This was happening. She'd thought this desire a far off dream. But it was real. Arizona was shoving her on her back to the mattress of the bed and Callie was so overcome with want, with lust, that she could barely get her body to cooperate. She needed for this to happen. She needed to wash away the feeling of Mark from her body. Her soul. She loved Mark. She did, but she hated what he'd come to represent from her. Self-loathing.

Arizona pressed her knee between Callie's thighs and roughly moved against her. Her tongue toyed with her own and her lips breathed a wave of shivering anticipation across her mouth.

"Arizona..." she moaned out as she threw her head against the pillows behind her.

There was something different in the other woman's touch. It was still Arizona. The blonde still touched her the same, yet it felt differently. It felt rougher than she knew it truly be. It wasn't reverent or loving, even. It was passionate and heated and carried with it a desire Callie couldn't place.

The soft, comforting, warm and welcome body on top of hers ignored her heated cry and pulled her up by her jacket. The movement was unexpected yet also sexy at the same time.

Arizona pushed the jacket from her shoulders and quickly moved her fingers under her top. Callie expected the blonde to sensually reconnect with her skin, to trace her fingers over her stomach and across the underside of her ribs. She expected wrong. Arizona lifted her shirt up and roughly removed it from her body.

Callie barely had a moment to register where the garment landed before the smaller woman pushed her back against the bed and inserted her thigh back between Callie's legs. The friction felt good to the Latina. It was hot and throbbing and it was everything she'd not felt when sleeping with Mark Sloan.

She soon found herself surrounded by the blonde's hair. The familiar smell left her feeling dizzy and she felt herself starting to cry as the woman on top of her moved her lips down her chin and neck.

Arizona's lips were sliding down her flesh in a frenzy. She felt teeth nipping her and dragging across her throat before the blue eyed woman bit down, painfully, on her pusle point.

The gesture caused her to cry out and open her eyes. The sensation hurt but it was also uncontrolled and heated and sent pulsations down to her sex.

She attempted to bring her hands to the head of wavy blonde hair around her, but Arizona jerked away and released the hold her mouth had on her throat.

"No..." was all the blonde said.

She raised Callie's hands to the sides of her head and leaned forward so that her body weight would keep those hands where she desired. Away from her body.

Rocking down against the dark haired woman's body, Arizona moved her leg between Callie's and, almost, painfully, slammed it against her core.

The Latina could barely breathe. She was turned on so much she couldn't keep her eyes open. Her clit was in a constant state of vibration but at the same time almost hurt with the urgency she felt from her ex's touch.

Her neck was throbbing and she could still feel Arizona's teeth against her skin. This wasn't the way she remembered making love with Arizona. It was nothing but feeling, but without emotion.

It hit her, suddenly, the realization of what was transpiring. Arizona wasn't making love to her. She was having sex with her. That was the difference. The blonde was punishing her in a way.

"Is this not enough for you? Is this not what you want from me?" the smaller woman said from above her.

Callie moved her hips to meet the steady contact of her ex partner's and opened her eyes. Arizona was looking down at her, but it wasn't loving and awe inspired. Her eyes weren't shining from their special connection and she wasn't moving to ensure that she brought Callie an emotional orgasm as well as a physical.

Despite knowing everything she'd just realized, the dark skinned ortho surgeon couldn't stop herself. Sex with Arizona still held more of a meaning for her than good old fashioned guy-gal missionary sex did.

If this was all she could get from the blonde, she'd take it and savor it. She told herself that, after this was over, she was done sleeping with Mark. She wanted the last person to have touched her and felt her body to have been Arizona.

"No, this isn't want I want from you, Arizona." she pleaded through hooded lids. She wanted more. She wanted her fingers on her, in her. She wanted her mouth to erase the evidence of Mark's touches. She wanted the other woman to slow down and worship her body as she once had.

Arizona removed her right hand, from Callie's left, and trailed it down to her chest. She spread her fingers wide and palmed the other woman's breast through her bra. Callie's nipple instantly reacted to the familiar touch and showed its peak against the dark material.

Mark had never been able to get such a quick reaction from her. Often times, she'd been barely able to get aroused at all and the man had ended up bringing about his own orgasm while she faked her own for his benefit.

This was different. Her body knew Arizona. It had been made to respond to this woman's touch. Rather that touch was gentle and loving or rough and insistent, her body didn't differentiate.

