Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Three months have passed since the conjoined twins’ surgery and things since then have changed at Gaffney Chicago Medical Center. With both the work environment and relationships among the first responders. A lot changed the night of the conjoined twins' surgery.

Will proposed to Natalie in a "not so great setting" according to her when she told Ava, but she eventually accepted his wedding proposal a week later. Now they were getting married. Details are still yet to be decided when and where.

Ethan decided to take back his sister after refusing to let her go be taken to a shelter or group home to get help, leading to April breaking up with him.

Sarah's father suffered a heart attack the night of his discharge and was revealed by Dr. Charles that he was a serial killer from the past decade. He was sent to prison. The incident forced Sarah to transfer to another hospital in Texas to finish her residency to avoid the gossip and public coverage of her father that became top news.

As for Connor and Ava, the night they got together and went out for dinner, the two went back to his condo and spent the rest of the night getting to know each other in a way they couldn't before. They stayed in the next day on their day off. Mostly spending time in his bed or on his couch. Since then, the two spent most of their nights together at each other's places. The only times they mostly sleep apart were when they worked different shifts. During the summer, they took July off. First week they went to go Turks and Caicos Islands, and the rest was a European trip. Being envied by other female doctors and nurses for taking an all expenses paid trip to paradise and visiting amazing sites.

With the new expansion to the ED and hospital, many new doctors and nurses were hired, and some senior doctors were promoted. A new OBGYN program was now included in the ED, introducing them to Hannah Asher from upstairs, a Hybrid O.R. per suggestion by Connor and backed by their surgeons, more patient and trauma rooms, hallways & waiting room equipped for emergencies, a new meeting room, new locker rooms and a larger doctor lounge. The new bunch of new doctors and nurses have come to Med with their expansion, and the next batch of med students. This change also affected other departments where they now have a larger staff joining them.

Connor, now being chief of the Hybrid O.R., was back on the Trauma service as an Attending position. Ava was now an Attending for Cardiothoracic Surgery. Natalie was now an Attending in Pediatrics in ED. Crockett Marcel transferred to the daytime shift and was promoted to be an Attending in General Surgery. New Attending physicians to the ED included were Stevie Hammer and Mitch Ripley. The new residents joining the ED included were Dylan Scott, Zola Ahmad, Kai Tanaka-Reed, Zach Hudgins, and John Frost. The new doctors that arrived to do their fellowships include Nellie Cuevas, Loren Johnson, and Justin Morris. Along with the larger staff, the hospital now has more room to allow more med students. Students such as: Elsa Curry, Terry McNeal, Vanessa Taylor, and Naomi Howard.

The large, expanded ED was now upgraded to include a total of 40 rooms, 20 each were regular treatment rooms, and the others were trauma-related injuries. The 40 rooms were divided into four areas, 10 rooms each. The areas were identified as A-1 and A-3 for regular treatment rooms; A-2 and A-4 were for trauma-related cases.

Because the ED was now much larger than before, more chiefs were hired in place to help cover those areas.

The previous sole chief of the ED, Dr. Stanley Stohl oversaw A-1. Now sharing the space were three new doctors joining as co-chiefs.

Dr. James Lanik, the new chief of Trauma in charge of A-2.

Dr. Caitlin Lenox, a General Surgery surgeon in charge of A-3.

Dr. Dean Archer, an old Navy colleague of Ethan's was a Trauma surgeon in charge of A-4.

The grand re-opening of the ED was big news, which was why the hospital was hosting a big press conference opening today. Those three months spent renovating and hiring new employees was a long and tough process but was finally done in time of the deadline set. All the daytime shift workers were required to be there for the grand re-opening like the first time the new renovated ED was prepared last time 3 years ago. Meaning everyone had to be dressed in their white coats and look sharp in front of the cameras. Goodwin had Connor scheduled to do interviews to promote the new Hybrid O.R. both before and after the press conference. The new O.R. was the most expensive upgraded in the entire ED, so they were going to go wide with the promotion.

And that's what Connor was doing this morning. He was in the new O.R. with the group of reporters and photographers for his presentation. Goodwin was standing in the back watching.

"Look, I am not bragging when I say that this hybrid O.R. could revolutionize trauma surgery's interaction with emergency medicine. It's set up for interventional and open procedures. We've got surgical lights, we've got a C-arm, case carts. There is a scrub room right outside." He used lots of hand gestures and movements as he talked. He paused for a few seconds after he realized what he was saying. "Okay, maybe I'm bragging just a little bit." The pitch in his voice slightly went up as he realized he was bragging to the audience as he carefully looked at them.

The press lightly laughs.

"Doctor, can I get a shot of you in front of the operating table?" A female photographer asks holding up her large professional camera.

"Yeah, sure." Connor agreed and took a step back as he smiled towards the camera.

"All right, thank you everyone. The hospital's PR department will forward you complete press kits." Goodwin ends the presentation, signaling to the press it was over.

"Thank you." Connor thanks them as they all leave in a line towards the waiting room outside for the upcoming press conference of the grand re-opening.

They looked at each other after the group leaves. Goodwin starts to talk. "So, I'm going to bring the "Trib" through about 10 mins after the press conference here shortly. Then the local NBC affiliate after that." She reminds him.

"I'll be ready." He nods and shrugs his shoulders.

"I really appreciate your putting on the charm." She smiles at the end.

"Ms. Goodwin, you built me Xanadu. I would sing and dance for you if you wanted." He praised her.

"Oh, I'm gonna hold you to that." They both laugh. Goodwin pats his left arm before turning to head to the waiting room.

Connor slowly turns around to admire the new surgical suite. The walls were mostly white with the upper parts painted blue with some LED lights. The lighting in the entire room was upgraded more compared to the surgical rooms upstairs, though those have also been upgraded as well in the last three months.

"Oh my god, It's Doctor Connor Rhodes. Can I have your autograph?" A familiar sarcastic voice appeared on his left side. He slightly turns his head to see a familiar blonde haired woman dressed in her white coat and usual black scrubs with grey long-sleeve underneath.

"You're gonna have to get in line. I'm kind of a big deal around here." He plays along.

"Aw~. I thought I was allowed to cut in front of the line. No special privileges for sleeping with the doctor?" She looks at him with a playful smile.

"Well, I guess I can make an exception."

The two made eye contact and lightly scoffed with smiles on their faces.

Ava playfully shakes her head with a grin and stares at the room. "I've gotta admit, this is an impressive space."

"Yeah. Feels right." He answers.

"Well, I guess I don't need to remind you. You're no longer on the CT service, but back to Trauma now." She reminds him of his status.

"Yet, you did." He pretended to be irritated but then grinned.

"From now on, when you bring a patient upstairs, I decide the course of treatment." She stares at him with a smile.

"Well, this should be an interesting dynamic now. I'm back down here with all my buddies and catching up on the latest gossip, and you're up there torturing and ordering around your fellows and surgical residents. I'm not sure if I should be grateful or jealous they get to see you 24/7 now compared to me."

"Hey." She playfully elbows him.

He laughs and rubs his left arm. "I didn't think I would see you down here for the press conference. I thought you were busy up there."

"They need an Attending rep for each department for the conference. Latham sent me. Those fellows and residents up there are getting acquainted with him."

"I remember the first time I met him. He straight up asked me if I killed Downey." Connor had a blank facial expression to recall that first meeting.

Ava laughs. "Really? You never told me that. The only thing you told me was that he wanted me instead of you for the fellowship when you first met him."

"That part is true. He said it right after we cleared up the whole Downey thing and walked right out the door." He nods. "That reminds me, have you met the new fellows? What were their names again?"

"Uh, I know one of their names is Justin Morris. I haven't met him yet. I know he was assigned under Latham for the fellowship. I got Dr. Bardovi and um a new doctor whose name escapes me right now, he appears to worship Dr. Morris? A rumor I heard from the nurses. Something about some surgery he did while he was still a general surgeon in London before moving here. I don't know. But I heard he has a pretty big ego. Jury's still out if he's more arrogant than you." She smirks.

"Ha ha. Very funny, Dr. Bekker." He says dryly as he stares at her. She giggles.

"Hey lovebirds." A familiar female voice called out to them. They turned to see it was the charge nurse. "Goodwin says it's time to come out for the press conference."

"On our way, Maggie." Ava tells her.

"Guess it's show time." Connor puts his right hand on the small of her back as they head towards the waiting room.

In the waiting room, Goodwin was standing at a large acrylic podium stand in front of the ED entrance at the front desk area. At the sides of the room by the walls were the medical staff and some people dressed in suits watching with their bodies turned sideways at her. Filling up the remainder space in the middle of the waiting room were the press with recorders, mics and cameras pointing towards her. Everyone was applauding.

"Thank you! We owe a great debt of gratitude to one man in particular. He championed us, supported us, and was with us when we first opened this department three years ago. Without his help, this incredible brand-new upgraded emergency department would never have become a reality. Our Mayor, Rahm Emanuel." Goodwin raised her left hand towards a tall man dressed in a dark suit with short grey-haired.

The mayor stands next to her to shake her hand as the photographers start taking pictures. Goodwin stands aside to let the mayor stand behind the podium.

"Hello everyone, my name is Rahm Emanuel as you were just told. The idea of upgrading hospitals such as Gaffney Chicago Medical Center, came to be after the unfortunate Millennium Park shooting earlier this year. A total of 776 innocent lives were lost that day. As a result, hospital leaders in this city all came together, as did many generous donors of the city, and decided it was time for a change to the times we live in today. We need to be prepared for what's to come. On behalf of all the people of the City of Chicago, all the families, all the parents who will be bringing their kids and their family members here in dire need of care, I want to thank you ahead of schedule for what you do every day to make sure that everybody counts in the City of Chicago. Thank you."

The crowd applauses.

Goodwin stands by next to him when she is handed a large pair of scissors by a man dressed in a suit.

The crowd cheers louder as the two of them grab hold of the scissors and start cutting the blue ribbon for the new ED to officially re-open.

"Whoo!" "Yeah" The crowd cheers as the ribbon falls.

A few seconds later, all the doctors' and nurses' pagers and phones start to go off. The press starts to be concerned about what was going on. The happy moment fading away, just like that first time around when they opened the ED 3 years ago.

The mayors' guards in black suits come forward to the front to escort him away.

Maggie comes in through the sliding doors. "Apartment building complex downtown is on fire. Multiple smoke inhalation and burn patients’ minutes away. Let's go!"

Doctors and nurses start rushing back into the ED as the press starts to pick up their things to leave out the doors to cover the fire incident.

"Maggie, what apartment complex downtown?" Ethan calls out, taking off his coat in the ED.

"Around The Loop, at 361 North Michigan Ave, a residential tower." She answers.

"What?" Will pauses as he hands his coat to Natalie to quickly put it in the doctor's lounge as well were many others.

"Dr. Halstead?" Goodwin asks as she walks nearby.

"Did you just say a residential tower on 361 North Michigan Ave?" Will asks for confirmation.

"Yeah." Maggie answers.

"My dad lives in that building." He stares.

"Wait your dad lives there? I thought he still lived in your family house in Canaryville?" Connor walks out of the doctor's lounge, having heard the last part of the conversation.

"Old man couldn't take care of the place so Jay and I sold the house and made him move to an apartment." The red-haired doctor pulls out his phone. "He goes for walks in the morning and comes back for lunch. It's about to be lunch so he should be back there, dammit." Will holds his phone to his ear as he walks away.

"Damn." Maggie says softly as she watches him.

A few hours have passed since the hospital was first alerted to the apartment fire crisis. Nurses and doctors were all over the floor treating burnt and inhalation patients. Unlike the Millennium Park shooting, they were more prepared this time around for a crisis.

"Got another wave of patients coming in. Let's look alive!" Maggie looked up from her large pager and alerted out loud to the ED staff. She walks towards the nurses' stations where some of the nurses were organizing supplies. "Monique, what do we have?"

"I triggered the mass casualty protocol." The young nurse replied.

"Yeah?"

"Everyone's prepped and ready to go."

"All right, let's continue to decompress all the remaining rooms up in the ICU and PICU. Luckily for us since today was the grand re-opening that we didn't admit any patients in the ED." The charge nurse ordered the two nurses.

"On it." Monique replied and walked away.

Maggie walked towards another nurse. "All right, Doris, talk to me."

"I'm getting real-time updates from the Office of Emergency Management." Doris replied putting a hand over the phone speaker end.

"All right, I want to know how many are still down at the scene and how many we've got coming."

"Copy." Doris looked down at her notepad and wrote it down.

"All right, Dr. Manning." Maggie walked towards the pediatrician Attending. "Status on your burn patient?"

"I need to get her up to the O.R. to have her burns excised. Have you been able to reach her parents?" The brunette asked.

"We're still trying to track them down." The nurse furrowed her eyebrows in regret and turned around to look at the patient across the floor. "Poor kid."

"Maggie." Will pokes his head out behind the curtains of a treatment room and calls out to the nurse.

"Yeah?" She turns around.

"You page Dr. Rhodes for my dad?"

"He's almost done performing surgery in the hybrid O.R., you're gonna have to wait a bit longer." She informs him and turns back around and heads towards the firefighters from 51 standing outside of one of the Baghdad rooms. One of the own, Stella Kidd, was suffering from an inhalation injury when she ran out of oxygen in the fire. "Hey, how are you guys doing?"

"Choi kicked us out." Kelly turns his head right to look at the nurse. Informing them the chief resident had ordered the nurses to close the door to let them work without any distribution.

"Yeah, he needs room to work, Kelly. Try to be patient." Maggie comforts him and walks away.

In a treatment room, Will was treating his father after spending the last couple of hours worried about his whereas during the fire. It was presumed that he wasn't in the building since he wasn't in his apartment, but no one had heard from him to confirm it. Eventually they learned he was friends with a wheelchair bound resident in the building on the top floor. CFD managed to locate him in his friend's apartment and managed to rescue them both. Jay was in the room with them, after spending half of his day standing outside and, in the lobby, trying to locate his father.

Their father, Pat, was sitting on the hospital bed with his shirt off, connected to various wires and parts of his upper body were covered in soot. He was coughing and was holding onto a tray for his vomit. Will was checking his father's lungs on his back with his stethoscope.

"Pop tried to play hero. He forgot he was in his 60s with a bum ticker." Jay commented.

Their father looked up at him then sighed as he leaned back against the bed. "Yeah, well. This is your fault to begin with." His voice sounded tired and out of breath.

"Me?" The detective slightly wrinkled his forehead.

"Yeah. Stick me in that fire trap." Pat continued.

"Pop, stop talking." Said Will as he moved his stethoscope to his father's chest.

"You said you liked the place." Jay countered.

"You close on the EKG?" Will took the tool out of his ears and asked the nurse on the other side of the bed.

"Just about." The nurse replied, adjusting the wires on the patient's chest.

"What's the point of this?" Pat shoved the nurse with his right arm. She ignored it and continued her work.

"Easy. Paramedics said you were complaining of chest pain. Did you forget you had a quadruple bypass a few weeks ago?" Pat groaned and spitted out more vomit into the tray. "Come on, stay still." Will reminded and scolded his father about his health.

A few seconds later, Connor walks into the room with a tablet. "Hey, if it isn't my favorite patient. How you doing, Mr. Halstead?"

"Fine." The older man answered.

"So you felt some tightness in your chest, huh?" The dark-haired surgeon kept his eyes down on the tablet.

"It's nothing." He raised his right hand up to shrug it off that it wasn't a big deal.

"Well, you might be right." Connor looked up at the monitors and hugged the tablet underneath his left arm. Will walked over next to his friend to stare at the monitors. "I don't see any ST elevation or depression. No left access deviation. Looks like a strong and healthy heart to me." The surgeon turned his head to look at the family.

"Yeah, good. We done?" Pat wanted to leave as soon as possible.

"Nope, not yet. You still have a pretty nasty inhalation injury." Connor reminded him, looking down at the patient's notes on his tablet.

"Can I get a CBC, CMP, and a carboxyhemoglobin?" Will asked the nurse.

"And add a full cardiac workup." Connor added to the list of tests to run. He handed the nurse his tablet.

Maggie steps into the room. "Dr. Rhodes? Dr. Choi needs a consult." She then turns around.

"Yeah. Mr. Halstead, a pleasure as always. Connor said farewell and proceeded to leave the room.

"Thank you, Connor." Will gave him a quick pat on his shoulder as he left.

Connor got a quick update on Stella's case from Ethan to get all caught up. He was standing outside room next to 51 with the door now open for them to hear what's going on.

April sighs standing at Stella's bedside on her left suctioning out blood from her intubation tube. "Blood's coming too fast. Every time I suction the tube, it fills back up again."

"Hang another unit and just do your best to keep up." Ethan leaned forward as he gave her an order on what to do.

"Where's the X-ray?" Connor called out to the technician.

"Here you go." A nurse answered as the X-ray technician turned on the machine.

Everyone turned to look at the large monitor hanging on the side of the wall to the x-ray of Stella's lungs. The monitor showed one lung was dark compared to the rest of her chest.

"She's got a massive hemorrhage in her right lung. It's impossible to say where it's coming from." Connor stated what was on the monitor. "All right, call the blood bank, trigger the MTP." He ordered.

"Can you stop the bleed?" Kelly turned to his left to ask the surgeon.

"First I've gotta find it. Let's set up for a bronchoscopy." Connor ordered the nurses as he walked into the room.

"Okay." Said a nurse.

In another room nearby where Natalie and Ms. Goodwin were treating her burn patient's injuries. Maggie then walks into the room with a couple.

"This is Leslie and Ryan Scott. Blair's parents." She introduced them and waited a few seconds before leaving.

"I'm Ms. Goodwin. This is Dr. Manning." Goodwin introduced themselves.

"Hey." Natalie greeted softly as the two were bandaging the girl's brunt right arm.

"We were both at work. Heard there was a fire at the apartment, but... never expected this." The father explained as his wife cries softly. "Is she in pain?"

"No. We've given her medication to make sure she's comfortable." Natalie assured the parents.

"You've got to save her." The mother pleaded.

"We're going to do everything we can for her." Goodwin answered.

Ava then walks into the room looking down at a tablet. "I've reviewed the imaging." She looks up at the two, standing across the patient's bedside

"This is Dr. Bekker. She's a cardiothoracic surgeon we asked to consult." Goodwin introduced them to the surgeon.

The blonde turned to face the parents. "One of your daughter's injuries is to her right carotid artery." She informed them.

"What does that mean?" The father asked.

"The artery is damaged. It's blocking blood flow. Don't worry, I can repair it while her burns are being excised." She explained.

"Is Blair going to..." The mother's voice cracked as she tried to talk.

"No." Natalie answered. "Blair's burns cover almost 80% of her body. Once her blood pressure is stable enough, we will take her up to the O.R. to begin excision of her burn tissue. I am afraid she will need to remain in the ICU for several months." She explained what will happen to their daughter after the surgery.

"Several months?" The mother asked.

"While the doctors continue to excise and graft her burns." Goodwin added.

The mother cries a little louder.

"But then can she come home?" The father asks.

Ava kept to herself, feeling uncomfortable listening to them explain to the parents about the unfortunateness of their daughter's condition from the fire.

'These types of talks don't get easier. Poor kid, she didn't deserve this.'

"Yes, however, your daughter is going to need physical and occupational therapy to regain her ability to walk, talk, eat, even dress herself." Goodwin further explained their daughter's future during her recovery.

"No..." The mother cried.

"We understand there are many challenges ahead, but with proper treatment and patience, Blair can recover." Natalie assured them there is a silver lining. She stared at the mother for a few seconds and then proceeded to remove the gauze on the right side of their daughter's face.

"Oh, my baby." The mother cried seeing the current state of her daughter.

"Oh..." The father said softly as he covered his mouth with his right hand. His wife then fell into his arms and cried. "Hey, it's..." He tried to comfort her.

Ava gives Natalie a quick nod. "Excuse me, I have more patients to consult on." She nods towards the parents and leaves. "Some grand re-opening day this turned out." She said to herself softly.

A few hours later, Natalie and Ava both pushed the curtains aside and walked back into the room.

"Hi." Natalie greeted the parents who were both standing at the daughter's bedside on her right side. "Good news. An operating room has opened up. We'll be able to take your daughter upstairs for burn surgery."

"And repair her carotid artery." Ava added.

Natalie walked towards the other side of the bed and just as she placed her hands on the railings about to move the girl....

"No. Please stop." The father spoke up causing the doctor to stop what she was doing.

"No treatments, no surgeries." The mother spoke holding back her tears.

"What?" The ED doctor furrowed her eyebrows in confusion.

"We don't want any surgeries." The mother continued.

"I don't understand." Said Ava.

"But if we don't take Blair up to the O.R. now, she won't survive." Natalie explains the situation.

"My wife and I have talked about it. Blair wouldn't want this." The father stares at her then back at his daughter.

"But with proper treatment, she could still have a life." The brunette tried to get them to change their minds.

"Look at her. What kind of life?" The mother spoke in a dejected tone.

"These last few years have been so hard for Blair. She struggled with body issues, bullying. Just recently, she was able to lose weight, change schools, and..." His wife starts to cry. "She finally felt good about herself. And now this." The father explained what his daughter had been going through. He couldn't stand to see her suffer for more years to come.

"Everything she's been through... We can't do this to her." The mother forced herself to speak.

Natalie looked over to Ava who looked back in sympathy at the girl's story.

"But... people react differently to trauma. You don't know. Surviving this might actually make your daughter more resilient." Natalie continued to push.

"We know our little girl." Said the mother.

"Mr. and Mrs. Scott-" Ava starts to speak but gets cut off.

"No. We have to let her go." The father looked at the doctors, they were adamant with their decision.

Natalie looked over at Ava unsure what to do. The South African woman had a flabbergasted facial expression and pulled the curtains behind her as she exited the room.

Standing at the nurses’ station was Ms. Goodwin who turned around after hearing the curtain sound and saw the doctor with an upset look.

"That was a complete waste of our time and resources. I could have used that time to consult other patients instead of this one." Ava turned to leave.

"I'm sorry?" Ms. Goodwin was confused about what was going on.

Ava turned back towards her. "They're withholding treatment." She explained and walked away.

Ms. Goodwin nodded, understanding why one of their top surgeons was upset. "Maybe I can help change their minds." The older woman proceeded towards the treatment room.

Going on at the same time, Connor and Ethan were discussing Stella's case behind closed doors and came to a conclusion. One they weren't happy with but had no other choice. Connor opened the sliding door where Kelly was waiting outside for them for an update on his girlfriend.

"She's lost a significant amount of blood." Ethan started to talk.

"Unfortunately, the only way we can be sure to completely stop her bleed is to remove her entire lung." Connor informs him what's going to happen.

"What?" Kelly blinked at his solution

"Yeah." Connor spoke softly.

"Kelly, it's the best chance we have of saving Stella's life." Ethan tries to get him to understand.

"She can't be a firefighter if she only has one lung. There's gotta be something else you can do." The squad lieutenant looked between both doctors who had blank facial expressions and shook their heads. "April?" He looked at his childhood friend who was standing behind the doctors. They all looked towards her.

"What if we tried ECMO? It would rest her lung so we have enough time to locate the bleed-" April suggests another option but gets cut off.

"No. We'd have to give her anticoagulants to keep the lines open." Connor explains why they can't go through with that option.

"It would make her bleed even worse." Ethan added.

"Isn't it worth a shot?" She asks.

"She's too unstable." The Asian American doctor concluded.

Connor turns his head to look back at the firefighter. "Believe me, Kelly, this is the best course of action."

"Sounds to me like you've thrown in the towel before you even tried to save her lung. Being a firefighter is the only thing Stella cares about. I'm not gonna let you do it." Kelly stood firm.

"I'm sorry. But it's not up to you. We haven't been able to reach her family, so it's our decision." Ethan explains that he has no power of attorney to make medical decisions for her on her behalf.

"We can't do it down here in the Hybrid O.R., get her upstairs." Connor tells April as he starts to leave to book an operating room.

"I won't let you do this." Kelly steps in front of Connor to stop him.

"Kelly, please." The surgeon moves to leave.

At the exact moment, Ava who was walking away upset with her patient saw what appeared to be Connor in a confrontation with Kelly up ahead.

"Connor?" Ava starts walking towards the scene.

"No. No." Kelly wasn't going to let the surgeon leave and take away his girlfriend's career. He placed his right hand on his chest to stop him.

"Kelly, you have to let me-" Connor took his hand off him.

"No! No." But the lieutenant wasn't giving up putting both hands on him to get him to stay and reconsider.

"Hey! Get your hands off him." Ava finally arrives at the scene standing behind Kelly and pulls him back with her left hand.

Ethan came up between them, standing on Ava's right side and holding Connor's left shoulder back. "Get off! Hey! Security!" He called out to the guards.

"Whoa, whoa, Ethan? No!" April came up, nothing happy her ex-boyfriend wanted to throw out her childhood friend. "Kelly..." She says his name to get him calm down.

"Come on!" Kelly stares at Connor. Behind him a security guard came up.

"Ethan..." April says softly.

"Please escort this man out." Ava tells the guards.

"Ava..." April says softly.

"This is a hospital. We treat patients, not get into fights." Ava stares at her.

"Sir, come with us." The guard behind Kelly placed a hand on his back.

"Don't-don't touch me." The firefighter flinches at the contact and slightly moves away from the guard. He stares back at Connor and the others next to him.

"I'm sorry, Kelly." Ethan apologized.

"Don't do this." Kelly points his right index finger at Connor.

"Please, sir." Another guard came forward and touched the firefighter's right arm, signaling him to leave.

No argument this time, Kelly listens to the guards and follows them out of the ED.

April closes her eyes and sighs as she watches her close friend be taken out.

Connor takes a glance at Ava who came forward to help deescalate the situation. She nudges her head left for them to talk. He talks a quick glance at Ethan before leaving with Ava.

The two walked towards the entry way of the ED by the elevators and stood off to the side.

"Things aren't looking good for Stella, aren't they?" She leans on her left against the wall, facing the elevators behind Connor.

"No, they're not." Connor frowns, shaking his head. "Her right lung is hemorrhaging badly, and we can't find the source of the bleed. She's also too unstable to consider ECMO."

"So the only option left to save her life is to remove the lung. Ending her career as a firefighter." Ava closes her eyes and sighs regrettably. Since the first night she hung out with the other group of female first responders, she's gotten close with them. She knows how much being a firefighter means to Stella, but sometimes it comes with a terrible cost that can last a lifetime.

"Yeah." He whispers.

"It can't be helped. I would have made the same call as well. I don't want Stella to die." She agrees that it's the best option they had. It's unfortunate, but it can't be helped. She rubs his left arm for comfort.

"Yeah, thanks."

"I'll scrub in. My schedule's free now that my other scheduled surgery was called off." She decides to join the case.

Connor furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "What happened to your case? Natalie's patient, wasn't it?"

"Patient's parents don’t want us to save their daughter. Said she's been suffering for the last couple of years and doesn't want her to live with more obstacles from being happy. Says that she's been through a lot."

"Sorry, sounds rough."

"Kind of took my anger on Goodwin a bit by indirectly blaming Natalie for wasting my time." Ava thought back to what she said and admits she was a little harsh when talking to Goodwin.

"We're all having a bad day today. Everyone's feeling stressed out." He assures her.

"Molly's tonight?"

"Yeah, I really need a drink today." He turns his body around to face the elevators. "Let's prep the team and get ready now." They both start walking to the elevators.

Due to Ava's pre-planned surgery being cancelled, they scheduled Stella's lung removal to take that open slot. Within the hour, Connor and Ava prepped the team on the surgery and were about to get ready. Connor first had to check on another patient in the ICU before changing scrubs. Just as he entered the waiting room area of the surgical floor, up ahead he could see April talking to some people from 51. It appeared they were in a heated discussion.

"I'm trying to help you. There's just been-" April spoke before getting cut off.

"There's he is." Mouch points with his right index finger when he notices Connor.

"Dr. Rhodes." Herrmann calls out to the doctor. The group approaches him.

"Sorry, guys, I gotta get scrubbed." Connor says knowing what they're here to talk about.

"We just want to talk to you about Stella." Said Mouch.

The group stops before him, causing him to plant his feet. Connor sighs and looks at the nurse. "Really April?"

"Just hear them out." She tells him.

"We don't want you to remove her lung." Said Casey.

"There has to be another option." Said Brett.

"Look, guys, I understand your concerns. But as her doctors, we've decided on the best course of treatment, and only Stella's family can override that decision." Connor explained they don't have power of attorney.

"Dr. Rhodes. We are her family." Herrmann argues otherwise.

Connor doesn't say a word. He carefully stares at the members of 51.

"That's true. She'd tell you the same thing, Doc." Mouch pushed the doctor to reconsider.

He still doesn't say a word to them and just proceeds to walk through the group. Passing by April and Brett and heads straight through the O.R. area door entrance. The group stares at him in disbelief.

"Another walk-away." Said Herrmann.

Inside the operating room hallway, the surgical team was moving Stella, still intubated, on a gurney as they moved her to the O.R., passes by Connor. He stares at them carefully as they disappear behind the doors.

He was deep in thought. The words of Firehouse 51 were getting to him.

He knew from many interactions he had with the firehouse from the past few years that Stella loved being a firefighter.

He's also seen firefighters after getting injured on the job where they're no longer within CFD's regulations to be on the job.

From bad lungs to loss of vision to losing a limb.

Some who can't handle life without the job fall into a depression or even take their own lives.

He doesn't want any of that to happen to Stella, but at the same time they don't have another option to find the bleed....

.... or do they?

Connor started to think outside the box as he headed towards the scrub room where Ava just arrived in to scrub their arms and hands.

A couple of minutes into their scrubbing, Connor was thinking of an alternative solution where both parties can be happy with. He turned his head to take a quick glance at the unconscious firefighter.

'That is an option we could try first.' He thinks to himself.

"There's another way." He says to get Ava's attention.

She slowly turns her head right to look at him. "What do you mean?"

"The majority of lung bleeds originate in the lower lobes, right?" He turns his head left slightly to look at her as she goes back to focus on her scrubbing.

"So?"

"So, what if I clamp at the base of the pulmonary artery?" He suggests and looks back forward to focus on scrubbing.

Ava blinked at his words and looked down for a moment before looking back at him. "Connor, you made the right call. We have a good surgical plan."

"But what if we resect the lower lobe first? If the bleeding stops, we won't have to remove the entire lung."

She shook her head. "No, it's too risky."

"If it doesn't work, we can still remove the lung." He suggests they can still go through with the lung removal if things don't work out.

"After wasting precious time. Have you forgotten we're trying to save her life?" She may be used to his crazy ideas but now is not the time to try them.

"I think we can do that and give her the life that she wants." He pushed.

"She's a young woman. She can find another career."

Connor looks back at Stella then back at the sink as he washes off the soap. "I have to try. I owe it to her. I owe it to them."

"Connor, being a firefighter isn't gonna mean a damn thing if Stella dies on the table. And I really don't want my friend to die." She looks at him to try and get him to reconsider his plan.

He takes a long look back at Stella then back at Ava who stares at him, pleading with him not to go through with it. "I can do it." He takes a step back.

"Don't-Connor!" She calls out but he ignores her and enters the O.R.

Ava internally sighs as she faces forward and frowns, washing off the soap.

"I just had to fall in love with a surgeon who loves taking a gamble on everything."

In the O.R., the team were currently in the beginning stages of the surgery. As much as Ava didn't like it, they were going with Connor's new plan and were currently looking for the source of the bleed in the lower lobes of Stella's lungs.

"Time, Dr. Rhodes. Where are we?" Ava asked. holding the camera tool that was inserted inside of Stella.

"I'm almost there, but every time the lung inflates, it obstructs my view. Marty, can we deflate the lung any further?" Connor replied holding other tools that were also inside of her. Both doctors kept their eyes on the monitors to see inside Stella's chest.

"No way, I'm barely keeping her oxygenated as it is." Marty replied.

"Take it down another 20%." Connor ordered.

"It's too risky." Marty still didn't like it.

Ava slightly wrinkled her forehead, more concerned with his plan.

"I only need to reach the lower lobe. I'll find the bleed and make my resection before you know it." Connor stated.

The anesthesiologist darted his eyes right to stare at the CT Attending for her approval.  Ava just slightly shook her head and looked down, signaling that Connor wasn't gonna back down.

"Make it fast." Marty gives in as he turns at his station to deflate the lung.

Inside the monitor room was April who was watching the entire surgery and was soon joined by Ethan.

"You're quite the patient advocate today. Did you do it for Stella or for Kelly?" He asks.

"I've known him since we were kids." She replies, staring forward into the O.R.

"You didn't answer the question." He furrowed his eyebrows and turned left to look at her.

"I did it because it was the right thing to do." She turns her head right to look at him.

Back inside the O.R., the machines started beeping that something was wrong. The team looked at the monitors.

"Marty?" Connor asks.

"BP's down to 88 systolic." Marty replies.

"I'm close." Connor tells them.

"Let's hope so." Ethan says in the room before getting paged to head back down to the ED.

Ava shook her head. "You are not going to make it. We have to open her up and remove the lung." She looks at Connor.

"BP's at 82." Marty tells them.

"Up her pressers." Connor orders.

"Can't, I'm already maxed out." Marty replies.

"Connor please." Ava pleaded with him to stop.

"Just give me a second." He tells her.

The beeping starts to become louder.

"Sats are at 78. That's all she can tolerate. I'm reinflating the lung." Marty moves in his work area ready to reinflate the lung.

Ava furrows her eyebrows and stares down at Stella with lots of anxiety.

"No, wait." Connor gets the team's attention and Ava looks back up. "There. That's it. That's the bleed." He points out to the monitor showing a large area of blood leaking out.

'Okay, there you were right. It was down there but...' Ava thinks to herself.

"You found it, but do you have time to fix it?" She asks him about the small window they have before Stella dies.

Connor doesn't say anything but keeps his eyes on the monitor.

Outside in the waiting area, April joined 51 who were waiting for an update. She informed them Connor found the bleed but it's touch and go given the limit time left. She told them to be patient until the team was done.

Some time has passed by until they’ve gotten an update. It felt like an hour had gone by until Connor appeared through the hallway entrance of the operating rooms. April stood up once she saw him and walked towards his side. This led to 51 taking notice of his presence and stood up as well.

"You guys put me in a terrible position." Connor started off, feeling exhausted. "But... we were able to isolate the bleed, and we only had to take out a portion of her lung. It was a thoracoscopic procedure, minimally invasive. That's all to say that... she should be back to work in no time." He smiled. From behind Ava appeared and headed towards the nurses’ station to sign some paperwork.

"Oh, thank god." Mouch says softly as he patted Brett’s back with his left hand.

