AN: Just a very quick note to thank all of those who have continued to follow Burdened, and the messages I have received wondering if the next update is coming. I know it's been ages between parts. So, here's a one-shot to fill in for my slackness. I've been overseas for a month and despite more hours spent in airports and on planes than I care to remember, this is the only thing I actually produced. :-) And it potentially reflects some jet lag and lack of coherency which went hand in hand, with the lack of good coffee I could get my hands on. I so missed my daily coffee purchases but not enough to lose my addiction to travel. Anyway, just a short one-shot set after 9x04 (I know, it's very late!). Life is settling down, so hopefully this is the start of some decent productivity to come. Thanks again.

Somewhere between the

Loss

And lives left behind

I forget

What it is

I run from

Still

I am gone

Yet

In my absence

Lay hope

Miniscule; resounding

Present

Anger creeps, like smoke from a smouldering fire, into crevasses that weren't obvious before. It's not the words that blaze from her mouth or the expression that emanates dissent; rather, it's the unseen that causes the greatest distress.

Like the awful nauseous feeling that hasn't left her stomach since she regained consciousness amongst the plane wreckage; or the tightness in her shoulders, the continuous ache that curls up her clavicles and into the muscles that support the base of her skull. And her chest hurts; constantly tight as if the very air she breathes is thick with an unpleasant stench.

It's not unusual for her to retch and vomit in the night, during those times that she wakes drenched in sweat from vivid dreams. The very nights Callie spends across the hall. And, as the beads of fluid cool and dry on her skin, the thick duvet is such a poor substitute for loving arms.

She hasn't told anyone that; not the therapist she is now mandated to see, nor her parents when they phone periodically. And certainly not her wife, though not for reasons most would suspect. She protects her, in a way; as flawed in process as it clearly is. A misguided attempt, yet an attempt all the same. It's not as if she doesn't see the guilt and the hurt that Callie carries; and with each layer that is shed, it's only more palpable.

Though she can internally say the words, like a mantra, Arizona is yet to find a way to convey her forgiveness. Not that there is anything to forgive; yet Callie awaits and deserves absolution for the impossible decision with the inevitable outcome.

As much as Arizona deserves the opportunity to despise the very world she has participated so fully in, and to hate, with every ounce of her being, the unfairness of it all.

Arizona knows her wife intimately, even with the months that have driven a chasm between them; she knows that Callie spends her waking minutes pondering the 'what ifs'. Arizona's seen the journal articles; and the notes from hypothetical consults with orthopaedic specialists from across the globe.

There was the renowned French surgeon that suggested amputation before necrosis was irreversible and the London based armed forces Doctor that recommended immediate removal to preserve hip function. And the Sydney Vascular Specialist who clearly insisted that protection of the functionality of the femoral stump was the priority. Saving the limb is futile and dangerous, likely fatal.

Every result the same.

Amputate.

Callie's notepaper evidenced her frustration at the responses; paper crinkled with dried tear droplets and tiny scratches where she stabbed at the faded lines with her ballpoint. What use was it to fail when there was never an opportunity to succeed?

Arizona knew all of this and she saw the devastation that emanated from Callie, the way her shoulders weren't as square as they used to be, and her eyes, seldom clear and focussed. She had watched her snap, to crumble and break in front of her until she could regain her composure.

Similarly, Callie knew the helplessness that Arizona had yet to articulate. She saw the struggle between quiet strength and stubbornness get horrifically confused with frustration and self-loathing. And the way Arizona's want and need had become conflicted and indistinguishable.

So, they made small gains; tiny, fingernail width steps forward before somersaulting back. They took the offhand comments from observant friends, colleagues and strangers; then they ruminated for hours, days until the thoughts felt more familiar. Integrated.

Until they sat together in the lounge room, without clear purpose and for the first time in months. On the very sofa where they had watched Sofia take her first steps; and where they made wedding plans and cried tears of ecstasy and moments of despair. Where mothers walk away and best friends share their grief.

Where relationships break and mend.

And with the television humming nonchalantly in front of them, Arizona wasn't sure she was any the wiser for her silent contemplation; in fact, she didn't even have a clear concept of time. She could barely recall what it was they started watching, possibly hours earlier. Though she supposed that Callie was just as oblivious, staring at the wall above the wide screen having barely moved except to cross and uncross her legs. The gap between them was wide, enough for Sofia to jump and play, if she weren't tucked into bed for the night.

