Work Text:
Rare as the Glimmer of a Comet
Bright lights loomed over her. Then there was the beeping, measured and steady. Sarah blinked. Was she in the hospital? No sooner than the question came to her, the pain settled over her like a weight, pulling her down.
“Ow,” she winced softly. Her head throbbed in tandem with the ache in her body. But what happened? What had put her here? Sarah tried to remember, but the harder she thought about it, the more her headache worsened.
“Sarah,” a new voice said and she glanced up to see Dr. Choi standing there in the doorway. A smile, that could only be categorized as gentle (a word she never thought she’d use when she described him) on his lips.
“It’s good to see you awake. You gave us quite a scare.” He said, coming up on the right side of her bed. “I’m just going to check your vitals, okay?”
He pulled a penlight from his pocket and was checking her eyes when she asked if he knew what happened to her.
“You were in a car accident.” He explained in a soft tone. He moved on to check her reflexes and breathing. “Another driver fell asleep at the wheel and ran a red light. Hit you from the left.”
Okay, that made sense-why her body and head ached, if someone had clipped her while she was walking down the street.
“Your car was totaled.” Dr. Choi continued as he moved to take her blood pressure. But now that didn’t make sense. She didn’t even have her license. When she told him that though, Dr. Choi just smiled that same gentle smile from before as he pushed some hair out of her eyes. “Get some sleep, Sarah. I’ll be back before the end of my shift, okay?”
She nodded, blinking at him owlishly. Dr. Choi was acting so familiar with her and he was calling her Sarah instead of Reese. Which -her eyes drooped heavily. Whatever medication she was on was working its way to pull her back under- was so weird because she didn’t know him that well. She yawned, her eyes falling closed once more. After all, she hadn’t been at Med all that long.
Sarah jerked awake, looking around she saw Dr. Choi was back, this time with a backpack.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be that loud,” he said when he saw her awake. She opened her mouth to ask what he was doing there when a sudden coughing fit interrupted what she was going to say. Dr. Choi moved quickly. He grabbed the pitcher of water and poured some into a cup before he pushed the cup into her hand. Then he was helping her sit up so she could drink it.
“Better?” He asked when she had downed the cup. She nodded. “Good.”
“What are you doing here?” She asked again as he helped lay back down on the bed.
“I told you I’d be back and neither Will or I liked the idea of you up here by yourself. Not with Connor getting in so late. He said the earliest flight he could get was three in the morning. So he’ll be here later tonight. Will too. He’ll be here much sooner though. He just went to get you something more vegetarian friendly than what Med has to offer.”
Will? Connor? The only people she knew were named that were... “You mean Dr. Halstead and Dr. Rhodes? Why would they be coming to visit me?”
Dr. Choi merely chuckled, “That’s a good one.”
But Sarah wasn’t trying to be funny. She told him as much. Trying to make him understand. “It’s you who’s not making sense, Dr. Choi. You say my car was totaled, but that’s impossible because I don’t even know how to drive, let alone have a car. I take the bus to and from work every day. You say Dr. Rhodes and Halstead are both on their way. But I barely know them or you for that matter, I’m only two weeks into my ED rotation, and…what?”
A critical yet somber look had taken over Dr. Choi’s face, replacing the smile he had before. “Sarah…what year is it?“
The question caught her off guard, but it was his tone that made her answer. Albeit with a little hesitation, “2015?”
He didn’t have to say that it was the wrong answer. Sarah knew by the way his whole face seemed to darken.
“Dr. Choi, what-” her question was cut off by a knock on the door. Then Dr. Halstead was there, poking his head in. He smiled when he saw her awake.
“Hey, there’s the ED’s favorite patient.” He said, walking in with a plastic container. Then he noticed Dr. Choi’s expression. The smile he wore faltered. “What’s wrong?”
“Reese, why don’t you eat your dinner while Will and I talk in the hallway?”
“Dr. Choi,” she started, in a slightly panicking voice, even to her own ears. The doctor rested his hand on her shoulder, squeezing it slightly, “We’ll figure this out, Sarah. I promise.”
Then he stood and moved across the room. He took the food from Dr. Halstead and placed it on Sarah’s rollaway table.
“Eat. We’re not sure when you did last,” he told her. When he didn’t see her move, he spoke again. “It’s okay Reese. It’ll be fine. Will and I just need to talk and then we will possibly need a consult.”
But nothing felt fine. Her body ached and her head throbbed from a car accident where she had been behind the wheel instead of beside it and apparently, it wasn’t 2015.
“What’s going on? What’s wrong?” Dr. Halstead demanded, eyes darting from Dr. Choi to Sarah.
“In the hall Will,” Dr. Choi bit out before Sarah could say anything. Then, before she could even blink, Dr. Choi was dragging Dr. Halstead out by his arm. The sliding door closed behind them. The click of it echoed in Sarah’s head.