51 were relieved with the news. Herrmann walks up towards Connor to shake his hand.

"Hey... Dr. Rhodes... you're the man." He tells him.

"Yeah, you guys are okay too." The dark-haired surgeon replies as the group starts to leave.

"Thanks." Casey shakes his hand with gratitude as he passes by.

Brett passes by Ava at the counter and places a hand on her left shoulder. "Thank you, Ava."

"Of course." She smiles and nods. Unknowingly to the paramedic, it was actually a fake smile.

'Oh, they have no idea she literally almost died in there.' She thought to herself.

"Why don't you bring Kelly back in?" Connor looks at April who smiles and nods. She places a hand on his left shoulder as she leaves.

"Thanks, Doc." Mouch thanks him.

"You got it, bud." He replies as he watches the group walk away. His eyes soon fall on Ava doing paperwork at the counter. He walks towards her.

Taking notice of his presence, she turns to face him. "You were extremely lucky in there, you know that?"

"Extremely." He nods in agreement.

"You know, technically you're my emergency contact since I don't have any living relatives."

"You gave me power of attorney?" He raises his eyebrows at the sudden information. But then again, he shouldn't have been surprised. Like she said, she doesn't have any blood relatives anymore, and he's the one Ava spends the most time both in and out of work.

Ava places aside the paperwork to face him again. "I'm sure you know me well enough that my hands are most precious to me. Like any other surgeon."

"I do. You wouldn't ever risk your hands. They're your life." He nods. "But I also wouldn't want to lose you." He admits.

"I'm sure you'll find a way to save both my hands and my life. I know you wouldn't give up without a fighting chance. I learned that back with the conjoined twins. And right now." She gave him a small smile.

"And me? Am I on the same level as your hands?" He asks, wondering where he stands between her hands.

Before she could say a word.

"Dr. Bekker." A female nurse calls out her name, causing the two of them to turn their right. "Dr. Manning paged you during surgery. Her patient's parents decided to go through with the surgeries. She's in O.R. 3 right now with her burns being excised. They're waiting on you to repair her carotid artery."

"All right, I'll be there shortly." Ava nods to the nurse as she leaves and turns to look back at him. "Guess I better get scrubbed up again."

"I'll come find you later. I need to go find Will, haven't given him or Jay my condolences about their father." Connor frowns, recalling hearing the hospital gossip that Mr. Halstead was pronounced brain dead.

Ava solemnly nods. "Yeah. You give them my regards as well." She says softly as she pats his chest before heading back to the operating room again.

The new ED pediatrician resident, John Frost, walks back into the ED and collides with a patient being pushed in a wheelchair by a nurse.

"Oh, I am so sorry. Are you okay?" He apologizes.

"That was a close one!" The red-haired patient grins as she points at him.

John looked confused then flicked his eyes up towards the nurse to see her reaction. She brushed it off. "Yep." He replied. The nurse then proceeded to push the patient towards the elevators.

John walked towards Maggie at the nurses' station.

"That was weird." She commented watching the whole exchange.

"People are weird. How's Zoey's surgery going?" He asked for an update on his patient.

"Oh, just got an update from the O.R., Abrams should be done within the hour."

"Good. All right, that's good. What she's been going through, and now with this fire... I hope she ends up okay."

"You really care about her." She looked carefully at the new resident.

"The cases with kids really do get'cha. Thanks." John nods and walks away.

From behind, Doris walks up towards the charge nurse. "He looks awfully familiar, doesn't he?"

"Yes, because he was hired last month along with several other new doctors and nurses joining the family." She reminds her.

"No, no, that's not it. Mm-mm." Doris shook her head. There was something about Dr. Frost that she couldn't put her finger on.

Before Maggie could say anything, April and Monique walked up to them. "Did you hear? The fire was an arson." Said April.

"Arson?" Maggie asked.

"Yeah, turns out Dr. Halstead's dad's death was actually a murder." Monique explained.

"Damn. How is he and Jay taking it?" Maggie asked.

"Goodwin made Will go on leave. Natalie says her parents are flying in to help with the funeral services." April had a solemn look.

"That really stinks, losing your parent just before getting hitched." Said Doris.

"Lives ruined today, all for a cartel hit." Said April.

"In the wise words of Sam Abrams, "People suck."" Doris says before walking away.

"Yep." Maggie says before pulling out her bag from underneath. "I'm done for the day. A bunch of others are heading to Molly's tonight. You two are coming?"

"Yeah sure." Monique says before walking away.

"After what happened with Kelly, I really need a drink after today." April groans walking away.

After the shift ended for the day, like the nurses, many of the first responders headed to Molly's. Wanting this day to be over with. Not the Intelligence Unit though, they were busy hunting down the arsonist responsible.

"Hey, you hear anything from Trudy or the others on the investigation?" Brett asked Mouch as they along with other members of 51 were sitting at the bar counter.

"Not since they found out the reason why the whole fire happened in the first place." He replied. "They're working overtime to find him. Wish we could help."

"Yeah, our girl almost died because of him. All for what? A cartel hit?" Herrmann scoffs filling up more drinks. "Cartel bastard deserves to get his balls cut off."

"Pretty much. And a baby died in that fire." Said Brett.

"Sure it was the mother's fault for going in that elevator when Otis told her not to, but she was just worried like the rest of the others. Sometimes people's fears are louder than hearing logic." Said Cruz.

"It's the sad truth in our line of work." Said Otis while refilling drinks, trying not to remember finding the deceased mother and baby in the elevator.

"All that matters is Stella is gonna be okay and be back on Truck once she's all better." Mouch added holding up his glass.

"I'll drink to that!" Herrmann held up a shot glass along with the others to cheer.

Behind them were doctors and nurses sitting at the tables. One of them had Connor sitting with other doctors closest to the door.

"You hear from Will?" Connor asked Ethan and Archer sitting across from him. Crockett was sitting on his right side against the wall.

"Natalie took him home. Quality family time. Wasn't really feeling like coming down here for more sympathy and condolences from everyone." Ethan answered.

"I get that. It happened so fast, he hasn't had time to take it all in. He still needs time to process it. I know that feeling." Crockett took a swing from his beer.

"And Jay? Being part of the investigation hunting down the guy who killed his father." Connor brought up.

"Probably isn't the healthiest thing for him to do to get closure." Archer comments.

"Definitely not." Ethan shook his head.

"You flying solo tonight, Rhodes?" Crockett asked Connor, not seeing a certain blonde-haired woman with him.

"Bekker's stuck in surgery still?" Archer asks.

"She should be done now." Connor looked down at his phone to see that he missed a text 5 mins ago from her.

✉️ Just got pulled in for another surgery. Need to supervise my new fellow. Won't make it to Molly's. Gonna head back to my place right after. ✉️

"I take that back. She's stuck doing another surgery. Guess I'll be drinking alone with you guys." He starts to text her back.

✉️ Don't worry about it. Tell me when you're heading home, I'll head over there. ✉️

"At least you'll be in good company." The southern surgeon smiles.

"Spend my night drinking with the ED playboy and two single navy docs. I must have won the lottery or something." Connor jokes as he stands up. "I'm gonna need to get another drink for this."

"Hey! Don't take your anger on us that your girl left you hanging high and dry tonight." Crockett fired back.

"But didn't you say your date tonight cancel on you last minute?" Ethan points out by pointing his drink towards him.

"Shut up, Choi. At least I didn't get dumped because of my sister." Crockett threw back at him.

"Yeah, I suggest you guys stop talking about women and just keep drinking fellas." Archer comments watches from the sidelines.

"That's probably a good idea." Crockett says putting his lips back on his beer.

Back at the bar counter, Herrmann notices Connor walking towards him.

"Hey doc, here for a refill?"

"Yep." Connor places his empty glass down.

"The second one's on the house." Herrmann takes the glass to make his drink.

"Really?"

"Yeah, you didn't give up on Stella. Our girl is gonna be okay thanks to you."

"It wasn't just me in that O.R., Dr. Bekker was also there."

"Yeah? She coming tonight? I haven't seen her."

"She was supposed to be but got pulled into surgery at the last minute. Gonna meet her at her place later."

"Ah, that explains why you're alone tonight."

"Herrmann." Otis comments from behind.

"What? The two of them almost always come to Molly's together as a pair." Herrmann exclaimed as Otis walked away to take another order.

"She got called into surgery. Couldn't make it." Connor explained.

"That's a bummer." The older firefighter shrugged.

"Yeah, what can you do. Gotta goes save lives." The surgeon shrugged it off as it was normal in their line of work.

"That's why we do this job." Herrmann stares at him for a few seconds before his voice drops to a sarcastic tone. "Course, not all of us can afford med school debt, let alone not have to worry about it because they already have a trust fund."

"Yeah, yeah." Connor playfully rolled his eyes. "Ava had a full ride at University of Cape Town."

"I'm not surprised one bit. She's the smartest female surgeon I've ever met here in Chicago. She's on her way to making a name for herself."

"No doubt about that. It's at the top of her 5-year plan since she moved up here for her fellowship."

"That so?"

"Yep."

"Are you now a part of this 5-year plan?"

Connor pauses for a few seconds to think. "Hm? Hopefully."

"You plan on putting a ring on her already, Rhodes?" Herrmann playfully raises his left eyebrow.

"Only a few months in and you're already asking me if there's gonna be another wedding for everyone to attend after Will and Natalie's."

"Hey, we need more happy things to celebrate around here. Especially after today."

"Then shouldn't you be asking Severide this? Weren't he and Stella together like a month before Ava and I started seeing each other? And he's pretty much in love with her based on what I've seen."

"Yeah well, it's kind of complicated and a long story that I don't want to get into right here, right now. Here you go." He placed the full glass in front of the doctor.

"Thanks, and for the record, Hermann. I do love Ava." He smiles picking up his drink and leaves.

"No kidding. You guys went to Europe this summer and now Cindy wants to plan a family vacation trip for us next year. It would be nice to have that trust fund." Herrmann wines before going back to serving drinks.

-One hour later-

"Wait? Ethan did what?" Crockett raised his left eyebrow.

"You heard me. He had the hospital call me back in while I was at a charity event to operate on a panda." Connor explained.

"A panda? You're joking right." Archer asked in disbelief.

"I wish I was. Google it if you don't believe me. I still don't and I was the one doing it." Connor took a snip from his drink.

"Ethan? Are you for real? A panda in Chicago Med? What was the animal hospital full that night from a stampede by the hippos?" Archer turned to face his old friend.

"The panda needed a cardiothoracic surgeon, and Connor was one that I could trust to take care of her." Ethan explained the urgency of the case.

"But I'm not a veterinarian, as I stated back then." Connor stares at him.

"You still saved her life and was good publicity for the hospital." Ethan replies.

"Which I remind you, that is the first and last time I play veterinarian for you. There's a reason why we don't have panda blood in the blood bank with use." Connor held his hands up.

"I can't decide if I'm jealous you got to work on a panda case or glad that I wasn't a part of it in case things didn't turn out well." Crockett laughs.

"I can tell you straight up that I'm glad I wasn't a part of that case. Now I'm glad Ethan recruited me into Med later on and not earlier." Archer took a snip from his drink.

"To think all of that happened a couple of months before I joined Med. I was just looking for a place to start over after leaving New Orleans." Crockett comments.

*Phone vibrates on the table

Connor flips his phone over on the table and sees it's a text message from Ava:

✉️ Just finished. Getting ready to head home. ✉️

He texts back right away.

✉️ Yeah I'm done with the guys now. I'll see you there. ✉️

"Okay, time to call it a night." Connor finishes the last of his drink and stands up from his seat.

"What? The night's still early. Bekker have you on a short lease?" Crockett asks.

"Remember, she was supposed to be here, but it looks like I'll be spending it at her place." He puts on his light jacket.

"At least one of us needs to see some action." Crockett stretches his arms backwards. "Be sure to use protection."

"Uh-huh, I'll take the tab. Night fellows." Connor heads towards the bar counter.

A few seconds from behind, a tall handsome dark-haired pale-skinned man walked in wearing a black long-sleeved shirt and grey pants and black sneakers.

The men not noticing each other collided as they headed towards the bar.

"Oh! I'm so sorry about that." The stranger apologized right away. He spoke with an accent.

"It's no problem. I should be the one apologizing man. I should have watched where I was going. I was just going to pay the tab." Connor held his right hand to his chest as he apologized.

"It's not a problem man." The stranger replied.

The two parted ways as Connor quickly paid with Otis and left. The other gentlemen caught Herrmann's attention as he sat at the bar.

"Hey man." The stranger held up his right hand to greet.

"Hi there. I've never seen you before." Herrmann walked towards him on the other side of the counter.

"That's because I'm new to Chicago. I arrived a few days ago. It's for work. Went on Yelp to find a good friendly bar to break in and this firefighter bar seemed like a good fit." The man explained.

Herrmann was pleased with the stranger's compliment. "You damn right it is! I'll tell you what, the first drink is on the house."

"Yeah?"

"Damn straight. Hey, what's your name pal?"

"Joshua. You can call me Josh."

"Okay Josh, where are you from originally."

"South Africa."

"No kidding? I know someone from South Africa. Moved here recently too, a year ago."

"Really? Someone I knew moved to Chicago a year ago. But probably isn't the same person. Chicago is the 3rd largest city in the U.S."

"That's true. Anyway Josh, welcome to Chicago. What can I get'cha?"

Chapter Text

Connor walks through the ED floor and past the doctor's lounge entrance where Will exits the room at the same time.

"Hey Will, you're back."

"Hey Connor. I had to come back at some point."

"No, I get that. It's been three weeks."

"I was going crazy playing stay home dad with Owen. You can ask Natalie about it, now she doesn't trust the two of us alone with a Nerf gun." He chuckled.

"You guys broke something, didn't you?"

"Maybe."

"It was a big mess, wasn't it?" The dark-haired surgeon raised his left eyebrow.

"Okay, we did do that." The red head admitted defeat.

"As long as it helped you process what you and Jay went through."

"About that, I want to thank you, Ava, and the others again for coming to the service. It meant a lot of you guys being there."

"Your father was my patient. I was there at the start, had to be there at the very end. Wished he could have lived to see the wedding."

"Yeah, me too. He liked Nat and Owen. Even enjoyed being Grandpa Pat with him. Natalie's parents and Helen have been supportive this past month. Having gone through losing Jeff a few years ago."

"That's family for ya. Probably not with mine since it's complicated."

"Family is complicated."

"How's Jay?" Wanting an update on the other Halstead.

"He's still taking it hard. Turns out our dad was in fact proud he became a cop. Went to his graduation and had a cut out of him in the newspaper. Even I'm shocked."

"He was proud of you too. Putting yourself through med school all on your own. Said you weren't a kid anymore and a better man than him."

"When did he say that?" This was news to him.

"When I first performed his valve replacement. Told me right before he went under." He revealed.

The red head sighs. "Old man really kept things close to his vest."

"Are you doing okay overall?"

Will nods. "My dad's been living on borrowed time. I've prepared myself since he almost died 2 years ago. I knew this day was coming."

"Well, I'm here if you need to talk."

"Thanks Connor." He nods. "Natalie and I talked, the wedding date's still planned to be the same. Fortunately, we're lucky to know Maggie who got us a discount on a venue with her connections."

"Leave it to Maggie Lockwood’s networking skills." Connor chuckled and patted Will's left shoulder and walked away.

"Dr. Rhodes, I got ambo bringing in a patient right now." Maggie calls out looking down at her large pager.

"Oh it." Connor quickly puts on a pair of latex gloves and rushes towards the ambulance bay entrance. He sees the automatic doors open and behind were the medics and a patient down on the gurney. "Cesar." He calls out one of the medic's names.

"Ricky Glendon, 19. Hit by a bus. GCS 5, intubated on scene. Hypotensive, but no obvious long bone deformities." The medic stated the patient's injuries as they rolled the patient into the ED.

"Belly's hard as a rock." Connor looks up after doing a quick check on the patient. "Maggie?"

Maggie was in front of them. "I got you. Baghdad's ready in A-2." She took a few steps back and directed them to the nearest open trauma related room.

"All right, let's get him in." Connor says as they moved the gurney into the room.

Once inside, Connor stood on the patient's left side. "All right. On my count. One, two, three." They all lifted the patient onto the bed. "Give me the ultrasound." He asked the nurse to hand him the wand as another nurse placed gel onto the patient's belly while the tech was getting ready to set up the equipment. Connor placed the wand over the gel and then looked up at the monitor to see inside the belly. "Fast scan's positive. There's free fluid in the belly. I need to get in there. We'll do it in the hybrid O.R. Maggie, decision time." He turned his head left to look at the charge nurse standing outside the room. "You on my team or no?" He asks.

Maggie stares at him. "I'm in."

"Good." He takes a step back and takes off his gloves. "Page anesthesia, assemble the others, and prep the hybrid O.R. for surgery." He orders as he leaves the room to prep.

"Copy that." She quickly pats his arm as he leaves. She then turns around and walks towards April standing at the nurses' station behind her. "April, take over the ED?"

"As long as you need."

"All right." She hands her the large pager and walks away.

Some time had passed by, and Connor's team were now in the hybrid O.R. working on the patient cut open.

"When this is tied, the mesentery will be hemostatic." Connor says as he finishes up his stitches, nearing the end of the surgery. Maggie and another nurse were helping by suctioning out the blood and holding the patch in place for him.

The room was quiet for a couple of more seconds before the machines started to beep unusually, causing the team to pause.

"Marty, talk to me." Connor looks up at the monitors.

"Massive ST elevations." The anesthesiologist answered.

"Kid's 19 and he's having a heart attack?" Maggie asks looking at the surgeon.

"Apparently." Said Marty.

"We need an angiogram. Let's get the C-arm in place. Maggie?" Connor calls out his next order and then looks at the nurse.

"Introducer kit, wire and lead." She answers.

"Read my mind. Let's go." He tells the team as he leaves the room to change and re-scrub.

The team changed up the hybrid suite where only Connor, Maggie and Marty were standing by the table, all gowned up and wearing x-ray aprons as he performed the procedure on Ricky. Connor and Maggie were standing on the patient's right side and looking at the monitors in front of them. She was holding the tool for him as he tried to get the wire to work.

"Damn it, the tear is too close to the takeoff of the LAD. I can't deploy the stent without occluding the left main." He then starts to slowly pull out the wire. "We're gonna have to crack him open and revascularize." 

"I'll call upstairs and get us a bypass machine and perfusionist." Maggie informs him.

"And Dr. Bardovi, too. I'm going to need an extra set of hands to assist. Okay, let's prep and drape." He tells her as he leaves the room again to change and re-scrub.

"On it." She replies.

Connor was in the middle of his scrubbing outside the hybrid room.

'This kid. One thing goes wrong, and then another, and then another.' He sighs internally to himself.

"Connor." A familiar female voice calls out his name and his body instantly relax at the sound.

He turns to look over his right shoulder and sees his girlfriend dressed in her regular scrubs and a long grey shirt underneath and wearing her surgical cap. "Oh, wow." He said in a playful tone. Ava walks into the scrub area and leans against the wall next to the sink. "I asked for the CT fellow and I get the Attending. My new title really carries some weight." He stares at her for a couple of seconds before going back to his scrubbing.

"Easy there, tiger." She grins. "You only got me because the elective CABG I was starting is now on hold because your trauma needs a bypass machine." She explained why she was down there by motioning her head side-to-side. Both cases require the same machine, but there was only one.

"Hmm. Also maybe because you miss operating with me." He pauses to turn to his right to look at her with his eyebrows slightly furrowed.

Ava doesn't say a word but just smiles at his wittiness. Slightly shakes her head and looks off to the side outside the room. Her mouth slightly open.

'This guy.'

"Scrub in. Bypass machine should be down any minute." He goes back to scrubbing.

"Actually, I put a hold on that order." She turns to look back and motions with her left fist and points outwards with her thumb. He stops scrubbing completely to turn and look at her. "Machine's already prepped and ready for use up in the O.R. Simpler to bring your patient up than the equipment down." She motioned with her head at a better solution for their cases.

'She does make a good point.' Connor thinks to himself.

"You're right, Let's do it." He nods.

Ava's eyes dart to look at the right corner, looking like she's thinking about something. "Guess I do miss operating with you." Her voice starts to sound playful and starts shifting her feet. "Love hearing you say I'm right." She leans to give him a quick kiss on his right cheek and walks out of the room.

Connor sighs watching her leave. "This woman."

"Routine LIMA procedure should do it. Mammary artery's a perfect size match." Said Connor as he and Ava were upstairs in the O.R. being gowned, gloved and masked up by the team. He then approaches the table and stood on Ricky's right side. "But, if for any reason it feels off, we'll use the saphenous vein instead."

He looks up at her and sees she has a confused look based on her facial expressions from her eyes and forehead. "What, you disagree?" He asks.

Ava shook her head. "No, approach is spot on, just wondering why you're in the lead surgeon position." She ended with a slight scoff.

Connor slightly furrowed his eyebrows "Because this is my patient."

She took a few steps forward. "He was, when he was downstairs, but now he's upstairs."

"I've been with Ricky since he entered the ED I'm gonna see him through to the end." He states his claim.

"And I have no problem with that, as long as it's as my number two." She wasn't going to back down.

The room was quiet as the team watched the couple intensely stare at each other. They were quiet for about 5 seconds until Connor spoke up. "Scalpel please, Beth."

The nurse turned to her right and proceeded to get the instrument.

"Stop." Ava says when the nurse touched the scalpel on the tray.

Beth freezes and turns her head to look at the blonde doctor.

"Beth, scalpel." Connor orders again.

"Hand him that instrument, and you're off my team." Ava says immediately to the nurse and then looks back at her boyfriend. "This is my O.R., Dr. Rhodes... You can assist or you can leave. What will it be?" She says it in a professional manner, not raising her voice.

The room was quiet again as the team stared between the two. They had a feeling something like this would happen one day once Connor moved back downstairs. They also wondered how much their dynamics would change after becoming a couple. Now they know.

The two stared at each other, talking with their eyes.

'I'm in charge here, not you.'

'Forgot how stubborn you can be sometimes in the O.R. before we became a thing. But I know you, you don't give up.'

Connor slowly turns his head right to stare at Beth who stood still and was avoiding making eye contact with him. She was obeying Ava's orders. He turns his head back forward to stare at the blonde across from him. He stares at her for a few seconds then shakes his head and slowly walks away from the lead surgeon's position. Ava moves to walk past him, both back-to-back.

"I already told you, the CT cases on the CT floor belong to the CT Attending. This shouldn't have even been an issue." She reminded him as she walked to the lead surgeon position.

He stood across from her on the other side of the table. "No, because I wouldn't even be up here if I had a bypass machine downstairs." He reminded her why he was up here in the first place.

"Well, you don't." She turns her head right towards Beth. "Scalpel." She orders and the nurse hands her the instrument.

Once she has the knife in her hand she looks up to stare at him for a few seconds then looks down to proceed with the surgery.

Connor closed his eyes and internally sighed.

'Ugh. Why couldn't the hospital have more than one bypass machine?'

A few hours had passed by, and Connor was now exiting the elevator arriving back at the ED.

"You look upset. Is Ricky okay?" Maggie asks as he walks towards the nurses' station.

"Yeah, he's okay. Just disagreements in the O.R. that's all." He walks towards her and places his hands on the counter. He frowned and shook his head looking away from her.

"Uh oh. What happened between you and Ava. Lover's quarrel?" She raised her right eyebrow.

"Sort of yeah." He sighed. "It gave me flashbacks to when Sam was still here."

The charge nurse had a puzzled look on her face. "Huh? Sam? Sam Abrams?"

"No, Sam Zanetti." He motioned with his right hand. "The old Trauma Attending from 3 years ago, before she took a job at John Hopkins." He reminded her.

"Oh, that's right. Now I remember, you dated Dr. Zanetti for a little bit." She nodded at the memory.

"Yep."

"Does Ava know you slept your old Attending when you were still a Trauma fellow?"

"No, there hasn't been a good time to bring up any of our Exes, much."

"Okay then. What happened up there that made you remember your Ex? You've had fights with Ava in the O.R. in the past. Even a few times after you two started dating. What's different about this one?"

"The whole "who's in charge" of the surgery. Ricky was my patient and once we brought him upstairs, Ava declared him to be her patient and took the lead of the surgery."

"Well, that is how it usually goes. An ED patient from down here getting taken upstairs becomes the surgical Attending's patient to take charge of the next steps of their care."

Connor rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you don't have to tell me. Dr. Bekker was very happy to remind me of that." He sighed averting his eyes to stare at a blank area on his left. "The whole exchange reminded me of Sam when she injured her arm and couldn't perform surgery for two weeks. So, to prove that she could still do the job, she walked right into the surgery I was doing and started to micromanage me on how I should be doing the surgery. Claiming she was my Attending supervising my work. But it was pretty obvious that she was upset with me sending her to orthopedics. We pretty much called it off afterwards until the end of shift where we made up."

"Did you talk to Ava after the surgery?"

"Nope. When we finished the main part of the surgery, she let me finish off the last part of it and choose how to close as a peace offering and then left the O.R. right after. Said she had to prep for her planned surgery. And after I was done and sent Ricky to the ICU, I came right back down here."

"Sounds like a good compromise to me." Maggie looks down at the large pager for a new update on an ambulance arriving. "Best not to keep the resentment sealed. You don't want a repeat of what happened, do you?" She starts to walk away from him.

"No, no I don't." Connor leans his head backwards and sighs.

'I just have to deal with it. Maybe I can somehow convince a donor at a future mixer?'  

At the exact same moment while the surgeon was thinking, paramedics enters through the ambulance bay with a male patient sitting up with his knees to his chest and acting unusual. In front of him was an equipment box. Ripley walks up to them.

"Male, late 30s. Stoned out of his mind. Picked him up talking to a mailbox. Wouldn't give a name." Said a female paramedic.

"Oh, my god, Devon." Ripley widened his eyes upon recognizing the patient.

"You know him?" The female medic asks.

"Yeah, sort of. We go to the same gym." Ripley replies and then suddenly Devon starts to wave his arms uncontrollably and gets off the gurney. "Wait, wait!" He raised his voice to get him to stop.

"Get off! I'm out of here!" Devon says as he picks up the medics' equipment box from the gurney and tosses it through the glass door of an empty treatment room.

The loud sound of glass breaking got everyone's attention to scream and duck their heads. Devon then started to push the gurney against Ripley and the medics. Alarms start to go off and red lights start flickering.

"Come at me! Let's go!" Devon shouted as the male paramedic tried to tackle him, but Devon shoved him over the counter.

"Hey! Hey! Get back! Get back!" Connor rushes over and tries to restrain Devon. He grabs a hold of his jacket and pushes him against the wall pillar in front of the elevator hallway entrance of the nurses' station to pin him. But Devon's hands weren't pinned, and he started punching against Connor's torso on his right side aggressively. He grunts at the hits but keeps his hold on him. He then proceeds to move him, but Devon's right hand reaches the pillar area and finds a cart. On the cart was a couple of small oxygen tanks. He grabs one and starts hitting it against Connor's left side more violently than his punches, causing Connor to loosen his grip on him. Devon took that opening to whack the tank against Connor's jaw hard.

"Ah!" Connor shouts in pain as he's knocked down to the ground.

"Connor!" Natalie shouts.

"Where the hell is security! I need them now!! This is a Cold Sliver!!" Maggie exclaimed, trying to get help.

"Hey." Ethan approaches from behind and to restraint him. The two struggle for control and the tank is dropped onto the floor. Ripely appears on their left side to help try and hold him down.

"Get off, man." Devon shouts as they bump against another cart that was empty.... aside from the broken glass that flew from the broken door. He grabs it with his right hand, but no one notices.

Natalie and April tended to Connor on the floor who was slowly regaining consciousness of his surroundings. The room stops moving and his vision clears up to see two security guards approaching from the elevator entrance.

"Taser, Taser!" One of the guards’ shouts as they point their tasers against the two doctors and Devon.

"No. Don't hit Ethan." April holds up her right hand to get them to stop.

"Pile on." Ripley says to the security guards to help restrain Devon.

"All right." Said of the guards as they quickly move to help.

At that moment, Devon leans his head forward on his left to bite Ripley’s left arm to loosen his grip on him.

"Shit!" Ripley curses as he pulls back his arm from him, loosening his hold onto him. It was enough for Devon to elbow him back in the face and fall back against the pillar.

"Mitch!" Hannah comes out of one of the treatment rooms where she was trying to ease her pregnant patient from chaos.

Security approaches them but Devon violently starts thrashing his arms and legs against all three of them in the faces and crotches. One of the guards reaches for his taser again, only for Devon to kick him in the stomach and grabs a hold of the device and uses it on Ethan, finally letting go of him.

"Arghh!" Ethan groans at the electrical exposure. He fell to his knees.

"No Ethan!" April widens her eyes seeing him get shocked.

The other guards attempt to use his taser on him, but Devon catches it and drops the device and holds up the hidden glass he picked up. "You can't hold me!" He glares at everyone as he turns around at all angles. "You people get the hell away from me!"

"Careful he has a piece of glass in his hands." Stohl shouts out loud.

"I'm getting out of here! Do you understand. I'm out of here! He turns back towards Ethan who quickly recovered from the shock and slowly stood up. "Screw you!" He holds up his right hand preparing to strike down the glass against Ethan.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey. Buddy, buddy, buddy. Why don't you put that glass down?" Dr. Charles arrives and slowly starts to walk towards Devon. "We can have a little chat. Come on."

From behind, Lenox appears holding a needle in her hand.

"Get away from me!"

"I get that. I-I totally get it. But I need you to look at me right now." He moves both of his hands forward for Devon to look at him, and also for Lenox to slowly proceed forward. Ethan slowly behind to back her up. "Right here man. Right up here."

"You cannot defeat me."

"Absolutely not. You're strong."

Lenox aims her right arm up as she slowly proceeds behind with the long syringe needle.

"You're so strong, Devon." Dr. Charles makes eye contact with Lenox to do it.

However, Devon felt her presence and was able to swing behind him until he was tackled to the ground by Connor.

"Dammit!! I hate you!" Devon uses the glass to slice Connor's right arm.

"Use it! Use it now!!!" Ethan screams falling to his knees to try and hold back the patient’s arm to stop him from further injuring Connor.

Lenox sighed in frustration as she leans down and injects the syringe into Devon's left thigh. In about 5 seconds he was knocked out.

Feeling the patient's body finally limp, Connor sighs in relief as he releases his hold on him and turns on his back. He holds his left hand against his wounded arm. "Argghhh." He groaned, adding pressure and closed his eyes feeling a lot of pain in jaw.

Both guards come and take Devon away.

April approaches Ethan. "Ethan, are y'all all right?"

"I'm good compared to Connor. He got the worst of it." He turns down at his friend lying on the ground as Lenox starts checking on him.

"Hey. Hey, Dr. Rhodes, are you okay? How bad is it?" Lenox asked.

"You're welcome." He says weakly.

"You're welcome? I saved your ass." She nodded with a playful grin.

"Well, he did take the cut from the glass for you." April says pressing some gauzes Doris handed to her against Connor's arm.

Lenox sighed. "I guess we're even then."

"That guy got you good." Will says helping Connor into one of the Trauma rooms in A-4. He stood on Connor's left side helping him walk.

Natalie was standing on his other side, holding pressure to his arm wound. "Fortunately, it's not that deep of a cut. You got lucky with that glass." She says as her and Will helped their friend to the bed. "You're looking at a couple of stitches."

They turned around at the foot of the bed and slowly lowered him to sit at the end. "Easy, easy." Will says.

Connor groans at the pain. "Too bad I didn't tire him out when Ethan and Ripley got to him."

"Yeah, the way you went at him with your face and ribs, that was impressive to say the least." Will points at his visible facial injuries.

"Welcome back to the ED, Halstead." Connor says sarcastically.

"Yep, no place like home." The red head nodded.

"Even smiling hurts, all right." The surgeon softly nods his head. "How are Ripley and Choi?" Wanting an update on the others.

"Hannah and Dr. Charles are checking on Ripley, and Maggie and April are with Ethan." Natalie answered.

"It hurts cause your jaw's swollen. Let’s see your ribs." Will points with left index finger.

Natalie moves her hands down towards the bottom of Connor's shirt, but he stops her. "All right, I got it. I got it. I got it." He moves his right hand to grab the edge of his shirt and pulls it up. She assists him regardless. On the right side of his torso were visible reddish purple bruise marks all over.

"Flesh wound?" Connor asks.

"Oh, yeah, yeah. Nice one." Natalie replies.

Will leans down to take a look himself. "I'm guessing the other side might look similar. He got you with the tank. Probably some broken ribs too. We'll do a workup on you now. Let's get some X-rays for your ribs and a CT for your jaw."

"I'll stitch you up." Natalie says motioning a nurse to come in.

"You starting to have second thoughts moving back down here?" Will asks.

"I was a bit earlier when I was upstairs for surgery. But right now, I don't think I care about anything right now." Connor moves back further to the head of the bed and grunts at the sudden sharp pain in his jaw. He holds his jaw in his left hand. "But I would very much care to have some morphine in me right now, Dr. Halstead." He deeply exhaled.

Some time had passed by till they finally got Connor's tests results. He was sitting up against the bed with an ice pack underneath both his armpits and was hooked to an IV bag to ease his pain. His right forearm was all stitched up and wrapped in bandages. The bruises on his face have started to appear, mostly on his left side.

"According to your X-rays, multiple non-displaced lateral rib fractures. Heavy contusion. Some facial damage." Natalie says on his left side looking down at the tablet in her hands.

"Yeah, yeah, my jaw." Connor wanted to get straight to the point about his jaw.

"Dislocated temporomandibular joint. It needs to be reduced." Natalie finished looking up at him.

Connor groans at the thought of the pain.

"Oh, I can't wait to see this." Maggie grinned standing outside the room with Will and Crockett.

"So, Crockett? 5 rounds on who gets to reset Rhodes' jaw?" Will held up his right fist.

"You're on." Crockett started to stretch crack his right wrist. "Count of three?" He held up his fits.

"I hate you guys." Connor grumbled through the pain.

"Come on, Rhodes. Let us have a little fun here. When are we ever gonna get another opportunity like this again." Said Crockett.

"Yeah. Natalie and Maggie can hold your hands if you want to help ease the pain." Will joked.

Maggie smiles walking into the room and stands on Connor's right side. She grabs onto his right hand. "Don't worry, Dr. Rhodes. You're a big boy. It'll be fast and quick I promise." She snarky spoke.

"I don't think I can trust any of these doctors to not take huge pleasure in hurting me." He glared at all of them.

"Hey, I didn't say anything." Natalie complained.

