A/N: Back again with another chapter – I hope you are enjoying it. This chapter features both Arizona's and Callie's perspective. The chapters are named by Xana song titles, a fantastic queer artist. Highly recommend, I pretty much exclusively listen to her music while writing and reading Calzona fanfic. After this chapter, we'll get some actual Arizona & Callie interaction!

Once again, feedback is very much appreciated. I'm new to writing fanfic so I'm still learning! Thank you to everyone who has left feedback, favourited, and followed – you provided the motivation I needed to get this chapter out today :)

I'd say I'm happy

There's still something so daunting

Never felt the weight of it all

Till you came along and took it off me

Hope you're happy (so happy)

January

By Xana

As the blonde entered the hallway, Callie and Penny were nowhere to be seen. Arizona stood in the hallway, trying to think of some logical reason for following them.

Oh yeah, what better during an argument with your girlfriend than your ex-wife showing up to what? Observe? Argh! If I really wanted to make such a goddamn show of myself, I should have just worn my wheelie sneaks so I could glide right in and freakin' tackle Penny.

Great thinking there, Arizona – perfect!

Maybe if she had been at least tipsy it would make more sense, but Arizona didn't consider herself so much of a lightweight that she'd be drunk after a single beer – so she couldn't blame her poor decision making on the alcohol.

Deciding that since she had already left the main 'party zone', a break away from the noise wouldn't be a bad thing. She thought for a second about where the best place might be to contemplate every choice she's ever made before choosing to find the nearest bathroom. It felt appropriate, a small lockable room for her to internally scream inside.

Where is the damn bathroom? I swear this house is too big. There must be one upstairs somewhere.

She made her way up the stairs and managed to locate a bathroom. Arizona locked the door behind her and stared into the mirror. Despite her face being painted with what she considered pretty flawless make up, Arizona could see that she was tired. She could see it in the darkened circles below her eyes that no amount of concealer could hide, her heavy eyelids, her slightly sunken cheeks. The blonde hadn't slept properly in what felt like years and was burdened by the additional exhaustion of pretending that she was okay, stable, happy every damn day.

"What are you doing, Robbins?" She asked herself, turning the tap and letting the cold water run over her hands. It was an 'emotional regulation' skill she'd learnt in therapy, but clearly it wasn't always successful. The feeling of the cold water was meant to distract her brain. It helped when she woke up from a nightmare, or when she experienced a panic attack. Sometimes, when she was really struggling, she used ice cubes instead, rubbing them onto her wrists. There was no ice in the bathroom, and if cold water wasn't even making a dent, she doubted it would help anyway.

Arizona knew in herself that she was concerned about her ex-wife. If Callie was hurting, she wanted to be there to comfort her, soothe her, press her lips against Callie's forehead and whisper words of reassurance in her ear, regardless of everything that happened between them. But it wasn't Arizona's place to do that anymore. She had to let Callie go so the brunette could be free and live her life unburdened by the weight of Arizona's 'baggage'. The self-deprecation was helping even less than the water.

Right, Arizona. You've shown your face for what? 30 minutes. That will do surely. Just sneak away. Get out while you still can.

She had to get far away from Callie, away from the cosmic pull of her ex-wife. Otherwise, she'd end up saying something stupid like 'I still love you, I'm not over you, let's forget all our problems and adopt nine more kids to seal the deal!', which would be so goddamn idiotic since Callie wanted nothing to do with her beyond strained co-parenting with as little interaction as possible.

With the new plan of leaving as soon as humanly possible in place, Arizona left the bathroom. The blonde began making her way down the corridor towards the stairs when she heard muffled voices to the left of her.

Stopping in her tracks, she recognised one of those voices as Callie. It wasn't her usual melodic tones. The anger-fuelled voice that Arizona was more than familiar with echoed into the corridor.

