Here it is, gang. The last chapter of 'Is Forever Enough?'. It's okay to cry. Sorry it took so long, I wanted to make the ending really special. I hope you guys like it!
As soon as I woke up, I ran to the mirror. I had to see what my eye looked like. I was expecting a horrible, swollen mess. It was slightly better than I expected. It was also purple. And black. Actually, it looked pretty terrible. I must've groaned loudly enough that Callie heard me because within seconds, she was knocking on the bathroom door.
"How's your eye look?" She called to me.
"Not good." I replied.
"Let me see."
"Never!"
I long argument ensued through the door. Finally, I emerged. Callie burst into hysterics as soon as I stepped into the hallway. I waited a long while until she stopped laughing, glaring at her the entire time. When she finally recovered from the fit of annoying laughter, she put her hand on my shoulder.
"Jeez, Catalina," She began. "Who knew I punched that hard?" She giggled again, "I know I was pissed at you yesterday but I'm sorry about that one." She jokingly nudged my chin with her fist.
"Noted," I answered, shoving past her and heading for the kitchen. "Just know that I hate your guts." I planted myself on the couch and covered my face with a pillow.
"Come on, get ready to leave." Callie said to me.
"Leave?"
"I've got to work. You always come with me to work." Callie retorted. "I didn't punch you hard enough to cause short-term memory loss, did I?" She laughed at her own joke.
"Dude, there's no way I'm going to the hospital."
"Why not?" She asked. I pulled the pillow off my face, sat up and pointed to my eye.
"I look retarded." I yelled.
"Oh come on," Callie persisted. "It's just a shiner. You don't look that bad." She was, of course, lying.
Somehow, she managed to drag me to the hospital with her. I was uncooperative, to say the least. Upon taking the first step into the hospital, I tried to run. She pulled me back by my head. Every time we neared a storage closet or an on-call room, I tried to run into it. Callie would have none of this. Eventually, she held onto my shoulders and steered me where we were going. Callie pushed me around a corner without looking and I slammed right into someone. It was Arizona.
"Hey, I was just going to come find you." Arizona said to Callie, smiling. She then looked down at me. I tried to look at the floor so she wouldn't see my eye but it was too late. "Woah, Catalina. What happened to you?" I looked up at Callie quickly then back to Arizona. Callie squeezed my shoulder as if to tell me to lie. And fast.
"I fell…" I stammered. "…down some stairs…and into a door." I was never a very good liar. I heard Callie sigh.
"Real smooth." She remarked under her breath.
"Well, okay, then." She said and then looked back up at my sister. "So, we still on for tonight?"
"Date night?" Callie pondered aloud. "Of course." She smiled. I frowned. Somehow I knew that this was going to be bad news for me. Callie, apparently wanting to talk to Arizona without me there, pushed me off to the side of the hallway. I probably could've easily eavesdropped on everything they were saying but I wasn't at all interested. I waited in an uncharacteristically patient manner, truly just bored with being pushed aside for what seemed like the hundredth time that week. Though at the beginning of my trip I was would've been beyond thrilled for an eavesdropping opportunity (though standing four feet from my sister wouldn't be subtle in the slightest), I was just pondering where I could get an eye-patch at 7:30 in the morning.
I wouldn't have noticed that Arizona left if Callie hadn't grabbed my by my shoulders again and forced me around another corner.
"Okay," She began, leading me down the hall. "So Arizona and I have date night tonight."
"I heard. What time will you be home?"
"It won't matter." She answered. "You're not staying home alone."
"Uh, why?"
"I don't trust you." She replied plainly.
"Well then." I scoffed. "What do you plan on doing with me?"
"Don't worry, I have a plan."
"Oh really? And what's that?"
"We're gonna pawn you off on Mark." Before I was able to question Callie's "plan", she shoved me towards the all-too-familiar Nurses' station. Mark was writing something down and talking to another doctor. Callie waited until they finished talking, rather than interrupt and call him 'manwhore' like she normally did. When they finished talking, Callie leaned against the Nurses' station and stared at him.
"Hi?" He asked, uneasily.