"But your eyes say different." Connor raised his eyebrows.

Natalie couldn't help but smirk. "Okay, maybe I was thinking about it."

Lenox who passed by watching outside the room finally walks in. "We're supposed to be treating patients here. What's going on in here?"

"Dr. Rhodes' jaw needs to be reset and we're figuring out who gets to do it." Said Maggie.

"This is no place to argue who gets to reset Dr. Rhodes' jaw." She says putting on a pair of latex gloves and walks pass Natalie to pick up two thick gauzes from the cart. "I'll do it."

"This is A-4, not A-3. Archer's in charge of this side of the ED." Crockett reminded her.

"He's occupied right now upstairs and I'm already here." She walks towards Connor. "Open up." She starts shoving the gauzes into his mouth, along with her thumbs. Connor groans at the feeling. "Let's do this. Ready?"

"Uh-huh."

"On the count of three."

"Uh-huh."

"One, two..."

"Uh-huh." Connor prepared himself.

Lenox starts to reset his jaw, and everyone hears his bones cracking in place. Connor's muffled screams fill the room. He held onto Maggie's hand hard. Feeling his jaw was back in place, Lenox removed the gauze from his mouth.

"Damn" He exclaimed holding his jaw with both of his hands. His voice sounded clear again.

"There you go. Your jaw's all reset now, Dr. Rhodes. How do you feel?" She asks.

"A lot better now, thank you Dr. Lenox for not taking pleasure in my pain like these three would have."

"You're welcome. That's what I'm here for." She replies tossing away the gauzes into the bin.

"Told you holding Maggie's hand would help." Will grinned.

"You said on the count of three." Natalie looked at the female chief of the ED.

"It's better to surprise the patient when they least expect it, that way the pain can be quick and done." She replied.

"You're not wrong with that logic." The charge nurse tilted her head to the right side slightly.

"Don't be a baby, Rhodes." Crockett mocked seeing Connor still holding his jaw, checking everything was in place.

"Uh-huh, next time I'm letting you two go first on a patient high on PCP and see how you two handle it." He glared at the two men at the foot of the bed.

"You still don't want me to page Dr. Bekker for you?" Maggie looks at him.

"She's in the middle of her surgery right now. Don't really want to interrupt her." It's not that he didn't want to see Ava, he just didn't want to disturb her. Plus, the fact he didn't ask for her to be paged right away after he got hurt, she might take some offense to it. He wasn’t ready to deal with that just yet.

Okay, maybe he didn't want to see Ava.

At least not yet.

Lenox then turns to look at the group and clapped her hands together. "Okay everyone, show's over. Get back to work. Let's order him some fentanyl for the pain and we'll check in on him later." The chief ordered everyone.

Four hours later, Ava was exiting the recovery room, dressed in her normal scrubs after checking in with her patient after performing their elective CABG surgery. The surgery she had planned to do earlier until Connor had requested the bypass machine for his patient. She sighs recalling what happened earlier between them in the O.R.

'I know he's probably still upset with me right now. I'll just have another talk with him about it after shift. I hope he at least appreciated that I let him finish the last part of the surgery and decide on how to close the patient and leave him to do it by himself. It's been a couple of hours since then. Hopefully he had time to cool off his frustrations.'

"Ah, Dr. Bekker." A familiar voice appeared on her right. Ava looked up to see that it was Dr. Hayes, dressed in his scrubs and white coat. "Pleasure to see you." He greeted her.

"Good evening, Dr. Hayes." She greeted him.

"You pretty much done with all your cases for the day?" He asked.

"Almost. You?" She started to walk towards the nurses' station on the CT floor. He walked beside her.

"Yeah, about ready to call it a day."

"It's been a long day."

"Yeah, so I heard from the nurses that you and Dr. Rhodes recently performed surgery on a patient of his up here and there were disagreements on who was in charge?" He asked for verification.

"Not the first time he and I fought in the O.R. and certainly not the last. We did it often during our fellowship." She sighed. "He just had to be reminded of the rules, that's all. Him no longer being part of the CT service anymore." She leaned her left elbow against the counter.

Hayes walked around to stand in front of her. "Sounds like you're a bit stressed out." He placed his right hand on the counter, close to where she was resting. "Let me buy you a drink after shift. To help ease your mood. Just the two of us. I've been here for almost 3 months now; it'll help get to know each other better as colleagues." He smiled, staring at her.

"Oh?" Ava's eyes lit up as she stood up straight, sensing what he was doing. "Are you asking me out?" She furrowed her eyebrows.

"That depends on your answer." His lips curved into a charming smile.

The blonde-haired surgeon exhaled softly.

'It's a good thing Connor isn't here.'

"Dr. Hayes, as flatter as I am with an invitation by a world-renowned surgeon like yourself, I'm gonna have to politely say no." She nodded. "I'm already involved with Dr. Rhodes."

"Huh?" The talented surgeon raised both his eyebrows to his forehead. "You and Dr. Rhodes are together? How serious is it?"

"Very serious." She crossed her arms and smirked. "Sorry."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Worth a shot. Should have known an intelligent, talented, and attractive woman like yourself was already taken. Rhodes is a lucky guy." He placed his hands into his coat pockets. "Hope what happened in the O.R. didn't hurt you two."

She made a cute pout and nodded. "We'll be fine. What happened there doesn't come close to how we were during our fellowships."

Hayes held up both his hands in defeat. "Don't worry, I'll stand back and leave you two alone. Perhaps I'll go see if Dr. Lenox downstairs in the ED is interested in a drink." He smiled.

Ava looked upward to the left of her eyes recalling her past interactions with the doctor. "Uh-huh? Good luck with that." She had an unsure look on her face.

Nurse Beth soon appeared next to them. She had a concerned look on her face. "Excuse me, Dr. Bekker, have you heard the details about the Code Sliver in the ED while we were in surgery?"

Ava looked upward, thinking back the alert they were informed during the surgery. "Only that there was a patient high on PCP, and he had injured multiple doctors trying to stop him."

"I heard it was crazy down there. Nurses say he went full Incredible Hulk on the staff." Hayes commented.

"It's always a circus down there, how am I not surprised? Is everyone alright down there?" The blonde looked at the nurse.

"Couple of doctors and guards were injured. I was told that Dr. Rhodes was seriously injured when trying to restrain the patient." She furrowed her eyebrows at the mention of his name.

"What?!" Ava's pupils jumped out of her eye sockets and uncrossed her arms. "Why didn't anyone come tell me?!! How serious is it?"

"Multiple rib fractures, dislocated jaw, and the patient cut his arm with a piece of glass."

"Oh my god." The South African doctor quickly ran towards the elevators as some nurses and techs were exiting. She rapidly hits the button to the ED. "I leave him to close his patient up here to try and patch things up and he goes back down to get himself cut open? I should have just pulled him aside to talk when he was done in the O.R. instead of waiting after shift for us to cool off."

Connor was still sitting up against the bed with ice packs for his ribs and now hooked up to a bag of IV fentanyl. He had an additional ice pack for his jaw that was nested between his left shoulder and cheek as he was leaning against it while looking at patient charts on a tablet.

He hears the sound of curtains being pulled aside. He looks up and sees his girlfriend with a worried look on her face. "Ava?" He raised his head off the ice pack, suddenly remembering he forgot to ask Maggie to page her once he learned her surgery was over.

'Oh, I'm dead. I forgot to page her.'

"Connor, oh my god." She pulls the curtain back behind her as she walks further into the room.

"Sorry I didn't tell Maggie to page you. It wasn't on my mind at the time. I forgot." He drops the tablet down on his lap.

Ava stood on his left side, slowly carefully taking in his injuries from his face to his waist. She lifted his shirt slowly with her right hand and saw his torso was bandaged up.

"Are you okay?" She dropped his shirt and moved to sit on the bed to face him. "How are you doing?" Her voice was soft.

"I'll live." He takes a deep breath. "How'd you find out?"

"Beth came and told me." Her eyes trailed to his bandaged arm and placed a hand over it. "Said you suffered broken ribs; dislocated jaw and your arm was sliced." She starts to caress over his wound. "You're all I have; you know that right? We did briefly talk about it not that long ago." She reminds him of that conversation they had weeks ago about being her emergency contact because she had no blood relatives left.

"Yeah." He says softly, feeling some regret her finding out from someone else that he got hurt. "Sorry for not telling you." He apologizes. "You had to do your other surgery right after mine and didn't want to pull you away from it. I was planning on telling you after you were done, but I got distracted looking at patient charts since I can't exactly attend to my patients anymore today."

The memory of that surgery once again comes back to their minds.

Ava sighs at the memory and drops her shoulders. "Hey, about earlier. Sorry I had to get rough."

"Don't be." He shook his head. "You were protecting your territory. And besides... after my MMA match, I don't care anymore what happened up there. It does make you rethink some things in life. Sometimes, things don't really matter more than you really think it does." He groans in pain as he shifted his body. "It'll be some time till I can move my body better in the O.R. But at least my hands are okay, at least he avoided that when cutting my arm." He rolls both his wrists to prove his point.

"And here I was looking forward to some makeup sex tonight but looks like I'll be stuck playing nurse to you at home." She jokes.

"Nurse Bekker?" He playfully raised his left eyebrow.

She groans. "Sounds like an insult."

"It's not the first time we played doctor at home." He smiles at the memories of their intimate moments together.

"I know this isn't the first we've had arguments in the O.R. and tried not to take it with us out of the hospital."

"But we always make up cause we're solid." Connor moves to rest his left hand over her left thigh.

"That part I do enjoy." She smiles placing her other hand over it.

"Don't apologize for being rough on me. You were just protecting what was yours. I just wished the new upgraded hospital had more than one bypass machine though." He shrugged his shoulders.

"The hybrid room really overshot the hospital's budget. The board will never approve an outlet like that for a while."

"Hmm." Connor closes his eyes and leans back against the pillow. "Not that it really matters right now since I can't properly move in the O.R. for a bit."

"I bet Archer is now calling dibs on being in charge of the hybrid."

"Lanik doesn't seem to be fighting hard on it, but give it minute, they will butt heads on who gets to call command when performing Trauma in there."

"You'll be consulting in the meantime?"

"Nope. Goodwin ordered me to take two weeks off to recover."

Ava stares at him, taking in facial injuries. She strokes her left hand up further his arm and starts to caress the non-bruised right eye. His skin on his left side was now darkening to a purplish red color. Connor opens his left eye at the gentle touch. He sees from her facial expression, she's concerned.

"That feels nice."

"Does it hurt?"

"Fentanyl works good."

"You would tell me, right? Not pretend playing tough guy."

"I believe my eye would be in less pain than my ribs, jaw, and arm. So, the answer is yes."

She softly exhales. "Sometimes I worry about you being in the ED. Upstairs, you were a little less likely to be physically assaulted."

"Now I'm back downstairs where I can enjoy the action with all of my buddies in a battle royale." He jokes.

"You sound happy to be part of the action." That brought a smile to her face.

"Well, sometimes a person wants a surprise action once in a while. You don't get a lot of that upstairs."

"Depends on what the action is. Sometimes it's a verbal one." Ava was planning on telling him about Hayes, might be a good time to tell him as payback for not paging her earlier when he got hurt.

"Why, what happened upstairs." He opened his other eye.

"Well.... the other new CT Attending they hired during the summer while we were on vacation, Dr. Hayes." She paused to get him interested in what happened. It worked as he was adjusting himself. "He literally just asked me out for drinks right before Beth came by and told me about you."

"What? Ughh!" Connor flinched his body upwards, the instant pain to his body came back and forced him to fall back against the mattress.

"Hey, watch it. You're still recovering." Ava placed both her hands on his shoulders to steady him back against the bed.

"What did you say to him?" He furrowed his eyebrows staring at her.

'Damn it! If I paged her to come, she wouldn't have crossed paths with Hayes.' Connor scolded himself.

"I told him I was seeing you and he backed off. Said he was gonna try Lenox next." She shrugged her shoulders.

"Lenox?" He raised both his eyebrows. "Really? He also likes her?"

"Surprised me too, but everyone's different."

"Well then, I'm glad he quickly moved on from you. I knew there was something about him I didn't like." He sighs looking around the room.

"Oh, so it wasn't just Morris you didn't like." Her voice starts to sound more playful.

"I've seen the way other female docs and nurses in the ED look at Hayes like he's Hugh Jackman or something. The looks they have on him are the same as Crockett when he switched over to the day shift."

"Ohh, jealous, are we?" She smirked.

"If the world-renowned CT surgeon Nicholas Hayes isn't looking in your direction anymore, why should I be jealous?" He played off like it wasn't a big deal.

"Uh-huh." She nods unconvinced. "Remember the whole thing with your father."

"Okay, you played me and you know it." He glared at her.

"You're the one who jumped to conclusions at the start. Did you really think I would date a man 30 years older than me?" She countered.

"Uhh...." Connor's eyes darted back and forth from left to right. "I blame my childhood experience on that, okay. He always dates younger women."

'Oh man, when did this conversation of me getting hurt end up talking about dad?'

"Okay. I guess I can give you a pass on that. And technically, that gene did pass onto you." She raised her left eyebrow at him, reminding him that he was a few years older than her.

"And besides, he now knows you picked me over him." He states.

"Ah yes, that unhealthy competition you've mentioned once. Was I the first woman you two have fought over?" She was curious about that.

"You were actually." He nods. "The last time I saw him before I came back to Chicago was back when I was 18 and left for college in out of state and then Mexico for med school."

"As long as it's the last time you two fight over a woman." The blonde hinting between her words.

"Oh, I guarantee it's the last time." He smiles, caressing her thigh.

A few seconds later, Maggie then popped her head behind the curtains of the room. "Hey, lovebirds, you two got a moment?"

The doctors both turned their heads to look at the nurse.

"Huh? What?" He asked.

"Has the new resident, Johnathan Frost mentioned anything to you two about his past?" she asked.

"No? Why? I barely know the kid. But he does look familiar for some reason." He had a confused look on his face.

'I feel like I've seen his face before, but I don't know why?'

"Well, a patient's mother told us that she's a huge fan of his and asked us to give him her number?" The nurse tells them.

"Is the new resident famous? I've never heard his name before." Ava shook her head.

"I don't know, but Will's looking into it right now. We'll let you guys know what we find." Maggie disappears behind the curtains.

"Hmm, now I'm curious about Dr. Frost. Maybe he was a popular influencer before deciding to become a doctor." Connor started to think where he could have seen him before.

"Might also make yourself busy while you're just sitting here. I gotta get back upstairs now. I'll be back later after my shift to take you home." Ava leans in to give him a quick soft kiss on his lips, light enough to not hurt him and then stood up to leave. "Don't move." She points at him with a smile and walks out pass the curtains.

"Haha. Very funny." He rolled his eyes.

About 20 minutes later, Will was in Connor's room along with Maggie, Natalie, April, Hannah, Doris and Monique with a laptop on top of a table over the bed. The group was watching something.

Outside the room, Frost was walking nearby and was approached by a male nurse.

"Labs came back on the kid in four of A-1. CO2 was only 14."

"Okay, he's dry. Give him another 10 mls per kilo of...saline." Frost's words trail off as he hears a familiar tone. Both him and the nurse look in the direction of the sound.

♫ Just gather a friend and your magic backpack ♫

"Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no." Frost whispers softly as he starts walking towards the music. He knows that music anywhere.

♫ In the nick of time ♫

Frost approaches Connor's room and sees there's a crowd.

"Are you sure?" Natalie asks sitting on Will's lap as he sits on the bed on Connor's left side. Maggie and Doris were standing next to them.

Will touched his fiancée's left shoulder with his hand as he points on the screen. "Ah, just-just-here it comes."

Frost silently walks into the room.

On the laptop screen, the group were watching an opening of a TV show that starred two teenage boys.

♫ In the nick of time ♫

♫ And you'll escape in the nick of time ♫

Appeared on screen was a familiar dark-haired young man with the opening credits titling him,

'STARRING

JONATHAN MICHAEL FROST

AS

MAC'

Then the opening ended with both boys standing back-to-back with the show's title covering them,

'NICK

OF

TIME!

The doctors and nurses all gasped and laughed with their eyes and mouths stretched wide open. Will had both his hands up and pointed towards Frost in the room.

"No way!" Hannah pointed at the screen up then up to Frost. She was sitting on Connor's right side with April and Monique next to her.

"You were an actor?" Monique asked with her mouth open.

Frost slightly nodded his head once.

"You're a child star?" Maggie stared in shock at him.

"It was a long time ago." Frost said awkwardly.

"Oh!" Natalie said gleefully.

"Hold on, kid. You went from being a celebrity to being an ED doctor? Will laughed.

"You couldn't handle Hollywood anymore?" Connor joked.

"I thought you looked familiar." Doris pointed with her right index finger at him.

"My sister had your poster on her wall." Connor laughed.

Maggie held out her left hand to tug him closer to the group.

"Same with my sister. She had a huge crush on you." Said Monique.

"Wow!" Will said looking at him.

"Did you leave the limelight because you couldn't get an Oscar?" Natalie mocked.

"This is gonna be so much fun." Maggie teased, bringing Frost in front of the computer.

Frost sighed and Will placed a strong hand on his right shoulder.

The group watched the first episode for a couple of minutes, laughing.

"So much fun." April commented.

"Oh, my gosh." Hannah points at the screen of a young Frost.

-Young John Frost on screen-

Frost sighs. "That was a close one."

Everyone but Frost starts laughing out loud. He bows his head in embarrassment.

Maggie slaps against her legs and looks at him. "You have a tagline?"

"Sometimes." He finally broke out into a smile.

"Oh, after the day I had I definitely needed something to cheer me up." Connor smiled wide.

"By the way, I heard from upstairs that Ricky's awake now and his parents are with him. Ava went to go see him on your behalf." Maggie looks over at him.

"I'm glad to hear." He nods.

"Glad to see you didn't hold onto resentment." She recalls their earlier conversation.

"Getting your face smashed with an oxygen tank really changes a person." He said sarcastically.

"I bet." Maggie then laughs out loud when Young Frost does something funny on screen.

-Two weeks later-

"Again, why ask me to go dress shopping with you? You look great in all the dresses I've seen you in." Connor asked, sitting in a white chair dressed in a dark blue shirt, black jacket, blue jeans and black sneakers. He asked his arms crossed as he looked at a single dressing room.

"Because you're my date at the wedding. So, it only makes sense that we color coordinate." Ava calls out from inside the single dressing room. She was taking off a peach-colored dress and putting it back on the hanger.

"I get that, but wouldn't it be more helpful with another woman's perspective than mine? Cause you know I would be okay with you wearing any nice dress...... as long as it's not too racy or show too much skin of course. That's where I cross the line, my eyes only." He motioned with his right hand.

"Glad to know where your priorities start and end at." She rolls her eyes as she takes off a blue colored dress off a hanger.

"Sorry, but I don't need a repeat of what happened at Turks when you wore that blue backless sundress." He recalls the memory of many guys checking out Ava. Her black bikini didn't help either.

"I didn't hear you complain about it when we got back to the hotel that night." She smirked at the memory. "You practically ripped that dress off my skin." At the exact moment Ava walks out of the dressing room wearing a classy royal blue satin backless strappy maxi dress. Her medium length blonde hair was curled and wavy. The dress showed off her curves and pooled down to her feet.

Connor blinked twice at his gorgeous girlfriend in front of him and then pointed his right index finger at her. "You did that to me on purpose, didn't you!?" Referring to wearing another backless blue dress in front of him again.

"Maybe? ~" She said teasingly and then turned to admire herself in the mirror.

"Ava." He said sternly.

"What?" She said innocently adjusting the dress. "You didn't you enjoy that night?"

"Oh no, I enjoyed it. Really got my money's worth in that hotel room." He sat back against the chair and held his hands up and waved. Signaling that he has no regrets at what happened that night.

"And I was sore for most of the next day. Fortunately, the fancy bathroom also had a jacuzzi to heal all my muscles." She reminded him the day after.

"The hotel designer knew what they were doing for their guests, that's for sure." He smiled.

"Ah~, so that's why you picked that room." She bit her lower lip.

"Maybe? ~" He said teasingly standing up and then felt some pain on his left side. He quietly grunted and held onto his side.

Ava heard him and turned her head right to look at him. "Are you feeling, okay?"

"Yeah, a lot better than before. I got lucky it wasn't super major for my ribs. Not at full 100% yet, maybe about 85%." He assured her as he walked towards her to stand behind her in front of the mirror.

"Think you're ready to perform surgeries again tomorrow?" Tomorrow was going to be his first day back at work.

"I'm sure I'll be fine. I just need a few painkillers and I'll be good for tomorrow."

"You know you could have taken some more time off to rest. I'm sure Goodwin would be fine with it. You did get your arm sliced."

"I was starting to go crazy being cooped up at home wearing a rib belt and not see any action. Both at work and at home." He placed his hands on her bare shoulders, his words implying missing their bedroom activities.

Ava chuckled at him missing their sexy alone time together. Though, she could hardly blame him, even she missed it. But as much as she enjoys it, she cares about his health a lot more.

"We'll see next month."

"At least my jaw is all better now." Connor leans down and starts kissing the right side of her neck.

Ava giggles leaning back against him and turns around to face him. "Good, because I do like kissing you a lot." She stands on her toes and places her hands on his shoulders to lean up and kiss him deeply. The kiss lasted for 10 seconds till she pushed herself back against his chest. "So, your thoughts on this dress?"

Connor still being a bit dazed by the kiss. "If you don't wear this at the wedding, you can always wear it to date night."

"You said the same thing about the red, black, and yellow dresses." She raised her right eyebrow.

"Can you really blame me if you look like a model in a lot of dresses." He defended himself.

"Have you not undressed me in any of them with your eyes?" She stared at him carefully.

Connor looked up to think and had a hard time concentrating. "Uh...."

Ava playfully scoffed him and pushed him back to walk back inside the dressing rom.

'I guess the lack of sex is getting to him.'

"Robin never brought you along for clothes shopping?" She asks from inside.

"Uh, no actually. I didn't go clothes shopping with her when we dated. Didn't get to that stage." He walks back to his chair.

"Right. Must have been around the same time other women were fighting for your attention." She says sarcastically.

"Possibly? Remember, I had to fix that whole thing back when she was sick and tried to rob my family's store."

"Uh-huh. I remember that." She nods. "And the ex before her?" She starts to put on a sleeveless black floral dress after hanging the other dress.

"Sam? Same with her. Never went shopping with her either. Was too busy with Downey to spend a lot of time with her outside of the hospital. Not that it helped since I wasn't spending much time with her either at the hospital once I started working with Downey." He starts to think back to that time.

"The hospital?" Ava turns around in the dressing room to face the door. "You dated someone else at the hospital?"

"Uhh....yeah." He starts to sit up straight.

'I did tell Maggie I haven't told her yet about Sam. Now seems to be a good time.'

"Long before you got here. It was during my first year at Med, well to be more exact the first few months. I had gotten a case where an old family friend, who works at my family department store, got hurt badly by a huge glass chandelier that fell on top of him. Piercing his chest."

"Ouch." Ava comments while looking at herself in the inside mirror.

"Wasn't a pretty sight. And the Attending to the case was Sam, Sam Zanetti. That's how we met. The moral of the story, we saved Russel's life, and she soon took an interest in me based on um.... what happened in the O.R."

"What happened in the O.R.? Was it your crazy ideas again?" Now she was curious.

'Ooh~ another story telling. This should be interesting.'

He slightly chuckled. "Ha, not this time. To sum it up, I shoved her aside and took over the surgery when she couldn't get the stitches to work with blood coming out."

Ava whistles. "A new fellow taking over his Attending's surgery at their first meeting. How am I not surprised by that fact?" She mockingly grinned. "Oh wait," she pocked her head out the dressing room to look at him "you actually did the same thing to me at our first surgery together. You put your hands on mine to get me to stop."

"I put my hands on the area to get her to stop, slight difference."

Ava whistles. "You certainly are dangerous to do surgeries with Rhodes. No wonder she took an interest in you." She walks out of the room revealing the dress to him. It was a black dress with floral prints on it that were pink and goldish that went to her knees, and it was backless at her waist.

"Isn't that also part of the reason why you fell for me though?" He rested his chin in his right hand on the arm of the chair as he stared at her in the dress.

'She really likes wearing backless dresses, doesn't she? Not that I'm complaining, just don't like other guys staring at what's mine.'

"One of the reasons, yes." She pretended to think hard on it and then a something he said came to realization causing her to stare at him. "Wait a minute, you slept your Attending?"

"I didn't think you were going to ask me that. Given how Will is Natalie's Attending in the ED and they're engaged." He countered.

"Nat told me they known each other longer and before he became an Attending. You on the other hand, started sleeping with your Attending like what a week after you've met?" She crossed her arms.

Connor shifted his eyes left to think back. "Yeah, about a week."

"Was she cute?" She raised her left eyebrow.

"Compared to you, you're hotter." He pointed his hands at her.

"Oh, you thought she was hot?" She pretended to look upset.

"Well, a person needs some attraction to the other person when starting a relationship. Brown eyes and her hair was really blonde compared to yours."

"Wait, she's a blonde too? Another blonde-haired surgeon? And with brown eyes?" Now Ava was getting interested in knowing his other ex. She takes a few steps closer to him. "Is that your type?"

'Uh-oh. Red Flags! Red Flags!' Connor started to panic.

"Okay, I feel like I should shut up about my ex's appearance." He jumps up to his feet and holds his hands up. "Anyway, we didn't date very long because like I said, I was working under Downey around the same time. There was a growing distance during that period. And she got really upset with it because I wasn't spending time with her and she was also jealous that Downey picked me over her."

"That's why you guys broke up?" She was now standing in front of him. "I was wondering what you did that caused her to dump you."

"Why do you assume it's my fault?" The panic feeling he had went away and just felt accused.

"Well, she's not at the hospital anymore, so I have to assume your ex-girlfriend literally moved halfway across the country."

He sighs. "She got an offer to be head of trauma over at John Hopkins." He pointed with his right thumb to the side.

"So, I was right. I figured she left the hospital since I've never heard her name before." She shrugged her shoulders. "How did you take the news?"

"She told me right after we had sex after a while and didn't consider about staying in Chicago for me."

Ava whistles. "Ouch again. Used you for one last bang and left you high and dry right after." She chuckled.

Connor starts to think back at the memory. "Looking back on it now, the job really got in the way of the relationship more than once and... maybe I was only like a stress reliever to her after a long day at work."

"So, basically you were just a sex toy to her." She mocked him.

"You don't have to say it like that." He winced.

Ava laughs seeing his cheeks become red at embarrassment.

'I like embarrassing him a lot. He’s so much fun to tease.'

"Overall, comparing you to Sam, you're a way better girlfriend than she ever was to me." He placed his hands on her arms.

"Are you just saying that to flatter me?" She shook her head with a smile.

"No, I'm being honest. Sam had a real misogyny against me and often brought up my issues with my dad when we get into small arguments."

"Yeah, I don't want your father to get in the way of our relationship at all." She placed her hands under his arms.

"Exactly. That's also another reason why the two of us work so well with each other." He looked at her sincerely. "I don't want there to be anyone that gets in the way of us being happy together."

"Yeah, I know that feeling very well." Ava says with an awkward smile before leaning in close for a hug.

==Flashback==

"I can't believe this!" Ava shouted.

"Ava-" A dark-haired man tried to reach for her, but she held up her hand between them.

"How could you?!" She glared.

"Ava-"

"Her of all people!?! After everything I said about her?!" She pointed in the direction of a hallway.

"Just let me-"

"NO! Just forget it. I don't want to hear it." She turns towards the door.

He sighs. "I'm sorry."

"The only thing I'm sorry for is taking a chance on you, Josh." Ava slammed the door hard.

==Flashback Ends==

A tear slipped out of the corner of her right eye as she nested herself against Connor's left shoulder.

'Why the hell am I upset over Josh. It was a long time ago. I didn't cry then, why am I shedding a tear now of all times?'

<The next day>

"Cesar, what do you got?" Connor dashed to the ambulance bay entrance putting on latex gloves and goggles.

"49-year-old male, high-speed motor vehicle collision, GCS 9." The male paramedic responded pulling in an African American man covered in blood and bruises and wearing a c-collar brace on his neck on the gurney.

"Baghdad in A-4, you got a name?" The doctor asked while checking the injured patient.

"Keith Yates, BP 94/70, heart rate 122, sat 93% on a nasal cannula." The female paramedic answered standing at the head of the gurney.

"Mr. Yates, I'm Dr. Rhodes. Can you understand what I'm saying?" Connor asked the patient, but he just stared at the ceiling not responding. "He's not lucid enough to clear the c-spine. Board and collar stay on." He ordered as he helped the medics and nurses bring his patient into the room. "Let's get him in there." He says helping the team unlock the belts around him. He grabbed a hold of the backboard, getting ready to lift the patient. "All right, on my count. One, two, three." The doctor, nurses and medics all lifted the patient over to the bed. The medics then moved the gurney out of the room to let them work. "All right, multiple facial lacs, open fracture of the right tibia, muffled breath sounds on the left. Let's get a chest X-ray." The surgeon ordered the team as he took off his stethoscope after checking the patient's lungs. "Sternum took a lot of impact here, guys. What happened?" He looked outside the room at the medics.

"He hit a stanchion head on. For some reason, the airbags didn't deploy." Cesar answered as both him and his partner stared at him with wide concern eyes.

"No seatbelt either?" Connor asked.

"Mm-mm." Cesar shook his head.

"Clear." Nurse Doris said out loud to the team to back off for the technician to use the machine. "X-ray's up."

Everyone looked at the monitor and saw the patient's left lung was black on the screen. "Big hemothorax on the left. Let's set up for a chest tube. Give him five of morphine, two of midazolam." Connor ordered.

"Lidocaine." Nurse Doris handed him the needle as the nurses prepped the patient for Connor to insert the tube. Pulling his left arm up above his head.

Connor inserted the needle into the left side of his chest and then pulled it out. "Scalpel." He ordered dropping the needle onto the small chart. Doris handled him the tool. He placed the knife where he had injected the needle to cut into his chest. Once he cuts into the chest to make a hole, a lot of blood spilled out and all over the gurney, Connor and the nurse standing at the head of the bed. "Tube." Doris handed him a chest tube and proceeded to place them in the patient's chest.

The patient soon then woke up screaming at the pain.

“AHHH!!!”

"Oh, glad to see you're with us, Mr. Yates." Connor greeted his now awake patient as he worked. "Bolus a liter of saline, hang two unites of uncrossed blood." He ordered the nurses.

"I'm still alive." The patient says.

"Yes, you are." Connor looked at his patient. "I'm gonna do a quick ultrasound of your belly, okay?"

He starts to adjust the tubing, unaware that Mr. Yates freed his left arm from the nurse and reaches around the small cart for something.

He picks up the scalpel Connor used.

Once the knife is in his hand, he reaches across his body to slice his right wrist up in the air in front of everyone. His blood spurts out and gets on everyone.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Connor calls out.

"Okay. Okay. Okay." One of the nurses calls out.

Connor and the nurses all try to restrain him and took away the scalpel from his grasp.

"Let me go!" Mr. Yates cries out struggling against them. "I wanna die. Why won't you let me die!" He starts sobbing.

Connor turns to his left to stare at Doris after hearing the patient's suicidal declaration. He then looks back at the patient.

'As usual, something crazy always happens on the first day back in the ED. No place like home, right?'

An hour passed since Keith Yates arrived at the ED. He was currently asleep after they performed the necessary treatment they were allowed with his consent: his leg and physical injuries outside his body.

Connor had paged Goodwin, Dr. Charles and Ava about the patient. He and Goodwin were outside the room as Ava was inside examining Keith.

"My gut was telling me he was a suicide risk as soon as I heard about the air bag. I should have taken more precaution." Connor tells her.

"You're a doctor, not a clairvoyant. Don't beat yourself up." Goodwin replies shaking her head.

Ava walks outside the room and approaches the two looking down at her tablet. "Mr. Yates continues to dump blood and it's not slowing down. Heart puts 350 cc per hour, base deficits already at 12. He needs surgery now." She looks up at Connor.

"Can't do that." He shakes his head.

The blonde had a confused look on her face staring at him then looks at Goodwin when she starts talking.

"He refused consent. If we operate without his permission, it's considered assault." Goodwin stated the reason why they can't do the surgery.

"He also is refusing to let us hang any more blood. He would rip that tube out of his own chest if he wasn't in restraints." Connor added pointing his right index finger at the patient.

Ava stares between the two. "He's aware he'll die without intervention?" She stated the obvious outcome if they don't help him.

"Pretty sure that's the point." Goodwin says in an unserious tone.

'Good grief. Then why the hell did Connor call me down here for if this is suicide? I hope it's not because he wants to talk about yesterday.' Ava softly inhaled thinking back to old memories that were brought up.

==Flashback==

"Wha-? Hey!" Ava glared at the stranger spilling his coffee on the left side of her white coat.

"Oh my god, I am so sorry." A dark-haired man picked up the now empty coffee cup from the sidewalk.

"Watch where you're going." She tried to shake off the liquid off her sleeve.

"I'm so so sorry. I'm running late for class." He apologized as he tossed the cup in a nearby trash bin.

"That's not really an excuse." She dropped her backpack on the nearby bench.

"I'm so sorry uh...." He leans to look at the embroidered letters on the coat. "Ava Bekker. You're right, not an excuse. But here." He quickly pulls out his wallet from his back pocket and pulls out some large number cash. "Here's some money for your dry cleaning on me. I really have to go now. Bye." He quickly ran away.

Ava frowns, shaking her head watching him run off and then looks down at the money he handed her and slightly widen her eyes. "This is $3,000 ZAR?" She looks back up to where he ran off to. "Let me guess, he grew up in the Clifton neighborhood."

==Flashback Ends==

'Why the hell am I thinking about Josh now of all times? This is pathetic' She sighs shaking her head slightly.

Connor slightly furrowed his eyebrows looking at her.

Behind them was Dr. Charles who looked at the patient and at his tablet, having overheard the conversation. "So, no immediate family?" He stands between Connor and Ava.

"Both parents deceased, says he never married, no kids." Goodwin answered as both surgeons look defeated and exhausted with this complicated case.

"He's refusing any outside visitors." Connor added shaking his head.

"Huh. How soon do you think I might be able to talk to him?" Dr. Charles asked.

Connor scratched the left side of his jaw with his right hand. "I gave him five of Ativans, so I guess another half hour or so."

"I'm gonna have him moved upstairs in case you can get him to change his mind." Ava tells the psychiatrist as she walks away to go back upstairs.

"I'll check in with you guys later." Connor tells the two as he follows the blonde.