She pushed herself up and felt a small hand squeeze her flesh. She moaned and bit her lip to keep her sob within her body.

"Does he touch you this way, Callie?" Arizona whispered against her ear. Her breath was hot and it made Callie's eyes roll back in her head.

Teeth found the sensitive skin below her ear and, a moment later, she felt them digging into her neck again. She quickly remembered that Mark had left a hickey in the same spot a few nights ago when he'd come to his own orgasm on top of her.

The memory made her sick and she wished she could forget it. Feeling Arizona's mouth in that same spot brought to her attention what the other woman was doing.

She was marking her.

The knowledge seemed so...cave man. So...territorial. But, it was also hot and, in a very twisted way, loving.

A sharp pain brought tears to her eyes and a very audible gasp left her lips. A wet warmth on her skin informed her that Arizona Robbins had just bitten her. Her ex, with the super magic smile, had just drawn blood.

Granted it was probably a very minute amount, but knowing that her ex felt that strongly was confusing to Callie.

"Answer me. Does he touch you this way? Is that what you like?"

Arizona's voice was shaking. It was obvious, by the sound of it, that the other woman was crying herself.

Callie moved her free hand down her body and fumbled with the button to her pants. She felt Arizona moving her own hand downward and the two of them fought a moment before Callie succeeded in popping the button.

"I don't want you to touch me the way he does. You know what I like. He doesn't. I never wanted him to." the tall Latina breathed out heavily as she looked into blue eyes that had suddenly focused on her.

Grabbing the blonde's hand, she threaded their fingers and slowly lowered their conjoined hands into her pants. She heard herself gasp in anticipation. Arizona's fingers fit perfectly between her legs. Her slender, delicate fingers were always one of Callie's favorite things about her.

The blonde watched her face and studied her reaction.

Callie used both of their hands to move past her panties and finally meet the moist arousal the blonde had been building. She opened her mouth in appreciation when she felt the touch she'd not felt in three months time.

Mark, hell, none of her other lovers had been able to make her so wet. She'd not known a woman could produce so much wetness until she'd made love to Arizona. That hadn't changed.

She watched as the face above her shifted, albeit very quickly, to the face of the woman she knew and loved. For the briefest of moments, Arizona looked at her the way she had every single time she'd touched Callie in this way.

Awed. Thankful. Respectful.

The look was gone before Callie could even smile at having seen it. The dark hue that had been present in Arizona's blue eyes returned as she tore her hand from her ex's and roughly entered her with two long fingers.

For a fraction of a second, Arizona had been able to forget that she and Callie were over. She'd been able to forget that the woman beneath her had, only a few hours ago, been allowing Mark Sloan the same privilege she was currently taking part in.

Callie's half cry at her sudden intrusion left her feeling more sick than she could ever remember. Fingers on her wrist slowed her fast pace and she looked up to see her ex crying.

"Don't touch me like him. Please. I want to remember you, Arizona. Just this last time."

The blonde swallowed hard and stilled her fingers. The other woman's smooth muscles around her fingers steadily tried to pull her in farther and her wetness continued to spill around them. She swallowed again and let her head fall to Callie's chest.

They stayed that way from several moments. Arizona could feel Callie's heart beating and it vibrated into her skull and caused her own heart to follow it's rhythm.

Without possessing the ability to stop herself, Arizona started to cry against Callie's chest. She moved her fingers, gently inside the other woman to signal her actions.

Looking back up at the woman she had loved more than anything, the blonde leaned forward and kissed her. She kissed her they way she knew Mark never could. She kissed her like someone who, despite everything, was in love with her.

She felt Callie smiling into the kiss. Tears from the Latina's eyes fell down her cheeks and her hips moved up and down in an, ever increasing, but gentle speed.

"Yes, Ari...this-this is what I've wanted. You..." she said, pulling away from the smaller woman's lips. "You...I've missed you...I've missed you so much."

Arizona said nothing. She let the other woman's words hang freely around her but she didn't make any attempt to catch them.

Lowering her head to the crook of Callie's neck, she placed her hips behind her hand and rolled her body to increase the movement between her ex's legs.

The orgasm came more quickly than she was used to, but she savored the tight squeezing Callie's sex engaged in around her fingers.

A deep, keening, and guttural moan sounded against her ears as the other woman enjoyed her release.

Before Callie could say or do anything to make the moment any more confusing, Arizona pulled her fingers out of her and rolled away from the bed.