"Hey," She greeted with a smile. "What are you doing tonight?"
"I have a date with Lexie." He asked, more uneasy. He must've known her too well to walk into this trap. "Why?"
"Where are you going?" Callie asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
"That fancy Italian place I told you about last week." He looked scared.
"Perfect. That's where I'm taking Arizona." My sister continued.
"Cool, maybe we'll see you there." His voice trailed off as he lost interest and he went back to writing. A few moments went by with no one talking and Mark glanced up to see Callie still staring at him and smiling. "Yes?"
"I need you to do me a favor." She said through a sly grin. He groaned.
"I don't wanna." He complained. She rolled her eyes at him.
"You don't even know what it is yet."
"Fine." He huffed. "What is it?"
"I need you to take Catalina with you and Lexie so I can have my date with Arizona in peace."
"I am not a babysitter!"
"Nor do I need a babysitter." I chimed in. Callie pushed me.
"C'mon, Mark," She argued on. "You owe me."
"I do not!"
"You do." Callie said, realizing that blackmail was her only way to get him to do what she wanted. "Remember when you and Lexie first started dating?" Mark seemed to know exactly what she was talking about before she even finished her sentence since his face had turned red. "How could you forget that busty blonde nurse that you-"
"Okay!" He interrupted, cupping his hand over her mouth. "I'll do it." She pulled his hand away and smiled.
"Thank you." She cheered. He sighed and shook his head.
"Yeah, whatever." He called, tucking the pen that he had been using into his pocket and turning around to walk away. "I'll call you later." He cursed her off under his breathe and she threw an eraser at him. I concluded that they had a weird friendship.
-x-x-
Later that night, Callie was getting ready for her date. I was sprawled on the couch watching something on television.
"Catalina!" Calliope yelled from her bedroom. I was reluctant to get up but eventually made my way to where my sister was. She was standing in front of a mirror, looking over her shoulder trying to get a view of the back of her. She was wearing black jeans and a purple t-shirt. What seemed like hundreds of other outfits were scattered across the bed and floor. "Does my ass look good in these jeans?" I stared at her for a long time.
"I don't know how to answer that question." I said, shaking my head. I pushed some clothes off the corner of the bed so I could sit down. "You have a lot of clothes."
"None I look good in." She answered, still looking over her shoulder. "Toss me the black tank top behind you." I glanced behind me. There were two tank tops behind me. They both looked black. I handed her one.
"That's navy blue, dumbass." She corrected." I want the black one. Are you blind?"
"Gee, sorry." I answered sarcastically, throwing the other top at her. I pointed to my face. "I'm only working with the one good eye here."
"Right." She rolled her eyes. When she changed into the tank top, she looked back at me. "How's this look?"
"Couldn't be more indifferent." I answered.
"You're a big help." She grumbled, rummaging through a pile of clothes near her feet. She pulled on a pair of light blue jeans, then gave me the same look. "Any helpful feedback would be appreciated."
"Uh, gosh, sis," I managed to say with a straight face. "You look…hot. Your ass is…just slammin'." I gave her a thumbs-up. She gave me a dirty look. "I'm gonna go change and get ready to be the fifth wheel." I said and left the room in an attempt to not get my other eye blackened before dinner.
We pulled up to the restaurant at 9:14. I knew this because I was staring at my phone, trying to count down the moments until this day was over. I was pretty certain that being forced to ruin Mark's date would suck. Aside from anticipating the nights suckiness, I was also curious as to what Callie would say to Arizona and if she would take my advice on talking to her about everything. I decided that if she broke up with Arizona, I'd be pissed. I also decided that Callie better handle this in a mature way. If I had gotten a black eye for nothing, I'd be even more pissed. My thoughts were soon interrupted, though, because I had to get out of the car.
As soon as we walked into the restaurant, I saw Mark. It was the first time I'd seen Mark wearing something other than scrubs. Another decision; Mark was hot.
"Hey," Callie said to him. "Where's Lexie?"
"Not here yet." He was leaning against the wall.
"How do you plan on explaining this one?" Callie asked, nodding her chin towards me.
