Chapter Text
“We have a newcomer.” Bailey interrupted her own sentence and everyone followed her gaze to the basement door. Amelia’s memory took a moment to catch up with the jolt in her stomach when she saw Arizona in entirely the wrong place. She lived in the desert, with sand in their combat boots and red eyes from dry sleeplessness, not in Brooklyn with her hair down and a fading tan. “Welcome,” Bailey said, “help yourself to coffee, take a seat if you want.”
Amelia blinked. When she opened her eyes Arizona was still standing there, staring back at her.
“Robbins?” Jo said, all eyes snapping to her. “When did you, what… I mean–” Jo got up; Amelia wanted to follow her across the room, but couldn’t seem to feel her legs. She watched them hug, made eye contact with Bailey, who looked at her questioningly.
“Arizona,” was all Amelia could get out, suddenly terrifyingly sober, statue-still with a hammering heart – fuck, she was practically shivering. She stood up, had to balance herself and couldn’t blame it on the weed. “Hi,” she mustered as Arizona pulled away from Jo to look at her again. The old urge to correct her uniform hit her, she straightened her creased shirt to no avail. Surely this wasn’t real.
“Amelia,” Arizona looked equally dumbstruck. “How you been?” Amelia laughed, sort of.
“Here,” was all she could think to say, and looked around at where she was. A dingy church basement in Brooklyn. Six – now seven – other women veterans sat in a circle, a fold down table with piss-poor coffee, the smell of damp and a clock with the loudest tick possible. “You?” She watched Arizona pause and swallow thickly.
“There.” It spoke for itself.
“Welcome to group, I guess.”
“Someone get the woman a chair,” Bailey ordered, so April jumped at the opportunity. Jo muttered something to Arizona that Amelia couldn’t catch, so she moved her chair to make space, and watched in bemusement as Jo led her over, Arizona leaning heavily on a hospital-issued cane. She sat down heavily and shifted with discomfort, pressing her hand against her thigh and looking up at Amelia.
“Geez, Shepherd, you’d think I’d come back from the dead. Sit down.” Amelia sat, but couldn’t stop looking from Arizona, to her cane, and back to Arizona.
“Sorry, what’s going on here?” Maya leaned forward curiously, “did you guys serve together?”
“She was in our squad,” Jo said. Amelia and Arizona exchanged a secret glance for the first time in years, the same rush and shame crashing back into them all over again.
“Arizona Robbins,” Arizona said, breaking eye contact to look at Bailey. “Sergeant. Honourably discharged in May.” She used the same tone as she had when addressing a superior officer, the sudden militance sending a shiver up Amelia’s spine.
“Miranda Bailey, nice to meet you,” Bailey replied warmly, and looked to Maya to introduce herself.
“I’m Maya.”
“April.”
“Lexi.”
“Vic.”
“You know me,” Amelia said, not quite able to hear her own voice over the rushing in her ears. Arizona did know her, or she used to. She knew Private Shepherd, she knew Amelia, she knew that by March of their second tour, there wasn’t much difference between one and the other. Hell, by the time Amelia left, she wasn’t sure if there was much difference between herself and Arizona, between any of their uniformed bodies and the other.
“Yeah,” Arizona nodded, and met Amelia’s eye again. It was strange, to look at her and not worry that someone would notice, stranger still that there was no humming of drones or whirring engines in the backdrop of their eye contact. “It’s good to see you,” Arizona offered.
“Yeah, you too Robbins.”
Amelia left to smoke as soon as they paused for a coffee break, Arizona followed her out. They climbed the stairs in silence, Amelia noting how slow and unsteady Arizona was now. She held the door for her, and then extended her carton of cigarettes. Arizona took one, and the lighter that followed, not breaking their silence until she exhaled.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” Amelia lit her own cigarette and looked at her. She was noticeably older, her skin still sun-kissed with lines from the heavy desert heat creasing her forehead and her jaw locked in tight discomfort. Amelia didn’t recognise this expression. Odd, when she thought she knew them all. Maybe she’d forgotten, it had been a while. Her body hadn’t, though. Her fingers still wanted to reach out to nudge the back of her hand in a fleeting touch; her lips wanted to curve into their old adoring smile.