The Latina watched as the blonde entered the small, adjoining, bathroom of her bedroom and slammed the door closed behind her.

---

Callie remained perfectly still with her chest heaving and her tears stinging her eyes. She placed a hand over her heart and felt it beating more heavily than she could remember. Strangled sobs from behind the closed door to her right brought her down from her high and allowed her reality to connect with her.

She moved the hand that had been on her chest to her neck and flinched at the contact. Pulling her fingers away, she gazed upon the slight reddish warmth covering them.

She felt Arizona everywhere. Her body had been marked by her. A mirror hanging on the closet door in front of her showed her the truth of Arizona's actions.

A large, purplish discoloration was covering one side of her neck. She could just barely make out teeth marks in the bruise. The other side of her neck showed her where the blonde had bitten her. The light amount of blood the gesture had brought about was drying.

Swallowing and rolling over on her side, she asked herself why she always made the worst decisions. Was she just cursed to repeat her past mistakes over and over again? Was she destined to relive the same heartache time after time?

Had anyone have asked her a year ago if she thought it was possible for she and Arizona to be in their current state of affairs, she would have openly laughed in their face.

Arizona Robbins had been the one good thing Callie had experienced in her life. The blonde had made her see herself and realize her own self worth. Her own potential.

When she'd left, Callie hadn't known how to cope. She hadn't known how to be Arizona's Calliope without Arizona.

The sound of running water came to her attention and she glanced over her shoulder hoping to see her ex.

Upon noticing the door was still shut, Callie moved off the bed and took a deep breath. She didn't bother buttoning her pants or putting her shirt back on. Crossing the, surprisingly, short distance to the bathroom, the tall woman knocked on the door and waited for a reply.

No such thing came.

Opening the door and resolving herself to the possibility of the smaller woman yelling at her, Callie froze when she saw the blonde.

Arizona was standing in front of the sink in her sweat pants and a bra. On the right side of her body, slightly below her rib cage, a fading bruise could be seen. Callie noticed, rather quickly, that the bruise resembled the imprint left by that of a human hand.

The man. The villager Arizona had spoken of. He had left the mark on her...on her ex.

Callie watched as the blonde's blue eyes moved in the mirror. They left the bruise on her body and met the dark brown of the room's newest occupant. The raven haired woman glanced past the blonde and checked the water level of the bath tub.

Entering the room and closing the door behind her, Callie walked up behind Arizona and met her yes in the was so much that needed to be said that neither one of them where to begin. Both of them wondered if they should even try.

Callie moved her hand down the smaller woman's side and continued to hold her eyes in the mirror. She noticed Arizona flinch, again, at her touch but she made no move to change things.

"Did you ever love me?" Callie whispered as her fingers moved over the dark reminder of Arizona's attack.

Her touch was light, hesitant, and reassuring. The blonde wished she could will her mind to move her body. This wasn't helping matters any.

Holding the brown eyes of he ex with her own blue, Arizona replied, "Yes, more than I've ever loved anyone."

The sound of rushing water continued to lure the two women into a state of easy going bliss. It was deceiving.

"Then how could you just walk away from me? We'd just gotten back together, Arizona. We'd moved in together and were planning our lives. I was willing to follow you anywhere but you-"

"I couldn't allow you to, Callie." the smaller woman interjected heatedly.

There it was again. Callie. Arizona didn't call her Callie. Not unless she was peeved with her or angry or hurt. Arizona had been one of a very small list of people who were privileged enough to call her by her full name. The sound of her name sliding off the blonde's tongue and passing over he lips had been the sweetest sound the Latina had known. No one said her name the way Arizona had. No one. It had become a term of endearment between them. Callie missed that.

Arizona moved out of her embrace and sat on the edge of the bathtub. She ran he fingers in the water before turning the faucets off.

"Why, Arizona?" Callie demanded.

Scratching her forehead and staring at the wall in front of her, the blonde said "Let's not do this, Callie. I wanted you to be happy. I left you. End of story. Just leave me alone."

The ortho attending was beside herself. Again. They were finally having the conversation, hell, the conversations, they should have had months ago, and Arizona didn't want to give them the chance?

Add to the mix that her ex had been attacked, had nearly been raped and had given up the Carter-Madison grant and come back home; they needed to continue talking.

