelia may or may not be involved with. And I'm pretty sure she doesn't want her brother snooping around to find out."
"Well-" Derek starts, but thankfully Addison cuts him off.
"Derek, I have to agree. Get out of your sister's pants."
"Oh, nasty, thank you so much for that, Satan," Derek gives his ex-wife the stink eye, but she has just become Arizona's very favorite person, so she's on Addison's side from now on.
"Can I speak with you in private, Dr. Robbins?" She asks as Derek walks away.
"Sure thing," Arizona replies with as much of a smile as she can put on her face without showing that she is absolutely freaking out.
Sitting down in the attendings' lounge, Arizona reminds herself that she did nothing wrong. Nothing at all. So she kissed Amelia Shepherd, so what? She kissed her on two separate (but related) occasions, and that doesn't make her a bad guy or a perv. Even if she kissed her while dating someone else, then what? People get confused, and they make errors of judgement. Her friends always did say Arizona was a bit too slutty for her own good. Only… This doesn't really feel like just a stupid mistake, or a one-time thing. She genuinely wishes it was, because everything would be so much easier if she could cast the whole ordeal aside as horniness and a very beautiful young woman expressing an interest. But it's so much more, and it's slowly getting out of hand, evidently.
"There's something you should know," Addison starts, sitting down across from her and making sure Arizona has her full attention. As if she could do anything else. "Amelia is my little sister. My only sister."
"I-" Arizona begins, but immediately gets cut off.
"Let me finish, please. Amelia is my only sister, Arizona, I've known her since she was eight and Derek and I were twenty-five. So I basically helped raise the kid. If you ask her, I'm pretty sure she'd tell you I'm her favorite sister, maybe even her favorite sibling. What I'm getting at is that, knowing Amelia and loving her as much as I do, for as long as I have, I pick up on it when something happens to my sister. I pick up on it when she stays in the hospital during nights when she doesn't need to, I pick up on it when she takes up the Peds service a little too often despite obviously intending to become a neurosurgeon, and I definitely pick up on it when she disappears during her birthday party and comes back disheveled and with her lipstick missing, followed a minute later by you. See, I notice things, when it comes to my sister."
"Where… umm… Where are you going with this?" Arizona asks, trying so very hard not to let the panic she's feeling show. Okay. Addison knows. That's fine. It's one person out of a whole entire hospital. And Amelia trusts her, so she guesses she should too. Maybe Addison is exactly the right person to open her heart up to.
"I'm going to you, straight to the source, Arizona. I want to know what your intentions with my sister are, especially in light of the fact that you happen to be dating Callie Torres."
Truth time, it seems.
"Addison, listen… I'm not sure what to tell you, because I'm not sure what to say to myself. Shepherd… Amelia is unlike anyone I have ever met before."
"You can say that again," Addison smirks at her, probably knowing at least in part what Arizona is referring to. But not fully.
"No, really. She's… Weird, and she talks a lot, and her brain works at a non-human pace, and she moves too much in her sleep… And I adore her. I do. I have since the moment I met her." That's just the truth, really. Amelia Shepherd has had her heart in a chokehold from the minute she pulled her into that uncomfortable bed and threw her tiny body over Arizona's and refused to let go. "But it's also complicated, you know? For one, I'm basically her boss. But more importantly, I've been gay ever since I can remember, I've been out since I was fifteen, and Amelia is inexperienced-"
"Wait, let me stop you right there. I don't want to share anything that's not mine to give away, and I don't know the details of whatever you and Amelia have got going on, but that girl is not inexperienced. She may not be out in any traditional sense, but Amelia is not using you like some sort of an experiment, Robbins, if that's what you're suggesting. She's been with girls. Several of them. Once even on my very own couch, unfortunately."
Well, that… changes things?
"Okay… Well… She never told me any of that." She didn't, is the thing, and there must have been some reason for it. "And whenever I tried to gauge where she stands, all she had to say was 'I'm just Amelia'."
"She is. Isn't that enough?" Addison echoes the question Amelia had asked her yesterday, and with good reason. Isn't that enough? She answered no, yesterday, but that was before they had shared another groundbreaking kiss. Before Amelia proved to her beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is something there between them that is not going anywhere anytime soon, and it is fierce.
"I don't know the answer to that, Addison. For the first time in what feels like forever I'm confused. Amelia's ten years younger than me, she has her whole residency here in front of her, a whole career path that I've gotten to the other side of long ago. Whatever experience she may or may not have with women, she isn't outspoken about it, which is perfectly fine, and she is entirely entitled to her privacy, but it shows me that we're not on the same page. Don't you agree? And Callie Torres… She's lovely, you know? She's sweet, and spontaneous, and she wants something real with me. So I don't know what my intentions with your sister are, Addison, because everything I have ever shared with her has been entirely unintended. I never meant for it to start, I even tried to end it, but she draws me to her like a freaking moth to a flame."