They waited, almost nervously; confused and uncertain as to how the evening should end. It was Arizona that made the first move, after debating her own demons for minutes on end. She reached out, fingers unsteady with hesitation as she hooked a finger through a strand of Callie's hair before snatching her hand back when Callie physically jolted in surprise. "You, umm, cut your hair a little," Arizona hurried to explain, lower lip drawn quickly behind her teeth.

A moment passed as Callie slowly comprehended the unexpected comment, her expression flashing as she made what should have been a simple process. "Oh, yeah," she confirmed, voice husky with hours long silence. "Yeah," she repeated, "just a bit, a few weeks ago." She reached back to finger her own hair, as if checking its presence.

Arizona nodded slowly, trying to think of what to say next without emanating guilt at not having even noticed. Where once she would have known if Callie had changed her lip gloss, now, she barely registered different clothes or nights on call.

"If you want," Callie continued, sensing Arizona's uneasiness, "I can make you an appointment some time. Yours is getting really long," she said, hand rising a few inches off her lap before dropping back down. She hadn't affectionately touched Arizona in weeks. Helping her into the car, their apartment, to reach high shelves, yes…but a stranger could have done those things, held her arm, guided her back. She ached at the loss; the parts between them that were still so absent.

Shrugging, Arizona half nodded before shaking her head. "I could I guess, I don't know. You don't like it long?"

It's hair Arizona; as long as you're alive you can shave it off if you want and I won't bat an eyelid. "I do," Callie responded, shaking her immediate internal reaction away. "I just know…" Stopping suddenly, Callie glanced away and shifted her weight on the sofa. She was still walking on eggshells, concerned that the most casual of comments would elicit yet another round of hurtful comments and accusations. Not that she blamed Arizona, and she would wear the insults for as long as she believed her wife was moving forward or at least, working at integrating everything she had lost; experienced. Love isn't perfect; sometimes you just have to make it up as you go along and hope like hell, the pieces fall into place. Whatever the new might be.

"Know?" Arizona prompted, though she quickly noticed Callie's panicked expression. "Oh," she acknowledged, "yeah, I didn't like it under my scrub cap. Is that what you were going to say?" Callie nodded slowly, mouthing her apology without sound. "It's true," Arizona murmured sadly.

"I like it long; it's so different to mine or Sofia's. Soft and light; I used to play with it sometimes, while you were asleep." She forced a smile. "You probably didn't know that."

Not now, not that I don't let you touch me or my hair. I barely let you into the room and our bed is still in pieces in the basement. A dark cloud brushed across Arizona's eyes as they fell to her chest. "No, I didn't know that," she mumbled, troubled by yet another reminder of the life she could barely comprehend she held. The memories seemed distant, detached.

"There's probably a lot that you don't know," Callie pressed. "Like how I always waited for you to go to sleep first, if I could, that is. Then I could stare at you without you getting embarrassed, telling me to stop ogling." She offered an awkward, nervous laugh.

Tears burned at Arizona's eyes and she delved, trying to draw the anger and frustration to the surface. It was so much easier than what she was feeling, the complicated mix of regret and shame, confusion and longing. She opened her mouth to speak, but promptly shut it again. The wrath wasn't simmering, abandoning her where it had become habitual to flash like lightening.

Callie recrossed her legs so that her body tilted slightly towards Arizona, elbow on the back of the couch. "I've got a hundred more examples," she said gently, ending the sentence where she might usually have lightened the conversation with sarcasm or a soft joke. Arizona nodded silently, head still bowed and body motionless. "And that's not even including all the things I love about you," she added, surprised by the swell of emotion that brought a catch to her syllables. "That's at least a thousand more."

Licking her lips, Arizona gripped at the blanket spread across her lap and it made the edge fall off of Callie's knees. "Don't," she requested, shaking her head as she tilted her head back and looked to the ceiling; trying to regain some control with a sharp intake of air through her nostrils.

"I can't not," Callie whispered back. "I might miss you Arizona, but still loving you; that's not an issue for me."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, as uncomfortable as it was necessary. Eventually, Arizona spoke with an accusatory edge to her voice though it was mostly hollow. Defeated. "You miss someone that doesn't exist any more. I can't be the person that you miss; I tried to bring her back but I can't."