"Talking about this will make me happy, Arizona. You leaving me was the worst moment of my life. I get it, okay? I get it. I was ruining it for you. Had I have gone, we would have grown to hate one another and we would have ended anyway. I get all of that. At the time, I didn't. All I could understand was that you were leaving me. I had no home to go back to. No job to return to. I had nothing and you were picking a fucking grant over me."

"I'm sorry, okay? I messed up! I should have said something sooner, but I wanted to stay in our pretty pink bubble. That's been my problem all along, Callie. Yes, I walked away but don't you dare ever think it was easy. I've never done anything more difficult!" Arizona spoke over her.

Standing from her spot on the bathtub's rim, the blonde sniffed back her tears and the larger part of her emotions and looked at Callie.

"I thought I was doing the best thing for us. We were heading towards a breakup long before the airport, Callie. Long before. We broke up, survived a shooting together, and made up. No muss, no fuss. How many conversations have we had regarding what we both promised the other that day?"

The dark skinned woman said nothing, but continued to listen to the blonde in front of her. She knew they were, finally talking things through. She didn't know if it would end up for the better or not. Either way, both of them were putting their cards on the table.

"I hate Mark, Callie. Hate him. I didn't think I had it in me to hate anybody. But him? He comes pretty close. He was always there, Callie. Always. You talked to him more than you ever did with me. He was everywhere all the time. We saw him at work, you two made dinner plans at night, he lived across the hall and interrupted us during our time together. And you? You were perfectly fine with that! You expected me to give him a chance? And you know what, Callie? I did!"

Callie listened and quickly came to the understanding that the other woman was right. About everything. She had allowed her friendship with Mark to intrude upon her relationship with Arizona. The blonde had gone along with things despite having to deal with the knowledge that her lover's best friend had also been someone she'd slept with in the past.

"So, you wanted to talk? We talked. We were a time bomb waiting to happen. I just diffused the situation before everything blew up in our faces. The funny thing is, I really didn't expect to come back and find out you were sleeping with Mark again. That was always my greatest fear, Callie, but I gave him a chance, for you, and came to think better of him. I was starting to slowly put away some of those fears and-"

"Arizona...don't. You're right. I haven't been fair in this. My past relationships have left me pretty jaded."

The other woman scoffed but said nothing. She sat back down on the edge of the tub and rested her chin in her hands.

"Is that going to be your way out the rest of your life? Your past?"

Callie shook her head and came to kneel in front of the smaller woman. She needed Arizona to know. Everything. Their current conversation was cathartic. She needed it to continue.

She noticed the blonde's eyes travel to her neck and widen at the sight of the mark she'd left on her. Fingers came to her mouth as Arizona swallowed back a gasp.

Callie grabbed her hands and lowered them. "I love you. This?" she pointed to the bite on her neck, "this has made me feel more alive than I've felt since you left, Arizona. I know sleeping with Mark was the hugest mistake of my life, but that's kind of full circle if you think about it."

The blue eyed woman narrowed her eyes and back away from her slightly. "How in the world is what you did ful-"

"Because you were my greatest accomplishment. You were my greatest joy. I was me, the me no one else believed I could be, when I was with you. When you left, I didn't know how to exist. You were gone and you'd hurt me, Arizona. I'm self destructive. You know that. You saw that the first night we met."

Arizona licked her lips and shook her head. Callie had called her "her greatest accomplishment" but how were they supposed to just pick up and move on and be them again? Who were they anyway? Did either of them know the other that well at well? Did they even belong together?

The blonde wished the answer to that question was yes. She loved the woman in front of her. No one else could have hurt her this much if she didn't feel such powerful emotions to begin with. Callie was here. She'd left Mark and come looking for. Did that count for anything?

Arizona didn't know. She felt as if the she and Callie were burning, being consumed like the fabled phoenix. Did they posses the ability to be reborn, together, again?

"I tried to forget you, but sleeping with Mark just made me remember you." Callie was talking again and the ex peds surgeon fought to catch up.

"Sex with Mark reminded you of me?" the blonde practically chocked on the question.

Callie smiled and shook her head. She leaned forward and placed her hands flat on the rim of the bathtub. Her amrs surrounded Arizona's body.

"Not the sex, Arizona. I rarely ever got off. When I did, it was shallow and empty."

"I don't want to hear about-"

"Just listen, okay?"