“What is going on? Why does Sarah look like she wants to throw up? Is she nauseous? Does she have a concussion? Or one of her migraines? Connor says those are really bad for her.” Will asked as soon as they were out in the hallway. Ethan shook his head slowly before he grimly explained the conversation he had with Sarah just before Will got there.
“We need to get Dr. Abrams down here,” Will said and Choi nodded in agreement.
“Do you want to tell Connor or should I?” He asked, but the red-headed doctor was already shaking his head at the suggestion.
“No, we’re not telling him anything right now. He’s already worried about her. We’ve told him about the accident. That’s enough for now because there is nothing he can do from L.A. or the plane. But I can tell him when he gets here. I’m his best friend. I feel like I should tell him.”
“I’ll page Abrams then.”
They came back fifteen minutes later with Dr. Abrams in tow. And that confirmed to Sarah that it was as bad as she thought. The neurosurgeon, who always slightly terrified her, asked her a lot of questions. What year she thought it was, the last thing she remembered, where she lived as a kid, what her mother did for a living, who the doctors behind him were…questions of that variety (For the record: 2015 even though she knew from Dr. Choi’s face earlier that wasn’t right. Helping Dr. Rhodes and Dr. Zanetti with Dr. Rhodes’ friend that came in with an entire chandelier inside of him, New York, litigation attorney, and Dr. Choi and Dr. Halstead.)
“Okay, Dr. Reese. Well, I want to run some other tests just to be sure and to try to determine what kind, but I’m afraid you do have amnesia just from the way you answered these questions.” He wasn’t unkind like Sarah thought he would be, but he was very clinical and to the point.
“Is it permanent?”
Dr. Abrams shrugged, “Typically, no. But each case is different. It could be weeks, months, even years in some cases before you regain your memories.”
“Years?” Sarah squeaked, what little food she had managed to eat, flipped in her stomach. For all his bedside manner was lacking, Dr. Abrams patted her hand and said, “That's a worst-case scenario though. I do want to do a head CT as soon as possible. To make sure your brain isn’t swelling. Then if all is clear, we’ll do the other tests later. Give your body a chance to rest.”
He stood up when she nodded and looked at the other two doctors, “I assume you’ll be wheeling her up there?”
Both Dr. Choi and Halstead nodded.
He made to walk out of the room but Sarah’s voice made him stop.
“Wait. If it’s not 2015, then what year is it?”
The doctors all shared a look. Then it was Dr. Choi who faced her. That same gentle look on his face from before. He sighed, “2019.”
Sarah felt her head spin and her stomach swoop as her medicated brain processed the number slowly. “Four years… I’ve lost four years? ”
She faced the neurosurgeon, “How is that possible? For me to just lose four years of my life?”
“It’s not unheard of but it’s not fairly common either. The brain, although we know more than we did ten years ago, is an organ that we know frighteningly little about.” He said this with a logical voice. “So I’m sorry to say, I’m not sure how you lost four years. But I can assure you I’ll figure out why.”
Then he took his leave, after nodding to the other doctors in the room, which left Sarah to stare at Dr. Choi and Dr. Halstead.
Connor couldn’t help his hurried steps as he made his way into the hospital. He swiped his ID badge, before all but running into the hospital. (He had never been more grateful to have worked in this hospital in his life because by the time he arrived, he knew visiting hours would be over, and was it a little sneaky to use his privileges as a doctor here? Probably. But Connor was past caring at the moment. Not until he saw with his eyes that Sarah was alright.)
“Connor! Hey Connor, wait!” He heard Will call out as he made a beeline for the elevators. There were footsteps and then a hand dropped to his shoulder.
“I need to tell you something before you see Sarah,” Will explained. But Connor shook his head. Nothing was more important than seeing Sarah right now. “It can wait.”
“No. No, it can't Connor, because it’s about her condition.” Now that made the former trauma surgeon look up as the elevator arrived with a ding. Will sighed, running a hand through his red locks of hair and hoping his best friend didn’t shoot the messenger. “Come on, I’ll tell you on the way up.”
His hand placed on Connor’s back propelled the double-certified surgeon forward into the elevator. The door had just begun to shut when Will said, “Sarah was unconscious when she was brought in. Didn’t wake up till just earlier this evening. We did an initial head scan when she came in and she didn’t seem to have any injuries there. So we let it go and focused on her other injuries. But when she woke up, Ethan said she seemed confused. But he thought it was just a side effect of the medication. It wasn’t until she woke up a second time that he knew something was wrong.”
Connor released a breath he had been holding since he got the call informing him of the accident when he saw his wife lying in the bed. His feet carried him forward as he reached out and moved a lock of her hair out of her face. Then his hand drifted down to hers covered in bandages.