Callie was shaking her head before she even heard Arizona's entire statement and she had to admit that a rush of frustration masked the tears that had threated to fall only moments earlier. "Can you listen to me, can you do me a huge favour and just listen to one thing. Please?" Arizona nodded as if Callie was really giving her a choice. "I don't miss what you were, or how you were. I miss you, Arizona. Whoever that might be now doesn't matter, because I still see all the things that I love about you. And I know, I know that I've gotten annoyed and angry at you and I'm sorry, but that's me too. I haven't stopped being me either, but it doesn't mean that I don't love you even more than I did yesterday or the day before that. How can I convince you of that? Is there even a way? Sometimes I think that it's actually you who thinks that who you are now is so unlovable…" Callie trailed off, drawing in a noisy, deep breath, the mess of unordered thoughts in her mind tumbling out haphazardly. She waited for the retaliation; braced for the onslaught as again, she wondered if she had pushed too hard. Why couldn't she just end the night and accept the baby step without trying to leap the crevasse?

The reprisal didn't come.

Arizona nodded and there were tears dripping from the end of her nose; utterly silent yet blaring with internal agony. "You couldn't be more right," she muttered, voice barely audible.

If it were possible to hear hearts break, the crack would have echoed against the walls; as clichéd as it sounds. Callie needed words to respond, and she searched desperately for the perfect ones, but they didn't exist. Still, she needed to say something. "All I want to do is hug you," she said slowly and tenderly, "and I wish that you would let me."

Arizona remained motionless for a moment before she slowly shook her head. No.

"Okay," Callie responded, reaching to place her hand palm up on the blanket that extended to the cushion between them.

Arizona glanced sideways at the gesture and sniffled. "It's not you," she tried to explain, wiping at her eyes. "It's really not you."

Smiling sadly, Callie shrugged. "Why won't you let me hold you, Arizona? Even your hand?"

"I don't know."

"Are you really that angry at me?"

"No. I'm…just, no."

"Then why? I don't understand, I'm trying but I just don't get it. This is me, us. You and me, Arizona. It's just me." Callie coughed and drew in a sharp breath, struggling. She was so close, yet so far from her wife; the love of her life.

"I don't know why I can't, I don't know. I don't know."

"I'm not sure that's an answer though. What do you actually think will happen that is so bad?"

"I'll fall apart." The statement was quick and clear, factual.

And Callie released an involuntary low cry. "And you have no idea how okay that is," she said gently.

"I can't Callie," Arizona whispered.

"You can." Wisps of blond hair crossed her cheekbones as Arizona shook her head. With the bare hint of exasperation sneaking in to a sigh, Callie crawled her hand closer, the tips of her fingernails edging at Arizona's hip. "Okay," Callie repeated, eyes still locked on Arizona's profile, though her wife's gaze was fixed on her lap. "So," she began quietly, "since you came into the bathroom at Joe's, blue eyes crazy and interrupting my meltdown, I've been making a list. Adding to it, every day; all the things that I love about you; all the reasons I love you. The really tiny stuff and the huge things too."

Arizona shook her head, shoulders trembling slightly as tears disappeared below her jawline.

Pressing on, Callie said, "I love the look you get when you're being stubborn, like the first person to say you can't do it, is going to wear a fist. And, I love that you braid your hair and use a pink hair tie; you still do that, you know. And then there's the quiet you as well, that other people don't get to see. I really love that sometimes you just look at me, like you're solving some complicated pharmaceutical equation from med school. Trying to figure me out, read my mind, so that I don't have to say what it is that I need."

Arizona looked up and opened her mouth, shrugging her shoulders before deflating. She worked for a few moments, breathing slowly and trying to find some stability to her voice. "You've been nothing but amazing, Callie," Arizona said sadly. "More than anyone could be. Just incredibly strong and resilient…I can't imagine I would have stood up under the same circumstances. It's hard to explain, what it's like; to be in awe and to feel so inadequate at the same time." She trailed off quietly.

Tapping her fingers, Callie scratched ever so slightly at the blanket covering Arizona. "You did do the same thing Arizona, for me and Sofia. I don't know how to get you to understand that you're fighting your own thoughts, views. It's not how I feel."

"I know; I do."

"Then let me hold your hand."