"Okay." Goodwin says picking up her padfolio from the counter and walking in the opposite direction.

"Thanks." Dr. Charles says softly as he's left all alone. He turns back to stare at Keith, confused why he doesn't want any visitors if he doesn't have any living relatives?

On the other side of the ED, Ava walks towards the entryway of elevator entrance hallway and presses a button for the doors to open.

"Hey, Avey, you got a second?" Connor comes up behind her right side.

"What is it?" She turns her head to look at him as her steps become slower.

"Are you doing, okay?" He carefully stares at her.

"What do you mean?" She asks, stopping to turn and look at him.

"There's something about you that's different after we went shopping yesterday." He recalls back to how she's been acting after she embraced him at the store. When they left, her aura felt off. And just now he sees it again.

"Different how?"

"Sad. Sad is the word I would describe."

"Sad? Why would I be sad?" She plays it off with a chuckle.

'Was it really that obvious? What's wrong with me? Why the hell is my body still upset about Josh? I shouldn't be like this.'

"I don't know. We were talking about my old ex-girlfriends and then it seemed like it brought up a bad memory for you after we left the store. Perhaps an old ex-boyfriend of yours that ended up bad?"

'He could tell I was thinking about Josh?'

Ava softly exhaled. "Um yeah, a bad memory did come up. Thought I was over it by now because it was a while ago, but I guess a part of it still stings perhaps......? I don't know really. It's really stupid." She felt her pager go off and checked her phone. "That's CT, I gotta go. I'm completely fine. I'll talk to you later." She quickly brushed her right arm against his left arm before dashing to the elevators before they closed.

Connor stares at the closed elevator deep thought.

'She's definitely hiding something from me. But I'll have to wait for her to open up to me on her own. There's still a lot about her past I still don't know about besides her family tragedy.'

Ava was eating a late lunch in the cafeteria after spending a couple of hours in a long surgery. She missed eating lunch with Connor while in surgery and he was now pulled in to do an emergency one in the hybrid O.R. She was actually happy she missed lunch with her boyfriend, not ready to face more of his questions from earlier.

'I'm not ready to talk to him about Josh. It's only been like 4 months since we started seeing each other. Isn't it a little early? But then again, he did talk to me about one of ex-girlfriends yesterday. But he said they didn't date long, so it doesn't really count right?'

"Hey stranger." A familiar voice pulls Ava from her thoughts. She looked up and saw it was Natalie with Maggie behind her with trays of food.

"You look like you could use some company here." Maggie says pulling up another chair to join after Natalie sat down in the other chair.

"Huh? I did?" Ava pulled her hands onto her lap.

"Well, you were sitting all by yourself looking lost in deep thought." Maggie points out.

"Oh, just a long day like always. Lives to save." Ava lied.

"Including suicidal ones?" Natalie recalls the suicide car crash victim talk in the ED.

"Yep, those too. Should probably check in with Dr. Charles to see if he got through to him." Ava finishes the remains of her meal.

"Those cases are always so sad." Said Natalie.

"Yeah, I really don't like dealing with them." Ava says softly and her eyes catches a familiar blonde-haired obstetrician heading towards their table. "Hey, it's Hannah." She points to their friend.

"You would not believe the kind of stress I'm having today ladies." Hannah sighs bringing a chair to the table and sitting down and taking a sip from her coffee cup.

"I can imagine, heard about it from the ICU." Natalie took a bite from her sandwich.

"That wife sure made a real show down in the ED." Maggie recalls seeing what happened down there earlier.

"Wait, what happened? I just came back from an assist on a 3-hour surgery on an aneurysm." Ava pats her napkin against the corners of her lips.

"You remember when Hannah said she had a date on one of those phone apps last night?" Said Maggie.

"Yeah. What happened? You took him home and today he comes in as a patient with an undiscovered STI?" The surgeon said snarky.

"No. And thank god I didn't." Hannah mumbled

"Okay, alright. Now I'm curious." Ava sits up straight.

'This is sounding to be a good distraction from these Josh thoughts I've been having today.'

"It was a simple first date scenario at those restaurant bar places. The date ended when I had to help someone that was ODing. After the ambo left, we kissed and parted ways the night." Hannah gave her a brief overlook.

"Okay? I have to assume there's more to the story." Ava raised her right eyebrow.

"Or there is, just wait." Maggie grinned.

"Today, while I was doing a simple check up on a woman early in her pregnancy about cramping in the ED, another woman, who I’ve never met in my entire life, barges into the treatment room...... who happens to be his wife." Hannah finished by drinking her cup of coffee.

"Oh~." Ava furrowed her forehead at the news. She felt bad.

"His heavily pregnant wife." Maggie added.

"Ouch. How did she find out?" Ava crossed her arms against the table.

"She hacked his phone." Said Hannah.

"So, she already knew he was cheating on her?" Natalie asked.

"Oh, there's more." Maggie added.

"Please continue." Ava held up her right hand to motion the obstetrician to continue.

"When I told her I had no idea he used a fake name or knew he was married, her water broke." Hannah nodded with wide eyes.

Ava gaped her mouth. "And you delivered the baby?"

"Uh-huh." She nodded.

Ava whistles. "Wow~. And here I thought Connor and I had the craziest patient today."

"Did your date come by yet to check on his wife and kid?" Natalie asked.

"He has." The OB doctor nodded. "Claimed he was freaking out becoming a dad and just wanted to look to have some fun one last time before his kid was born. Also had no intention of calling me back after last night. He realized it was a mistake and regretted it."

"I don't see that marriage making it to see their kid's 1st birthday." Said Natalie.

"Neither do I." Maggie sighs. "Cheaters make it hard to find a good man these days." She recalls the time Barry cheated on her and when they did finally reconcile, she finds out he was using a fake name the whole time.

"They're always hiding in plain sight. Especially the ones who try to charm their way through everything." Ava says softly.

==Flashback==

Ava was walking back home from campus when she heard some young high school girls talking out loud on the grass as she walked by them.

"I could watch him play all day. He's amazing."

"That's why he's an all-star player for both football and rugby."

"He's so hot."

"I wish I was already in my 20s so I could date him."

"You think he'll talk to us if we go down there?"

Ava stops walking to see who exactly these young girls were gushing over. She looks over her left shoulder and sees a public football field down a slightly steep hill from the group. Down below were a couple of young guys in their 20s playing football.

"Look he's got the ball!"

"He's so fast!"

Ava stares at a tall dark-haired guy running away from the group as he runs with the ball. "Hmm? He is kind of cute." She leans forward and carefully stares at him for a few seconds before she widens her eyes. "Wait a minute. That's the guy who spilled his coffee on me yesterday." She narrowed her eyes at the memory.

"Joshua Hart is so cool!" One of the girls screamed when Josh scored the goal.

"Joshua Hart, huh? I feel like I heard that name somewhere before?"

==Flashback Ends==

"You seem to speak from experience." Hannah rests her head in her right palm against the table.

"Men. You always meet bad ones along the way that makes it hard for you to trust another man." Ava hastily stands up from her seat.

"Are you okay?" Natalie asks.

"I'm fine. It's time to get back to work, it's about time I wake up the patient." She dumps away her contents into the trash bin and places her tray away with the others and then walks away.

Ava walks out of the recovery room where she crosses paths with Goodwin outside.

"Oh, Dr. Bekker, it's just been confirmed Mr. Yates has Huntington's Disease." The executive director informs her.

"The poor man." She placed her right hand on her torso.

'That explains why he’s trying to commit suicide.'

"So given his underlying condition and his lack of immediate family, we've decided not to surgically intervene and try to make him as comfortable as possible." She explains the inevitable outcome.

"Course." The surgeon nods.

"All right." Goodwin moves to leave but stops for a moment when the other starts talking.

"Does Connor know about this?" Ava starts walking on her right side.

"Not yet. I was about to inform him. Unless you want to?" She motions with her right hand.

The Attending pauses for a moment before speaking. "Uhh.... perhaps it's better you do it. Can't think right now." She points at her head with her right hand.

"You two doing, okay? I know it's his first day back." Goodwin stops walking to face the doctor.

Ava quickly shook her head. "Oh no, we're completely fine. I already knew he would try and prove to everyone that he's fine on his first day back. It's just um......" She pauses herself to think. "I haven't gotten to the right head space to talk about someone from my past before I came to U.S." She confesses, finally starting to feel a little at ease with herself.

"An old boyfriend?" The older woman raises her left eyebrow.

"Who told you?" The South African woman flinches at her words.

'Did Natalie and the others gossip about me to Goodwin?'

"I was a young woman myself, Dr. Bekker. I know what it's like to have a failed relationship you can't get over." She said comfortingly.

Ava nervously chuckled. "No, I definitely am over it. He's nothing to me anymore. I just thought I made peace with it after I moved here. But then Connor and I had a conversation outside of work that made me remember him. And it brought back some old, frustrating feelings I've kept buried inside since then."

"You know it's not exactly healthy to keep everything inside. Talking to someone, a friend or a random stranger even could help make the feeling go away. Even if you're not willing to talk to Dr. Rhodes about it. But know him, he would listen to every word you tell him." She offered her words of wisdom to the young woman.

"I do plan on telling Connor eventually, I just don't know when that right time will suddenly appear." She crossed her arms and inhaled softly.

"You'll know." Goodwin squeezed her left forearm for support before turning around and walking away.

'It would be nice to know when that'll be.'

Ava was deep in thought as she stared off till an unfamiliar male voice called out to her.

"Dr. Bekker?"

Ava turns around to see a dark skinned, dark haired young man and a pale skinned, short blonde haired young woman. They appeared to be a couple.

"I heard you were treating my father, Keith Yates." The young man asked.

Ava tried to process his words to her brain. "Uh... I'm sorry-how did you say you were related?" She was confused.

"I'm his son, Max. This is my fiancée, Elodie. We literally just arrived from the airport." He answered.

"You're his son?" She raised both her eyebrows in question.

"Yes. His neighbor said she heard something about a car crash. I been calling hospitals. They say he was here." Max explained.

The Attending looked off to her left side at the situation she was put in. "Uh..." Her voice trails off trying to think about what to say. She looked down then back up. "I'm sorry, Max, your father was in an accident. He's stable now, but uh... have you been in contact with your father?" Something wasn't making sense to her.

The victim tried to commit suicide and out of nowhere a son he claims didn’t exist shows up from the airport?

'What's going here?'

"We email, we talk on the phone. I haven't seen him in a couple of years. I've been away at culinary school in France. I need to see him. I need to see him now." Max explained where he's been.

"I'm sorry, Max, your father's made it clear he doesn't want any visitors." She informed him of the unfortunate instructions she must follow from her patient.

"Well, I'm his son." He declared.

Ava couldn't do anything but just slightly shake her head and shrug her shoulders a bit.

"This is insane. I just spoke with my father yesterday. He knew we were flying home today." He admitted.

Ava turned her head slightly as she carefully stared at him from his words.

'Hold on, Keith knew you were coming home today?'

Max's fiancée starts speaking in French about what was going on and he speaks back in the same language.

At the same time, Ava's phone starts to vibrate. She pulls out her phone to check her page alerting her to return to the ICU.

It was about Keith.

"I'm sorry, I have to go." She turns back to look at the couple before turning to leave.

"Doctor, please." Max takes a step forward. "You need to help me figure out what's going on here." He pleaded

She stared at him for a second. "I'll do what I can." She nods before racing back to the ICU.

Ava quickly runs back into the ICU and heads straight to Keith's room after making a quick stop to pick up some latex gloves from the nurses' station. She approaches the bed.

"His sats are dropping." Nurse Dina says to her when she enters. "Down to 87 now."

"Chest tube must have clotted off." Ava picks up a blue rag cloth to cover his chest when she lifts his gown. She turns to look at him. "Your son is here in the hospital. He wants to see you."

The second Keith hears that he weakly shook his head. "No." He said in a weak hoarse voice.

Ava sighs shaking her head now realizing what happened. She starts working on him but keeps talking. "That's why you crashed your car, isn't it? You wanted to die before your son could find out."

Keith didn't say anything but lean back against the pillows, ready for death to take him.

"Sats at 85." Said Nurse Dina. "84."

"I can't strip it. Lidocaine, please." Ava ordered for the needle.

"What are you doing?" Dr. Charles appears behind them having walked into the room after being paged.

"I'm placing a second tube." She answered.

"Patient has a DNR and a DNI." He reminded her.

"That does not mean "Do Not Treat."" She says as she injected the needle into the left side of his chest.

"Dr. Bekker, for God's sake let him go." He tells her.

"Scalpel." She holds out her right hand for the knife and cuts into the chest.

Ava was not going to let Keith die yet.

'If he wants to sleep forever so badly fine, but he can do it after he tells his son so he can get tested.'

Dr. Charles sighs turning around to exit the room.

It took about within 10 mins for Ava to insert the second chest tube and for her and the nurse to check his sats and bandage the wound area. Make sure he was stable enough to be left alone after they leave. The two looked out of the room and saw that Dr. Charles was out there waiting.

Ava sighs disposing her gloves and walks out. "Well, sats are back up. At least he's breathing again." She sounded exhausted and slightly annoyed.

"What the hell are you thinking?" He asks her why she stopped Keith from dying.

"You wondered who it was Keith didn't want to come and visit? It was his son, Max." She informs him.

Dr. Charles was taken back by her words.

"Yeah. He's in the surgical waiting area right now."

"He's here?" He widens his eyes.

She nods and points with her left index finger in the direction of the waiting area. "Yeah. That young man has a 50/50 chance of inheriting a fatal disease and he needs to be tested. We need to convince Keith to tell him so that can happen." She further explained her actions were all for Max's sake of health.

"Yeah, but what if we can't convince him? We can't keep him alive indefinitely." He looks over at Keith, now aware of the stakes and the clock was ticking on how long the patient was going to live.

They both turn to look at the patient.

This was not an easy situation.

"Well, then we need to tell Max ourselves. We're morally negligent if we didn't." Said Ava.

"Divulging a patient's confidential medical information is a federal offense." Dr. Charles reminded her of HIPPA.

"Not long from now I'm gonna be sitting across from Max as he asks me why his father died, and all I'm gonna be able to do is shrug." She shrugged and frowned at him.

"Okay, okay." He held up his hands to think. "I will not leave his side until he wakes up and will do my very best to convince him to tell Max the truth before he dies." He points his right hand towards the room.

"I hope you can. Max is engaged and his fiancée is here with him." Ava was starting to become more exasperated.

"He's engaged?" The psychiatrist widens his eyes again.

"Yeah, and let's hope he doesn't plan to have kids himself if he does test positive for the disease." She says before walking away.

'I didn't think my day would turn out like this. Probably should have called in sick.'

Within half an hour later, Ava went back to the surgical floor to check in on some patients and do some computer-related work to distract herself from the stress she’d been dealing with. She was standing at a computer cart outside the recovery room from inside the restricted area when she heard a familiar voice.

"Hey." She turned her left head to look back and saw it was Connor approaching her. She quickly looked back at the screen. "I heard our suicide has Huntington's. That's a tough beat." He says moving to stand on her left.

"Yeah. Situation's actually more complicated than just that." Ava goes back to typing.

"What do you mean?"

"He actually has a son."

"He has a kid?" He's taken back by the news.

She nodded. "He just flew in today from school in France with his fiancée. Told his father yesterday and the next day he decided he wanted to die."

"His son doesn't know, does he?" He was now concerned about the son's high risk of inheriting the disease.

"Nope." She shook her head. "Hopefully Dr. Charles can convince Keith before he dies."

"Hmm. Okay. Keep me updated." He nodded. "So, Brett came by to drop off a patient and asked if we were up to go to a game next month."

"What kind of game?" She turns her head to look at him. Feeling relief, he isn't bringing up their last conversation from earlier today. They could now talk about something else.

"51 and the 21st District have tickets to go to the big Bears game that weekend. She wants to know if we were free and wanted to go hang out and tailgating with the others."

"How many tickets are there?" She turns to look back at the screen.

"Twelve, so four for each workplace. She said her, Casey, Severide and Stella were going from 51. From the 21st she said Jay and Upton were going. The last two tickets are being fought over by the rest of their unit. Will and Nat said they were going, so there's only two tickets left for us here at Med."

"What did you tell her?" She starts moving the mouse.

"I told her I had to ask you first if you were up for it before saying yes to anything."

"I've never been to an American football game." She turned to look at him, making a cute pout face. Enough to make him smile before putting her focus back onto the computer.

"Always good to try new things from time to time and make good memories out of it."

"I guess you're right." She finishes her work and logs out. "Are the tickets still ours if we say yes." She starts walking away and he follows next to her.

"Yeah, Brett was angling towards the couples first before asking anyone that were single. We made the cut to the Top 2 on the list from here." He explained how they ended up being candidates for the tickets.

"Maybe April and Ethan will patch things up by the time of the wedding. You may never know. Things did change after that whole PCP patient two weeks ago." She shrugged her shoulders.

Connor inhaled and exhaled softly. "Speaking of patching things up, are we okay?" He turns his head right to look at her.

"Of course we are." Ava said quickly. She had hoped he had dropped it, but she was wrong. She stops walking to stand in front of him. "Connor, about what I said about my old ex, just forget about him. It was just a bad break up, like how millions of other people in the world go through. Anyway it shouldn't matter now. You and I are together now, and I haven't been happier in a long time, more than he ever did."

"Okay. Just a bad frog you kissed then?" Connor still wasn't convinced she was telling him the full story but wasn't going to keep pushing her to tell him.

"Exactly, Prince Charming. It took a couple of frogs, but in the end, I kissed the right frog. Even if he's very arrogant and enjoys catching lots of flies." Ava pats him on his chest. "I need to head back to the ICU."

She walks out the doors in the hallway, leaving Connor standing with a very puzzled look and holding up his hands.

"Wait? What? What's that metaphor supposed to mean?"

Back in the ICU, Dr. Charles was sitting in an armchair across from Keith on his left side and looking at his tablet. He soon heard coughing from the bed; Keith was walking up. They had adjusted the bed for him to be sitting up slightly.

Keith turns his head left and sees the doctor as his vision clears up. "You're still here?"

"Well, if you're not gonna let your son sit vigil, I'm afraid you're stuck with me." Dr. Charles spoke monotone.

Keith scoffed.

"Although I really wish you'd rethink your position. Keith, Max needs to know about your condition so he can be tested."

"No." He was very adamant of not telling his son the truth.

"You know that he has a right to know."

"Max has already been tested." He said softly. His words caused him to lower his tablet to his lap. "When I was diagnosed, I took him in secretly." His voice started to become hoarse again. "My ex-wife never knew. Max was 7. I hoped the news would be good." 

"And it wasn't?" Dr. Charles asked to clarify Max's health now knowing he has in fact been tested for the disease.

Keith shook his head. "Max is 25. I was his age when I found out I had it." He started to struggle to talk, and his eyes started to shed tears. "I lost my purpose in life. It all seemed so pointless." He took his last big exhale. "I don't want that for my son."

At the same time in that moment, the machines started beeping.

It was time.

Dr. Charles stood up and walked towards the bed. Nurse Dina appeared and walked into the room, heading straight to the monitors.

Ava arrived just in time into the room. "How's he doing?"

"BP's 80/43." Nurse Dina answered.

Ava looked at Dr. Charles to see if Keith had agreed. He just stared at her with no expression. He couldn't do it. She shook slightly her head. "Ten of morphine." She ordered slowly accepting defeat and getting him ready to go away without feeling any pain.

But Dr. Charles wasn't just ready to give up. "Listen, Keith, you don't know how he's gonna react. He might surprise you, and medicine is advancing so rapidly, Keith, that there could be a cure by the time he contracts the disease."

From behind, they could hear a loud commotion between someone arguing with a nurse. They turned around and saw it was Max and Elodie.

"Sir, you can't go in there! No visitors allowed!!" The ICU charge nurse tried blocking Max from going into the room.

"Let me in there-that's my father." Max said out loud, dropping his backpack and pushing aside the nurse to get into the room. She did stop Elodie from getting in. Max rushes between Ava and Dr. Charles to face his father. Ava placed her left hand against her forehead at the scene before her.

"Dad, it's me, Max. Max." Max placed his hand on his father's chest to get his attention. He wasn't responding. "What's happening?" He asks.

Ava placed her left hand on Max's right arm. "Sir, you're not supposed to be in here." She looked back outside the room to see if there were any nearby nurses or security to come take him out. The only one she could see was the charge nurse and she was making sure Elodie stayed put.

"73/30." Said Nurse Dina.

"Look, do something. He can't breathe!" Max pleaded with the surgeon.

"He asked not to be intubated, Max." Ava shook her head explaining she's not allowed to save him.

Max held onto his father's face to get him to look at him. "Dad, please, listen to me. I proposed to a girl at school and she said yes. Okay? Her name is Elodie. I-I know you'll like her. She's just outside now. I want you to meet her. Just please, let the doctors save you." He pleaded not ready to lose him.

Keith still didn't say a word to his son as he closed his eyes for the final time and his head fell back.

The machine’s sound then changes to a flatline tone.

"Is anyone gonna do anything?" Max cried out at Ava.

She and Dr. Charles didn't say a word but just stared at each other and at the scene they've seen multiple times in their career.

Max looked between his father and then at the doctors. "Bring him back. Bring him back!" He begged.

The doctors stayed silent.

Max stared at his father's lifeless body in sorrow.

"Time of death, 19:13." Ava declared softly. Max slowly made eye contact with her. "So sorry." She spoke softly.

Max slowly turned his head to look out of the room to see the charge nurse placing a comforting hand on Elodie's right shoulder as she covered her mouth at what had just happened. He turns to look back at his father and then buries his face in his chest to cry.

Ava started at him for a few seconds before looking down.

'You can't save everyone.'

Ava, Dr. Charles and the nurses stood back outside the room to let Max and Elodie spend some time with his father to say goodbye. When he was done, he went to start filling out the paperwork as the nurses proceed to cover up the body and push the bed away to another location.

Max stood by the nurses' station with a clipboard filling out the paperwork and watched the nurses take his father away. Ava and Dr. Charles approached him.

"Do you need any help finding a mortuary after the ME releases his body?" Ava asked.

"I already contacted one." He replied.

"I realize it was frustrating being refused access like you were." She slightly nodded feeling remorseful about his situation.

"You know he also stipulated that his medical records be sealed for the next 50 years. 50 years." Max looked back to where the nurses went with his father. "What was he so afraid of me finding out?"

Ava and Dr. Charles both looked at each other. He informed her that Max did in fact inherited the disease. Making all this more upsetting. He had a fatal disease, and they're not allowed to tell him.

"I love my dad. I did. Always felt like he was hiding something from me," he paused "but I'm not gonna be that way with my kids."

Ava lifted her head up slightly hearing Max planned to have kids.

'He wants to have kids? They'll likely get the disease too.'

"I don't even know how my father died." He placed the clipboard on the counter.

Dr. Charles slightly swayed his body. "Are you aware, Max, that um, that you can ask the medical examiner to perform an autopsy? As a next of kin, you have that right. Doesn't he, Dr. Bekker?"

Ava slightly raised her eyebrows at his plan. "Yes, he does."

'Oh yeah that's right. Legally he can order an autopsy on Keith. There's nothing stopping him from doing one.'

Max picked up his backpack over his right shoulder.

"Yeah. You never know, you might get a couple answers to some of those questions you have." Dr. Charles advised.

"Maybe I will." Max took his words to heart. The look on his face had them convinced he planned to do that. "Thank you." He says looking thankfully at him before walking away towards where Elodie was waiting for him by the exit.

"An autopsy? That'll tell Max the truth." Ava says as they both turned to look at each other and stare at the couple across the room from them.

"He's planning on having children. He needs to know the risk. Despite Keith's good intentions, I don't know. Maybe some secrets you just don't get to keep." He walks away leaving her alone.

Dr. Charles' words hit close to Ava.

She stares off in deep thought.

==Flashback==

"It's you again!" Ava looked up from the table she was sitting at, was packing her stuff in her backpack when she heard a familiar voice from her right.

It was Joshua Hart, the guy who ruined her coat. He was dressed in a light blue-collar shirt and dark jeans with a brown messenger bag around his torso.

"Still too soon." She looks back down to pack her laptop being zipping up her bag.

"Hey, I said I was sorry about the other day. I didn't mean to spill my coffee over your coat."

"You're lucky I finished my rotations that day before you ruined my coat. Thanks for paying my cleaning bill so I didn't have to go to the hospital in a dirty coat the next day." She stands up and pulls her bag over her right shoulder.

"Let's start over." He holds up his right hand. "Hi, my name is Joshua Hart. I go by Josh."

She stares at him for a moment before she reaches out. "Ava Bekker." She shook his hand and then retracted. "And I know. I heard about you from some of your fangirls near the campus area."

"Oh, so you know of me?" He grinned, trying to look charming.

"More like through passing. The only thing I really know about you is you're not always on time for your classes; you play football and rugby. And judging by the $3,000 ZAR you quickly gave me without a second thought, I'm guessing from an upper high-class family perhaps?" 

"You're good at reading people." He nods impressed by her quick deduction.

"It depends on the person." She nods her head in his direction.

"Why don't we get to know each other better over dinner tonight? My way to apologize for ruining your coat." He stared at her with a charming smile.

Ava knew what he was trying to do. She's seen it before. "Hmm? I'm afraid to say, I'm not interested, Hart. You could always ask those girls over there." She points towards a group of young women staring at them from a distance.

His eyes widened a bit at her rejection. "That's a first. No woman ever said no to me."

She smiles hearing that. "For that, I'm grateful for." She walks away from him.

==Flashback Ends==

'Hmm. Thinking about Josh has been bugging me since yesterday and it's now starting to come between me being around Connor. I don't want Josh to get in the way of me loving Connor. Maybe... maybe I haven't gotten over what happened like I thought I did. Maybe Goodwin is right about me talking about this to Connor being the only way I can really move on to be with him.'

Shift finally ended an hour later, Ava changed out of her scrubs and was dressed in a dark green long-sleeved V-neck sweater top, black dress pants, had her backpack over her right shoulder and was holding her jacket in her right arm. She went looking for Connor and found him in the new locker room. He himself was out of his scrubs and dressed in his usual black clothing.

"Hey." Ava greeted him softly to get his attention.

Connor turns to his head right and sees her. "Hey, are you ready to go now?" He closes the locked small compartment area of his locker.

"Yeah, about that, can we just pick up take out and take it back to my place?" She takes a couple of steps closer to him.

"Yeah, no problem. Is everything okay?" He put on his jacket.

"Just... everything with Keith's death just got to me. I have to do an M&M in a few days on it." Before coming into the locker room, Goodwin approached her that the case was chosen to be in the next morbidity and mortality conference.

"Hey." He puts his hands on her shoulders. "He had Huntington's disease and signed an DNR and DNI. There was nothing you could have done. He wanted his suffering to end."

"I know, it's just he didn't want his son to know about it, or that he had inherited it himself. He still didn't tell him and sealed his medical records for 50 years, so he never finds out the truth."

"Really?" He furrowed his eyebrows together. "That's outrageous. He has the right to know the truth about his health. Especially since he doesn't have that long to live."

"He does and Dr. Charles found a loophole for him to find out with an autopsy and the risk of him having kids himself." She nodded.

"That's good. At least he'll know the truth." He slides his hands down from her shoulders to her elbows.

"Yeah." Ava says softly.

"C'mon let's go." He grabs his messenger bag from the bench area and puts his over his right shoulder and wrap his right hand around her waist. "What are you hungry for? Chinese? Italian?" He leads her out of the room.

They went to pick up Chinese takeout and went back to her place to. They were sitting opposite sides of her dining table with various boxes of Styrofoam food containers around them and two glasses of red wine. They were both enjoying their meals after the long day they both had with their cases and were discussing further plans.

"What do you do at tailgating?" Ava asks before taking a bite from her chicken stir fry.

"Hang out in the parking lot of the stadium with other fans. Hang out, drink, eat food, there may be outdoor games and just really overall have fun watching the game. Pretty much a normal friends and family get together, only it's with over 1,000 strangers." Connor took a bite from his fried rice.

"I have to buy a Bears' jersey, aren't I?" She playfully scrunches up her face.

He chuckled. "That or borrow one from the other girls that are going. Your choice."

"That depends, are you planning on taking me to any other sport games?" She raised her left eyebrow.

"Well, I do know you're not a baseball fan. As you stated once, “too boring” if I remember correctly." He recalls an old memory earlier this year.

"It is." She confirmed.

"Then it's a good thing I don't watch a lot of sports. But I'm still gonna have to buy a jersey when we go." He picks up his glass to take a sip.

"Might as well make it two." She held up two fingers with her right hand. "How are your ribs feeling after today." She asks wanting an update after his first day back.

"Actually, I hardly felt pain. I did a quick scan, and it turns out I’m healing faster than we thought." He pointed at his ribs with his left hand.

"That's good." She nodded.

"At least something good happened out of today. Can't say the same for Hannah." He looked down at his meal.

"You heard or witnessed it?"

"It literally happened just when I was about to go to lunch." He tilted his head right, recalling the awkward scene he walked into between his colleague and a heavily pregnant woman.

"I feel bad for Hannah. She was just trying to find someone, only to find a bad frog that belonged to someone else." She frowned, feeling remorseful for both her friend and even more for the man's wife. She hacked her husband's phone and used it to track down Hannah and accused her of stealing her husband. And then going into induce labor because of that betrayal......

Ava lets out a shallow breath and grabs her glass with her right hand and takes a long drink. Her nerves from today were slowly coming back.

‘Just when I was starting to feel normal again.’

"Sometimes that's life. Kissing bad frogs or putting the glass slipper on the wrong foot." He shrugged his shoulders.

"Yeah." She says softly before refilling her glass and starts drinking again right away.

'Wow, this is starting to get a little harder each second now.'

Connor notices the change in her behavior and reaches to place his right hand over her left. That got her attention to stop drinking and look up at him.

"Is there something you need to get off your chest?" His face softened as he looked at at.

"Actually, yes there is something I need to tell you." She stands up and starts cleaning up the containers around them. "I think I'm done eating for the night. Kind of lost my appetite."

"Should I be worried right now?" He nervously chuckled. "This isn't the part where you break up with me. right?" He joked to ease the tension of the room.

"Please, if I was breaking up with you, I wouldn't have invited you to come home with me." She mocked as she stacks three of the containers on top of each other and takes them towards her kitchen. "I also wouldn't sleep with a guy the same day I would end it with him." She says opening her fridge, referring to his breakup with Sam.

"Oh good! You had me worried there for a moment." He relaxed his shoulders and starts cleaning up the table and brings her the rest of the containers. "You want to talk here or on the sofa?" He nudges his head left towards her light grey fabric 3-seater sofa.

"The sofa might be better. It's kind of a long story and I'm gonna need to sit for this one." She took a deep breath organizing her fridge.

"Do we need another bottle?" He notes to the now halfway empty bottle he opened earlier.

She nods right away. "Yeah, I gonna need more than one drink if I'm gonna tell you another story about my past." She pulls out another red wine bottle from her fridge. She starts peeling off the foil of the bottle.

"I had a feeling." Connor turns back towards the table to grab their glasses and the rest of the bottle and walks towards the sofa. "Is this about the ex-boyfriend from before?"

'Looks like she's finally ready to tell me about this ex-boyfriend that broke her heart it seems.' He thought to himself, taking a seat on the right end of the sofa and placed the glasses and bottle on the coffee table.

"It is. And it's not a topic I like to think back to, but since we went shopping yesterday, I can't get the thought of him out of my mind." She walks towards the sofa with the unopened bottle in her left hand and opener in her other hand. She takes a seat on his left side and places the items on the table with the rest.

"I didn't mean to bring back bad memories for you." He apologized.

Ava shook her head. "I know you didn't. It wasn't on purpose." She softly inhaled and turned her body slightly to look at him. "You told me about your one of your exes, it's only fair I tell you about one of mine. It's just that uh...." she slightly bit her lower lip, trying to find the words, "this relationship was actually different than the other ones. I told you before that the relationships I had before didn't mean much. They were never real. They were only interested in my appearance rather than my personality."

"Yeah, I remember you telling me that." He nodded.

"But actually, there was one relationship that felt real." She grabbed her nearly halfway empty glass to take a drink to continue. "It ended a year before I moved here." She exhaled. "I never mentioned it before because I made a promise to myself that I would never think about him again once I left. But since yesterday...." She sighs, shaking her head. "It's a lot easier if I start in the beginning."

He nods softly. "Take your time. There's no rush." Connor assured her. He caressed her right shoulder down to her bicep. "Sounds like it was more than just a typical bad breakup if you're having a hard time talking about this out loud."

"Compared to other guys, yeah it was." She took a deep breath. "This all started in my last year of med school. I was about to graduate in two months. That's when I first met him." Ava finally started her story.

Connor nodded in understanding and for her to continue.

"It was a normal day for me. I go through my rounds and work at the hospital and then go attend my afternoon classes I have for the day. But one day, after just arriving on campus earlier than I normally do from the hospital, someone ran into me and spilled their coffee on my white coat.” She groaned at the memory.

"Oooh. I'm starting to see where this is going." He grinded his teeth together at the thought of someone accidentally getting Ava's white coat dirty off shift.

"And of course I'm pissed that my white coat got dirty. Even though we're supposed to be used it getting dirty from blood or vomit, I was pissed that it happened outside of the hospital." She rolled her eyes at the memory. "I looked at whoever it was that ruined my coat and saw that it was a man I never met before around my age. He apologized and claimed that he was late for class and didn't see where he was running."

"Typical college student." He shrugged his shoulders.

"Yeah." She nodded. "I was still pissed at him about my coat, so he gave me lots of money for my dry cleaning to make for it and ran off to class."

"Was it enough to cover the bill?"

"He gave me enough to cover more than my entire closet and bedsheets, for a month or so if I wanted to. It could have even covered my rent." She shook her head. "That's when I realized he must have been from one of those wealthy neighborhoods like Clifton."

That brought back an old memory for him between them. "You mean like when you first saw my Porsche?" He recalls back to the early days of winter this year.

"Exactly that." She pointed.

"So, what happened next?"

"Because I got to campus early, I had enough time to drop my coat off at the dry cleaners and come back for it later. Didn't see him again till a few weeks later when I was going home from school. I didn't live that far away so I walked. On my walk, I passed by some high school girls that were watching some college guys playing footba-... soccer on a public field. The girls were talking loudly and were admiring one of the guys. Being curious, I stopped to take a look at who they were looking at and soon enough, I recognized him as the guy who ruined my coat."

"Wealthy college athlete? You got a name from those girls?" He raised his right eyebrow.