“Jay and Kim saw the accident happen,” Will told him, sounding uncertain. “They said she’s lucky to be alive with how the car looked. It’s totaled by the way but…”
“Will, I don’t care about the car,” Connor told him shortly. Sure, it was a Porsche, but he could always buy another car. Besides he had more important things to worry about. Like Sarah’s recovery. He sighed, glancing over at his shoulder at his best friend. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long night.”
“I know. You don’t need to apologize.”
“Yes, I do. You and Choi stayed with her till I got here. You worked her case, even when it wasn’t your shift.”
“Technicalities and Ava helped work her intake too,” Will said to him, “But we did that because you and Sarah are family. Don’t you get that by now?”
Connor didn’t know how to respond to this, so he didn’t. Instead, he asked, “How much am I going to have to rebuild with her?”
Silence .
The surgeon turned, looking at his friend once more. His friend looked like he wanted to be anywhere else than where he was. Will looked like he didn’t want to give him any more bad news. Connor fisted his hand, knuckles turning white.
“Will,” he started. He didn’t sound angry but he also didn’t sound happy either. But it did sound like he was at the end of his rope.
“All of it. You’re going to have to rebuild your whole relationship with her because she woke up thinking she’s two weeks into her ED rotation as a med student.”
White-hot anger flared in Connor’s body. Will winced as his best friend hit a water bottle on the rollaway table pushed off to the side. It fell with a dull thud. The red-headed doctor wanted to say something. Words of reassurance, but he knew they would not be well received right now. So instead, Will said, “Dr. Abrams left for the night. But he’ll be by tomorrow morning to fill you in on next steps.”
“Yeah okay. Thanks, Will.” Connor set his bag down as he fell into the seat by Sarah’s bedside. “I know I don’t seem like it right now. But I really do appreciate what you and everyone else have done for Sarah.”
“‘Course,” Will patted his friend’s shoulder, yawning. “I think I’m also headed home for the night now that you’re here. I have an eight am morning shift. But I’ll have my phone on in case you need anything.”
“Thanks, Will,”
When Sarah woke up again, the sun was just starting to rise. She still felt foggy. Like the world was still spinning just a little slower than when she first woke up. But still, spinning all the same because who lost four years of their life?? She pushed herself up so she was sitting up more. That’s when she noticed the two people standing just outside her door. Dr. Abrams was back and was speaking with… Dr. Rhodes, Sarah realized with a start. If she hadn’t believed Dr. Choi or Halstead when they said four years had passed, then the sight of Connor Rhodes would’ve made her believe it. While all three of the doctors had looked more or less the same, Dr. Rhodes looked older.
He wasn’t old by any means of the word. But from where Sarah was sitting, she could see three wrinkles lined his forehead that hadn’t been there the last time she remembered seeing him. And his scruff, his scuff was gone and in its place, there was a full beard. He had a grim expression on his face, his arms were folded, and was nodding to whatever Dr. Abrams was saying. At least until he noticed she was awake. His mouth moved. The other doctor turned, looking up. Then they were both moving towards the room.
“Dr. Reese,” Dr. Abrams addressed her. It felt so surreal to be addressed that way when she didn’t even remember graduating from medical school. But then she must’ve or they wouldn’t be addressing her like that.
“Dr. Reese? Sarah?”
Sarah shook her head, looking up at Dr. Abrams. “Sorry. I was…I was thinking.”
“I asked how you were feeling.”
“Oh,” she looked down at her hands. Finding them fisted in her hospital blanket. She dropped the fabric. Then her eyes flitted back up at the doctor. “My body still feels floaty and achy all at once. But you probably don’t need to know that. You want to know about my head. That’s a little more than achy too. I’m prone to migraines. Like severe debilitating migraines. I have medication prescribed to me because of how severe they are. And my head feels like it always does when one is about to end. A very deep dull throb.”
The older doctor nodded, pulling out a tablet and typing on it for a moment.
“If I can find her glasses and get her medication for her migraines, would that help? I have some of it in my locker. ” Dr. Rhodes spoke up and Sarah’s eyes found his as they widened in surprise. He knew where her glasses were and he kept her migraine medication in his locker?
“It might. But you know our general rule here with medication.” Abrams told him. Connor nodded. Abrams faced her again, “As I was telling Dr. Rhodes outside. Your head CT was clear, which is a fairly good thing. No brain injuries. Unfortunately, that leads us no closer to figuring out why you have amnesia. So I say we let your body rest for a day or two. And then we run a few more tests.”
“So you still have no idea why I just lost four years -” her voice broke and she stuttered over her words for a moment while panic swelled up in her, “-of my life?”
“Sarah,” Dr. Rhodes interrupted softly. She jolted at the sound of her first name falling from his lips, but it was more than that. It was the way he said her name. Like she was someone he cared about. Like he adored her. Like her name was a careful caress of his lips. He moved forward. Then he was sitting on her bed as he reached out to hold her hand. The one that wasn’t covered in bandages.