It felt so wrong, a complete intrusion of her ex-wife's privacy, but she felt compelled to know what was going on. Maybe her intentions were good, maybe she could step in to save the day if the unsuspecting Penny somehow hulked-out. Arizona hovered outside the door, leaning closer in hope that she'd hear the conversation over the sound of bass blasting below her feet.

"Penny, you're being completely unreasonable! Why can't you just let it go?" Callie yelled, voice cracking under the volume of her words.

The whole night was in shambles. Callie thought it would have been great to celebrate Cristina's birthday, she could properly relax for the first time in a while. Sofia was with the babysitter, she could drink and let loose! After a couple of drinks, all of her anxieties about being at another social event with her ex would dissipate. Aggravatingly, that is not what had happened. Instead, prior to leaving her apartment, Penny dropped the bomb of 'I love you, Calliope' and everything went to shit. Hearing her girlfriend say those words should have been wonderful, heart-warming, romantic…

Earlier that evening…

Callie was frantically rushing around the bedroom, where was her damn lipstick?

Becoming agitated, "Penny, have you seen my lipstick?" She shouted as she paced through to the lounge.

"Hmm?" The redhead responded, busying herself packing her clutch bag.

Feeling increasingly annoyed, Callie repeated, looking towards her oblivious girlfriend, "My lipstick, the red one? Have you seen it?"

Finally raising her head, "Oh, no I haven't Calliope, but you don't need it anyway! You look so beautiful already." Penny tilted her head slightly, gazing lovingly towards Callie.

Her response only frustrated Callie more, shaking her head as the resident approached her, placing her cold hands against Callie's cheeks, caressing her thumbs across the flushed skin. The motion did nothing to calm Callie down. All she felt was pure frustration, driven but the nausea-inducing anxiety that plagued her. She did everything she could to avoid Penny's affectionate gaze, which was rather difficult when they were almost nose to nose.

It wasn't about the lipstick, but she had to look good, sexy, like her old 'badass' self. She had to prove to everyone around her tonight how happy she was. Especially Arizona, her ex had to know that she was thriving in her new relationship. Otherwise, what was the point of divorcing in the first place?

Callie watched as Penny finally pulled away from her and sat herself on the couch, reaching to put her shoes on. "Right. Not that I don't share your concern of your missing lipstick, but it's not exactly a life-threatening concern and we seriously need to leave. I can't stand being late-"

The brunette sighed, placing her hands on her hips, "Penny, it's weird to arrive to a party on time. No one arrives on time, Cristina probably won't even be there yet."

Looking back towards Callie, "I love you Calliope, but we really need to go."

"Wh-What?" Callie stuttered, eyes widening at her girlfriend.

She loves me? Penny loves me.

"I was just saying we need to go-" Penny raised her eyebrows, confused at Callie's shocked expression.

Interrupting her girlfriend, "You… love me?"

Shit.

"Oh… well…I…" Penny stumbled on her words before taking a deep breath and straightened her posture.

"Yes, I do love you, Calliope." Penny looked adoringly towards the brunette. Callie could see the hopefulness in her eyes, the nervous smile gracing her lips, quietly begging for the reciprocation of those three little words.

Bubbling out of her mouth, rather than a return of Penny's declaration of love, was loud, awkward laughter.

Oh god.

I'm laughing.

Fuck.

Penny's smiled dropped, green eyes turned cold and hurt washed across her features.

Callie quickly calmed herself, "Shit, sorry, that was… not intentional. Shit. Uh… thank you".

Thank you!? Thank. You.

Seriously? That's the best you could come up with, Torres?

Callie raised her head to stare at the ceiling, wishing she could take back her words.

Please tell me this is all just an awful dream.

Wake up, Torres! Wake up!

"Fuck, Penny, I…" Callie trailed off. What was she supposed to do? Lie? No, she couldn't. That wasn't who she was, she couldn't pretend. Callie wasn't there yet, she was waiting to feel in love, and that couldn't be forced. The brunette had tried, oh… had she tried. Some days were easier than others, to act as if she was the happiest she'd ever been, head over heels in love with her perfect girlfriend.