"Listen, Arizona," Addison reaches to hold her hand, a look of understanding on her face, because she more than anyone knows the irrevocable and irrational pull of a Shepherd. "I'll tell you this. Amelia Shepherd is the most special person I know. With a very aching and bruised heart, I still firmly believe that all the pain I had suffered through with Derek was worth it because it brought me to her. Loving Amelia Shepherd will be the best thing you will ever do in your life, I can promise you that much, and being loved by her will be a bigger honor than any title or award you could win. So I'm not telling you what to think or do, I'm not telling you who to date, all I'm saying is that you will never regret choosing Amelia Shepherd. Over anyone."
"I need time to think," is all Arizona is capable of saying, because what else is there? Addison's passionate speech shot right through her heart.
"I think there's someone here who might want to do some thinking with you," Addison says, pointing towards Callie who's standing at the doorway. Shit.
With a squeeze to Arizona's shoulder, she walks away and lets Callie take her place.
"Hey," Callie starts.
"I'm so, so sorry Callie. I had no idea you were there." God, can she be more awful? She really thought herself to be a better person than this.
"Hey, it's alright," Callie says with a soft smile, reminding Arizona of how lovely it can be. "I overheard the last bits of that, and I need you to know that I get it, okay?"
"You… You do?"
"Yes, I do. I know exactly what it's like to be drawn to someone, to feel the need to explore the attraction or whatever it is that's between you two. Hell, up until a week ago I was still sleeping with Mark."
"You were?!" She was?!
"Yes, because you and I have just started this out, and we never said anything about being exclusive, we never even slept together." Arizona guesses that's true…
"So now what?"
"Now, I have a proposal to make," Callie takes her hand in hers, and Arizona has to admit that it's nice. It's nice to hold hands with Callie, and it's really very nice not to have to sneak around to do so. "Take some time and date her, okay?"
"Wha-"
"Stop. I mean that you should date the both of us, for a bit. Let's put sex off the table, that's the only ground rule I have, but apart from that, I want you to see what it's like to be with her. Be with her, be with me, take the time to make up your mind."
"Calliope, why are you doing this?" She really couldn't fathom it. It sure sounds perfect, on paper, but Arizona seldom gets her way in real life.
"Because I like you. A lot. And I think you like me a lot too, so I want you to choose me fully. I don't want you to constantly wonder what if, I want you to know exactly what's out there and still pick me. And I'm confident that you will, Arizona, because it doesn't get much better than me."
The woman sure does know how to make a pitch. And this could be a good idea, right? Spend some time with both women, see what it really feels like to be with Amelia, and how things progress with Callie. She can have her cake and eat it too, at least for a little bit. What's so wrong with that?
A distant part of Arizona's mind alerts her that she knows the answer, but she decides to play obtuse at least for a bit longer, and agrees to the deal.
"Shepherd," she hears her name across the hall and immediately turns towards the sound. Sweet sweet Arizona. All she has been able to think about for the past 24 hours was sweet Arizona, how sweet she had tasted, how much she wishes to taste her again.
"Dr. Robbins," she says cordially, mindful of the people in the hallway around them.
"I'm picking you up tomorrow at seven for a date."
"A d-date?" This is definitely not a scenario she had prepared herself for. Is this happening? Arizona wants to date her?
"Yeah, you know, two girls drinking cocktails and flirting and playing footsie under the table." Well that sounds terrific, especially when Arizona says it with such a sweet coy smile and sparkly blue eyes.
"Umm… I…" Come on, Shepherd, say yes! Isn't this what you wanted?!
"I thought-" Arizona's face suddenly changes, as if it just dawned on her that Amelia is all talk and no action. But she isn't, she swears, there are just some things that Arizona should probably know before doing this. Things that Amelia dreads telling her, but knows she must, if they're to do anything beyond a chaste make out session.
"What about Callie?" She asks, mostly to stall.
"Well, Callie was the one to propose it. She said that if I want to take some time to date the both of you, to see what I really want, who I choose, then I can have it. What do you think?"
"Oh, in that case…" See, Arizona may not know Amelia well enough yet, because if she did, she would have known never to dangle a competition in front of her. Or maybe she did it on purpose? "In that case I'll see you tomorrow at seven sharp."
May the best woman win.