She nodded. "Said his name was Joshua Hart. Those girls said he played soccer and rugby. At the time, I felt I heard his name somewhere because it sounded familiar, but I didn't know where and I didn't really care. Sure, I thought he was attractive, but I wasn't interested in starting a relationship. Not when I was almost done with med school and soon getting ready to start my residency." She finished the rest of her drink and poured the rest of the nearly empty bottle into her glass.

"Yep, that sounds just like you." Connor wasn't surprised one bit that Ava was fully focused and serious on starting her career as a doctor than looking to find a boyfriend.

"And month later, when I was about to take my very last exam, he found me packing up my backpack at one of the study tables on campus. And of course I wasn't interested in talking to him, but he went ahead to apologize for what happened and introduced himself."

"Did you?" He grabs the new bottle and the opener and slowly pulled out the cork until it made a loud pop sound, releasing the mist of the high-pressured carbon dioxide gas.

"He read my name on my coat when he ruined it, but I still introduced myself out of manners and told him I heard his name from those high schoolers. And based on the way he was looking at me, he probably took that as an invitation to me being interested in him and thought I would go weak in the knees with that charming smile of his and asked me out to dinner."

"How did he take the rejection?" Connor chuckles as he refills his glass and takes a drink. Didn't even need to ask for the answer he already knew from the way she talked about focusing on her career.

"He was not expecting it." Her lips curved into smug. "I was the first woman that ever said no to him." She took another sip.

"Were you happy?" He raised both eyebrows.

"Very." She chuckled. "I left him standing there and went to take my exam. I had thought that would be the last I hear from him, but I was wrong."

"Hart sounds like the type of guy who's used to getting what he wants from women if he's never been turned down. Till he met you that is."

"That's the impression I got as well. He wouldn't leave me alone. Even going as far as visiting me at Groote Schuur during my residency. It was really embarrassing." She takes another swing from her glass and finishes it.

"Did you ever find out where you might have heard his name before?" He asks as he refills her glass.

"I did." She nodded and shifted herself to get comfortable. "Now would be a good time to tell you more about Josh." She softly inhaled and exhaled. "Josh was born into a high-class family with several half siblings from various marriages his father had gone through. He was the only child born from his father's fourth marriage. That's where I heard his name from. His father was a prominent businessman and was well known in Cape Town, Jeremy Colten Hart."

"What was his business?"

"Mostly business tourism since South Africa is a hotspot for vacation, but also has small branches in finance, technology, retail and so forth."

"Josh was majoring in business then?"

Ava shook her head. "Nope, like you he wanted to pursue a career that his father didn't chose for him that wasn't part of the family business. He majored in biochemistry. He wanted to find cures for diseases."

"Not what I was expecting from what I know so far about the guy."

"Me neither. He didn't give off the vibe to me. But then again, I only first knew him as the rich athlete who ruined my coat. It wasn't till later during his pursue on me did I learn more about him. He kept trying on getting to know me by revealing details about himself to get me to open up."

"How long did it take till you finally gave in?"

"5 years."

"5 years?!" He leaned forward and furrowed his eyebrows as he stared at her.

"He was very persistent; I'll give him that. During most of my time as a resident, he kept trying to get in my pants. It didn't help that after graduation he worked not that far away from the hospital. Even hung out with people who worked at the hospital. Sometimes he got called to work at the hospital for some cases." She nodded. "Of course, he still slept with other women during those 5 years. As I presumed, he was a player and wanted to have fun. Kind of like how Severide was before Stella came based on what I heard from Brett."

"Oh, he was. I heard the same stories from Maggie and April."

"So, anyway, as I was entering my last year of my residency, I finally gave in." She paused. "During those 5 years, I found myself taking a slight interest in him as the years went by.

And....I guess I needed a stress reliever. I'm human." She shook her head.

"But it wasn't really a relationship at first. It was only casual for about four months,

then things changed between us.

Even before I started to sleep with him, we were starting to spend some time together.

Just talking about our day, getting a drink. Similar to how we first became friends." She pointed between them.

"The more time I spent with him and grew closer.... I found myself slowly falling for him.

Something I never felt before with other men. He actually won me over." Ava had a sincere look on her face, remembering what it was like dating Josh during those early days of their relationship.

Connor felt his chest become a little heavy hearing her talk about her past feelings with another man that wasn't him. He didn't say a word, just went to take another drink. He could tell that she was reflecting and most likely never said anything of this out loud.

He wanted her to let everything out that was bothering her.

Even if it was hard for him to listen about her being with another man that made her feel very special for the first time in her life.

She tilted her head up to look at him. "Remember how I told you Dr. Jaffrey was the only other person in the world who knew about my childhood?"

He nods and puts his drink down.

"Truth, is I lied." Her words were soft.

"Josh knows about my past too. In fact, he was the very first person I disclosed that information to.

Not Jaffrey.

The first person I've ever opened to and let myself be vulnerable to without any walls, was him.

I felt like I could trust him.

That was huge for me to do, given what happened to me in the foster system down there." She sighed.

"The relationship was nice, and it felt real. He wasn’t like any of those other guys I've experienced with before. It was kind of like those bad romance movies where the lonely intelligent orphan girl meets and cross paths with a handsome rich guy and sweeps her off her feet." She chuckled at how corny that sounded and took a sip from her drink. Starting to feel a little buzzed.

Connor bit his lower lip from wanting to say anything. Now he was starting to feel a little jealous. He exhaled and took another swing from his drink.

'It's okay. It’s okay. It's all in the past. I have nothing to worry about here. She loves me.... But why do I feel so ticked off....'

Her next words cut him out of his thoughts.

"But of course, what appears on the surface isn't always true." Her facial expression fell instantly.

He finally forced himself to speak. "How long was the relationship?"

"It lasted 10 months. I was almost done with my residency and was getting ready to apply for my fellowship." She started to refill her glass.

"Hold on, your fellowship?" He asks as if a light bulb appeared above his head.

'That's right. Latham wanted her instead of me for the fellowship, but I was chosen instead. It must have been around then when they broke up. Cause why else would she apply out of the country away from her boyfriend? She wanted to get away from him.'

Ava nodded. "Yeah, it was around that time period. While I was planning to do my fellowship with Dr. Jaffrey, I kept my options open. And that's when it happened." She took a long drink. Once she exhaled deeply after swallowing the alcoholic taste, she started to speak again. "It happened in early spring of March. I was finishing up my shift and was about to head home when I overheard a conversation from some nurses in the parking lot." She frowned. "One of them were gossiping about seeing Josh at the hospital that day. But he told me two weeks ago that he was gonna be out of town for a conference and wasn't going to be back for four more days. I called him a few times but no answer. That's when I decided to go to his place. When I got there, I saw his car was in his normal parking space.

The nurses were right; he was in town.

The lights were off inside but checked the door and it was unlocked.

I went inside and heard noises.... moaning.

I recognized it...... it was him." She stared at the wall across from them, not making eye contact with him. Like she was reliving the moment again.

"Ava." He knew where this was going.

‘I had a feeling it was going to be something like this.’ He thought to himself.

"A part of me wanted to leave, but another part of me wanted to see who it was he was cheating on me with." She kept going.

"You don't have to keep going." He scooted a little closer to her.

"No, I have to say it out loud or else this feeling won't go away." She sucked in air from her mouth to keep going. "I swallowed my pride and went straight to his room and turned on the lights."

Connor placed a comforting hand on her right thigh.

"He was with...... Annie Perkins." She stated the woman's name.

"Annie Perkins... Out of every woman in the city, he was cheating on me with her.

The woman I despised so much from med school.

My rival.

Another CT surgeon.

She also worked at Groote Schuur.

Was in bed with him

and in the middle of giving each other oral sex."

"I'm so sorry, Ava." He spoke softly as he carless her thigh.

"That really stung. The first person I've ever opened up to about myself completely, betrays me with the person I hated." A tear slipped out of her right eye. She quickly wiped it away. "He tried to stop me from leaving, to let him explain, but I didn't want to hear it."

"There's no excuse for what he did to you. He knew what he was doing."

"Three months." She said with a blank facial expression.

"Huh?"

"He was cheating on me for three months. Next day at work, Perkins came to see me in the locker room after I spent the better part of my day avoiding her and tells me that she's been sleeping with Josh for the past three months. Trying to get under my skin for a reaction." She scoffed. "It's a good thing I got paged away to attend to my patient because I was ready to lose it when she told me what else happened. It was a good distraction."

"What else did he do?"

"She wasn't the only one he was cheating on me with." She took a deep breath. "He also slept with her stepsister a few times before moving onto her. They even had a threesome each other a couple of times." Ava finally turned her head to look at him. "I've actually told you about her stepsister before."

"You did?" He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "When?"

"The head cheerleader I went to high school with. The one that saw me with the red stain drink on my white pants and was partnered up with her boyfriend on a project and got sick and threw up on him." She reminds him of the night back in Rock Island earlier this year.

Connor looked up to think for a couple of seconds and then his jaw dropped and shot open his eyes at the memory

‘Oh shit!’

"Wait, your old rival in South Africa was the stepsister of the girl you went to high school with?" He gestured with his index fingers to connect the dots.

Ava nodded.

"And your ex-boyfriend cheated on you with both of them?" He connected his index fingers together.

Ava nodded again. "Her name was Alicia Brent. Her mother married Perkins' father two years after we graduated high school. Apparently, their parents were having an affair with each other and the two alike bitches bonded and befriended with each other."

"Damn~." He sighed. "I'm gonna need another drink." He reached for his glass and took a long drhink. "Wow, your past really is like a soap opera. No offense."

"None taken."

"Sorry for interrupting. You were saying?" He gestured her to continue.

"After she told me that and after I dealt with my patient, Josh came to see me when I was on my lunch break."

"What did he say?"

"He first apologized, that he didn't mean to hurt me. The usual bullshit crap people use when they cheat. Then I asked him if what Perkins told me about Alicia Brent was true.

It was.

He started cheating on me halfway through the relationship. Said I wasn't giving him much attention and looked for it elsewhere. He met Alicia through Perkins at a bar and well... I'm sure you can figure out the rest yourself."

"He's a dick."

"He was, but I can't put all the blame on him. Perkins knew what she was doing."

"Was the hate mutual?"

"You remember how I was to you? Cold-hearted, abrasive, ruthless to you and others? Cruella de Vil, they used to call me."

He nodded.

"Me and Perkins were like that to each other, but ten times worse. That only became worse when she and Josh became public. She really wanted to get into my head, both personal and professional. Even switching to different shifts, that still didn't stop the gossip and rumors at the hospital and among other first responders. I felt humiliated and embarrassed by the whole thing that I had a hard time being focus on my work. Dr. Jaffrey had to kick me out sometimes because of it."

"So that's why you applied for the fellowship here at Med. To get away and start over." Everything was starting to make sense now.

"Exactly." She nodded. "I wanted to move to America because I wanted to start over and have a fresh start. Not just to forget my childhood, but to also forget and move on and get the hell away from Perkins, Josh and everyone else."

Connor's chest felt heavy at the next part of her story. He already knew what it was. "But then I got the fellowship, not you."

Ava sighed. "Yeah, I really hated you when I found out I was rejected."

"Sorry." He sheepishly apologized.

She shook her head. "I told you before that I got to spend more time working under Dr. Jaffrey and he was happy I stayed in the country. Even though I hated working in the same department as Perkins, I was still his star pupil, and he liked me more than her. I enjoyed that part very much. I also made sure to request we worked different shifts." A small smile appeared on her face.

"That's good. She didn't have complete power over you. You still had one of the best world-renowned heart surgeons backing you up. She must have been pissed."

"Deeply." She chuckled and nodded. “If you thought I was bad when we first met, she was a much bigger Cruella de Vil than I was.”

“The fact that even you’re acknowledging how cruel you were before, it must be true.” Connor looked off to the side and blindly reached for his glass again. “I don’t think I could have handled two of you, double the trouble worse?!? I would rather move to a new hospital.” He took another long drink.

“Anyway….” She continued her story. "I kept to myself for many months, until one day I got an E-mail from Chicago Med about accepting another person for the fellowship and they chose me. I didn't hesitate to drop everything as soon as possible to pack up and move away." Ava leaned back as she looked up at the ceiling, reminiscing. "I was so happy to get out of South Africa and move to Chicago.” She softly sighed. “The day I left at the airport to start over my life, Josh was there."

"He was? Did he have to go somewhere for work?"

"No, he was there to see me off." She looks back down at him.

"He did?” He raised his left eyebrow. “I honestly did not think he had the balls to see you after everything that happened."

"I was surprised too. Believe me." She sighed. "He said he wanted to part on good terms with me."

"Seriously? Was he not aware he was the reason why you were moving out of the country in the first place?"

"Just another of those guys who don't see themselves as the problem." She shrugged. "I wasn't interested in fixing things and just said goodbye and left him standing there." She took another deep breath and grabbed her glass and finished it. She let out a deep sigh. "And now you're all caught up now. That's how things ended with my ex-boyfriend. Guess we're now done talking about any of our exes, unless you have an ex-girlfriend that tops my breakup with Josh?" She challenged him.

"Nope.” Connor quickly shook his head. “Not even close. You win the most brutal breakup stories between the two of us. Hands down." He held his hands up in defeat.

"Happy to wear the crown. The sad unfortunate crown." She adjusted herself to lean her right elbow on top of the sofa.

"So, um...” Connor also adjusted himself to lean his left elbow on top of the sofa. “When you first told me only Dr. Jaffrey knew about your background besides me, why did you lie about not telling anyone else?"

Ava blinked at his words and pulled her arm back to sit up straight. "I'm sorry. I wanted Josh out of my life so badly that I forgot I told him." She burrowed her face in her hands and sighed. "Sorry, it's just that the-the last 24 hours is making me remember things about Josh that I wanted to forget about."

"So, you didn't really lie, your mind just subconsciously blocked out the memory that your ex knew."

"When you put it like that, yeah I really did try and block out a lot of memories I had with Josh when we broke up. I don't know why since yesterday, but all these memories with Josh have been bugging me all day." She made eye contact with him. "That's why I kept pushing away talking about it with you. I didn't want to be thinking about Josh around you, because I shouldn't be. I meant before when I said I moved on from Josh and I'm happy being with you."

"And I get that. I really do.” He pulled back his arm. “And I really am sorry all of that happened to you. That you went through all of that by yourself. You didn't deserve to be treated like that." He looked genuinely concerned at her. Now knowing the full story of her past from losing her entire family to being betrayed in her first real relationship.

"I'm a big girl. I can handle myself." She put on a brave face that she’s used to it.

"Oh, I know." He placed his hand over hers. "But you're not alone anymore."

"I know. Never expected my life to turn out like this." She turns her right hand over to interlock their fingers. "Losing my entire family as a child, then let myself be vulnerable for the first time only to be stabbed in the back and to the point to flee the country. Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if Perkins started to spread rumors about me since I left. Not that I should care about whatever that bitch says about me. There's no one I really truly care about back there. Sure, things with Dr. Jaffrey became rocky when he was here, but he and I did manage to patch things up later when he called me for an update on his heart. He even apologized for the way he acted."

"Really? You never told me that." He had a puzzled look.

‘Dr. Jaffrey apologized? What did this happen?’

"It slipped my mind because we were running late for our flight from Madrid to Rome, remember?" She tilted her head right.

Connor’s eyes darted up to think for a moment. "Oh yeah.... I still hate that lifeguard for taking pictures of you at the outdoor pool" He furrowed his eyebrows and took another swing from his drink and scoffed. "Never booking a room at that place ever again." He shook his head, realizing they were getting off topic on what was important. "Anyway, back to what you were saying about subconsciously blocking out memories of Josh. I'm not trying to be Dr. Charles here, but it kind of sounds like repressed memory. That the cheating and aftermath of the whole ordeal was so stressful for you that once you moved out of the country, your mind suppressed the memory of it. You didn't want to take any of that with you when you got here. And knowing you, you often kept to yourself, not talking to others about your feelings until I got you to first open up to me back during Dr. Jaffrey's case."

Ava listened carefully to his words.

He wasn't wrong.

After she and Josh broke up, she didn't talk to anyone at all about what happened. Sure, there were a few nurses that were remorseful about what happened, but she just brushed them off and only focused on her work and nothing else.

"Are you trying to tell me I'm not really over the breakup? Because I am." She furrowed her eyebrows together. "It's been over a long time ago." She says, but the weird sensation in her chest says otherwise.

"You had a brave face the entire time, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I did. So what?" She deflected.

"So, you didn't cry at all? Not even the night you caught them?" He carefully stared at her.

"No, I didn't. I just went to the nearest bar and drank to numb my frustrations and then went home. You know better than anyone that I hate to be seen weak." She refers to the few times he caught her shedding tears.

"Maybe, that's your problem here. You haven't truly really processed out all of the pain and sadness yet. It’s why you’ve been feeling like this since yesterday."

"You want me to cry, Connor?" She challenged him, feeling some of the alcohol affecting her heightened emotions. Did he really want his girlfriend to cry over another man she used to sleep with?

Connor stayed strong. "You don't have to pretend that it doesn't still hurt. From what I've seen since yesterday, you're not over. You may say you're over it, but I think you're only at like maybe 90% over it." He moves closer to her. "It's okay to talk about it and cry about it. You already did the hard part by talking about it with me, that's the first step. And maybe this is also because you lost your mother when you were so young. You never had a normal childhood growing up, had to take care of yourself with no one around to the point that you raised yourself to become an adult. You didn't have a good support system to lean on for help with personal problems. You can't keep it bottled up. You have to let it out somehow or it'll consume you. It might have been back then when Jaffrey kicked you out of the O.R. a few times in the past. If you didn't really explode back then, I get the feeling you might be here in Chicago."

Ava’s eyes were becoming glassy. His words were slowly getting to her as a tear slipped out the corner of her left eye. He noticed it held her face in his right hand and leaned in close to her face.

"It's okay to cry. You're human. You have a lot of pent-up emotions you haven't really let out because you didn't have anyone to hold and comfort you back then.

When your family died.

How you were treated in foster care.

Your boyfriend cheating on you with women you hated.

Being left completely all alone.

But your not alone anymore.”

Her heart starts racing.

“This isn't the first time you've cried around me,

you know I won't judge you

or see you less than who you are.”

She softly starts to hyperventilate.

“I care about you. So much.” Connor leaned closer to whisper, feeling her body start shaking. “It's okay for you to cry, Ava Bekker."

That was the final heartstring pull he needed for Ava to finally break down her armor into tears.

Once she lets out a sharp exhale, a whimper sneaks out. She closes her eyes and lets herself fall against Connor's left shoulder as she starts to cry. He shifts his body to pull her into his arms in a better position, cradling her head with his right hand as she cries against his right shoulder and holding onto him for dear life. Her tears cascade down her cheeks as she tucks herself closer to his neck.

She cries out of all the hurt raw emotions she's been bottling up for years over Josh breaking her heart.

Connor was right,

she isn't completely over the breakup.

And not just that.

She’s been holding back so much pain, going back to the day of the shooting when she little.

She needed to let it all out.

And it started to feel good.

Almost like a burden has finally been lifted off her shoulders.

Ava cried for a good 20 minutes. Her breathing was starting to slow down and become even. She blinked her eyes a few times once they were starting to feel dry. She sniffles when she feels Connor's left hand softly pat against her back, sensing that she was starting to calm down. A move she recognizes when he holds onto her when she's having a bad day.

It brought a sense of peace to her that everything's going to be okay.

She sniffled and gripped her green sleeve arm into her left fist against her face to dry. Took a few soft deep breaths to calm herself down before pulling herself back and wiped the rest of tears with her fingers. Her body felt lighter.

Connor cupped her face in his hands and wiped away her wet cheeks with his thumbs. He stared deeply into her brown eyes that were really red. "Do you feel a little better now, honey?"

Ava took a few shallow deep breaths to speak. "Actually, I do feel better now. For the first time in a... in a long while." She sniffled again. "I feel so relaxed now."

"See, all you had to do was cry out the pain. It feels good, doesn't it?"

"It does yeah." She stares at him and lets out a content sigh. "I didn't realize how much I was holding back, even before I met Josh. He really made it hard to trust another man again. After what happened, I promised myself I wouldn't let myself be that vulnerable again. So, I put up walls to protect myself from getting hurt from another man again. My walls were already up back when I was a teenager during those dark times, Josh just added another layer to my armor. Just focus on my work and further advance my career. Having no backup from friends or family, especially in a new country. It was a lot to take on by myself to not be overwhelmed by it all.

To not open to another man like that again.

And then I met you.

And you truly were, a real pain in my ass. And same vice versa.” She chuckled, finally smiling again.

“You weaseled your way into my world, making me see and realize things I didn't before. That the world wasn't all black and white. Or that the impossible in the operating room can in fact be possible. You actually made me want to be a better doctor and be more compassionate with patients and others.

Something I've never ever felt when I was with Josh. I never said “I love you” to him.

You were different.

That appealed more than I that it would as I got to you know better after a year." She stared into his cerulean-blue eyes.

Connor smiled. "Hmm. You know what."

"What?" She asks softly.

"I really am glad Latham wanted you instead of me for the fellowship. Otherwise, you wouldn't have been his first pick when the hospital allowed another second year CT fellow. That's the only reason why we met in the first place."

"Imagine how things would have been like if I did get it the first time around. Who knows how things would have been like?" She points to a different reality about what could have been.

He frowned at that thought. "I would have gone to a different hospital honestly. Dr. Downey spent a lot of time on my training. He wanted me to be his successor. It was one of his final wishes for me before he died."

The blonde took in his words and spoke softly her answer. "We wouldn't have met."

"No. No, we wouldn't have. Both of us would be living completely different lives right now."

Ava then moved to sit in his lap, placing her hands on his shoulders. He placed his hands on her waist. "Then it's good you got it instead of me. Because I know for a fact I wouldn't have changed who I was before. I wasn't friends with my colleagues back at Groote Schuur as I only saw them as competition and rivals; but here at Med, I'm friends with not just the doctors and nurses here, but also other first responders in the city.

You changed me for the better.

And I love you for it. I've never been happier.

You really are the best thing that's ever happened to me in a long time. Sure, it took us a while to get here, but it was worth it." She smiled.

"Didn't know you could be a sap." He grinned.

Ava shook her head and playfully scoffed at his remark. "I've been spending too much time with Natalie and the others on girl nights. I blame them and you for turning me soft."

“Clearly, it’s an improvement.” He countered. “You seem happier than when you first came to Chicago."

"I am. I am happier now." She smiles running her right hand though his hair. "And I think now for real; I am completely at peace with what happened with Josh and ready to move forward with my life. Here in Chicago, with you."

"I like the sound of that. It sounds perfect." Connor leans forward for a kiss.

"Hold on, Rhodes." Ava playfully pressed two right fingers towards his lips. "I don't want you to get a big head now with my confession tonight." She grins at his pout.

"Can't I just kiss my gorgeous girlfriend because I love her too." He whined.

She laughs. "You're an idiot." She cups his face in her small hands. "But you're my idiot." She sighs deeply leaning down for a passionate kiss.

Chapter Text

EARLY OCTOBER

October arrived fast.

Especially for the football season for Chicago Bears fans of the Windy City.

This game particularly was a match against the Green Bay Packers, a longtime rival of the Chicago Bears that goes back to almost century. All taking place at Soldier Field where thousands of fans have gathered.

For Chicagoans, who are not only very passionate about football, but of course, food. Where many gathered in the main parking lot near the stadium with many other tailgaters with their grills out cooking meat, setting up tables, folding chairs and portable TVs at the back of their cars, food trucks, tents and various other activities were socializing with other fans.

The first responders that ended up going were: Will, Natalie, Connor, Ava, Casey, Severide, Stella, Brett, Jay, Hailey, Kim and Kevin. All dressed in Bears shirts or sweaters and some were wearing shades, were mostly hanging in one spot with chairs, two tables and a grill out.

Jay and Casey were passing time by throwing a football a few feet from each other.

Natalie, Ava, Brett and Kim were sitting in chairs talking among themselves with drinks in their hands. Casually watching Kevin try and set up the TV at the back of Jay's truck.

Severide was busy grilling the sausages with Stella whining about him taking so long cooking.

Which was why Connor, Will and Hailey were all sent to the food trucks.

"When are we gonna eat? I'm hungry." Stella asks her boyfriend for the umteenth time. They both laughed. "It's been-it's been too long." She whines leaning against his chest.

"I know, I know, you will. Just hold on, it's almost done." Severide says giving her a quick peck on her lips before going back to grilling.

"Okay." Stella walks back to her chair where the girls were who were commenting on Kevin struggling with setting up the TV.

"What's up with the TV, Kev?" Kim asked.

Kevin groans holding the remote in his right hand and a drink in his other hand. He walks around the truck and stands by the group. He points the remote at the TV. "Hmm, listen, the input should-" He gets cut off.

"We're missing pre-game." Kim tells him.

"I know we're missing the pre-game. It's gonna be on soon." Kevin kept pressing the remote but the TV still wasn't working.

"Did you bring the right cable?" Natalie asked.

Kevin started to look annoyed at them. "Did I bring-of course I brought the right cable. If we just be quiet, I don't need any help." He was starting to become impatient at the women nagging him.

"But we're missing pre-game." Kim keeps reminding point at the TV.

"Burgess." Kevin turned his head right to look at her.

"It's not on." She keeps repeating.

The group laughs. Ava leans close to Brett on her left. "You were right. This was gonna be good entertainment watch." Both blondes chuckled.

"Told you." Said Brett.

"I heard that." Kevin says walking back around the truck to check on the cables again.

Meanwhile away the group, a certain blonde-haired ponytailed detective was at a white food truck selling Mexican food and waiting for her order.

"Number 44. 44?" A woman's voice inside the truck calls out.

"That's me." Hailey approaches the window.

"Two dozen sweet corn tamales." The woman inside the truck pops her head out with two sealed aluminum trays.

"Thanks, Mama Garcia." She thanked her.

Mama Garcia's eyes pop open and her jaw drops at who the customer was. "Detective, hey, I didn't recognize you in your gear."

"I'm undercover." She joked.

"Oh. You tell Hank Voight to come have lunch at Hacienda, huh?" The dark-haired woman tells her.

Hailey smiles. "I will. Thank you." She turns around and leaves.

"De nada." The older woman says "You're welcome" in Spanish and then proceeded to the next customer in line.

It takes Hailey a moment to walk back to the group and announces loudly to them, "Two dozen sweet corn tamales from Garcia's." She opens the top tray as she approaches the ladies as they all stand up at the sight of food.

"What?" Kim cheerfully glee standing up.

"Ooh, yes." Stella eagerly says grabbing one.

"Thank you." Said Natalie.

"I was about ready to give up and head to find Connor and Will on why they were taking so long." Said Ava.

"These are so good." Said Brett.

"Yes." Said Kim.

Severide turns to look over his right shoulder after hearing the women’s voices and the sound of rustling paper in the wind. He sees the ladies with food. "Hey, wait till we eat the sausage." He calls out to them, feeling slightly annoyed.

The women all stared at him with tamales in their hands. Some had guilty looks and some had, 'Are you serious? We’re hungry' looks.

"Hm-hmm, mm-hmm." Stella mumbles nodding her head with food in her mouth.

Severide pointed his tongs at them, slightly furrowing his eyebrows together.

"Yeah, yeah, right, yep, do what Kelly said." Stella says nonchalantly, but all just shook their heads to take a bite because they were hungry.

At the exact same moment, Will and Connor approaches the women and holding white plastic bags in their hands.

"Okay, we bought a dozen or so Vietnamese sandwiches since Severide was taking too long." Said Connor has he pulls out a plastic wrapped sandwich for someone to grab.

"Yes!" Kim cheered out loud taking it.

"I love eating banh mi sandwiches." Natalie says as they handed the sandwiches to one another.

"Hey!" Severide pointed his tongs at them again.

"Hey, don't get mad at us. They were bored and hungry." Will said as they both placed the bags onto the table by them.

"Yeah, the last thing any of us need are hangry women around us." Jay commented while tossing the football still.

"He's right. The six of us would definitely ruin your lives." Hailey said before taking a bite from her sandwich. The ladies all laugh while digging into their food.

Kevin walked back over to the group after adjusting the cables again.

"You gonna get that working before we gotta go in?" Jay asks.

Kevin holds out his left arm to point back to where the detective stood behind him. "Jay, if you don't leave me alone, okay?"

The group laughs again at Kevin's inability to get the TV working.

"He still hasn't gotten it to work yet?" Connor asks the ladies.

"Nope." Brett shook her head.

"Not even close." Ava took a sip from her beer can.

"If I hear another damn word about this pre-game." Kevin complained pointing the remote to the TV.

Jay frowns at the TV not working and goes back to tossing the football with the fire captain.

The second Casey catches the football; he turns around once he hears people start gasping behind him. He sees a group a people standing around a young man with medium length brunette hair, dressed in a white t-shirt, blue jean jacket and light brown pants. He appeared to be stumbling in his steps slowly with an ill facial expression.

"What's wrong with him?"

"Get away from me!"

"There's something wrong with him"

The crowd around him had a mixed reaction of sounding irritated or concern.

The young man then slowly fell to his knees and fell backwards.

Casey quickly rushed over to the scene.

"Help!" Someone in the crowd shouts. "Help!"

The cries of help soon reached the rest of the group and they all dropped what they were all doing to rush after Casey.

"Hey, back up, back up!" Casey shouts at the crowd.

"Back!" Severide catches up right behind him.

The two CFD commanding officers made their way through the crowd as more people came to see what was going on.

"Chicago firefighters coming through." Severide announced.

"Back up! Ma'am, move back." Casey says as the crowd parts a path for the two. "Make way, make way."

"Back up." Severide says as they finally reached the center of the circle where the young man seemed to have passed out.

"Sir, can you hear me?" Brett says as she walks up close towards him and kneels to the ground to hold his head up in place.

The rest of the group catches up. The doctors all come forward to check on the young man. Natalie moved to his left side to check his pulse with Will kneeling on the other side. Connor and Ava stood by his feet.

"BRT... BRT...." The young man starts whispering.

"W-what's he saying?" Severide asks leaning down.

"BRT!" The young man starts to speak louder but suddenly started to jerk his head forward uncontrollably. "BRT..."

"He's seizing." Said Will.

"There's blood on his leg." Casey points his right index finger at the large blood stain on the guy's lower left leg.

"There's something wrong with his leg. He keeps scratching his leg." Ava says as both her and Connor kneels to check.

"Here." Kim hands them her water bottle.

"Sir, I'm gonna look at your leg." Connor says as Ava pours water on his hands before touching their patient. He slowly pulls his bloody pant leg with both hands, revealing a gruesome sight. "Oh." He widens his eyes at what was underneath. "Ugh." He furrowed his eyebrows together.

The audience around him gasped at the sight with their eyes and mouths wide open. The young man's leg was red as a large portion of his skin was peeled off and muscle exposed like it was eaten away. Like he was bitten by a large animal. His leg appeared to be very infected and insides were moving.

"Whoa~." Said Will.

"What is that?" Jay asks, leaning his head down.

"I have no idea." Said Natalie.

"It kind of looks like necrotizing fasciitis to me. But not even close to what I've ever seen before." Ava brushes her right hand through her hair.

"This looks way too advance to be necrotizing fasciitis." Connor says looking between her and the infected leg.

"I'm calling for an ambo right now." Hailey pulls out her phone.

"Okay guys, what is it?" Maggie asks looking up from her large pager.

"Guy from the tailgate." Said Natalie at the foot of the gurney with both surgeons standing on both sides.

"Seizures, severe lesion on his leg." Said Connor.

"A possible necrotizing fasciitis case, but not normal from other cases." Said Ava.

"Okay, let's take you guys to Baghdad's in A-2." The charge nurse points to the nearest available room.

The doctors, medics and some nurses move the patient into the room and get ready to transfer him to the bed. Will and the others catch up with them outside the room with Maggie. The red head enters the room to assist.

Maggie turns to her left to stare at the group. "You know this guy?"

"No, he was just walking toward the stadium. No one claimed him." Said Casey.

"He kept saying "BRT."" Severide stated.

"BRT? His initials?" The charge nurse furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. The group outside stared watching the doctors work on him.

Connor used a pair of scissors to cut off the bandages to check on the status of their patient. Once the bandages were off, both him and Ava took a closer look at the infection. The appearance changed and looked worse than earlier.

They both looked at each other with grim looks.

"It's getting worse." Ava said using a pen light for a closer examination.

Jay, Casey, Severide and Brett decided to go wait in the waiting room to let the doctors work on the patient while the rest of the group stayed back at tailgate to clean up their stuff. They were gonna see the game as they planned. It would take about 20 minutes till Will and Natalie walked out towards the group for an update.

"Do we know anything about John Doe?" Natalie asks.

"No, sorry." Brett answered.

"Well, he didn't have a wallet on him." Said Natalie.

"And his phone is locked." Will added.

"All he said was "BRT."" Casey stated.

"He has a severely infected leg, so we're running a culture to see if we can pinpoint the pathogen." Said Natalie.

"And although seizure isn't normally a symptom, the visual presentation and the speed with which the infection's spreading indicates this bug is causing necrotizing fasciitis." Said Will.

"That's what Dr. Bekker said. What is it?" Casey asks.

"More popularly known as flesh-eating bacteria." Said Will.

"Don't worry, it's not contagious, and only about 4 in a million people get it every year." Natalie added seeing the concern looks on their faces.

"How do you get nec-." Severide tried to speak but couldn't pronounce the terminology.

"Necrotizing fasciitis, it enters through a break in the skin and just destroys the tissue under the epidermis." Will explained. "It would really help us treat this guy if we knew who he was." Everyone looked at the only cop in the room.

"I can't open a case file without a crime, but I'll see if I can run prints and check traffic cam footage. Maybe make out some kind of an ID." Jay tells them.

"We appreciate it." Natalie nods.

"Okay, see you guys." Jay says as he walks out of the hospital.

"Thanks." Will says as the two of them walk back into the ED.

Casey stares at the doctors' backs and then back at Severide and Brett at what they just witnessed and learned. All three of them looked concerned about the situation.

- The Next Day -

"Anything new on John Doe?" Ava asks walking into the newly expanded doctor's lounge where Connor, Will and Natalie were taking a break to regroup on the case after the patient's condition didn't improve after bringing him to Med yesterday. The trio were sitting at a table discussing the case when the CT Attending walked in.

"Nope. Still unconscious." Natalie shook her head.

"Is the infection still growing?" Ava starts to pour herself a cup of coffee before taking a seat next to her boyfriend.

"It's starting to appear on his chest. It's mostly still on his leg." Will said taking a sip from his coffee.