Penny was easy, uncomplicated.

Penny didn't make Callie feel like she was holding the world in her hands, fearful of crumbling underneath the weight of their relationship, their history, their love. No, she felt… fine, with Penny.

There were no shooters, car crashes and planes falling out of the sky. There wasn't a life-altering, earth-shattering, one-in-a-lifetime connection that made her feel incapable of breathing when she looked at her girlfriend. No. Callie had already experienced that, and now that was gone, burned to the ground.

As it turned out, Callie was quite the arsonist.

Back to the present…

Penny was angrier than Callie had ever seen her. Red in the face and eyes wide, utterly furious.

How did I manage to fuck everything up, our entire relationship, in the space of a few short hours… Damnit, Torres.

Callie had thought that after not being able to say that she loved Penny, an explanation would have eased her upset. Surprising to Callie, and Callie alone, that was not the case. Penny had stormed out of her apartment and made her own way to Meredith's house. Believing that the redhead would drop the subject for at least tonight, Callie set off not long after finding her lipstick in the stupid zip pocket of her handbag. And now here they were, screaming at each other.

"Can you not understand my perspective, Callie? How do you think it makes me feel hearing you tell me how she was the love of your fucking life! Your goddamn soulmate!"

"You don't-" Callie began, a futile attempt to rationalise with her girlfriend.

"No! You don't get to interrupt me right now Calliope. Where the hell does this leave me? Huh?"

When Callie had tried to explain her inability to return Penny's love at present, it hadn't had the desired effect. She had thought Penny would understand, recognise that Callie cared for her deeply but that she needed more time to adjust and recover from the breakdown of her marriage, to learn to love another person.

"What I was trying to say is that you don't understand! You know I care about you Penny, you are taking this the wrong way entirely." Callie was losing her temper at an alarming rate. Clenching her hands in tight fists in frustration, knuckles whitening.

"In what freakin' way Callie? You can't tell me you aren't in love with her and then tell me she was your soulmate!"

Callie couldn't comprehend Penny's lack of understanding. Arizona was her everything at one point. She was once married to her, they were raising Sofia together, Arizona gave their little girl her first breath, they were each other's person for so many years. That kind of love didn't just disappear, it left traces on her soul, scars on her heart and mind. She wasn't ready to love someone else.

"She's my wife, Penny, and the mother of my child! Of course she was the love of my life! I wouldn't have married her otherwise!" Callie shouted, she was already growing tired of arguing.

"She's your ex-wife Callie!"

"I-I know that she's my ex-wife, of course I know that. That's not the point I'm trying to make. Look, if you had such a problem with me being a divorcee, you should have said told me that before we got together. I made it very clear."

"What I'm trying to say is that most people don't talk about their ex's like that! What you didn't make it clear was that weren't over her!"

"God, are you even listening to me? I am ready for this relationship, for us, just not that step yet, okay?"

"That's the thing Callie, we are in a relationship. And right now, you're not acting like you want to be. You are divorced! And for plenty of reasons from my understanding. Considering the woman has been with at least half the female population of the hospital I'm not surprised that-"

Callie felt as if a cord had snapped fuelling hot rage inside her.

"Don't you dare speak about her like that you don't have any right-"

Penny huffed, "Well that explains my point exactly – how are you still on her side after everything?".

At this stage, Callie was done arguing. Clearly, Penny couldn't grasp what she was trying to say at all and 'talking' about it any further wasn't going to help things.

"I can't do this right now. I'm going back downstairs. Just go home, please. We'll… talk later". The brunette sighed, turning away from her girlfriend and attempting to regulate her breathing before returning to the party. Thankfully, Penny didn't try to stop her as she walked out of the bedroom, managing to shut the door behind her rather than slam it – it was Meredith's house after all and she didn't want to have to explain how she damaged a door.

Stepping into the empty corridor, Callie found herself convinced that the only thing that would help ease her anger was a copious amount of liquor.