There was something more ominous behind her ribs, too. Something she’d been running from since the moment she was discharged, something that she could never seem to outrun.
“Here I am,” Amelia half-smiled, and wanted to ask her what she was doing here. She held herself back; between the cane, the limp and the exhausted dark circles, Amelia could only assume that an honourable discharge was not the whole story. “You got back in May?” she asked instead, “liking New York?” Arizona furrowed her brow.
“You’re making small talk?” She took a drag of her cigarette.
“Yeah, welcome back to civilization,” Amelia quipped, “you’ll have to get used to it.”
“Well shit, take me back to the desert.” Amelia laughed, and Arizona cracked a smile – a proper one, dimples and all – for the first time. “New York’s fine. Haven’t seen much of it yet.”
“No?” Amelia asked, “looking for a tour guide?” Of course she was offering. Wasn’t this what they’d imagined to get themselves through the nights of freezing? A future in the city, together, at college; sitting on the fire escape, watering plants, drinking wine. Amelia had always pictured the ideal with a hazy yellow tint, not like this. Her fingers were cold and her body still couldn’t decide whether it wanted to run and hide or take her hand.
“Yeah, that’s why I hit up a VA meeting. Got lost on my way to the bus tour.”
“Bus tour’s crap anyway, you’re not missing out.” Arizona tilted her head,
“You got a better idea?” It wasn’t a challenge, but Amelia heard it as one. An opportunity to prove that she hadn’t really changed, which was somehow less frightening than the idea that she had.
“Ditch Bailey’s meeting, go smoke in Prospect, get you a pretzel?”
Amelia had never seen Arizona stoned before. She wasn’t sure if it was her own intoxication or Arizona’s eased tension that made her look bright in a way Amelia had never been witness to before.
“I missed you,” she said, because it was true. They’d been quiet for a minute or so, their minds wandering from their shared bench as they passed the joint to and fro. Arizona met her eyes searchingly, maybe a little absent.
“Amelia, I’m a mess.” Amelia shrugged.
“To be expected. It’s only been a month.”
“Month and a half.” Amelia pressed her lips together, and decided to push.
“Yeah? How long you been out of hospital?” She expected Arizona to freeze, for the steely expression to fall over her cheekbones that Amelia remembered being met with when she would press Arizona’s buttons. It didn’t come, Arizona laughed instead.
“Three weeks. I…” she sighed and trailed off.
“What?” Amelia pushed gently, glancing up at an airplane overhead, and then at the red wings of a blackbird, and then back to Arizona. “What happened, Zona?” Arizona took a toke and then tugged up her left pant leg. Another jolt in Amelia’s stomach hit her before her brain processed why: she wasn’t looking at a leg, she was looking at proof that things had changed.
“Air strike. Kunar.” She dropped her pant leg and took another toke, breaking their eye contact. “The rest of my squad are okay.”
“Well, shit.”
“Yeah, it’s not great,” Arizona agreed, and laughed again, “I didn’t think I’d have to tell you.” Amelia nodded thoughtfully, and for a moment considered showing her the scar from May in some sickening ‘you show me yours, I show you mine’ gesture. She thought better of it.
“I’m glad you did. Shit, it’s good to see you again.” She nudged her, and Arizona leant back,
“I guess there aren’t that many women’s VA meetings in Brooklyn.”
“Yeah, well. Coffee there is better than the women’s NA meetings round the block,” Amelia took a pointed toke.