"Haven't thought of that yet." Ten seconds later, the restaurant doors opened behind us. In walked a fair-skinned woman in a pink dress. Her hair was dark brown and shoulder-length. She actually looked younger than me. At the same time, Arizona's voice chimed in across the room, calling Callie over. I didn't have enough time to process both things at once and focused on the young looking chick who was now kissing Mark. Callie looked down at me.
"Be good, okay?" She said and left me with Mark and Lexie, who by now looked confused.
"Hi," She greeted puzzled. "Who are you?"
"Mark's other girlfriend." I answered with a grin. Her jaw dropped some and Mark's face turned white. I laughed. "Sorry, Callie paid me ten bucks to say that." Lexie just nodded. Mark didn't look amused. I just shrugged it off, still finding it to be pretty funny (Not to mention financially beneficial.)
A waitress led us to a table some moments later. The seating arrangement was a little awkward, seeing as it was Mark and me on one side and Lexie on the other. After an actual introduction, Lexie started to understand what was happening.
"So, Catalina," She began. I was trying to find something on the menu that I had heard of before. "Not to sound rude but why are you here with us tonight?" She seemed a little twitchy and uneasy and jumpy. Callie had told me in the car ride over that that was just Lexie's personality.
"Well," I started, looking over to Mark who was trying to avoid making eye contact with me. "Callie didn't trust me home alone, nor did she want to bring me on the date with her and Arizona. Plus, I'm relatively certain neither of you are going to punch me in the face."
"Your sister punched you?" Lexie asked, seeming to be more shocked than I thought she should.
"Dude, she breaks bones for a living." I said with a laugh. "Punching isn't that far from her actual profession." Mark was looking quite uncomfortable in his chair. "She actually punched me while we were still in the hospital. In retrospect it was kind of funny. Hot Doc was kind of confused when he came in the room, though."
"'Hot Doc'?" Lexie questioned.
"Tan dude. Shaved head." I answered, trying to remember what he looked like. "I don't remember his name. Alan? Alec?"
"Alex? Karev?" She pondered aloud.
"Yeah, that's it."
"I hate Karev." Mark finally said. "He's a punk. He thinks he's a lot better than he is."
"The hot ones are always arrogant, Mark." I corrected. He rolled his eyes.
"I was with Alex for a really short time, actually." Lexie said with a shrug. "He is arrogant."
"Dude," I laughed, "You were with Hot Doc and this one?" I nodded my chin towards Mark. "You are a player." I put my hand out for a high-five but she didn't seem to understand it. "It's a high-five, kid. You've only been out of high school for like ten minutes. You should know this stuff." She laughed as she slapped my hand but Mark just seemed to be getting more and more uncomfortable with this entire thing and just slid down into his seat.
I felt slightly bad that the rest of the night consisted of me and Lexie talking about Mark and Alex, especially since Mark's face seemed to get redder and redder. After dinner was over, Mark dropped me off at Callie's house (she actually left with out me, which I don't really understand. Did she honestly forget that I had went with her?) I shook Mark's hand and apologized for ruining his date. I high-fived Lexie once more then headed inside.
-x-x-
Once in my room, I changed into my pajamas and searched every channel on TV to find a hockey game. I was distracted momentarily by a noise from the next room. At first, I just wrote it off. But my mind started to slowly detach itself from hockey and put everything into focus. Whose voice did I hear from the next room? Arizona's. No big deal. That's Callie's girlfriend. She's allowed to be here, dummy, I thought. Wait. For some reason I think that's incorrect. Oh. Uh, didn't Callie punch me because she wanted to break up with Arizona? Wait. What? My mind was beginning to hurt itself. Surely Callie hadn't forgotten her whole 'breaking up with Arizona because she was afraid to get hurt' theory and decided to bypass it for sex, right?
Crap.
I bolted so fast from my bedroom that if I was a cartoon, there would've been a comically long trail of smoke behind me. My plan was to knock on the door but I tripped over my own feet and fell on my stomach. My elbow hit Callie's door. I counted that as knocking.
"What the hell was that?" I heard Arizona say.