His palm was callused but soft and a warm weight in hers. He squeezed her hand tightly. She looked down at their joined hands then up at him. His blue eyes, which she was so close to now she saw were a deep steely blue were soft as they stared into hers. “It’s going to be okay. I promise. But Sam is right. We need to give your body a chance to rest.”
She had always trusted Dr. Rhodes. Even from her first disaster day down in the ED, that to her was just two weeks ago. Sure he was a little gruff when it came to a patient and their care. But he was a good teacher when it mattered and he always seemed to be on her side. So for that reason alone, Sarah fell silent and nodded.
Dr. Abrams left soon after, but Dr. Rhodes didn’t. He moved to the chair by her bedside. Which Sarah found odd until she remembered something Dr. Choi had said. Connor had been on his way here to be with her. But the earliest flight he could get had been three in the morning.
“Can I ask you something, Dr. Rhodes?” She asked timidly. Not sure of what she was going to say, especially when he nodded.
“How do you know where my glasses are?” Not that question. Sarah Reese, you are such a coward. She had wanted to ask him what he was doing here or why he was sticking around. She opened her mouth again, but still, the wrong question came out. “And why do you keep my migraine medication in your locker?”
Coward. She thought to herself as Dr. Rhodes yawned, scrubbing a hand down his face.
“Besides knowing that you’ve lost four years, did anyone tell you anything about those four years?” He asked.
Sarah shook her head once. “They were going to-Dr. Choi and Halstead-after my head CT last night. But I fell back asleep before they could.”
“Probably for the best. They probably thought some things would be better coming from me anyway.” Dr. Rhodes told her before sighing, “And I don’t know exactly where your glasses are. But I can probably find them if you want. They’re probably back at the apartment. As for your medication, I keep some in my locker because you’re a menace about carrying it and I’m always worried a migraine will develop when you’re on shift. But somehow I don’t think that’s the question you want to ask.”
He said the apartment. The apartment. Not her apartment. It was as if …she sucked in a breath. “Do we… live together?”
“We do. People tend to do that when they’re married.” Connor explained gently. Sarah blinked at him. Once. Twice. Three times, before she managed to croak. “Married?”
“Yes.”
“As in me and you?”
“Yes,” now he sounded amused.
“Together?”
“Yup.”
“Oh,” Sarah glanced down. He shifted forward and when he did, she caught sight of a silver ring on his left hand. On the ring finger.
“Is that so hard to believe?” Connor asked gently. Yes. Yes, it was because he was Connor Rhodes: trauma surgeon. One of the best trauma surgeons in Chicago and I’m- Sarah licked her lips, “Sort of? Dr. Rhodes-”
“Connor,” he interrupted her.
“Huh?”
“Connor,” he said again, “You haven’t called me Dr. Rhodes in over two years when we’re not on shift, and even when we’re on shift the only time you call me Dr. Rhodes is when you need a consult on a patient or you’re introducing me to them.”
“Connor-the last thing I remember is helping you and Dr. Zanetti with your friend. The one who had the chandelier stuck inside of him? So seeing how we got from A to B is a little hard right now.”
“I know. So you can ask me any questions you need or want to and not just about us. About anything, Sarah.” Connor said in that tone again. The one he used earlier to calm her down. The gentle cress of his lips. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it again. A foreign contact to her, but something he probably did every day without thinking about it.
“You have a ring. Do I have one?” Again that wasn’t the question she wanted to ask. Why couldn’t she just ask him the questions she wanted to? Maybe because I’m scared I’m not ready for those answers. If I ever will be.
“You do. It’s around your neck.” He explained with a slight smile. Now that Connor (it was still so weird to call him that) had said something, she could suddenly feel the metal of a chain. Sarah reached up with her uninjured hand, fingering the chain until she felt a small circular band. “You’re afraid you’ll lose it at work, so you wear it around your neck when you're on shift.”
“Here I can…I can help.” Connor offered as she struggled to get the chain off of her neck before he stepped more into her personal space than he had ever been. His hands were warm as they lifted the chain off her neck. Then the thin metal chain was dropped into her hand. She stared wide-eyed at it. Here was…not hard proof like a marriage certificate would be. But tangible poof. Proof she could hold.
“Holy shit,” she murmured the words in amazement as she stared at the delicate ring she would’ve picked out for herself.
Connor’s chuckle brought her back to where she was as he leaned down and kissed her forehead without thinking about it. “I’m going to go get your migraine medication and track Ethan or Will down to see if you can have it with your pain meds. I’ll also get some breakfast to put on your stomach just in case. I’ll be back.”
Then with that promise, he was out the door and leaving his amnesiac wife to stare after him in alarm. Connor wouldn’t realize until later what he had done or the anxiety he may have caused Sarah.