Long seconds dragged in silence as a clock in the kitchen mocked their inaction; the ticking seeming to echo through the apartment. Then, Arizona's fingers were entwining with Callie's, the sensation sudden and unexpected. Quick. And she was gripping tightly, knuckles grating under her tight hold. She shuddered and bit her lower lip, tear-filled eyes rising to meet Callie's waiting gaze. "I'm sorry," she whispered hoarsely.

Callie shook her head. "Shhhh," she murmured, reaching across her body to grasp Arizona's forearm. "I'm here; I'll always be here."

And the words resonated, dangerously close to the ones Arizona uttered to Nick, days before her life dramatically changed course. A time when she thought she understood everything there was to comprehend about loss. She'd been simply wrong. Grief, in it's many forms, is so much more complicated than she ever imagined. It wasn't about the gap left in your life when someone died, or the part of your history, your future that terminates. It's the parts inside of you that die as well, alongside the decaying body or the rotting limb. And breathing life back into those parts, well that takes so much more than time.

"Me too," Arizona eventually whispered in return, fingernails digging in to Callie's skin. "Can you come back here?" she asked hesitantly, moments later.

"Back here?"

"From Mark's. Can you come back home?" The question was asked cautiously and etched with fear, like she really believed that the answer might be no.

Unable to hide a smile, Callie nodded eagerly. "God yes," she murmured. "I've been waiting, hoping that you would be okay with that soon. Are you sure?"

"I'm sure Calliope. It's just I'm not…" Arizona trailed off awkwardly, drawing in consecutive piercing breaths. She glanced at their joined hands and offered a strained wince, licking her lips. "It would be good to have all the answers figured out, but I don't. And I don't understand why I want to bail; I've got no one to bail to and it's not like I can literally walk out the door."

Callie raised her eyebrows and her fingers squeezed at Arizona's arm. "Are you about to tell me that you just invited me home only so you can leave me?" When Arizona snapped her head up, she stared straight into fluid filled dark eyes, glazed with tears pooled.

"No," she murmured softly, shaking her head. "No," she repeated, more forcibly, "I don't want that. Honestly, I don't. And I don't want to stay like this, just because I can't wrap my head around the fact that life screws up. Crap happens and we've got no control over it." She sighed heavily, voice wavering as Callie's lower eyelids overflowed, wetting the curve of her cheekbones. "I just can't seem to get there; to get myself to believing that."

"You don't have to be all fairy dust and freakin' rainbows." Callie half sobbed and half chuckled a gentle laugh.

"Maybe if I stopped being angry at you for five seconds, then I might have some energy for other stuff."

Callie shrugged, releasing Arizona's forearm and wiping at her face with her sleeve. "There's no manual for this, trust me, I've looked. I've asked; I've googled."

Silence drifted between them, fingers sporadically tightening as if seeking security of the connection, the brief resemblance of safety. "Just don't give up on me yet," Arizona pleaded, blowing air towards her forehead and shaking loose strands of blond hair away from her eyes.

Callie shook her head as she simultaneously covered her eyes. "I won't; I'm not, Arizona." When Callie dropped her hand from her face moments later, fresh tears stained her cheeks. "Tell me that you don't hate me," she requested disjointedly. "Or," she began as an afterthought, breathless as she worked at swallowing the persistent lump in her throat, "that even if you do, it won't be forever. Please?"

Arizona's soft fingers tightened around Callie's and she brought a trembling hand to cup her cheek. Callie crumbled instantaneously. "Calliope," Arizona whispered.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Don't answer, you don't need to answer that."

"I don't hate you, I don't. I really don't. I feel so screwed up but I don't hate you, I could never…I love you, I do." Arizona's voice was feather light, low pitched and soft as Callie folded in front of her, chin dropping to her chest.

"I love you so much," Callie murmured between panting cries and she didn't see the tiny tug at the corner of Arizona's mouth, the slightest of smiles.

"I know you do," Arizona murmured, gradually lowering her hand to hold both of Callie's. She was hesitant and unsure, heart rate racing with an anxiety she had seldom felt with Callie. Every instinctual part of her body was screaming at her to fold into her wife, to give and receive the comfort they were both so desperately seeking. But her mind continued to betray her, doubt and fear churning at her stomach. Yet the anger wasn't there to build the walls, brick by brick; and only sadness heavied her, in its place. "I know," she repeated instead, mirroring Callie's defeated posture, hands out in front of them; joined.

It was so much more than a baby step; not perfect and not a leap, bit still, more than they could have hoped.

Fin.