"Worse case we have to amputate his leg to completely stop the infection from spreading, but now that there's signs of it on his chest, I'm afraid we might be too late." Connor sighs thinking the kid is too far gone.

"We just don't know what the hell we're dealing with here." The red-headed doctor exasperated.

"Yeah, this is a new one that no one in the hospital has ever seen before." Said Natalie. "Lenox and Archer are reaching out to their contacts on what this could be. So far no luck."

"It's a real head scratcher." Connor scratches his jaw with his right hand.

"Just the sight of it." Natalie shivers with goosebumps. "I'm not gonna be able to look at meat the same way again anything soon."

"Aren't you a vegan, though?" Ava asks.

"Yep, and after today, I'm glad." The brunette took swing from her coffee.

Will felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulls it out and sees it's his brother calling him. "It's Jay. Hopefully he has something for us on this kid." He holds his phone to his right ear. "Hey, Jay. Please tell me you have an update on John Doe."

"I do, got a name."

"Wait you do?"

"Yeah. Are you with Connor and the others. They need to hear this too."

"Yeah, they're with me. I'll put you on speaker." Will switches to speaker and places his phone on the table for everyone to hear. "You're on, go."

"The kid's name is Stuart Anderson, he's a grad student at Central Chicago University, and he was in the Peace Corps."

"Has he traveled somewhere recently, outside the country?" Connor asks.

"The only thing we have is he spent last summer in Botswana, but the doctors we spoke to said it would be unlikely for the bacteria to be dormant in his system this long before erupting."

"That's true. Necrotizing fasciitis can develop and spread quickly within hours of the infection. It's not typically dormant." Said Ava.

"Means he must have gotten it somewhere more recently. Perhaps even in the city." Said Natalie.

"There's more you guys should be aware of. It's not good."

"That doesn't sound good." Connor leans forward a bit.

"What is it?" Will asks.

"I just met with Brett and Foster. They just went on a call and found a married couple, both DOA and had that flesh eating bacteria that Stuart Anderson had."

"Seriously?" Will widen his eyes at the news.

"Yeah, and it looks like they've been dead for at least 4 days roughly according to their regular mailman. The scene was gruesome. They're being sent to an isolation location at the M.E.'s office to be quarantine off."

"Only 4 in a million people a year gets necrotizing fasciitis, and in just less than 24 hours we've got three cases in the same city?" Natalie questioned.

"Something's not right here." Ava crosses her arms.

"Maybe perhaps it's a new strain we're not familiar with." Will suggested.

"What we saw from Anderson, it's definitely a new one for me." Said Ava.

"I'm just a copper, that's above my pay grade. That's why I have a brother who went Med school to learn these kinds of stuff."

"I am familiar to a degree; I did major in Bio back in school. It's been a bit; my memory will come back to me." Said Will.

"Bang your head against the wall to jog your brain faster, Will. I'm not liking what I'm seeing out here. I'll check in with you guys later for any updates. And keep me updated on Anderson's condition so I can talk to him."

"Will do." He replied.

"Thanks, Jay." Natalie says right before he ended the call.

"This is not looking good." Connor leans back against his seat.

"No, it does not." Ava shook her head. "Two dead and one in serious critical condition. And we don't even know where the hell this is spreading."

"If this thing is spread on contact or airborne, this entire city is gonna drop like flies." The dark-haired surgeon replied.

"We need to contact the M.E.'s office to test the couple's cultures and see if it's a match to Anderson." Said Will.

"I'll do it myself." Connor says standing up and walking back into the ED.

A few hours later, Med gets a call from Kim about a mother and baby found in a car at a gas station, both infected by the same infection as the three pervious victims. The team tried their best but couldn't save the two.

Now there were two more victims of this infection, Goodwin was now included in this case.

Jay heads to Med and sees the group standing in the middle of the ED in the nurses' station going over the recent news with their boss. "Hey." He greets them.

Natalie walks parallel from him towards the group. "Jay, we got the test results for the mother and the baby. Both had the same infection. The culture indicates a strain of staphylococcus, which is the same as the first patient."

"And we also heard back from the M.E.'s office, it's also a match to the husband and wife you found earlier." Connor added.

"But it's not a strain that we're familiar with. It's not in our database." Ava shakes her head.

"And where are the patients?" Jay asks.

"The baby passed away at 1:35, the mother two hours later." Goodwin informed him. The group turns to look behind him to see techs masked up and moving the decease woman under the blankets out of the room.

"But these are cases 4 and 5. I mean the odds of five cases of necrotizing fasciitis in one week, in the same city, are astronomical." Natalie reminded them how rare this outbreak can happen.

"But all in the few days? That's too much of a coincidence. Even with statistics." Connor looks at her.

"I talked about this with the other doctors; something is going on and it's somewhere in the city. Whatever this infection is, this is just the beginning." Said Ava.

"I've called the CDC. If this is an outbreak of a new and virulent strain of staph, we're going to be playing catch-up." Goodwin informs Jay.

"I thought it wasn't contagious." Jay looks over at his brother.

Will shook his head. "The victims must have had some break in the skin to allow bacteria in. The thing, we don't know where they could have been exposed. Maybe a gym, nail salon."

Jay carefully takes in everything that has happened in the last 24 hours. "All right. I'll get the rest of Intelligence up to speed."

"That's a good idea." Goodwin nods.

"Thanks, Jay." Will thanked him.

"Thanks." Natalie thanked him as they watch him walk away. She sighs and exchanges looks with Goodwin and Connor.

"Stuart Anderson remains unconscious?" Goodwin looks over in the isolated room he was in.

"No signs of him waking up yet." Connor shakes his head.

"Let me know the second he does." She motions with her left index finger at him.

"Yes ma'am." Natalie nods.

Hours later, April walks into Stuart Anderson's room to check on him. The infection since he first arrived on his leg has now grown up to his neck. She checks the infection on his leg under the bandages and sees it has become yellow.

"Oh my." She slightly gasps and moves to check his chest. She carefully pulls down his gown and sees his chest has been infected deeply by the infection from his leg. She touches the left side of his chest, and his skin moves along with her gloved hand, detaching itself like it was already dead and was kind of slimy.

The action immediately woke up the patient as he gasped loudly and grunted. The machines start beeping that something was wrong.

April takes a few steps towards the entry walk to look for a doctor. "Dr. Rhodes." She calls out to the surgeon at the nurses’ station.

"Yep." Connor looks up and walks towards the room. "What's the matter?"

"The infection spread." She says looking at the patient's chest.

"Oh my god, the infection grew that much?" He says and sees the patient gasping for air. "Mr. Anderson, can you hear me?"

"Oh my god." April says softly looking at the infection.

"It's too late. It's too late." Stuart whispers, seeing and feeling what's going on to his body.

"Mr. Anderson, do you understand what I'm saying?" Connor keeps trying to get the patient to respond back to him.

"He's getting tachycardic." April informs him.

Connor looks out of the room. "Page Goodwin! Now!"

"On it." Said a female nurse at the station.

"Y-you can't stop it." Stuart weakly spoke.

"His pressure's spiked. All right, give me .5 of Ativan." Connor ordered April and he starts checking the patient.

Stuart grunts as he starts seizing again.

"All right, he's starting to seize, so get that Ativan now." The doctor turns Stuart on his right side to help stop his seizer as the nurse inject the drugs through his tubes.

As Stuart is seizing, his blue veins start to visibly appear on his chest and up his neck.

Within half an hour, the ED gets a visit from Hailey and Kim after gaining access to Stuart's phone and connecting his "BRT" message to a fire that recently took place at Central Chicago University today. The two ladies walked through the ED to find Goodwin. They spotted her standing at the far end of the nurses' station by the waiting area with Natalie and Ava. They appear to be talking about the case. The cops approached them.

"Dr. Bekker, Dr. Manning, we're looking for an update on Stuart Anderson, hoping to talk to him if he's out of a coma." Said Hailey.

"Turns out he's a suspect now. He might be deliberately spreading this stuff." Kim informs them.

Natalie and Ava opened mouth at each other and then looked back at the cops. Ava was the first speak, "I'm sorry but that's never gonna happen."

"And why not?" Kim looked outrageous at her.

"Stuart Anderson died 30 minutes ago." Goodwin informs them that they were too late.

The cops turned to look at each other and then at the doctors.

'There goes our lead.' Hailey thought to herself.

It was late now, and Goodwin was in her office making phone calls about the situation.

"That's right. All five cases of his infection are all deceased, and their bodies have been relocated to an isolated location at the M.E.'s office to be quarantine off."

"That's good. Has the police gotten any new leads on Stuart Anderson's plan?"

"As of right now, the police only know that Mr. Anderson may have created this infection at the Central Chicago University lab and the fire department have confirmed that the fire today was arson to cover up what was going on in the lab. According to officials, the school worked on creating antibiotics for necrotizing fasciitis."

"Were there any data that were recovered from the fire?"

"That I'm currently not aware of. It would really be helpful if the CDC were to send over some of your top microbiologists over to Med on this case. None of our doctors have ever come across this type of virulent strain of staph."

"We already made the call once the 5th case was reported. We're having someone fly in tomorrow to assist the CDC on this case. He works for the WHO and has assisted the CDC in several cases. He's one of the top lead specialists on infectious diseases."

"What's his name?" Goodwin took out a pen to write down his contact information.

"Dr. Joshua Hart. He's one of the best microbiologists in the world. He comes highly recommended by several world-renowned scientists and experts."

"I hope he's as good as you say he is. The city is starting to panic at one of the busiest times of the year."

- The Next Day -

"Incoming. Mimi, talk to me." Maggie announces and asks the paramedic about the patient. The medics walk in with Hailey trailing slowly behind them.

"This is the 19-year-old with severe bacterial infection. She's breathing on her own, but she's unresponsive." The medic responds.

"All right, take her to T4 in A-4." Maggie ordered.

Will approaches the gurney. "Hold on, hold on. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." He stops them to check the infected area. He had a grim look at what he was seeing. "Connor." He calls out to him standing nearby.

Connor takes a few steps towards them. "Yeah."

"Look." Will stares at him.

The surgeon walks closer and leans to look at the infected leg. "Another one?"

"How is it spreading like this?" Will asks.

"We need to get her into surgery." Connor looks up and sees Ava talking to a male nurse at the nurses' station. "Ava, I need another pair of hands here. We got another infected patient here."

"Got it." She tells him.

"All right, let's go to hybrid O.R." Maggie announces to the group as they move the gurney away.

Ava walks by and notices Hailey standing still with a concerned look on her face. She looked very pale and frightened. She looked down at her white shirt and saw a large blood stain. "Hailey." She took a few steps closer, but not too close.

"Uh, I was... Jay had me check up on her. She's a lab assistant who was working with Stuart Anderson, the original patient." She nudged her head towards the operating room. "She collapsed on me."

"Is that her blood on you?"

Hailey stayed silent. The answer was pretty obvious.

Ava sucked in her lips at the situation and then looked at her. "Did she get any in your mouth or your eyes?"

The blonde detective shook her head.

"You have any cuts or breaks in your skin anywhere?"

She continues to shake her head. "I don't know. I don't think so."

Ava looked back at the hybrid room where Connor and the others were waiting on her. "All right, stay right there. I'm gonna get Natalie. Don't touch your mouth, eyes-don't touch anything." She points at her as she walks away to get help.

"Yeah." Hailey says softly as she looks down at the victim's blood on her left hand.

'Okay....I just need to stay calm here.... And not think about the worst case....'

"Tissue is pale and non-perfused." Connor says removing the dead tissues and dropping them in a tray. "Damn."

"I can't believe this." Ava says standing across from him, also removing the dead tissues. "I've never seen anything like this before."

"Smells terrible." says one of the nurses.

"BP's tanking. 70 over 33." Marty informs them.

"We need more time, Marty." Connor tells him.

"I'm maxed out on pressure. She's in septic shock. If we don't get her off the table, we're gonna lose her." The anesthesiologist tells them.

"Yeah, well, she'll die in the ICU if we don't get this dead tissue off, so give us five more minutes." The dark-haired surgeon states the obvious.

"We don't really have a choice here, Marty." Ava looks up at him for a brief second before going back to work.

The machines soon started beeping that something was wrong. The team looked at the monitors.

"She's in V-fib." Maggie calls out to the team.

"No pulse." Said Marty.

"Start CPR and push epi." Connor calls out starting compressions.

"Maggie get the paddles." Ava calls out to the nurse.

"Paddles." The nurse hands her the paddles.

Ava charges up the paddles together and gets into position. "Charge?" She asks.

"Charge." Maggie confirms to her.

"Clear." The CT Attending calls out for Connor to fall back and shocks the patient.

Marty checks her pulse. "Still no pulse."

"Another round of epi." Connor starts compressions again.

"Charge." Maggie announces.

"Clear." Ava says and Connor backs off for her to shock the patient again.

Marty checks again. "Still no pulse."

Connor and Ava both looked at each other.

"Okay, one more of epi. Charge again." Connor tells the team.

"Clear." Ava shocks her again.

Still nothing.

"She's asystolic." Maggie looks at them.

"She's gone, Connor." The blonde tells him, knowing how he is with patients. She stares at him, talking through her eyes.

‘There’s nothing we can do. It’s too late.’

"Okay." He looks up at the digital clock. "Time of death, 10:38." He takes off his gloves, mask and goggles and walks towards the bins to throw away his gown.

Ava follows him from behind, taking off her gloves and mask. "Hey, hey." She tries to get his attention. "This infection is beyond anything anyone has ever seen."

"This is the start of hell is what this is." He looks at her and moves to leave the room to talk to Goodwin who saw everything from outside.

"The CDC's on the way over right now with a top microbiologist from the WHO over in DC." Goodwin tells him right away.

"They better get here fast. I don't know how many surgeries Ava and I can handle with this outbreak." He sighs.

"Don't worry. We're setting up more surgical teams in case more victims show up today."

"Just call every surgeon that knows how to cut dead tissue." He says before walking away.

Outside in front of the hospital, a police squad car was escorting three large white Chevrolet vans that had "INCIDENT RESPONSE TEAM" printed on the side with the CDC logo. This got the attention of the reporters and camera crew stationed outside on the latest news of the infection outbreak. They approached them for an interview but were stopped and held back by security.

Doors opened to people dressed in navy blue jackets with "CDC INCIDENT RESPONSE TEAM" printed on their backs in large yellow texts.

All except for one person.

A tall handsome dark-haired pale-skinned man, wearing a navy trench coat over his dark grey blazer over a navy-blue long-sleeved shirt and black pants and black dress shoes. Along with the other CDC scientists, was also carrying a black bag.

Stationed outside the hospital was Ethan to greet them. "I'm Dr. Ethan Choi, Chief Resident of Chicago Med. " He shook hands with the dark-haired man.

"Dr. Joshua Hart, WHO microbiologist scientist." The dark-haired man spoke with an accent and shook his hand. "Where are we headed?"

"Follow me."

"Ok."

Ethan leads Josh and the CDC scientists into the hospital. They head straight to the ED where Goodwin was. The Executive Director was checking her phone when she heard her name being called. She looked up to see Ethan with an unfamiliar looking man.

"Ms. Goodwin., Dr. Hart, WHO scientist assisting CDC." Ethan introduced the two.

"Ms. Goodwin." Josh shakes her hand.

"Ah, yes. We talked on the phone earlier. Welcome to Chicago Med." Goodwin welcomed him. Will appeared behind her and stood on her right as Ethan stood on her other side.

"We have a response team ready to go for anything you need. Both the CDC and WHO resources and manpower are at your disposal." Josh explained.

"You tell us what you need, and we'll assist you in any way we can." She explained.

"Our goals are containment and treatment. First, we need to isolate where and how victims are getting infected, then we need to determine a path or treatment that will prevent death and eliminate the threat of infection." The WHO scientist explained what their plans are.

"All right, you have free rein over our facilities." Goodwin looked at Will. "Dr. Halstead, do you mind acting as liaison to assure all of his needs are met?"

"Sure, we've collected some soft tissue samples already." Will nodded and shook hands with Josh. "Will Halstead."

"Great. That's very good." Josh nodded and turned to look back at Goodwin who was starting to walk away. "I understand you've already ID'd a sixth victim?"

Goodwin turned back around. "Yes, Veronica Song."

"She worked in the lab." He nods. "I'll need to speak with her as soon as possible-" He gets cut off.

"I'm sorry. We just lost her." She had a solemn look.

Josh stared at her, taking in the new recent casualty.

'Another one? Just what the hell is going on in this city?' He thought to himself and took a deep breath.

On the other side of the ED were Brett and Foster finishing up restocking supplies after dropping off a patient.

"Ambo 61, man down, unknown causes. 45 South Fairfield, Apartment 12." Said dispatch on their radios.

The two medics sighed and turned to leave when they got stopped by another pair of medics.

"Did your call just say 45 South Fairfield?" A male paramedic asked them.

"Apartment 12." Brett answered.

"We just got one from Apartment 10." His female partner answered.

"Could be a duplicate." Said Foster.

They all looked at each other and then another pair of medics, Violet and Novak approached behind them, having heard their conversation. "We got one for Apartment 15."

All six paramedics stared at each other, confused why their calls were at the same building. Nearby, Lenox and Ripley overheard them as well.

"All six of you are getting dispatched to the same apartment building at once?" Said Ripley as both doctors walked towards them.

"Yeah." Said Novak.

"I'm getting a bad feeling about this. Along with this bacteria outbreak going on at the same time? Said Lenox. "You guys better go now, and fast." She tells them and they all quickly head to the ambulance bay entrance.

Within half an hour, all three ambulances arrive back at the hospital, arriving at the front entrance with patients being confirmed to be infected by the bacteria outbreak. The reporters and camera crew were eating up at the scene before them as security and the police held them back to let the first responders move through.

Will and Josh come out to see the new wave of victims after receiving news from Lenox about what happened in the last hour.

"Three more victims in the same apartment building?" Josh felt his heart racing.

"Ah, Dr. Halstead." Chief Boden appears in front of him. "I just spoke to Sharon. She says the only way to get this thing is from an open wound? But we just got five cases on a single floor, so how is that possible?"

Both doctors open mouthed one another, not understanding the situation themselves.

Josh spoke first. "Clearly there are other modes of transmission."

"Yeah, maybe-maybe an insect vector-tick, mosquito." Will suggested.

"Or it could be physical contact. People shaking hands, touching their eyes, touching their mouths." Josh continued to list possibilities.

"Oh my god, you don't know." Boden realized even the WHO scientist doesn't know how this is spreading.

"Heads up, Chief. Coming through." Brett calls out to them as her and Foster push in a seizing female infected patient. The trio took a few steps back to left them through.

"I've never seen a staph this aggressive before." Josh explained this was new, even for him.

"Look, my people are out there dealing with this thing." He points to the ambulances. "I want to know that they are safe." The chief glared at him. "So I need more than guesswork." He looks between the two and then walks away from them.

Will sighs and looks back at Josh.

"We have to treat that building like it's Ground Zero." Josh tells him.

Will and Josh return to the ED after making a couple of phone calls about the apartment building. They cross paths with Goodwin and Maggie by the ambulance bay area.

"Ms. Goodwin, we've gotten the go-ahead to evacuate the apartment building. I want every resident transferred to quarantine." Josh informs her.

"Okay, I'll coordinate with Fire, CPD, and we'll quarantine the patients here." She answered with the four ED chiefs and Ethan standing close by.

"We should also put the hospital on bypass. Put all of our focus on the infection." Archer added.

"I agree, our time and resources are better suited in this case." Lenox added.

"That's a good idea. The other hospitals can take on all our other patients. We need to start discharging the ones we can." Goodwin agreed.

"That makes four of us." Said Stohl.

"Glad all of you are in agreement. We'll do just that." Goodwin nods.

"And I'm gonna need a few extra set of hands." Said Will.

"Dr. Choi?" Goodwin looked at the chief resident.

"Of course." Ethan nodded.

"I would join too, but every surgeon that knows how to cut dead tissue are all on standby in case another infected patient shows up." Said Archer.

"Same with me." Said Lenox.

"I have an idea." Lanik turns around and sees Hannah, Ripley, Stevie, and Dylan nearby. "Asher, Hammer, Ripley, Scott." He calls out their names to get their attention. They all looked up. "Halstead needs a couple of extra hands to head down to the apartment building to clear out all of the residents in the building. We're bringing them here."

"Got it." Said Hannah.

"Understood." Said Dylan.

"I'm in." Said Stevie.

"Let's go." Said Ripley.

Josh nods towards the group and then looks back at Goodwin. "Once the building's clear, we'll see if we can locate the source of the infection."

"Okay." Goodwin nods and the group part ways.

"Sharon?" Maggie calls out to her.

"Yeah?" She walks towards her.

"Brett says that there might be upwards of 30 patients. I know we have room in here now for us hold 40 patients, but is it really okay to quarantine that many in here? Especially if they're within sight of victims dying from this infection. It could go wrong in a lot of ways."

"You're right. If they see someone go in the operating room alive and come out dead, it'll be chaotic in here." Goodwin looked over at the computers to find a nearby nurse. "April, let's set up the tents in the old wing."

"Got it." April nods and walks away.

"Get some more nurses to go help April set up. And have Dr. Manning take charge of the quarantine area and to transfer Detective Upton there as well. Have Dr. Frost, Dr. Cuevas and Dr. Charles assist too. We're gonna need more than one doctor to keep these people calm."

"Got it." Maggie starts pressing buttons on her large pager.

As promised by Josh, CDC took full control of 45 South Fairfield apartment building area. CDC scientists, doctors and cops were all wearing white gowns and many of the scientists were wearing blue hairnets. The area was being blocked off with red and yellow tape and first responders were busy taking count and evacuating residents out of the building.

"No, no, no, I've got a meeting I've gotta get to." A man argued as Stevie was escorting him out of the building.

"I'm sorry, sir, afraid you'll have to reschedule." Stevie replied leading the man to one of the gowned first responders.

"How long is this going to take?" A woman asked Will as they followed nearby.

"We'll get you back home as soon as possible." Will replies leading the woman to another gowned first responder.

A young Korean American man then walked up to red haired doctor. "Uh, hey. Need any help?"

"Excuse me?"

"Dennis Quan. I'm training to be a fireman. I passed the EMTV test last week. I'm scheduled to start the academy next month." The man introduced himself.

"You live here?" Will pointed at the building.

"Yeah. I know the terrain." Dennis smiled.

"I appreciate the spirit, Dennis, but we need you to remain a civilian for now. Gotta get you in quarantine." The doctor nudges him to follow and join the other residents.

"Whatever you say." He agrees and follows the others.

From behind them is Ethan checking his surroundings, making sure the evacuation goes smoothly till he's approached by Antonio with a man dressed in the white gown.

"Manager says there's a holdout." The detective informs him about the individual next to him.

"Sharlene Hughes. You should check on her." The manager tells him.

"Let's go." Ethan nods and follows them back inside the building.

Nearby was Hannah and Ripley escorting more residents out of the building.

"Is the building almost cleared?" Kevin asks approaching them.

"Almost. Just a couple of more to go and it's all ours." Said Hannah.

"This is crazy." He tells them.

"Yeah, it is. Pretty scary actually." Ripley nodded. "It's like we're in a horror movie."

"One of those apocalyptic movies?" Hannah asks.

"Exactly that." Kevin sighs and follows the doctors back inside.

Once the building was finally cleared of all residents, the team were finally able to start locating where the infection could be spreading from by swabbing all surfaces people may have contacted it. In the main stairwell, Will and Josh were supervising everyone that were swabbing all public surfaces.

"Make sure to swab all handrails and doorknobs." Josh says walking up the stairs.

"Again, we are checking anywhere people might put their hands." Will says walking down.

*Phone chime

Will hears his phone go off and pulls it out to check. It's a message from Jay.

"If this bug is more communicable than other strains of staph. It could explain why so many people are getting infected." Josh further explains.

"Oh, I just got word from my brother." Will informs the scientist who stops talking to look at him. "They think someone may be spreading this with a bug sprayer."

The two stared at each other confused till they heard Kevin's voice from below.

"Bug sprayer?" Kevin calls out to them. "Scott and I just found something in the furnace. I was coming to get you two."

They both looked down at Kevin and then each other with concerned looks. They immediately head back down and follow the cop to the basement where Dylan and a CDC scientist were carefully extracting a burnt bug sprayer nozzle from the furnace.

"Think you can take anything off of that?" Dylan asks.

Josh leans in a bit to stare at the burnt nozzle that had black smoke coming off it "Let's hope."

'This explains how it got through the building, and why those three apartments got infected. The air ducts. So, this infection can in fact be airborne.' The South African man thought to himself.

"Then this is no outbreak. It's an act of terrorism." Will declared.

The situation was worse than they realized.

Someone was purposely trying to kill people and spread fear into the city.

Back at Med, Will and Josh regrouped back with Goodwin in the middle of the ED on the current stats with what they found and learned at Ground Zero. As well as the recent news they learned from the police.

"You're sure?" Will was dressed in his normal scrubs.

"Positive. The Intelligence Unit confirmed that Stuart Anderson's online threats was spoofed. It wasn't him. The man who left the bug sprayer is likely also the same man that caused the fire at the CCU lab to cover up his tracks to steal the bacteria and infected both Anderson and his co-worker. Perp's still out there and cops don't know what his next targets could be." Goodwin informed them.

"All this means that we better work fast before more people end up dead." Said Josh, now dressed in a white CDC coat over his clothes.

"We're running cultures on every single resident in quarantine but it's going to take some time to get results." Goodwin gestured with her hands.

"And CPD are still locating residents who weren't at the building. Either still at work or somewhere else in the city." Will added, reminding them they don't have all the residents in quarantine.

"If they're active carriers they're putting this city at greater risk." Goodwin stated.

"Which is why we need to work fast on trying to find the treatment." Josh nodded. "Where is your lab?"

"Upstairs on the second floor, D wing. Dr. Halstead will escort you there." Goodwin gestured with her left hand where the elevators were.

At the exact moment, Connor and Ava walked through entry way discussing their patient.

"I think we need to take Lynn into surgery soon. Remove as much dead tissue as we can." Connor says as they walk.

"The infection already reached her neck and chest before she got to the hospital." Ava says looking down at her tablet.

"If what Ethan and the others are saying are true about getting this infection from a bug sprayer in the air vents, Lynn only got it recently and may still have proper blood flow in her system."

"Maybe. Nurses are saying the other residents aren't showing symptoms yet. She could still have a chance." She looks up at him. "But that's a really big if based on what we saw there, Connor."

Will and Josh were walking past them, shoulder-to-shoulder, when Ava's voice caught Josh's ears. He was looking down on his phone.

"Wait a minute? I know that voice." He turns his head left and freezes at the sight of the familiar blonde-haired woman dressed in black scrubs standing with her body faced sideways to him.

"Ava?" He calls out. "Ava Bekker?? Is that you?"

Both surgeons stop walking and turn to their left when they hear her name being called.

The second Ava turns around completely, her eyes shot wide open, and jaw drops at the sight of the last person she ever expected to see today.

Joshua Hart.

Her ex-boyfriend.

The reason why she moved out of South Africa,

was now standing 2 feet away from her.

"Josh!?" She said astonished. "Oh my god." She stares in shock.

'What?? Josh is here?!?! In Chicago?? What the hell is going here!?!' She thought to herself.

Connor and Will exchange looks with each other and between both South Africans.

It takes Connor a few seconds to fully register who this familiar looking man was to Ava and to himself.

He met this man before.

Back in late August,

at Molly’s,

the day of the high-rise apartment fire that took Patrick Halstead's life.

The man he bumped into that night was actually his girlfriend's former lover.

The man who broke her heart.

"Wait? Josh?" Connor widens his eyes and points his right index finger at the WHO scientist. "This is Josh?"

'This is Joshua Hart?!!? The three-timing bastard who broke Ava's heart and trust in others??

Wait a second, he's the guy that bumped into me at Molly's a few months ago!

He was in Chicago?!

What are the odds of this happening? And TODAY of all days?!'

The two stared at each other in silence for few seconds till Josh started to fake cough to break the tension. "Uh.... Hey, um... what are you doing here?"

"I work here. What are you doing here?" She said incredulously.

Will saw that was his cue to talk. "Dr. Hart is the WHO scientist and one of the top leading specialists on infectious diseases in the world. The CDC contacted him to help us try and find a treatment." The red head explained darting his eyes between the two. "Um… do you two know each other or something?"

'This is getting awkward. I'm starting to feel like a fifth wheel here.'

"We met back in med school in Cape Town." Josh tells him.

"Oh? You're from South Africa too? I'm not the best at figuring out accents." Will commented.

'That explains how they know each other. What are the odds?'

"Yeah, it's been over a year and few months since then and uh.... You look great. Really good in fact. It's hard to believe it's only been a year, Ava. How have you been?" He awkwardly chuckled, adjusting his hair.

‘Wow~ I did not expect to run into Ava Bekker again in life. I knew she moved to Chicago for her fellowship last year but didn’t know to what hospital…. Till now that is.’

"Right now," she sighed, "exhausted doing all of these surgeries on this infection." Ava wanted to end this conversation to get them back to the current situation in the city.

And more importantly, get away from her unfaithful former lover.

The last thing she needed to add to her stress today is a surprise reunion from her ex-boyfriend....

in front of her new boyfriend. 

And in the middle of the ED,

in front of everyone.

On this most terrifying day in Chicago history.

"I suggest you better get to work on figuring out a treatment on how to stop this. Let's go, Connor." She grabs onto Connor's right wrist from behind with her left to drag him away and to the doctor's lounge.

Josh stared at Ava in disbelief as she walked away.

'Oh yeah. I totally forgot. She moved to Chicago to get away from me…And Annie… Wow… She looks good with her hair like that.'

Will saw he was staring at Ava from the doctor’s lounge.

‘Okay, time to get back to work’

He shook Josh’s right shoulder to break him out of his trance. "We better go too, Josh."

The South African man shook his head. "Yeah... you're right. We should go." He moved to follow the ED doctor to the labs.

In the doctor's lounge, Ava was trying to control a lot of emotions that were going through her head. The two of them were alone. She had her back faced against Connor and was leaning her hands against a small, tall round table, staring at the wall.

"Josh is here....

in Chicago...."

Ava took a couple of deep shallow breaths.

"Today of all days....

… It's now starting to feel like the end of the world even more now." Her head falls back as she groans.

Connor was still in disbelief at what happened in the last 5 minutes. "So, that's Josh?" He points behind him outside.

"Yeah. That's him." She sighs. "Out of all of the crazy things that could happen on this insane apocalyptic day in Chicago history, why is one of them my bastard ex-boyfriend popping out of nowhere?" She leans her elbows against the table and links her fingers together. "This is really the LAST thing I need to deal with today." Her head drops down.

"I actually met him before." He says breaking her out of her trance.

"What?!" She instantly flinches her head up and turns around to face him.

"I met Josh." He looks at her.

"You didn't tell me that!! When?!" She takes two steps closer to him.

"At Molly's. The day of the high-rise apartment fire where Mr. Halstead died. You were stuck in surgery and couldn't make it. When I was heading out after you texted, he and I bumped into each other there. We didn't know each other, at least I didn't know him." He gestured his hands explaining what happened. “You never showed me his picture before. I had no idea that was Josh.”

"He was at Molly's?" She had a bewildered facial expression.

"Yeah, he was there."

"The bar that we all hang out at after work. He just happens to pick? Out of every single one in Chicago?"

"Apparently." He shrugged his shoulders.

"Uh-huh..." She rolled her eyes up at the ceiling to think back to that apartment fire. And then it hit her. "That was back in August. So, you're telling me he's been in Chicago this entire time?" She looks back at him.

"Goodwin said a WHO scientist flew in from DC today to assist the CDC because they asked for him personally. She never told me his name." He explained. “If I knew his name I would have told you right away.”

"So, the very least he's been in the U.S. for about three months roughly."

"Perhaps."

"I had no idea he started working for the WHO." She sighs. "But I do recall him saying at some point in his life he did plan to work for them further down in his career."

"And now he's one of WHO's top microbiologists. You said he wanted to find cures for diseases. He must have made a name for himself out there if he came highly recommended by the CDC to have him fly out here to Chicago from DC. One of the top leading specialists on infectious diseases? He must be impressive."

Ava rubbed her right fingertips against her forehead to soothe out her oncoming headache. Connor took notice of this and took a few steps closer and placed his hands on her shoulders for a slight massage. She relaxed her tense deltoids and took a deep breath at the action. She then leans her head against his left shoulder.

‘What’s done is done. It can’t be helped. If we need his help, we need his help. I’ll just have to suck it up.’

She slowly raises her head up to look at him. "You know what, I think I rather be stressed out about this bacterial infection more than about Josh being in Chicago. So, let's just hope he and Will can figure out the treatment fast so he can leave, and we can go to our lives as before." She says softly.

"That sounds like a plan." He replies.

*Phones chime

Both of their phones went off. They pulled them out to see it's about their patient.

"Dammit, we need to get Lynn to the O.R. now." Connor exclaimed.

"Bacteria in the nozzle, the same staph we found in the victims." Will now dressed in his white coat in the lab, walks over to Josh checking something under a microscope. He hands him a tablet to show him the results.

The microbiologist takes off his goggles to take a look. "Okay." He smiles at the lead they have now. "So, now we start combining antibiotics to extend the spectrum of activity and stave off resistance." He walks to another workstation to check the results on the computer connected to a microscope with the bacteria contents.

"Uh, if I remember my microbiology, some drugs attack the cell walls, some the DNA inside. Therefore, we have to hit the infection from multiple directions." The ED doctor concluded walking up next to him.

Josh nods his head impressed. "For a former bio major, you're still pretty sharp."

"Thanks." Will smiled. "So, um.... that was kind of awkward." He recalls back to Josh's surprise reunion with Ava in the ED.

"What was?" He asks, staring at the computer screen.

"You and Dr. Bekker back there in the ED. Sorry to pry, but I guess I'm looking for a bit of an outlet after the last 48 hours." He nervously chuckled. "And it looked like you two used to be close back in the day."

The scientist sucked in his lower lip. "We used to be. We met during her last year of med school, and I didn't work that far away from the hospital she worked at when I was still a student. She was very career driven; constantly determined to prove she was the best of best. She was even top of her class."

"Yep, sounds like Ava."

"Are you close with her?" He turns his head right to look at him.

"When she first got here last year, no." The red head shook his head. "But as time went on, she eventually opened herself up more towards others and now we're good friends." He nods. "She's now one of my fiancée's best friends."

"Congratulations on the engagement." He smiles. "Ava has friends now?" The South African man raised his right eyebrow.

"Yeah... She didn't back then?"

"Not really. She was often a closed book." He looked back at the screen.

