Bone Deep

Sometimes you don't get happy endings in life, and if you do, sometimes that happy ending is just that, an end, and it leaves you as fast as you found it. Sometimes all you can do is take the happiness offered and realize that is all you are going to get. And it's up to you to make that time worthwhile.

Authors' Notes: Hello and welcome. Just a quick note, hopefully the longest one you'll have to endure from us. No this is not a return of DontEatBlue. It is simply two friends that found a common interest in a story. Sadie was trying to figure out her next story to write and I wanted to finish writing this from years before. We both found ourselves quickly thrown into planning and outlining and talking and working together before we knew it and BAM, here you go. We will only be updating once a week due to scheduling conflicts. A HUGE thank you to our Beta Shinata-Riyoko. And from Blue, thank you Sadie for the wonderful rollercoaster this has been to write with you.

Chapter One: From a Nightmare Born, a Dream Now Shared

Fate. What a crock of shit. A joke. The thing people blame for mistakes or romanticize with high expectations never met. Fate. Arizona had never been a believer in such things, but instead it was the decisions one made in life that would make your future. Some people are lucky or, well, think they're lucky when they find the one, that compatible person, but people change all the time, circumstances change for the better and sometimes for the worse and 'matches made in heaven' aren't ever just black and white.

It's simple, to have joy, one must understand pain. To appreciate love, one must know loss. To find the light, one must respect the dark. She lived by those rules and every single moment of every single day, Arizona counted her blessings, never taking a single thing for granted. Loss was an old friend no longer a guest at her table. Both of them victims of his long, uninvited presence forced to merely survive with no other option in sight. Except survival wasn't enough and solace found a love neither ever believed was again possible. It would never be a perfect love, the kind where dreams were made from, because theirs definitely started out from the inner depths of their worst nightmares. Nor would they be their first true loves, the ones all others would always compare to. They would always be the ones compared. Instead what they found in each other was a love of saving grace.

Everyone has their own private utopia, a dream, a clear vision of what heaven will be for them. Arizona, in moments like these, found such a place truly still existed inside the realms of reality. She was living life as close to perfection as was ever going to be possible. It was in her family where she found her piece of heaven as she watched as her eldest daughter run circles around her younger sister who sat pouting in the grass, her two year old feet were too uncoordinated to keep up with the speed demon of the five year old. She watched as small chubby fingers trace the two freshly skinned knees from two separate spills earlier in the day. What was going on in her tiny human's head? Was she trying to figure out if it was worth another attempt? Had her baby been playing to caution even as she ached to be free? Arizona understood that feeling all too well, the need to protect yourself, sometimes from what could be some of the greatest moments of your life yet also needing to close your eyes and jump in, to play out the hand life dealt you, never knowing which path to take, when to risk it all. Ariel was definitely her daughter, her mini-me. How many times would she take great leaps and fall flat on her face succumbing to fear until she needed coaxing and a gentle loving hand to bring her back out? They were two peas in a pod. Deciding she could no longer sit and watch life pass her by, Ariel jumped to her feet, the memory of falls past quickly forgotten as she raced after her sister, both girls screaming as the game of tag began once again. She couldn't help but smile at their carefree, innocent antics and found such peace in the moment. That feeling of warmth that occurs in your soul when you watch your child tackle the world in those tiniest of triumphs yet so enormous in a mother's heart; it's totally mesmerizing and amazing, it can bring you out of any mood, take away any sorrow no matter the depth it runs.

With her wife reading a few feet away on the deck chair as she stood keeping an eye on her babies, Arizona felt completely whole, even with all her poor heart had been through, beaten and battered and almost completely destroyed. But she came out on top and, watching her children play, she had no regrets. There was no changing the past, not ten seconds ago nor ten years and living with the weight of what could have been, what should have been, what was, she'd shed years before. It was suffocating, the pain of the past, but she'd learned to embrace what they'd been through in order to make the most out of this future. From a nightmare born, a dream now shared.

As long as she had Calliope, Ariel, and Scarlet, the nightmare to get there was worth the pain for the lifetime of love she'll always know.

*GA*GA*GA*GA*GA*GA*

12 years earlier

Life isn't perfect. Somewhere out there is an unwritten rule that says when you think life is perfect, there will be a catastrophe or tragedy or you'll stub your toe into the hardest object in your house because it is a well known fact that stubbing your toe is the epitome of pain. This applies to everybody, nobody is entitled to their happily ever after without a dramatic and often testing juncture that is there to twistedly help us fully appreciate what we have. This juncture, the new cruelly imposed struggle, is supposed to lead us to a deeper and more meaningful end where we will look back and realize it was all worth it. Or so, one would hope that would be the case. Except that's not always the case, because sometimes life just sucks and the end result, no matter how hard we fight, is losing everything anyway.

