Work Text:
Five months.
Arizona did the mental math. The last time they’d slept together had been the night before Nick’s arrival. Callie had tried to paint her nails and it had ended in sexy wrestling which had quickly turned into just plain sex.
Five months ago.
No. Five months. Three weeks. Six days. Almost six months ago. Either Callie had slept with someone while Arizona was laid up in the hospital or she was rounding down to keep her libido in check.
Which…made sense knowing Callie. Her wife’s sexual appetite was voracious. Or had been. Five months, three weeks and six days before. Not so voracious after having to deal with a sick wife and a dead best friend and then having to carry said sick wife, and clean up her pee, and hold her soaked and sweating body after a bad reaction to meds and watch her fall so many times it was a wonder she wasn’t a walking bruise.
That made things unsexy.
Marriages broke up over unsexy amputations like Arizona’s. She’d seen it half a dozen times growing up and watching it another half dozen more during her residency. And Callie…Callie knew just how fragile a relationship became after many amputations. For every one that saved a life and left a person happy and healed there was another like Arizona’s.
Arizona had never voiced her suspicions, but there they’d always been beneath the surface. That thought that Callie wasn’t there out of love, but out of duty.
Yet…she wanted to still sleep with Arizona? She’d counted the days since they’d last been that close and she’d waited and she’d hated Arizona’s prosthetic. Not because it turned Arizona into a monster, but because, apparently, it was some sort of giant chastity belt.
Not far off. At least the old one with the giant tan belt around her middle that looked like Spanx but were even less flattering.
Callie was sitting next to her nervously tapping her fingers on the wheel and waiting for the light to change from red to green. She was most definitely not looking at Arizona. Not after the big speech about sex and stupid legs and Arizona’s need to just get over it.
“Callie?”
Her wife didn’t even bother to hide her wince. “I was…out of line…and stupid…and I had coffee. A lot of coffee and—“
“It’s been more than five months.”
Her fingers slipped on the wheel.
“Five months, three weeks and six days.”
“I rounded down,” she said immediately. Her eyes flickered from the light to Arizona and back again.
“I figured.” Arizona didn’t bother hiding her own wry smile. Callie had rounded down! She hadn’t slept with someone or had some super erotic and memorable dream or fudged things. She’d rounded down. “I…” She wanted to say ‘I miss sex too,’ but the words refused to come out. Instead it was her heart leaping into her throat and shame and embarrassment flooding her system.
How could she tell Callie she wanted sex? How did she have the right? How did she have the…God she didn’t even have a leg! She was this gross, dumpy thing in flats who needed a cane just to walk down a hallway.
The light turned green and Callie accelerated. Her right leg pressing the gas. At least they didn’t have a standard. Then Arizona would need a stick or something just to take the car to the store. Which was one of many reasons the death trap known as Callie’s Thunderbird was still bedecked in a car cover gathering dust in their second parking space.
They came to another red light. Callie smoothly pressed down on the brake. The car idled. “Can you believe we’re bridesmaids?”
“Can you believe Grey’s her third?”
Callie shook her head. The light turned green. “If you’d told me three years ago I’d be on a first name basis with Meredith Grey or that I’d ever be a bridesmaid in a wedding with her again—“
“When were you before?”
“Cristina. Burke.”
“That went well.”
Callie shrugged. “It was awful at the time, but in retrospect it would have been a massive mistake of a marriage. That way he kind of helped her.”
“How is leaving someone at the altar helpful in the least?”
“She’s so pissed at Burke she doesn’t have time to be sad. I think anger makes it hurt a little less.”
Hating your wife because you didn’t have a leg didn’t lessen the pain that came every night.
“I always kind of wished that had happened to me,” Callie mused.
Before the horror of her statement could quite sink into Arizona’s head Callie turned all panicked, “With George,” she practically shouted, her voice ringing in the confines of the car. “I wish that had happened with George. You know, before we got married in Vegas and then he cheated on me and made me feel about two feet tall.”
Another red light. Callie nervously looked at Arizona and Arizona stared back. She wondered if Callie understood everything. “I’m sorry,” she said and it was a sentence with multiple meanings. How many did Callie catch?
“I wouldn’t have traded our wedding for anything in the world,” Callie said softly.
Maybe Callie was with her out of duty. Maybe she was miserable. Maybe she even hated Arizona sometimes as much as Arizona had hated her.
But Calliope Torres loved her too. Because at the end of the day she’d do it all over again. The car accident and Africa and sorbet and the plane crash and Arizona’s left leg. She’d live every excruciating moment so they could be stuck in the car at a red light smiling awkwardly at each other.
Five months, three weeks and six days.
Arizona was positive she wouldn’t make it to six months. Not when Callie smiled wistfully as the light turned green.