'Ava sure has changed a lot since moving to America from the sounds of it.'

"But you said you two used to be close?"

"I did." He nodded. "We used to be friends.... then we became more than that." He elaborated.

"Oh? You and Dr. Bekker used to be a thing?"

'Now it's starting to make sense.'

The dark-haired man sucked in his lips again and nodded. "Hmm-hmm."

"That explains why she bailed out there quickly. I had thought she was just stressed-out cause of this case." The red head nodded. "Was it a bad breakup?"

"She moved to America, didn't she?" Josh frowned.

"Ouch. That ugly huh?"

"Very ugly. My fault, I hurt her and word gone around about it so much that she couldn't handle it anymore and took the first flight out of continent for a fresh start." He nervously chuckled. "That's me. A heartbreaker back then."

‘And I ended up getting my heart broken by Annie.’

"Good news she got what she wanted. New life, fresh start." Will nodded. "Ava's a lot happier compared to when she got here. Everything worked out for her. Now working as one of the top CT surgeons in one of the top hospitals in Chicago."

"She's an Attending now?" He widened his eyes as he turned to look at him with a smile.

"Yeah, got promoted back during the summer. Slowly making a name for herself." Will nodded.

"I'm glad she's getting what she wants." Josh smiled nodding.

'Her too, huh?' He frowns thinking back to an old memory a few months back.

He shakes his head at the thought. "Is she seeing anyone lately? I've never seen her with curled hair before back then. She looks really good now. Like really good." He starts making hand gestures. “Like something about her seems different. The feeling that I felt was… like something has changed with her. Is there something going on in her personal life?”

Will blinked, not knowing what to say. His eyes dart left to think back to Connor's reaction to meeting Josh back in the ED.

'Connor knew about Josh's name from the looks like it. That means Ava talked about him. I shouldn't dig into her personal life. She likes to keep things quiet. Plus, since he admitted to hurting Ava back then and left cause of him. There must be unresolved drama between the two. He might have cheated on her. I better not get involved in the middle of something that doesn't involve me. Natalie may tell me about this later when Ava tells her.'

"Uhhh......" Was all Will could say.

Josh looks back on the computer screen and widens as eyes at what he saw on the video feed via the microscope. "Oh my god." His jaw drops.

On the computer screen, there was dark singular chain of a grape-like structure that started off small and then grew.

"Whoa, it did not look like that a few hours ago." Will stares in disbelief.

"I have never seen anything like this. This is so unreal." Josh slightly shook his head.

The grape-like structure continues to grow much larger.

"I-it's reproducing so quickly." Will points out.

The entire screen was covered in the structure, all tangled up.

"It's unbelievable. Something like this shouldn't even be medically possible. This-this is terrifying." Josh said softly. "We need the people from the university lab. Maybe they'll have some idea how to deal with this."

"Dr. Hart. Bruno Geller, Central Chicago University." An older Caucasian dressed in a white coat walks into the lab with another dark-haired man and brunette-haired woman dressed in white coats. "David Seldon, Heather Holcomb, microbiologist." The man introduced his colleagues. They shook hands with one another.

"How are you?" The other man spoke.

"Hi." The woman greeted.

"Dr. Halstead, Chicago Med." Josh introduced him. "Thank you for coming. We hope you can help." He walks them over to the computer screen "Do you recognize this staph?"

"Oh my god, David?" Heather says in disbelief at the screen.

"That's the E-87. But that's changed. How in God's name did this get out?" David turns his head left at them.

"Well, you tell us-what was your level of security?" Will asked.

"The highest, level 4. There's no way that could've gotten out." Mr. Geller his voice a bit as he points at the screen.

"Yeah, well, it did." Will states to them. "But why were you even culturing something so dangerous?"

"For research." Said David.

"Research for?" Will asked.

"We're working to develop antibiotics to help fight this kind of resistant bacteria." David explained.

"Did you have any luck finding anything?" Josh asks.

"Actually, we might have been quite close, but..." David couldn't finish.

"All our data was destroyed in the fire." Heather finished for him.

"Yeah." David confirmed.

Will sighs in frustration. "Incredible."

Josh slightly shook his head, also upset.

'It can't be helped. We'll just have to start over.'

"Well, Dr. Seldon, Dr. Holcomb, you have experience working with this bacterium. Would you assist us?"

"Well, now, hold on, but that research.... well, whatever remains is proprietary." Mr. Geller opposed the collaboration.

Josh blinked then furrowed his eyebrows and opened his mouth at his words. "What?" He gave him, 'Are you serious right now?' look

"The university can't just hand over intellectual property-." Mr. Geller gets cut off by.

"People are dying and you're worried about your bottom line?" Will showed his frustrations to the director.

"No, that's not what I was-" He gets cut off again.

"We will help. Of course we will help." David reaffirmed the collaboration. "At the very least, I can help you rule out the antibiotic combinations I know to be ineffective."

"Great. Let's get to work." Josh exasperated the situation and walked away from the group to start working.

'And this is why humans will be the reason why all humanity will go extinct in a couple of hundred years.'

Back inside the hybrid O.R., the machines started beeping that something was wrong.

"Marty, I need that epi." Connor pulls off the blue tarp material off their patient and starts doing compressions.

"1 milligram, it's in." The anesthesiologist answered.

"Paddles, 200." Ava orders the nurse to hand her the paddles. "Clear."

Connor pulls his hands away for her to shock their patient. Everyone looks at the monitors.

"She's still in V-fib." Said a nurse.

"Damn it, again." Connor continued compressions.

"Charge." Ava orders. "Come on Lynn. Don't leave us now."

"Epi's in." Marty tells them.

"Clear." Connor pulls back for her to shock the patient again. "Damn it."

"Asystole. Another round?" Marty asks them.

"Connor, that's two rounds already." The blonde looks up at him with a look of concede her eyes.

'We can't save her, Connor.'

'Yeah, I know....'

Connor shook his head. "No, we lost her." Usually he goes 3-4 more times, but the infection was just too hard to fight back once they reached this stage. They were put on notice after two rounds of epi to give up in order to save resources on those that do have a better chance of survival.

Ava turned around to look at the clock. "Lynn Messick, time of death, 14:42."

The surgeons both proceeded to take off their masks, goggles and gowns into the bins. Connor exits the O.R. first and sees outside the operating room was the waiting room nurse with a computer cart.

"Has her family arrived yet?" Connor asks.

"Not yet." The nurse shakes her head.

"Okay, I'm gonna put on some fresh scrubs, get something to eat. Let me know when they do show up." He spoke solemnly.

"All right." She answers.

"Good." He takes a few steps to his left and he sees Ava exit the room right behind him.

She places her right hand on his back as they start walking away.

"This can't last forever." She tries to comfort him.

"That's what I keep trying to tell myself." He says as they walk pass by the Trauma rooms in A-4.

Crockett comes out of one of the rooms. "Rhodes, Bekker, your team needs to hurry up and turn over the room."

"What? Another one?" Connor asks as they both turn to their left.

"Yeah. Mine and Johnson's patient just hit a turn for worst. Ambo bought him 10 minutes ago. Guy was at Ground Zero yesterday to visit his sister." The general surgeon points to a shirtless male victim with the infection all over his chest and parts on his knees.

"My god. When will all of this end?" Ava stares with wide eyes at the patient.

"With your patient along with the other two from the same floor also dead, that makes the death toll up to nine. I'm gonna try like hell to make sure he's not number 10." Crockett took in deep shallow breaths.

"I'm afraid he already picked his number to be ten." Connor says with a grim look.

It wasn't that long till news reached that one of the residents in quarantine started to show symptoms of the infection in his right arm. April and Frost escorted the patient, Dennis Quan, upstairs for surgery. He was now in an isolated plastic room getting prepped for surgery.

"I understand your concerns, I do, but let's take this one step at a time, okay? You're in good hands here, all right?" Connor tells him, dressed in a protective thin blue gown over his scrubs. "Okay, Mr. Quan, I'll be back, all right? Hang tight." He says as he unzips the isolated plastic room, zips it back up and then opens the door to exit the double layered room.

The main door opens, and Ava and a nurse appear wearing the same protective outfit as they enter the room. The nurse walks towards a table to gather some materials in a tray.

Ava approaches Connor at the table. "How's Mr. Quan?

He drops the tablet onto the table. "Meds are helping him stay calm, but he's scared... rightfully so." He starts to take off his blue latex gloves.

"With ten people dead from a bacterial infection that someone is causing on purpose, who wouldn't be." She sighs. "This is number 15."

"Yeah. I heard from Maggie. A family of four, parents and two kids went to Ground Zero to celebrate an aunt's birthday. She said that the father is with Lanik and Lenox. Mother is with Archer and Kai. Eldest child is with Blake and Morris. And the youngest is with Crockett and Johnson. The aunt left for Rockford this morning for some work trip." He nods, taking a deep breath.

"Dr. Latham just told me, PD picked up the aunt and are transporting her back to Chicago. Who she was around, they're also being quarantine as well and having their cultures checked. We can't let this go out of the city." She updates him.

"No, we cannot." He shakes his head. "This apocalyptic event is everyone's worst nightmare if they watched The Walking Dead." Connor deeply sighed and turned his head left to look at her. "He wants to be a firefighter. Just got accepted to start the academy next month."

Ava looked at the patient and then back at him. "It's still early. He might still have a chance. But if he loses his arm...."

"Not gonna think about that right now." He took off his gown. "Unlike the others, his chances of beating this are a lot better."

"Exactly, just focus on that. Let's save at least one today." She stares at him, assuring him there was at least hope with one patient.

"We should get scrubbed now." He looks at him.

"Let's go." She turns for him to follow her out of the room.

"Okay. Trimming the layer of fat and soft tissue from the infected area." Said Connor as he and Ava were back in the O.R., gowned and gloved up looking inside the patient's infected arm.

"You nasty bug. Where did you come from?" Connor cuts out the dead tissues and puts them in a sliver bowl Ava was holding for him.

"I think I'm gonna have nightmares after today." Ava gulped at the sight.

'What's taking Josh so long trying to figure out the treatment? As much as I hate the guy, his skills as a microbiologist are no joke.'

"Come on, Quan, show me the good stuff." Connor says as he continues to cut through the dead tissues.

"I think it's still spreading." Ava comments.

"It always is." He pauses to pull back a layer to cut further down into the tissue to look for some healthy tissue and blood. "You're in deep you son of a bitch."

Ava looks up at him for a few seconds before looking back down at infected area.

‘I’m not liking what I’m seeing here, Connor.’

"Let's go, show me some blood flow." He comments.

No sign of blood.

"Come on."

He keeps cutting.

Still nothing.

"Damn it." He drops more dead tissue into the bowl.

"None of the muscle's alive. It's all dead tissue now." Ava says softly.

Connor stops cutting when he sees something he was hoping he wouldn't past another layer of dead tissue.

"You're down at the bone now, Connor?"

"Mm-hmm." He mumbles in defeat.

"We can't save his arm." She looks up at him.

"No, we can't. It's already too late." He stares at her then looks at the patient's face. "Sorry Quan."

"He's a young man. He can find another career. All that matters is the bacteria didn't kill him like the others." Ava tries to comfort him.

"Like you said, at least we saved one life today." He sighs. "Give me the saw."

Back in the labs, team was checking the sample antibiotics with the bacteria they stored in the incubator. Will took out one of the petri dishes, opened it and placed it on the counter by Josh. He wore goggles and took swab of the inside and then swabbed it against a microscope slide. Placing the slide under the microscope, he looked inside the lens while the team watched on the computer screen.

On the computer screen, they saw a piece of staph being attacked by a green substance.

Will smiled at the sight. "Looks like the bacteria's sensitive to the Vanc."

"Great." David smiled.

"No, it's not." Josh tells them.

The team looked back at the computer to see the piece of staph detaching itself from the green substance as it turned white.

It didn't work.

Josh sighs leaning back and placing his hands against the counter. "Damn it. The Vancomycin is only bacteriostatic. It's slowing the infection, but it's not actually killing it. We need something that works stronger and faster." He turns his head left to look at Will.

"Try gentamacin then? Dose it higher?" He suggested looking at David.

"Yeah." The other scientist agreed, nodding his head.

"Let's do it." Josh gets out of his seat to start the next combination.

"They escaped?" Connor furrowed his eyes at Noah who came to tell him in the ICU about a new crisis with this case.

"Most of them, yeah." Noah said regrettably. "We tried to stop them."

"Are you serious? This situation is already bad enough as it is. That family of four all just died. We're now up to 14 dead from this thing. My patient is the 15th case and so far, is the only one who managed to survive, but had to lose his arm." Connor groaned running his right hand through his hair. "If those residents are active carriers, they're putting not just themselves and but the entire city at risk."

"CPD's are all over it. The entire department is on this case and searching for them right now. Ms. Goodwin is trying her best."

"Ugh!!" The surgeon leaned his head back.

*Phone chime

Noah pulls out his phone to see a message. "Okay, here it is. The cops managed to find good decent number of escapees and are transporting them back to Med."

"It's a start, but they need to find all of them. We're starting to run out of space in the morgue with all these infected victims." Connor looked over across the room to see his patient. "I better go wake up my patient and tell him about his arm. Thanks Noah." He pats the resident’s left shoulder and walks away.

"You took my arm." Dennis spoke softly after being informed what they did.

"Yeah. I'm sorry." Connor apologized. "But we did everything we could. The infection was just too deep."

"What am I gonna do now?" His dream of being a firefighter was over.

"Well, we have occupational therapist, and I'll send one up to talk to you. Look, we saved a good part of your upper arm. All right, and when you heal, we can talk about a prosthesis." He offered.

Dennis closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Mr. Quan, you are clearly a man with a lot of focus and determination."

He opened his eyes to look at the doctor.

"Now, I'm certain you're gonna find another place to put that drive." Connor said with a determined look on his face.

Dennis carefully took in his words and softly nodded his head.

"Okay. Now, I'll come back and check on you." Connor pats his chest with his right hand and walks out of the room to an empty spot of the wall, away from viewing sight of the patient. He leans against the wall and takes a deep breath and sighs.

‘I don’t know how much I can handle today’

"Connor." A familiar female voice appeared behind him and placed a soft hand on his left shoulder.

"Ava, hey." He turns around to face her. "I'm sure all of us won't mind when this day is over."

She sees what he's trying to do. Forcing himself to put on a brave face from today. "You know you don't have to do that around me. Pretend that you don't feel overwhelmed, that you could have done something else." She assured him. "I remember that look on your face when you pulled yourself out of the conjoined twins' surgery. That's the same look right now."

He inhaled and exhaled softly. "This day.... how are you feeling?" As much as he was stressing himself out, he was also concerned about her state of mind.

The blonde crossed her arms. "Slightly better with the good news I just heard. Hailey's cultures came back, she's clear. No signs at all of the infection."

"That's good. That's really good to hear." He smiles at finally hearing some good news today.

"Yeah, it is. Now we know you can't get it through direct contact like she did. Her hand was covered in Victoria Song's blood and so were her clothes. At least that's one good piece of news."

"Yeah." He placed his hands in his pockets. "Come on, let's go take a break."

"We just heard." Connor says as he and Ava walked into the monitor room of one of the operating rooms with Natalie and Hailey in the room.

"Another resident from the apartment down in quarantine has the infection?" Ava asks.

"Yeah. It's still really early. Crockett and Johnson are taking the case. Poor kid." Natalie said with a solemn look as she stared into the operating room.

"16th patient we're at now?" Connor closed his eyes and leaned his head up.

"Have you heard any update from Will on where they're at finding a cure?" Hailey turns her head left at the brunette doctor.

Natalie shook her head. "So far, no. One failed; they're still testing others."

"We should probably go check up on them, see how things are going." Ava suggested.

"Are you sure?" He asks warily, turning to look at her on his left. Knowing full well that Josh was also in the lab.

"Yeah, I'm sure. I just really want to know where they're at." The blonde stared at him.

'My personal feelings aren't important right now.'

"Okay then." He nods understanding the look in her eyes. "Let us know how things go with the kid." He looks between both women.

"Will do." Natalie nods and the surgeons exit the room.

"Whatever it is you're thinking, just get it off your chest, Connor." Ava asks as Connor opens the door for her as they walk through a narrow hallway.

"Huh? What do you mean?" He turns his head right to look at her.

"You've been silent since we left the surgical floor."

"I uh.... don't know exactly what to say. My mind's all messed up after the last two days." He scratches his forehead with his right hand.

‘Or maybe the fact we’re going to see your good-looking ex-boyfriend that you neglected to say how attractive he looks in comparison to me?’

"You and everyone else." Ava reaches for a doorknob on her right.

Behind them in the back, they hear sounds of someone thumping hard against the floor. They both turn around when they hear the individual burst through the doors.

It was Jay Halstead.

"Where is he? Get out of my way. Police move." He quickly shoved two people dressed in white coats aside on his left as he ran around them. He looks up ahead. "Connor! Ava!"

"Is that Jay?" Ava had a confused look on her face.

"What's going on?" Connor holds his right hand up when the detective approaches them.

"Where's Will? Where's Dr. Seldon?" The cop quickly asks darting his eyes between them.

Ava mindlessly pointed towards the door to the lab on her left with her right index finger.

Jay flinches his head to the door and quickly opens it.

"Will?" He calls out his brother and sees him trying to stand up from a bloody pool on the ground. "Will! What happened?" He runs over to him.

"Oh my god!" Connor says as him and Ava runs into the room after him.

"I'm fine." Will groans as both men tried to help him stand up.

"You're not fine, your head's bleeding a lot." Connor says looking at his red bloody hair on the right side of his skull and lots of it dripping down his face and onto the floor. He holds onto his right arm to help him balance up right.

Ava looks around for a cloth on the counter to put pressure on his wound. "What the hell happened here? Who did that to you?" She hands Connor the piece of white cloth and he applied pressure.

"Dr. Seldon." Will speaks finding his voice. "Damn it!" He curses putting his own hand over Connor's to take over and apply pressure himself. "He knocked the hell out of me!"

At the same moment, both Voight and Josh walked into the room. Taking in what was going on.

"Where is he?" Jay asked.

"Wh-what happened?" Josh slowly raised his right hand confused about the mess. He stood by the incubator and saw all their test petri dishes were dissolved on the counter. And then back at Will covered in blood and a small dense blood pool on the floor. Piecing together that he was attacked.

"He sabotaged our work." Will pointed with his free hand.

"Who?" Josh asks still not understanding. He took a closer look at their destroyed work.

"David Seldon." Voight turned to face the scientist on his right.

"No, David Seldon, he was helping us with the treatment." Josh tries to explain.

"He cold-cocked me over the head." Will said aggressively.

"Oh god." Josh widens his eyes and looks back their destroyed work.

"Who's David Seldon?" Ava asks as Jay took a step back from his brother’s left side to let the doctor take a look at his wounded head.

"A research fellow from the university who's responsible for this entire nightmare." Jay revealed.

"Are you serious?" She said with an outrageous facial expression.

"How long were you out?" Voight asks looking at Will.

"I don't know... couldn't have been long, he might still be in the hospital." The red head answered.

"Jay, go, go." Voight motions with his right thumb for him to go after their perp.

"You gonna be okay?" Jay points at his brother with his right hand as he starts to leave.

"Yeah." Will assured him as he runs off.

"You docs got this?" Voight points at both surgeons.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got him." Connor motioned his right hand for him to leave quickly to go after the perp.

"Okay." Voight says as he moves to leave.

"Tell security to activate a Cold Sliver on the guy!" Connor calls out.

"Got'cha!" The sergeant says out the door.

"I need a closer look, let me see." Connor pulls aside the bloody cloth to look closer.

"Is it bad?" Will asks.

"You've looked better. Don't worry, we'll make sure you’re not bald at your wedding next month." Ava jokes as they both look at his wound.

Will chuckles. "Thanks."

Ava grabs a hold of Will's left arm while Connor keeps pressure on his wound. "C'mon, let's take you down to the ED. We'll let Natalie know on the way." She turns to look at Josh. "Josh, you got all of this right?"

"Yeah yeah, go take care of Will." He motions them with his left hand to go. "Can't be helped. Bastard ruined all our work. Damn it!" He curses turning around to look at what David Seldon did. "We're gonna have to start over square one again."

"That son of a bitch." Connor says shaking his head as they start to move Will, but the red head stops them.

"Hold on. Maybe not exactly square one."

"What do you mean?" Ava asks.

"So Seldon destroyed all of the samples, but we also tested for Vanc on the microscopic slides, right?" Will points his head towards the microscope.

Josh widens his eyes. "You're right." He moves towards the microscope and turns on the device. They all move to look at the computer screen, revealing a small piece of infected staph. "It's still here." He sighs in relief.

"But that is a small sample size." Ava sighs shaking her head.

"So, we need to be selective as we combine additional antibiotics. We'll go by family. Cephalosporin's next?" Josh turned his head right to look at Will.

"Yep." He slightly nods his head.

"You got more stores on-site?" The microbiologist asks.

"Not enough." Will sighs.

"We'll talk to Goodwin, and we'll figure it out." Connor suggested.

"I think she's in her office with Dr. Charles. I'll go talk to her." Ava offered.

"I'll take Will down to the ED to get some stitches and an MRI." He looks between her and Josh.

"I'll assemble the team back in here and update everyone." Josh nods towards the group and they all part ways in different directions.

Some time passed by, and Will was back in the ED checking on a few remaining patients while he was waiting for more antibiotics. He closed one of the curtains when Goodwin appeared across from him in the nurses' station.

"Just got back from Lakeshore Memorial. They're sending over antibiotics." She informs him as they walk parallel from each other.

"All right, we're back in business. I'll help Hart get prepared." He signs a patient form and hands it to Goodwin.

She takes a step towards him. "Uh, Dr. Halstead, how are you feeling?" She points the folder towards his head, having heard from Ava about what happened to him.

"Connor says I'm good. I just needed a couple of stitches. MRI came back clean. I'm fine, we can't slow down." He assured her before heading back towards the labs.

"Ms. Goodwin?" Doris calls for her.

"Yeah?" She looks down and signs some forms.

Behind her was the waiting room entrance, being flooded with concern people about the infection.

"Okay, all right. I'll be back, excuse me." She looks up and sees Crockett, Connor and Ava walking back into the ED.

"Most of them are nothing." Ava says taking off her gloves.

"Dermatisi, eczema...." Crockett starts listing and holds out his hand for Doris to hand him a folder.

"Everyone's just scared. You can't really blame them." Connor turns his head left to the two as they walk towards the counter of the nurses' station.

"Nope. Worse than the Ebola virus in New York." Crockett pulls out his phone after feeling it vibrate. "Ah, my patient." He runs towards the elevators.

"Is he talking about the girl? The 16th case?" Ava asks looking up from signing some forms.

"Yeah. 14-year-old kid. Apparently, they were able to save her leg, infection didn't go far. Hopefully he wasn't paged that it came back." Goodwin says finishing up the last few forms.

"You and me both." Said Connor also signing some forms.

Ava paused from signing forms and turned to look at him on her right. "You know it just hit me."

"What did?" He asks.

"Stuart Anderson."

"The first person that started off this nightmare? What about him?" He finishes signing a form and hands it to Doris.

"What he said at tailgate. "BRT" he kept ranting."

"Yeah, BRT Health Industries. The police said they're the university's largest donor and partner. It's normal for any major science university to have corporate partners. The university concentrates on theoretical contributions to science and companies focus on profit driven applied research. Both sides get what they want." Goodwin explains handing Doris the forms.

"Stuart Anderson said BRT as clue to where he got infected. The lab at the university." Connor stated.

"Maybe it was more than just that?" Ava points out.

"What do you mean?" Goodwin asks, now interested.

"You just said it yourself, companies focus on profit, and universities focus on science and research. What if that's what all of this is about. Science versus profit."

"Some companies getting greedy for money over lives is not something new." The older woman nods.

"If Dr. Seldon has been working on culturing a dangerous bacteria for years for research to develop antibiotics to help fight it. And if funding for it were to stop..., wouldn't you be pissed off if someone put a stop in your life's work?" Ava points with her right index finger.

The three took in the South African woman's words carefully and started to think.

"Pissed off enough to let the bacteria out loose into the world as revenge? That's a lot of anger right there." Doris comments.

A light bulb then went off in Connor's head. "Wait a minute, our patient from earlier, Lynn Messick." He points with his left index finger. "When her family did finally show up after she died, they told me she worked at a consulting firm and has been receiving threatening phone calls from a burner. Messages were about changing some health company's budget last year."

"Health company?" Ava stares at him.

He nods putting the pieces together. "Yeah. Sounds like it could be BRT they were talking about."

"Okay, okay." Goodwin moves her right hand up and down. "I'll call Sergeant Voight about this. If BRT really is the target, then maybe Dr. Seldon's planning something big to attack the building." She turns her head right to look at Ava. "Smart thinking there, Dr. Bekker. This might help the police find him before more people get hurt." She walks away, pulling out her phone.

Turns out Ava's theory paid off and the police were able to find a root cause connection for Dr. Seldon's actions for both the apartment building and BRT.

Apparently, a year ago, BRT Health Industries drastically cut Dr. Seldon's funding on his research for the coming year. That's when he started planning. Lynn Messick was confirmed to be the connection to both the apartment building and BRT. Seldon was in fact responsible for the threatening messages and targeted that building as revenge on her. The consulting firm she worked at rehabbed BRT's budget right before the decision was made to pull out his funding.

Seldon believed he was researching a disease that could kill the planet, thought funding was needed to create a treatment. However, because he was denied, he snapped and then started trying to prove it to all the people who didn't believe him.

BRT Health Industries.

They owned a building on the far West Side and were having an annual boarding meeting.

Six board members flew in this morning.

And that's where Seldon was likely heading at his main target.

He was gonna attack the building with the bacteria unless they fund his research.

They needed the treatment for this now more than ever. And that's what Antonio tried to explain to Will on the phone.

"I hear you and we are making progress with what Seldon left behind in the work loft, but I'm sorry. You gotta give us some more time." The doctor says walking back into the lab. He walks further into the lab and is approached by Dr. Holcomb.

"Hey, Hart might have something." She says walking him to the computer where Josh was at.

"Hold on a sec." Will says on the phone as he approaches the WHO scientist. "Josh, what you got?"

"Combination of ampicillin-sulbactam, ticarcillin/clavulanic acid, and fourth-generation cephalosporins." He explained looking at the computer screen.

"This culture started with 70% E-87 staph."

On the screen was the small piece of staph they had.

"Then I dosed it with the new antibiotic cocktail."

The screen then changed to a large green substance consuming the staph.

"It's attacking the virus." Will observed.

The tiny piece of the staph then breaks away from the green substance.

"It shrunk to 8%." Josh turns his head right to face him. "This is it. That's the treatment." He grinned.

Everyone stared in amazement.

"Damn. The CDC was right. You really are one of the top specialists on infectious diseases." Will pats his right shoulder.

"Will?" Antonio calls out from his phone.

He pulls his phone towards his right ear. "Antonio? Looks like we got something. We'll replicate as quickly as we can and send CDC scientists your way but do anything you can to limit pool of contact."

What started off as a nightmare finally came to an end.

The Intelligence Unit were able to locate David Seldon at the BRT building at the board meeting and ended his terror of the city of Chicago. He was killed by Voight right before Jay got infected by the bacteria. There was unfortunately one innocent casualty with a female board member who went out a window. A male board member was infected, but thanks to Dr. Joshua Hart, he was given the treatment and wouldn’t meet his end as the 14 victims did.

All the residents that lived at 45 South Fairfield were given the treatment just in case because they were all exposed in the last 24 hours, as did other individuals who visited the building recently or encountered those individuals.

Nightfall finally came and all first responders were more than happy to leave work after the long past few days the city had in the last 72 hours. The cancelled Octoberfest was back on, and the streets of Chicago no longer was a ghost town where people were afraid of catching the infection.

Meaning that, Josh's time in Chicago was now over. He was in the lobby after assisting with administering the treatment to those who were exposed and filling out some paperwork. He was walking towards the exit when he heard a familiar voice coming from his left.

"Hey Josh!" A familiar male voice called out to him. He turned around and saw it was Will.

"Oh, hey Will." He greeted him.

Will stood in front of him. "Good work today, Hart."

"Thanks, Will. You did good today too. Not every day you deal with an end of the world type of case."

"No~ and I hope this doesn't become a regular thing that happens once or twice a year. I lived through something similar in the past on my first day here."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, not fun at all." The red head shook his head.

"You got plans to cool off the adrenaline?"

"Yeah, most of us are getting a drink." Will nods. "My fiancée is staying a little longer because of her patient, the girl who got it in her leg. She’s gonna meet me there in an hour or so. You should come join us; I can introduce you to her and the others. We're all heading to the same bar. A firefighter bar where first responders hang out at. It's called Molly's."

Josh held up right index finger at the name. "Oh yeah? I've been there before."

"You have?" He gave him a bizarre look.

"Yeah, this isn't the first time I've been to Chicago. Came here back in August for a work trip with the CDC."

"Ah. So, you know your way there then?" Will gestured with his right hand the general area.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. I have a driver on the way." He held up his phone in his left hand. "Need to go back to my hotel to change anyway. Maybe I might get lucky tonight. The bacteria apocalypse is over, no one will be afraid of physical contact now." He chuckles.

"Okay man, I'll see you there." Will walks past him and pats his right shoulder before exiting through the doors.

Josh looks down at his phone to see that his car is about 10 minutes away. He then heads out towards the entrance. Once he's outside, he sees someone in his line of sight, far on his right standing outside alone in the valet parking lot.

A blonde-haired woman dressed in a green top, blue jeans, and was carrying a backpack over her right shoulder. She was looking down at her phone.

He stared at her for a few seconds before realizing who she was.

It was Ava.

'It's Ava... To think it's been a year since she left...’

He smiles, staring at her. 

‘She really does look good. Like really good. She never wore her hair like that before.

She looks hotter with wavy hair... 

I guess she's waiting for her car. I wonder what kind of car she drives?

Now's my chance to talk to her alone.'

Josh gets ready to walk over to her till he notices another person appearing near the exit door entrance near her. It was a familiar looking dark-haired man dressed in dark clothing carrying a messenger bag over his right shoulder.

'Hey, it's the surgeon that was with her today.'

Josh unconsciously moves to hide behind a pillar.

'Come to think about it, he said my name earlier back in the ED.

Did Ava talk about me to him?'

He thinks back carefully.

'Will did say that Ava had friends now. He must be one of them.'

Headlights caught his attention on his right. He turns his head and sees an expensive car pull up and drive along the curb and towards where Ava was.

'That's a Porsche. Ava drives a sports car now? She was never into expensive cars before.'

Josh decides to poke his head out of his hiding spot and sees Ava getting into the passenger's side as the valet driver gets out. The dark-haired man walks around to the valet, hands him some money and then gets into the driver's side.

'Wait, so that's his car? Not Ava's? Why is she getting in his car?'

The South African man stares at the car as it drives away.

Casey and Jay were talking at the corner of the bar counter closest to the front door.

"Herrmann." The fire captain says to his engine lieutenant, he handed them a pair of glasses. "Thank you."

"Yes!" The cop cheered. "Thank you."

The two clinked their glasses together and took a quick swing of their drinks.

Jay puts his glass down. "Look at this, man." He turns his head around the lively bar.

Casey follows suit and looks around the crowded place. Everyone was chatting to one another. "What?"

"Life!" He held up both his hands to emphasize.

"Yeah." The firefighter smiled.

Molly's bar was crowded tonight with the crew from Med, Firehouse 51 and 21st District. As well as other first responders in the city.

"Hey, first responders drink 50% half tonight." Herrmann says handing Adam his shots for his table full of cops and firefighters.

"Really?" The officer asks wrapping his hands together to pick up six shot glasses.

"It's been a long day for all of us." The older firefighter nodded.

"You could say that again. Thanks man." He smiles walking away.

"Adam c'mon!" Kevin calls out.

"I'm coming, I'm coming." He answers.

Moving towards the other end of the bar counter was Connor and Ava talking to Carver.

"I'm dead serious. One of the calls we had, this guy thought he and his family had the outbreak and thought the only way to get rid of it was to burn their skin with corn oil." The firefighter explained.

Connor raised his eyebrows. "Seriously? What insane conspiracy theorist website did they read that off?"

"Too many apparently. It wasn't the only call the department got today that had people set themselves on fire with corn oil." Carver took a swing from his beer.

"Chaos really does bring out the worst in people" Ava shakes her head, not amused.

"No doubt about that." Carver looks up and sees Gallo motioning him to come join him and the other firefighters. "I gotta go. It was nice catching up with you docs."

"Nice catching up with you too, Carver." Connor shakes his hand before he walks away.

"You two ready to order?" Stella approaches them.

"Couple shots tequila?" Ava suggests. "It's been a really long day. Me especially." She points to herself, thinking about Josh appearing out of nowhere.

‘No one needs a drink more than me today.’

"What she said." He gets up from his seat. "I need to go to the bathroom. Be right back."

"Uh-huh." Stella says, turning around. "Couple shots of tequila it is. Coming up." She walks past Herrmann refilling some glasses for Mouch and Trudy near them.

The bar owner looks up at the front door and sees a familiar face. "Hey, there he is." He walks over to Ava at the end of the bar. "Hey, doc, so there's someone I want you to meet." He leans against the counter.

"You know I'm not single anymore, right." She reminds him.

"No, it's not like that. Back in late August, I had a new customer come in and said he came to Chicago for work trip. He's back in town apparently and he told me he's from South Africa like you." He smiles.

Ava widens her eyes in shock. "Don't tell me."

'You’ve got to be kidding me? Again?!'

"Hey Josh! Over here!" Herrmann calls him over with a wave from his right arm.

The blonde looks over her left shoulder and saw who Herrmann was referring to. "Oh god." She says wearily.

'I've had enough of this today'

Josh looked up at them and the two of them made eye contact. He smiles holding his right hand up to give her a slight wave.

Herrmann took notice of who he was staring at. "Ha! See, Mouch. Told you that old friend Josh talked about was Dr. Bekker. And you said all people from South Africa in Chicago don't know each other." He boasted towards his friend.

Ava on the other hand looked very unsettled. "Oh hell~ no. I am not dealing with this tonight. Or any other night. Today was already bad enough as it is." She stands up and grabs her phone off the counter.

"I think you should have kept your mouth shut there, Herrmann." Stella says leaning towards her boss.

"Hey, hey, what's wrong?" He asks the heart surgeon seeing up get up from her seat, looking ready to leave.

"Your new South African friend, is a jackass bastard." She takes a quick look back at him and sees that he's stopped by Foster and some of the female paramedics flirting with him. "Good, he's distracted. Time to get out of here. Connor and I are drinking somewhere else." She quickly heads towards the restrooms area where Connor was.