"Something stupid, I'm sure." Callie sighed. "I'll check." She opened the door to find me still on the ground. "Catalina, seriously."
"You!" I yelled, struggling to my feet. I clicked the door shut behind her so Arizona wouldn't hear us. "What's the deal? What are you doing?"
"Well," She began, folding her arms over her chest. "I was trying to get laid but your creepy ass was lurking in my hallway. And here we are."
"So that means you talked to Arizona about your feelings and now everything's cool?" She hesitated.
"No exactly." She confessed. I groaned.
"Why not?"
"I thought it'd be a bad idea." She shifted her weight to her other foot and unfolded her arms. "Anyways, I should get back in there." She tried to turn around but I pulled her back by her t-shirt.
"Oh, no, no." I said. "You're not gonna go in there and sleep with her and pretend like everything's OK."
"And why not?"
"Because I said so." I answered sternly. She rolled her eyes at me.
"Seriously, Catalina." She said, pushing me back. "You're not going to cock-block me, kid." I stared at her a good ten seconds before answering.
"It's not considered cock-blocking if- whatever, not important." I said, shaking my head and sighing. "You have to talk to her before you do anything. That's not a good thing to do."
"Dude, I'm not going to just randomly tell her all this stuff when it can wait."
"It can't wait."
"It can." She snapped. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some business to attend to."
"Calliope Iphegenia Torres," I declared. "If you even try to do anything with Arizona tonight, I will stand in this hallway and knock on the door until it's time for you to go to work. I am not kidding." I must have looked pretty damn serious because she just cursed at me in Spanish and went back in her room. Arizona left soon after. Callie seemed pretty pissed at me for a while but was over it by morning.
I figured I'd use the fifteen-minute daily drive to the hospital to discuss her plans with Arizona.
"So, are you going to talk to her today?" I asked. She glared at me.
"Why do you care so much?"
"It's a big deal to me." I admitted.
"Why?"
"I don't know. Probably because Arizona's awesome and I think that breaking up with her would be really stupid." I thought about this for a moment. "And another reason is that I've spent weeks defending you to our family. I guess it just seems like a waste for our family to hate us both if you don't even stay with her, you know?" Callie didn't say anything for a while but seemed to think about this.
"You really defended me?"
"Of course." She smiled.
"You're a good sister." She finally said. "Even though you annoy the hell out of me sometimes."
"Thanks. I think."
"I decided that I'm going to try to talk to Arizona tonight." She stated after about five minutes of no one talking.
"Good." I said with a smile. I knew I could be persuasive.
The entire day at the hospital seemed to go on forever. I was dying to get home. I was dying to see what Callie was going to say. I was pretty much just dying. At one point, I think I started pacing. Then a nurse yelled at me for pacing.
After what seemed like two hundred hours of nothing, it was finally time to go home. I tried to make Callie tell me what she was going to say but she didn't seem to have anything planned. That made me nervous. I realized I was more nervous than she was. Callie actually made dinner that night and allowed me to eat it, rather than making me order a pizza.
"So when's Arizona coming over?" I pestered Callie as we cleaned up the kitchen.
"You've asked me that five times." She retorted. "And she's still coming over at 11:30. And you do realize that if you in any way annoy me when she's here and I'm trying to talk to her that I'll kill you, right?"
"Absolutely." I replied.
-x-x-
11:30 rolled around and I was banished to my room. Apparently, Callie did have a plan after all. This plan included wine. I couldn't say that I blamed her. When her and Arizona made their way to the front porch, I darted out of my room and positioned myself under a window so I could hear everything (Callie couldn't kill me if she couldn't see me, right?).
"So, Callie," I heard Arizona say. "What is it that you wanted to talk to me about?" Callie took a deep breath.
"Okay," She began. By now, I had gotten impatient and was looking out the window. I figured that from the angle they were standing, they couldn't see me. "I've got a lot to say but you can't interrupt because I'm going to have to justify a lot of it and it sounds pretty bad when it's broken into pieces."
"Okay," Arizona shrugged. Callie took another deep breath and then looked up at Arizona.