The easy road that people boast about, the road they claim not only exists, but they also prompt you to take it because they did so well on it? It's not as easy as we've been led to believe it is, it's quite deceptive actually and when we take that path, we often find ourselves thrown into a harder and more dangerous one voyage than we ever intended. We're faced with spur the moment decisions with little to no time to react; it's a fight or flight reaction, a split moment that can, and often times will divert our attention and direction down other paths and straight into an entanglement of thorns. We fight so hard and long, and there are times we really, really, really believe that we deserve that easy road. Except somewhere out there, maybe high above us known to some heaven or, maybe in the deepest depths below that so many don't want to fathom actually exists, some cruel entity is playing with our destiny. Someone or something enjoys our battle to exist in a fairy tale world, hell, exist in any world, and for them, it is far too entertaining to let us off the hook, even just one time. The end result might be the same no matter which path we choose to go down, but sometimes that easy path has just changed our destiny and not for the better.

We are simply left with two choices. Do we choose the struggle and battle we know or do we risk the invisible ones that could possibly ruin us forever?

Callie wanted the easy path; she really thought that she deserved that elusive easy path after everything she'd been through. During a weak moment, she'd married a man in Las Vegas who used her as a means to make himself feel better about the crappy circumstances that life had dealt him. He then dumped her for the first person who made him feel even better about his insecure existence. He didn't share her feelings and, though hers could have been stronger for him as well, the end of her marriage was not through fault of her own.

Skip ahead to her next failed attempt at a relationship where she did play a fault in the demise, but only because she had an overpowering need to protect her family. Seattle Grace was her family and, although Erica was her lover and opened up a side to her that she might have never found (cue not easy path here), she ultimately went with the age-old rule: girl(boy)friends come and go, but friends will last forever. Maybe Erica didn't break her heart the way George did, but she crushed Callie's self-esteem and destroyed what faith she did have left in humanity.

Callie wanted that damn easy path, especially after the not so easy and quite bumpy start into the relationship she currently found herself a partner in. She wanted for them, her and Arizona, to be able to finally get on that road that took them to forever together without the disagreements that had real potential to end them, or the gunman with their lives truly threatened. They deserved easy and the decision to go off into the sunset together, that was easy. Packing up their lives and changing the world for the better together, why would anything get in their way when they were off to do such good?

Life wasn't fair; it wasn't easy by any means, and it was about to get a whole lot harder.

As they walked toward their destination, security check point B at SeaTac, Callie couldn't help but continue the internal debate she'd been having now for weeks. Go. Stay. Go. Stay. If she went, she had absolutely no chance whatsoever, but what she did have, she had with Arizona.

If she stayed, she had a fighting chance, but they didn't. She wouldn't be that woman that asked her lover to give up her dreams, and Arizona had already made up her mind to begin with; Callie's presence had never been a factor in her decision to go to Malawi, but merely an afterthought. If she went, the pain she would ultimately put the woman through, the woman who meant the world to her, would be, in her own eyes, unforgivable. Callie would be ruining Africa for Arizona and in the end she didn't think she could forgive herself for doing that. And if she stayed, she could do everything in her power, in God's power, in humanity's power, in medicine's power, to be everything Arizona wanted and needed when she returned.

In the end, her decision was based solely on her love for Arizona, but she was running out of time to make that decision. If she wasn't selfish, if she wasn't so in love with the woman that held her heart, if she could just say goodbye, she'd have made it by now, but getting even these last minutes with Arizona, she selfishly took them.

Callie could hear Arizona rattling on about the schedule when they landed and how much time they had to settle in. She mentioned Callie staying back and getting their stuff together while she went to the clinic and checked in, seeing what they were up against for their first day of work. Arizona's voice was so full of hope and excitement and that's all it took to push Callie to make the decision she had to make; the right decision for Arizona, and for them. It was quickly taken out of her hands as the words came spilling out, there was no going back.

"I can't go." Callie stopped walking and watched Arizona take a few more steps before her words reached Arizona's ears causing her to turn around and face her. She said nothing, only continued to stare with curiosity at her lover.

Tears filled the brown eyes before her and she knew this wasn't merely a stall tactic over some unvoiced fears of flying or last minute doubts about leaving friends behind. Arizona knew Callie was serious.