The blonde looked down at her lap. She really didn't want to be doing this. She just wanted to soak in the water behind her and try to forget the way she'd just ravaged Callie's body. That person wasn't who she was. The biting, the roughness, the stilted movements. That wasn't how she touched Callie. Or, it hadn't been.

Something had taken over her when the Latina had kissed her. Something that didn't listen to her mind or her analytical brain. She'd...she'd fucked Callie and the information made her dizzy. The other woman had stopped her from completely fulfilling the act and she'd been able to touch Callie the way she once had. She'd been gentle and feeling Callie's gratitude had been beyond intoxicating to Arizona.

But, a part of her wished that wasn't the case. She needed to move on. Move away. Callie had hurt her in the absolute worst way. How did they move past that?

Nodding her head, she let the other woman continue speaking.

"Being with Mark reminded me of the person I was before I met you. He was familiar and I knew who that person was. Who I had been. Being her was the only way I could handle being without you. That's shitty, I know. You're my greatest love, Arizona. No one can ever compare to you and I didn't want them to. I don't want them to. Mark was a mistake, but he helped me to realize that..."

Blue eyes searched brown and a meek whisper met the air. "Realize what?"

"That I didn't want to get over you, Arizona. That there was no quick cure for losing the love of your life. That toy had changed me for the better and I didn't want to be that person before I met you."

Silence was in hefty supply as both women said nothing. Callie had explained things as much as she could. There was still plenty Arizona needed to hear, to know, to understand. The Latina didn't want to spill her guts if the other woman wanted nothing to do with her.

Arizona was, for the first time in her life, at a loss for words. Callie was telling her she was in love with her, that she wasn't herself without her, but the blonde couldn't get the image of Callie and Mark together out of her mind.

She didn't know what to do. She loved Callie so much it scared her. Her current pain showed her what was at stake for loving someone as passionately as she loved Callie. Did she really want to make another go of things only to risk feeling...this again?

Callie stepped away from her stood up. Arizona immediately missed the heat from her body and looked through teary eyes.

"I'm going to go. Cristina is going to let me stay with her the rest of the month until I can get our...my apartment back. I do love you, Arizona. I may have fucked up the one great thing I had going for me, but I'm glad I got to experience you. You were my dream come true...even if I had to wake up eventually."

Callie's voice was thick and heavy with emotion and Arizona, despite everything that had happened, thought she was gorgeous. Breathtakingly stunning. What did everything they'd just gone through mean? Had it meant anything.

Standing up, Arizona walked over to her ex and looked stricken for a moment. She needed to say something. But what?

"If you need anything, Arizona, please call you need to talk about..." Callie paused and her eyes traveled over the bruise on the blonde's side, "about anything, I'm here for you. I messed up. I hurt you. You hurt me. We both screwed up, but I'm still here for you. I'm not going to be sleeping with Mark anymore. I want my body to remember you so I may be celibate for a while."

The Latina laughed lightly at her own joke and ducked her head. This was hard, but she knew she couldn't force Arizona to get back with her. Callie needed to show the other woman that she could function, maturely, without her. She needed time to grant her to boon of gaining the blue eyed woman's trust back. In short, she needed to atone for past mistakes.

"Your room is paid for until the end of the month, so..."

Arizona cut her off and softly, slowly brought their mouths together. She held Callie's lips with her own for several seconds. She didn't know what the future held for the both of them, but did know that she didn't want to leave Callie as broken as she'd left her before.

Turning her head, slightly, she kissed her ex, fully, a second time. Her hands on Callie's face were gentle and warming. She wasn't so sure if she liked the other woman's shorter hair as much, but being able to kiss her, maybe this one last time, made up for her indecision.

Callie pulled away first and smiled sadly at her. Kissing the blonde's brow once, she stepped away and turned to open the door.

She left Arizona standing in the bathroom and was almost to the front door when her ex's beautiful voice stopped her. Her hand was already on the handle when she turned around.

"Calliope...I love you, too."

The dark haired woman bit back the cry that wanted to escape. Smiling to stop herself from sobbing, she nodded and left the room.

She and Arizona may have been over. They may not have. Only time and both of their commitment would show them the outcome. Everything was uncertain, but as she walked down the hallway of the hotel, she Callie couldn't stop the bright smile that appeared on her face or the happy tears that joined that smile.

Whatever happened, Arizona had called her 'Calliope' and hearing her name, if perhaps for the last time, from the other woman's mouth was enough to sustain her until fate brought them to where they both needed to be.