"I'm the reason Catalina has a black eye." Callie blurted out. "I punched her in the face during a fight bec-"
"Wait, you punched your sister in the face?" Arizona said, shocked.
"See? I told you!" Callie responded. "It sounds bad in pieces."
"Sorry. Continue." Callie sighed again.
"I punched Catalina in the face because we were fighting. We were fighting because she overheard me telling Mark that I was going to break up with you."
"Wait, what?" Arizona interrupted.
"I'm getting there, I promise." Callie pleaded. "I told you, terrible time to interrupt." Arizona seemed to confused to continue questioning my sister. "Look, Arizona, I don't want to break up with you. Like at all. It's just confusing. In the past, love hasn't been kind to me. God, I was in love with George and we got married. Then he cheated on me and we got divorced. I almost fell in love with Erica. And what happened? She left me. I've just been scared. I've been scared to get hurt. Because the truth is, we've only known each other for two and a half months and I'm falling so hard for you, Arizona." Callie looked at the ground for a minute and then looked back up at Arizona who was now smiling, showing off her dimples like she did so often.
"You mean that?" Arizona asked. She was blushing.
"More than I've ever meant anything in my entire life." Callie said softly. "I had given up hope completely on love. I figured that it just wasn't ever going to happen for me. But then you kiss me in the bathroom at Joe's bar. And then I got to know you. I can barely explain in words what that did for me. You saved me, Arizona Robbins. Every single day you give me a reason to have faith in love. But, that scared me because I thought that's how I felt for George and Erica. And it took me a while to figure it out but I'm not scared anymore. You're different than George and Erica. They're in my past. You're my present. And I'm hoping that you're also my future." Arizona reached across and placed her hand on Callie's arm.
"Callie, you don't have to worry about getting hurt again." Arizona said, still smiling. "I'm in this for the long run. I never knew that a kiss in a dirty bar bathroom could ever lead to something real. And you helped prove that theory wrong. You are incredible. So don't worry about be scared. You're not alone; you're not going to get hurt. And I have fallen for you twice as hard." Now Callie was smiling. Arizona leaned in and kissed her and I turned around, decided I had spied enough and they now deserved privacy. I was truly happy, though. I was honestly just glad everything worked out and that they were both happy. Sure, I had a tear in my eye because teenagers are saps for a good love story and also because I knew (even though Callie probably wouldn't admit it) that I had helped my sister by coming up for spring break. And that was something neither of us had expected.
-x-x-
I was kind of sad as I packed up my luggage. I didn't really want to leave yet. Arizona had come over to help me pack. She was also coming along when Callie took me to the airport. Luckily, I hadn't brought too much and packing only took a half hour. My flight wasn't for another forty-five minutes so we had some time just to relax.
"So did you rehearse what you're going to say to mom when she asks about the black eye?" Callie asked me as I dragged my luggage near the door.
"Not yet. I still need a good story." I replied. We spent a surprisingly long twenty minutes discussing good cover-stories. We settled on a simple one; I tripped over my shoes as I was unpacking and hit my face on the bed frame. Arizona came up with it.
"We should get going, kid." Arizona said, checking the clock. "We've got to get you on your plane."
"Alright," I said. Arizona and Callie each grabbed one piece of luggage and went towards the car. "Oh, wait, I left my PSP charger in my room. I'll meet you in the car." I went into the now memorable guest room and found my charger on the night stand where I had left it. I took one last look around the room. It was still simple; a bed, a small TV, a computer on a desk, a rolling office chair and a Matchbox Twenty poster. I was going to miss it all the same. I sighed as I stuffed my charger into my sweatshirt pocket and headed to the car. I still hit my knee on the coffee table on my way out.
There you have it. The ending. I really hope you guys enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thank you so much for your reviews and being so nice to me on my first ever fan fiction! Tell me what you thought of my first ever attempt at serious writing in this chapter! You guys rule! – KTK
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Oh wait, did I forgot to mention that there's going to be a sequel posted and to look for it in about 1-2 weeks? Oops.
Don't worry guys; there's a lot more Catalina Torres still has to do at Seattle Grace :]
Stay tuned.