“Meeting’s a meeting, and I assume NA wouldn’t take too kindly to you pulling up with a J in your pocket?” Her tone was discerning; she’d always been direct, intimidatingly so. Amelia didn’t feel examined, though, or interrogated, or accused. More like they were hopping over landmines together, just hoping for the best with each calculated move. Still, it was easier than navigating it alone.
“Probably not,” Amelia agreed, “how come you’re in New York, anyway?”
“Nick’s here,” she said, “I’m living with him. And I’m starting at NYU in the fall.” College had been the whole reason Amelia had enlisted in the first place, and that hadn’t ended well. Arizona had known college was the plan, it was only so long until she asked about it. Not now, though, Amelia decided.
“Nice. Nick’s Tim’s friend, right?” Amelia took another toke before passing the joint back to her.
“Mhm.” The sound was strangled, Amelia wondered if they’d had one of their spats again. It wouldn’t last long, it never did with Arizona and Tim. Amelia liked him. Tim would never have left Arizona alone like Derek had Amelia, he’d never consider his sister more a problem than a person. They’d only met twice, but she only ever remembered Arizona’s fondness when she talked about him.
“How is he? Tim, I mean. Still deployed?” Another thick swallow, and then a tight smile.
“Yep. Yeah, he’s uh, he’s good.” She was lying. Why would she lie?
“Good,” was all Amelia said, “Derek’s still a pain in the ass.” Arizona didn’t say anything, and Amelia couldn’t help but feel like they’d stepped on one of those landmines they’d been tiptoeing around. Her ears were ringing like she’d been too near to an explosion, the ground felt unsettled. Maybe she was just stoned. It was getting harder to tell, recently. “Mark’s great, though. I’m living with him. He had a thing with Lexi from group.” Arizona didn’t give any indication that she remembered, “brunette, bangs, annoyingly healthy outlook?”
“Oh,” Arizona let out a chuckle, “I see that for him. What happened?”
“Just didn’t work out, I guess. She hasn’t been back long.” Arizona took another toke, and passed the joint again. It was almost finished, Amelia had to pinch it between her forefinger and thumb to hold it. She looked out across the park; she’d started trying to make more of an effort to notice the world around her, maybe a pathetic attempt to assure herself it was real, definitely inhibited by the weed. “So, thoughts on Prospect Park?”
Arizona similarly looked out over the park. Amelia wondered what she saw. She remembered how blunt the world had been when she’d first come home. Everything promised danger and nothing delivered it, it had almost been boring.
“That entirely depends on the quality of the promised pretzel.”
“I assure you, it won’t disappoint.”
“Mark, you home?” Amelia called as she let herself into their apartment, practically giddy.
“In here!” he replied from the couch, Amelia practically skipping through to talk to him. “You’re… chipper.”
“Guess who I saw today.” Mark looked her up and down and frowned a little,
“Little leprechaun at the end of the rainbow? Did you get his pot of gold, too?” Amelia rolled her eyes, but couldn’t stop grinning regardless. Was this how first love was supposed to feel? Loud, dizzying, unavoidable? The first time it was none of the above, just tender, slow, tentative.
“Arizona Robbins.” Mark’s jaw dropped.
“No fucking way. She’s here?” Amelia nodded excitedly,
“Turned up to the VA meeting.”
“Well, shit. You guys gonna start things up again?” Amelia ignored the concern underlying his curiosity.
“I don’t know, maybe. I just… I forgot how much I missed her.” It had only been six months, the majority of which she’d spent either forgetting or trying to. It wasn’t that combat had been intolerable, but trying to remember it was. It was easier to let it go like swirling sand than try to make head or tail of the weeks, months, years. Arizona had always made perfect sense. Arizona was one of the few things that she never questioned.
“Well, I’m happy for you, Amy. Careful, though,” he said, picking up his pen to get back to his crossword. Amelia frowned, but left it. ‘Careful’ was out the window, caution thrown to the wind. Being careful wasn’t how they fell in love the first time, why should the same be true now? Why should anything change?