Groans and harsh comments from other airport visitors were aimed in their direction as other people were now forced to detour around them, but their words fell on deaf ears. Callie's heart raced so fast it pounded in her head.

"What?" She didn't even bother to argue; by the look on Callie's face, the serious tone on her voice even edged with uncertainty, Arizona could tell that her mind was already made up. Just by the simple act of her forehead creasing, her brows knitting together told all. It was Callie's courageous face and Arizona knew it well.

Taking a deep breath, Callie steadied herself against her rolling suitcase handle. She was so dizzy with grief, her knuckles whitened as she clung on for dear life. "I can't go to Malawi with you." She whispered as tears began falling down her cheeks, quickly soaking into the collar of her coat. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." her voice broke as she watched the face before her contort in pain, the words seeming to cut Arizona like a knife.

"Callie, don't do this. Please." Arizona begged. She knew this wasn't Callie's dream, but it was only three years. She told Arizona she wanted to go, that she was in this for the long haul. She made her expand her dreams to include the one woman that had the power to break her if this all fell apart and here it was, falling apart.

"I love you, Arizona." Callie was still whispering when she reached her hand out to touch Arizona's face one last time.

"No— no!" Arizona pulled away before contact could be made. She didn't want to feel Callie's skin against her own. What was left of her walls were barely intact, ready to crumble, and that simple touch would be all it took to bring them cascading down.

"No! You— you love me, but you— you aren't going? How does that even make sense Callie? How?" She instantly grew angry, throwing her words back at the devastated looking woman before her as she tried to suppress the grief that she knew would now only come later. But for the now anger was needed here. She needed to feel angry, Callie was leaving her in an airport to go it alone. Telling her to go to Malawi without her, but that she loved her, was not okay.

"Arizona, I'm sorry, I just, I can't." She pulled her hand back to her side wishing for nothing more than that one last touch. That one last good memory to get her through what lay ahead, the unknown waiting for her behind the next corner.

"NO!" Arizona yelled. "You— you promised. You wanted to go. NO! You can't do this. Don't do this." Everybody was moving in what felt like a million miles an hour around her as her head spun and her body froze. This wasn't happening.

"Go to Malawi; save the tiny humans. Be their hero." Callie choked on her tears as she could barely get out the words.

"Be their hero." She repeated when all she wanted to do was scream be my hero, but Callie was doing this for her lover and held on tight to that. Letting Arizona go was the hardest moment of her life, but she had to do this and she had to be strong.

"NO!" Her brain was repeating it as many times as her mouth, but she just couldn't process what was happening. "You're going to Malawi, you're going with me." She grabbed for Callie's luggage pulling hard against the tight grip she had in her stationary state. Callie wasn't budging.

If Arizona's heart was breaking, Callie's had to be gone, because she was destroying the only good thing left in her life. Watching Arizona break down, pulling desperately against the strength of her will was devastating. The harder Arizona fought, the faster her tears fell, each single piece of her shattered heart piercing Callie through the depths of her soul. It took everything in her not to step forward, pulling Arizona into her arms and promising her forever. A promise Callie worried she'd ultimately break if she gave in to heartbreak's pain and followed Arizona to the ends of the earth. Sucking air hard into her lungs, Callie closed her eyes and imagined the possibilities that lay ahead in the future, the pain worth the end. Their end. Their future. Blinking several times she looked up at Arizona. "I can't go with you. I'm not going, Arizona. You have to go without me." She was trying so hard to be strong, but the tears cascading down Arizona's cheeks were destroying her one by one.

"You promised." Arizona screamed throwing Callie's luggage handle back toward her almost knocking her off balance with the urgency and strength behind it, her outburst bringing unwanted attention their way before her own voice dropped as she could now barely talk through her tears. "It's three years Callie, three years. Why? Why are you doing this?"

"I'll still be here; in three years. I'm going to be here." She was trying to convince herself of this just as much as Arizona. "I'll meet you here in three years, but I can't go." Callie tried one more time to reach out and touch Arizona, but the she moved just out of reach, further away.

"If you stay— if you stay here and I go without you, we're done. We're over, Calliope."

There was such finality in her words terrifying Callie to almost change her mind. Almost.

When Callie didn't bother to argue the point, or even disagree Arizona turned on her heels and without another word walked toward the security line never another look back. Callie's world went black with grief as she watched the love of her life disappear first behind the metal detectors and then into the swarms of other passengers. She momentarily regretted her decision and started to take off after the woman whose heart she had just shattered, but she also knew she was doing the right thing and stopped dead in her tracks. The pain would eventually fade for Arizonaby doing it this way; this was the only way.