"Oof...... didn't see that coming." Herrmann turns his head right to look at his friend. "But I was right with them knowing each other." He points his right index finger at him.

"Not the point, Herrmann. Didn't you hear what she just said?" Mouch turns his body around to look at the handsome man being surround by women. "Wonder how they know each other?"

"Must be something bad if she ran out of here." Stella comments pouring the shots back into the bottle.

In the back area of the bar where the bathrooms were, Connor comes out at the same time Ava walks past the door.

"Ava?" He takes a step back at her surprise appearance.

"We're out of here, let's go!" Ava grabs onto his left hand and drags him out towards the exit.

"Whoa!" He stumbles at his footing. "Hey, hey, hey, what's going on?"

She turns around to face him. "Josh is here."

He drops his jaw at the name. "Oh."

"Still think it's not a coincidence him coming to Molly's now. Hoping he runs into me here. He did the same thing back when he was pursuing me. Showing up at places I usually go to as an excuse to talk to me."

"Okay, okay. Calm down." He placed his hands on her shoulders. "Take a breath, babe. You wanna head over to Keoni's bar or would you rather head to one of our places instead for a drink?"

"After the day we had, I really need a strong drink now. But seeing Josh again, I need an even stronger drink." She sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Keoni's bar it is." He leads her out through the back exit.

"Yep, I definitely needed this." Ava says taking a sip from a tiki cup.

"You and me both." Connor agrees sitting across from her at a two-person table. They were sitting in the edge row of the tables by the river. The bar wasn't as crowded compared to Molly’s but had a good decent crowd for the night.

"It's been a while since we've been here." She comments looking around the place.

"Has it really been a while?"

"Yeah, it has. The last time we were here was when we came back from our trip."

Connor looks off to the side to think. "Huh? I guess two months really does fly by."

"Well, you have been busy cause of the hybrid O.R. since we came back."

"That is true." He points at her with his drink in his right hand.

"Alola." A familiar older Hawaiian native appears by the table and places a single purple orchid Lei around Ava's neck.

"Oh. Hi Keoni." Ava smiles. "Special occasion today?" She holds onto the flower necklace.

"`A`ohe lokomaika`i i nele i ke pâna`i."

"What does that mean?" She asks.

"No kind deed has ever lacked its reward." He explained. "Spread good karma out there in the world and you will be rewarded. And you two are one of the many big heroes that helped save Chicago today."

"Ava did more than I did." Connor at her with his head. "She's the one that helped the police figure out the bad guy's endgame."

"Oh, is that so?"

"Just thought logically about it instead of panicking like everyone else." She brushed it off.

"That's really good. Having a calm state of mind while the world was on fire." The Hawaiian nodded in admiration. "Today also reminded us to enjoy life. You may never know how long or how short it may be."

"Yeah..." Connor nods. "It really does."

"Good seeing you again, brah." Keoni holds out his right hand to shake Connor's.

"It's good to see you too." He shook his hand.

"Enjoy." He says before walking away.

"Thank you." Ava says watching him leave. Then she turns back to face her boyfriend. "I'm starting to miss paradise now." She holds up her drink, referring to their time on the beach in Turks and Caicos Islands.

"After these last few days, I wouldn't mind us taking another trip." He inhales and exhales softly, closing his eyes and leaning back in his chair.

"You wanna go to Hawaii for Christmas?" She suggests.

"Christmas, huh?" He opens his left eye.

'Guess we should be thinking about future plans now. It's getting more and more closer towards the end of the year.'

"Yeah, take a break from the Chicago winter before it gets worse in January." She bit onto her straw.

"You miss wearing a bikini during the most wonderful time of year?" He jokes leaning forward towards the table and raises his left eyebrow at her.

Ava chuckles. "Well, I did have to trade a bikini for a winter coat last year for Christmas."

"Hmm." He takes a sip from his drink. "You miss the summery holiday season back in South Africa?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "The warm, sunny and cool weather all year around was nice. And it wasn't that much different during the holiday season." She takes a sip from her drink. "Last year was actually my second white Christmas."

That got his attention. "When was the first time?"

The blonde starts to think back, and an old memory comes to mind. She sighs. "Come to think about it...." She starts playing with her straw. "Christmas was actually the first time I started to see Josh differently from his past attempts on me."

"Oh yeah?"

‘Hart got Ava in bed for the first time at Christmas? Lucky bastard.’

"Usually, I spent the holidays alone because I lost my family. Just take a stroll around the city to see what was going on instead of staying cooped up in my apartment. Then Josh came along and wouldn't leave me alone. Kept trying to invite me to either the bars or events that were going on or to his large family social events. Then one Christmas, I gave into him. Guess I was feeling the festive season and didn't want to be alone for once."

"Well, spending Christmas alone is sad." He tilts his head right. "I remember what that was like when I lived outside of the states. So, I can understand wanting some romance during the Christmas season."

"And of course, you know how that story ended up." Ava takes her drink in her right hand, leans back against her chair and takes a sip looking left towards the river.

"So, uh...." Connor rests both his elbows on the table. "Did Josh do anything special for you during the holidays?"

"Hmm." She rolled her eyes thinking back. "My first white Christmas, he took me to Paris on his family's private jet for a week. We stayed in his family villa."

"Ohhh." He nods, picturing the idea of her very very wealthy ex-boyfriend taking her to the most romantic city in the world during the holiday season on his trust fund.

'Smooth~ Hart. I'll give you that.'

"And does he look different now after a year?" He takes a sip from his drink, darting his eyes away from her.

"Different?" She raises her left eyebrow in confusion.

"Yeah. Does his hair look longer or shorter? Did he shave often? I noticed he's starting to get a stubble beard. Also, his cologne smell was kind of strong. It seemed like Dior Sauvage."

"You smelled him?" She snickered.

‘Okay, what’s going on here, Dr. Rhodes?’

"He had the same smell back when I bumped into him back in Molly's that time. I pass by that smell a lot at the family store. Plus, I wear it sometimes, so I know the smell pretty well."

"Uh-huh." Her lips started to curl up into a grin.

‘He’s so obvious when he’s jealous. It’s really cuite.’

"And you never told me how tall he was or that he looks more like those models you see in those luxury cologne ads than an average okay looking guy who works in a lab all day." He scratches the back of his left ear and jaw with his left hand. "Oh yeah I forgot, you said he was a good-looking rugby dude back in school."

Connor shifts to eyes to look at his girlfriend and notices she was staring at him with a very pleasurably entertained look.

"What?" He stares in confusion.

Ava grins, placing her folded arms on the table. "Connor Rhodes, are you jealous?"

"No." He scoffed. "Why should I be jealous of that? Sure, he looks like... that." He gestures his right hand in the air. "But I know where I stand in the looks department."

"I've seen you jealous before, Connor." She refers back to when he assumed she was seeing his father.

"That was different."

"Because this time you're not jumping to conclusions like before." She teased him.

"You're never gonna let that go, are you?"

"Are you gonna admit you're jealous about the way Josh looks?" She countered.

"No~." He denied looking past her face to avoid making eye contact with that smug look on her face. "Why would I be jealous of some good-looking rich scientist from South Africa you used to date? So, what if he managed to create a treatment of a highly dangerous bacteria that scared the shit in the world in less than 10 hours. He still broke your heart, and you left for the states, and got together with me." He picked up his drink and took a long sip. "Clearly there's no reason for me to be jealous at all."

"Uh-huh." The blonde wasn't buying it. Especially with his cheeks starting to turn red from embarrassment.

"Stop looking at me like that!" He finishes the rest of his drink. "I'm not jealous of your ex. I'm the one who gets to go home with you almost every night." He stands up and walks over to the bar area for a refill. "I'll take another." He tells the bartender.

Ava amusingly grins and shakes her head as she also finishes her cup and walks up after him. She moves to stand on his right side at the bar. "Exactly. There's no reason to be jealous. I like your face more than his. You're more my type than he ever was and you wouldn't do what he did, would you?"

He flinches his head right to look at her "Of course not! I love you too much to do something that stupid to ruin our future together."

"See, you're already way better than he was to me." She leans in close to his right ear and presses her body against him. "And besides, you're the only one that gets to see me naked in the light anyway. There shouldn't be any reason to be worried now is there?" She seductively whispers. He gets goosebumps, feeling her blow some air on his neck.

'She's way too good doing that to me.' He shivers at the feeling.

"I'm glad to know I'm the first and only guy to be with you after Josh." He distracts himself by taking a sip from his refill.

"Uhh....... not really." She slightly leans away from him to take a sip from her refill as well.

That got his attention. "Huh? What? There was another boyfriend before me? But you said you didn't date anyone after Josh, but me."

'Guess it's time to tell him the truth.'

Ava taps her left fingers against the bar counter. "No~, there wasn't another boyfriend before you after him." She shakes her head. "Josh was the last guy I dated, but he wasn't the last guy I slept with before you." She took another sip.

Connor had a confused look as he tried to think back on the past year. He was coming up with blanks of seeing Ava with another man. "When was that? And who was he?" Now he was interested,

'Who the hell is this mystery man that got his hands on Ava before I could?? If anything, she was more interested in my dating life and keeping women away from me earlier this year. That female prosector that she made me drop off first that night when we had a drink. Who is this guy and please tell me it's not Crockett. I saw the way he put moves on her in the past when she first got here.'

"It was around the Christmas time period last year, my first Chicago winter here." She turned to face him but wasn't making eye contact. "I spent a night with the handsome cop from New York in his hotel room when he was in the city helping out the Intelligence Unit."

"Oh?" He rolled his eyes to think back, and then a familiar face came to mind. "Ohh yeah, I remember that detective now, but I don't think I remember his name. I just remember many of the nurses were referring him as "NY Hottie Cop" in the ED and at Molly's." Then he jolts up at the realization. "Wait, you slept with him!?" He pointed his right index finger at her.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "I was treating a patient who was stabbed in the heart that was part of the case. Victim of sexual assault. He and I talked a few times while he was here. He was someone nice to talk to.

And I'm human too,

a woman.

a single free woman.

I thought he was attractive like many of the women here. You and I weren't even close yet and decided "why not try and seduce him" for a fun one night. Put myself out there for the first time since what happened with Josh.

One year since I went to bed with a man." Ava emphasized how long it was since she had sex.

Connor nodded, understanding the need for physical intimacy from another person. "And because you're a walking Aphrodite, the guy fell instantly."

"Not really." She frowned, shaking her head.

'Believe me, even I was shocked at the time of getting turned down. And I get hit on a lot by men.'

"He didn't?" He tilts his head right.

'Wow~ even someone like Ava can get turned down by a stranger.'

"Nope. NY Hottie Cop was hard to break down. He was still hungover from being rejected from another woman he was in love with for a few years when the two were out of town. They were kind of drunk and buzzed when he tried to kiss her and she backed off. Next morning he sees the bartender walk out of her motel room." She explained and took a sip from her drink.

"Ouch. That hurts, I actually felt that." He held his right hand against his chest.

'Poor dude. Now I see why he turned down Ava.'

"Yeah, I felt bad for him too. And based on the way he said it, later she told him basically, "Just because I didn't have sex with you last night, doesn't mean I won't in the future." Like telling him not to give up on the thought of them being together one day." She turns her head to look at him.

Connor nods. "At least that sounds like a good sign for him. For a moment there I thought it was unrequited love."

"Yeah." She nods. "But that's also when I threw in the words of, "Why not get some payback on the whole thing by sleeping with a stranger out of town yourself and she finds out about it later on. To try and even up the score. Someone more appealing than a random bartender." It took another drink and some more flirtation to get him to take me back to his hotel room." She shrugs her left shoulder.

"You would think I would be upset hearing that you slept with that cop from New York that a bunch of single women around here were pinning over. But hearing what the guy went through, I guess he did need some hot sexy foreign doctor to give him some attention after being turned down. And technically, it was before you and I got close." He then looked straight at her. "You don't think about him time from time, right?"

'First Josh and now NY Hottie Cop? I guess I never realized the competition before you and I got together.'

"What jealous?" She teased him again.

'This guy is too easy to mess with.'

"Maybe a little." He finally admits. "I may not remember his name, but I do remember that cop looked like one of those runway fashion models."

Ava shook her head. "No, I don't think about him. It was only one night. And it actually did help him feel better and try to move on from what happened to him. He said that was reason he went to Chicago in the first place. To put some distance between them. In way, I can somewhat relate to him given I left for the U.S. to get away from Josh and everything I went through. All for a brand-new start." She sympathized.

"And you did move on from it all. Hope things turn out good for that cop as well."

"Yeah, I hope so too. I could tell that he was a good man."

Another thought came to mind. He narrowed his eyes at her. "Hold on, was he a frog too then?" Reminding her of their past conversation about kissing frogs before finding prince charming.

"Uhh... I wouldn't call him a frog. Definitely not a frog. I would say he just wasn't my Prince Charming. But he could be a good runner-up." She grinned playfully.

'He really is a lot of fun to mess with. Just like the old days between us as rivals.'

"I guess I better make sure the next time he comes to Chicago for another case, he stays downstairs completely so he doesn't see you again." He takes another sip from his drink.

"Hmmm. Okay then. Care to show me why I should wear this new outfit I just bought. Just sitting in a box in my closet right now?" She says seductively biting her lower lip staring at him

Connor blankly stares at her like his mind was just blown. "Um yeah," He pulls out his wallet. "We're out of here." He quickly pays for their drinks.

Ava smirks shaking her head when he places a hand on the small of her back to lead her back to his car.

'Yep. I think I have him wrapped around my finger.’

Chapter Text

OCTOBER 31ST

"You're really gonna make me wait until tonight to see what you're wearing?" Connor opens the door for Ava as they walk inside the main entrance of the hospital.

"It's a surprise." She smiles as they walk further into the building.

"Since when do you do surprises? Aside, stealing my case last year." He lightheartedly reminded her.

"Your sister gave me an idea." She stopped near the cafe and turned her body slightly to face him.

"Claire?" He said in a confused tone.

"Do you have a hidden half-sister also named Claire Rhodes in Chicago?" She says sarcastically. "Cause I'm pretty sure the one you introduced me to is the only one I've met."

'I honestly wouldn't be surprised if you and Claire do have half siblings you've never met before.'

"So, my sister put this idea in your head?" He asks.

"We discussed it last weekend when she and I met up for lunch and went shopping."

"She came up with the idea of us going as pirates?"

"No, that was me. I just asked her for some ideas on my outfit, and she liked it."

"Even though it's Halloween, I know you wouldn't wear something you were uncomfortable with in front of people we work with." He cheekily leaned close towards her face. "Still won't give me a sneak peek?"

"You can wait till the end of shift, Dr. Rhodes." She playfully pushed his chest back.

Crockett approaches them from the cafe, dressed as a cowboy sheriff. "You guys aren't dressed for the Code Orange for the day like the others?"

Connor points his right thumb towards the woman next to him. "Dr. Bekker here refuses to wear her costume until we go to the future Mr. & Mrs. Halstead’s party tonight."

"We're surgeons, there's a good chance we're gonna get covered in blood today. And I rather not get my outfit dirty before tonight." She explained adjusting her backpack to grab something from inside. She pulls out a small feather pirate hat attached to a black headband. "At most I'll wear this headband when the kids come to the CT floor."

"Pirates?" He eyed the headband hat. "You two didn't want to go as Mr. & Mrs. Smith?" He joked.

"I actually suggested it but then realize we probably shouldn't at someone's engagement party." Connor nodded.

"Smart." The New Orleans doctor pointed at him. "I'll catch you guys later."

"Bye sheriff." Ava says as he walks away.

"I better go too. Need to get into costume before the kids come. See you later today?" Connor pointed his left thumb to way Crockett went.

"Yeah, I'll see you later." She leans up to kiss him goodbye as they part ways. "I'm still gonna need that cup of coffee before I head upstairs." She walks towards the cafe line where five people were ahead of her.

"Ava." A familiar male voice called out to her from behind.

A brief look of shock appeared on the blonde's face upon hearing the familiar voice.

'No way. You're kidding me.'

She holds onto the right strap of her backpack as she slowly turns around on her left and sees the owner of the voice sitting at a nearby table with two cups of coffee in front of him.

"Josh?"

"Hi." The South African man stood up and took a few steps forward towards her. "I was hoping I would run into you." He picks up a cup with his right hand. "You still take it black with two sugars?"

"You still remember how I drank my coffee?" She slowly starts to move towards him, not wanting to draw attention from others around them.

"You've been taking it the same way since med school." He handed her the cup.

She slowly takes it from him. "Thanks." The tone of her voice hinted with irritation.

"Can we talk?" His eyes looked hopeful towards her.

"My shift's about to start soon and I need to get upstairs and change into my scrubs." She points her left index finger towards the stairs across from them.

'Why does he keep popping out of nowhere? And why the hell is he still in Chicago?'

"I just need a short moment of your time."

"Josh..."

"Ava, please. I really do need to talk to you." He pleaded.

She stared at him carefully for a couple of seconds and deeply sighed.

'As always, he's very persisted. I see that part hasn't changed. He's not going to let me leave until he says whatever it is on his chest.'

She shifted her body left towards the seat at the table. "I'm giving you a couple of minutes whatever it is. I don't have time for you, Josh." Despite Ava's resistance, she finally relented and agreed to listen to what he had to say to her.

"That's all I ask." He moves to sit back down in his seat.

"Why are you here?” She went straight to the point. “I thought you left Chicago the day after the bacteria case ended."

He softly inhaled and exhaled before speaking. "I stayed in Chicago for two days after the case to tie up some loose ends with the CDC regarding what happened." His eyes then darted towards his right to avoid eye contact. "Also, I slept with his hot paramedic I met at Molly's the night the case ended."

"I see you haven't changed." Ava said sarcastically as she took a sip from her cup.

'Guess that means him and Perkins broke up. She never did seem to be the "tied down" type of woman.'

He looks back at her. "I saw you leave Molly's that night."

"The place felt really crowded that night. Decided to drink elsewhere." She broke eye contact as she lied and knows he’s aware of it.

"I know you left because of me."

"Still following me to bars, still?" She looks back at him.

"I swear it was a coincidence, Ava."

"I have a hard time buying that. Back then you always showed up at the bars I go to. Before and after I got there. You seriously think I'm going to believe you weren’t aware I go to Molly's like every other doctor in this hospital. That the whole thing was just a coincidence?"

'I've seen this before. Stalking his prey for his next snack.'

"Yes, it was. Believe it or not!" Josh pointed his right index finger at her. "First of all, Will Halstead had invited me to join him for drinks at Molly's after the case was over. That's why I was there in the first place. Second, when I first came to Chicago two months ago, I googled what was a good, nice pub and Molly's came up with good reviews. Also checked out their Instagram account and saw it looked fun." He countered. "And this was also before I knew what hospital you worked at."

"Their Instagram account?" She raised her right eyebrow. "90% of the photos include first responders." Ava pulls out her phone and clicked on the app to head straight to the tagged section on her profile. She taps on few of the photos, narrows her eyes on who liked the images when she scrolls down to see a familiar username. "Uh-huh. And you liked pictures that I was in?"

He gulped. "That was before I knew you were a regular there."

"You commented on these before the bacteria attack started." She shows him her phone screen, show the comment section. "Actually, it's on the same day you met Connor after that high-rise apartment fire." She had looked carefully at the familiar date.

Josh's eyes looked up towards the ceiling as he thought back to that day. "Oh yeah~, I did. Forgot about that."

'Oh yeah.... that guy... That's why he looked familiar.'

"Mm-hmm. I see you're still lying. That part hasn't changed." She shook her head and put her phone away. "Not to mention, you must have talked to Herrmann about me, given he assumed we knew each other."

"I just told him that I knew someone from home that moved to Chicago and guessed that it was you when we talked more about it." His facial expression then changed from guilty to confusion upon realization about what she just said. "Speaking about social media, I'm surprised you made one. You said you saw no point in making one."

She shrugged her shoulders. "My friends convinced me to make one so they could tag me in photos. The first responders here are a lot different than those back home."

"Will Halstead told me you're now friends with your colleagues. Honestly, I'm surprised. You always saw them as your rivals or faceless people."

She slowly nodded her head, staring down at the table.

He wasn't wrong.

She used to think like that.

But not anymore.

"I used, but working here really changed me. I've been open to people, something I've never done and now my colleagues are people I can call my friends now. Even other first responders." Her eyes slowly moved to look up at him from across.

"I'm happy for you in that area. I really am. You seem happier and not closed off like before." He gave her a small smile.

"I really have Connor to thank for that." Ava smiles, saying his name.

Josh dropped the curves of his lips seeing her smile talking about another man. "Connor?" His voice tone changed to sound serious. "He's that other surgeon I saw you with back in the ED."

"Yeah, that was him. When I first got here, we became rivals. He really kept me up on my toes more than Perkins ever did."

"Most of the pictures on Molly's account had you with him.

Dr. Connor Rhodes, the only son of a prominent wealthy family in Chicago. Are you sleeping with him?" He stared at her. "I asked Halstead if you were seeing anyone, but he didn't answer back."

Ava scoffed at him.

'Is he serious? He's not one to judge who I sleep with.'

"Who I sleep with, is none of your business." She glared at him.

"Is that a yes, then?"

"I don't know why I'm even talking about this with you of all people." She was ready to get up and leave.

"Just answer the question. I saw you get into his car that night at the hospital after work." He revealed.

She flinches hearing his words. "You saw... I knew it! You were spying on me."

Josh shook his head and leaned back against his seat. "No~. I was waiting for my car ride and saw you were standing at the valet parking lot. I was about to go talk to you to catch up and then saw Rhodes approach you. And then I saw both of you get in his car and drive away. It was just a coincidence. Honest." He deeply sighed.

'It really was a coincidence that I saw both of you.... together.'

"Uh-huh." She had a hard time believing him.

He slapped both hands against his thighs. "Just tell me. Are you sleeping with him?" Josh twisted his body around and pointed his right thumb behind him. "I literally just saw you kissing him." He turned his head sideways.

Ava grunted. "Gosh! You're so stubborn.

Fine, yes.

I've been dating Connor Rhodes since May."

"May?" Josh widened his eyes and raised both his eyebrows up.

'You're kidding me? Just before Annie and I.....'

"Yeah. He and I have been seeing each other for almost 5 months now." She further explained.

Josh paused to look off to the side and then back at her. "He's older than you." He tried to throw shade at her relationship.

Ava baffled at his words. "Only by a few years and technically Josh, so are you."

"Only by two years. Him it's a little more than that." He argued.

The surgeon scratched her head with his left hand as she placed her elbow against the table. "First of all, it's not that big of an age gap. It's only a four-year difference. We're in our 30s now and all adults here." She pointed it out. "Second, why are you even playing the whole age gap card? You slept with women both older and younger than you more than one occasion. Like that one woman who was 45 when you were 28." She reminded him.

"Maia had very good skin and did lots of hot yoga." He stated. "Anyway, what do you even like about Rhodes? What is it? You went from me to him. What about him is so attractive that makes you take off your pants for him?"

'If you look in the mirror, I'm clearly the better-looking guy and comes from a much wealthier family.'

"He's not you." She stares at him with her arms crossed.

Josh blinked twice at her words.

'Ouch. That hurts.'

He slowly nodded his head with blank facial expression trying to think about what to say. After a couple of seconds, he finally found his voice on what he wanted to tell her.

"I'm in Chicago right now for business trip. That's what I wanted to tell you."

"Okay." She nodded. "What kind of business trip?"

‘And how long till you get out of here.’

"After everything that happened with the bacteria case, The WHO are looking into setting up offices here in the city. They're also planning on sending their researchers and scientists to different science universities to avoid another case of David Seldon happening again."

Ava listened to his words carefully. "And you're one of them?"

Josh nodded. "The WHO are making me a research representative over at University of Illinois Chicago starting next month."

The blonde widens her eyes at the news. "You're moving to Chicago?"

'Are you kidding me? I can't get rid of this guy! He's the reason why I moved out here in the first place.'

He nods again. "I'm taking a break from traveling the world and staying in one spot. I've been traveling a lot since I joined the WHO for a brand-new start."

"New start?" That got her attention. "Is any of this related to Perkins?"

'Did Josh join the WHO because of Perkins? To get out and away from home too?'

He sighs. "Yeah.... she broke up with me a few months ago." He looked down at the table. "I thought we were in love, but then she told me the truth on why she dated me in the first place."

"The truth?" That got her curious.

He nodded. "She said the main reason why was because of you."

"Me?" Her voice became higher.

"Annie wanted to throw you off your game and get into your head both personal and professional, so you'd be too distracted and not do well during your residency and get fired as a result. She was actually very happy you moved far away when you did."

"Are you serious?!" She slammed her left fist against the table.

'That motherfucking bitch!! That's why that happened?!! She wanted to destroy my career, my dream?!  Why that little slut... God, I hate her!! She truly is the worst.  I never want to see that bitch ever again...'

"Man, if that bitch was here right now, I'd break both her hands" She grips onto her cup as she takes sip to try and calm her down.

Josh looked at her sincerely. "I'm sorry I hurt you, Ava. You didn't deserve any of that. And I've had a long…. long time to think about what happened after Annie and I broke up. How much of it was real and how much of it was fake. And I'm still working on being better."

"Good for you." She spoke dryly.

'Not that I care.'

"So, Connor Rhodes." He brings him up. "Is it serious with him?"

"It is."

"Do you love him?"

"I do."

Josh carefully examined her face and saw no sign of her wavering from the truth. He softly inhaled and exhaled.

'I see she's completely moved on from me.'

"A trauma and cardiothoracic surgeon. And the only son of the Rhodes family, a prominent family in Chicago. I read that he's a very talented surgeon, like yourself." He forced himself compliment.

"He is." She nodded. "And as much as I hate to say it, there are times when he's smarter than me in O.R. and always does things that I did not think were possible. We wouldn't have been able to perform the conjoined twins’ surgery without him."

"That good, huh?"

"After the surgery he got an Attending position offer at a top hospital but turned it down to stay in Chicago to be with me and run the new Hybrid O.R. at the hospital."

"He turned down an Attending position.... for you?"

'He turned down an Attending position.

At a top hospital....

it couldn't be?

Could it?'

"Yeah, he did." She confirms it.

"Which hospital?" He furrowed his eyebrows.

"The Mayo Clinic."

'What did she just say? The Mayo Clinic?'

"Wait. Hold on." Josh held up with his right hand. "He was offered an Attending position at the Mayo Clinic?" His pulse started to quicken.

Ava nods her head.

"And this was back in May, right? When you turn started seeing each other." His heart rate quickens by the second.

"Yes, that's right."

"Oh my god, it was him!" Josh became irritated and there was a sharp glare on his face.

"Huh? It was Connor, what?" She was confused why he was agitated.

"Son of a bitch. It was his fault." He slammed his right fist against the table.

"What was Connor's fault? Josh, what the hell are you talking about?"

"Your boyfriend ruined my proposal. That's what!!" He quickly shook his head.

"What? Wha- you're not making any sense here." Ava was really lost why Josh was angry at Connor.

"When I said Annie broke up with me, it was after I asked her to marry me." He discloses.

"Oh...... Sorry to hear that." She took a long sip from her cup and looked away from him.

'Wow~ Perkins used Josh to the point he fell in love with her and proposed. Even after I moved away... That's something.'

"But what does any of that have to do with Connor? He was here in Chicago the entire time and never met you till recently. How could he have ruined your proposal?" That part still didn't make sense to her.

"Annie was offered Attending position at the Mayo Clinic." He tells her right away.

"What?" Ava widens her eyes at the new information. "Perkins is working as a cardiothoracic Attending at the Mayo Clinic right now?"

'That bitch got an offer at Mayo too?! Damn it!! Even when she's a thousand miles away, she's still making my blood boil.

Wait....

Did he say June?'

"The recruiter was a board member and told her, a doctor in the Midwest turned down the position back in May in favor to run a new innovated project at their hospital. Sounds like it was your boyfriend he was talking about."

'No way... Perkins broke up with Josh for the job Connor turned down to stay in Chicago to be with me.'

"Wow~. I would have never imagined in a million years that the Mayo Clinic would reach out to Perkins and give her the job Connor turned down. That's just.... wow." The odds of that happening are truly astronomical.

"You're telling me. I spent five months planning the perfect wedding proposal at Table Mountain, only to get turned down."

"Sounds rough."

"The worst part is, she already bought her plane ticket to leave the next day. She was already planning to break up with me that day. Said I embarrassed her by giving her an audience when she broke up with me right after I asked her."

"You had an audience for the proposal?"

"I had the hospital's CT department and both of our parents there to watch."

'Josh gets dumped in front of everyone who knew what happened between us back then and in front of his parents...'

Ava couldn't help but smile.

'I can see why that would be embarrassing for her. I would have loved to see that.'

Josh didn't notice and kept ranting. "How could she do that to me. After everything we've been through. Fake or not, I loved her!"

"If you're looking for sympathy on the situation, don't look at me."

"She picked Mayo over me." He kept ranting.

"Not my fault Perkins isn't like Connor when he picked me over Mayo."

"Annie was only offered the job cause Rhodes rejected the offer."

"So, you're blaming Connor for Perkins breaking up with you? Or are you blaming me for what happened?" She scoffs. "Pathetic." She shook her head. "If she actually loved you, she would have tried to work things out with you like having you move with her there, but she didn't."

"I would have moved with her if she asked." He argued.

"Why the hell are you telling me when it's Perkins you should be talking to about this?"

"I did; she still didn't want me. Said she needed to focus on her career and not be tied down. Especially at this point in her career."

'I see Perkins’ still the same. I expect nothing less from her'

"You know there are doctors like that. Hell, even I said that to you when I was a resident and wanted to keep it casual."

"But things changed between us." He reminded her.

"And let's not forget how that ended." She reminded him of the aftermath.

"Ava..."

"Look, Josh..... I'm sorry things didn't work out between you and Perkins. And I get the feeling you don't feel like hunting down Alicia Brent in New York. But it's not Connor’s fault why things didn't work out between you and Perkins. And it's not on me either. Whoever it is you really want, I hope you do find it. Whether it's in Cape Town, or DC or Chicago or anywhere else in the world." Ava looks up at the digital clock on the wall to check the time. "I really do have to go to work now." She stands up and picks up her backpack and cup. "It's Halloween in Chicago, go have some fun with whoever you want. It's one of the craziest nights of the year in this city." She gives him one last look and walks away towards the stairs.

Over in the ED, most doctors and nurses were all dressed up in costumes. Early morning on Halloween day, there aren’t any major emergencies until later in afternoon and mostly at night.

Maggie was dressed as a Blackhawks hockey player standing in the nurses' station next to Lenox who was softly moving her body to the Halloween background music being played. That caught the nurse's attention.

"Are you dancing?" she asked.

The ED Chief immediately stopped moving. "No, I had a cramp in my calf." She lied and stretched her left arm down towards her leg.

Maggie chuckles then heard her large pager beep.

On the screen, the device read,

'CODE ORANGE: ETA 10 MINUTE'

"Okay, listen up, everybody. I just got confirmation. We've got a code orange coming in in T-minus ten minutes." She calls out to everyone in the room.

"Are we ready for that?" Hannah asks, dressed as Western Barbie with a long blonde wig.

"Let me tell you something. We better be." Dr. Charles says sitting down in a chair. He was dressed as Sherlock Holmes.

Lenox walks around Maggie to stand in the middle of the ED. "Halloween night and day can be one of the busiest of the year. Be smart about triage and resource management, and don't get too caught up in the pageantry. I expect the highest level of decorum." She reminded everyone.

A few seconds later, they heard a loud noise and shouting enter the ED. A man dressed as a masked luchador came in with a security guard chasing after him. Lenox moved to step aside as they came closer to the center of the room.

"Hey, stop right there!" The guard calls out before tackling the masked man into the ground.

Everyone stares as if this was normal Halloween behavior.

"It's gonna be a long day." Doris says dryly, dressed as the Bride of Frankenstein.

In one of the treatment rooms, Frost was treating a young blonde-haired boy dressed as Superman who had a white stick stuck in his right ear. Monique was assisting him by holding the boy's head in place so the doctor could remove the object. She was dressed as a sailor girl.

"Almost there, bud. Almost there, Coop." Frost assured the boy as he continued to fus loudly. "Hang in there, Superman. Hang in there, buddy." The doctor held onto the white stick in his left hand and his right held a tool to help remove it. "All right, Coop. Almost, buddy." The boy's mother watched looking concerned. "You're good, you're good, you're good."

A few seconds later, the object started to loosen.

Pop!

Frost removed the stick from the boy's ear. Revealing to have been a blue Dum Dums lollipop.

"Whoa." Frost says in surprise what it was the entire time.

'The kid put a lollipop in his ear?'

"How did he even get it in there?" The mother was also puzzled.

The boy slowly reached for the lollipop from the doctor's hands and without hesitation puts it in his mouth.

"I-no-mm." Frost was at a loss for words with the boy's actions. "Does that taste good, bud?" He asks

"Mm-hmm." The boy hummed happily.

'Kids today, I guess. So innocent...But gross.'

"Two birds, one lollipop. Right on." He held up his left hand to give him a hi-5. The boy responds. "Ow, Superman!" Frost playfully acted and the boy laughed.

He walks out of the room and sees some of the med students and residents standing near the ambulance bay entrance, all dressed as Minions.

"Wow. Excellent costume choice guys." The young doctor approaches them, also dressed as a Minion.

"But this tracks, right? I mean you never just see one Minion." Said Naomi.

"Facts." He nods.

"Which was why we asked around if others planned to dress as a Minion." Vanessa says standing on Naomi's left. Next to her was Terry and Zach.

"I didn't know who to come as. Saved me some time by just going as a group." Said Zach.

"We're gonna hang out tonight after work to check out some Halloween fun. You wanna join us, Dr. Frost?" Vanessa asks.

"You guys aren’t planning on going to Dr. Manning and Dr. Halstead's engagement party with the others?" Frost asks.

"I think that's mostly for the older doctors and nurses. We're still the newbies here. It'll feel awkward."

Frost was about to say something till someone called out his name.

"Hey, Dr. Frost." Called out a familiar female voice.

He turns around and sees two nurses dressed in familiar looking outfits. "Oh, no." He says softly.

It was Trini and Nancy dressed as Nick of Time! characters of him and his co-star.

They made whooshing and buzzing sounds as they turned around in a circle together.

"That was a close one." They said at the same time.

The Minions group stares with awkward smiles and playful grins.

"What do you think?" Nuse Nancy asks.

"I think you should watch higher-quality television." He tells them.

The nurses laughed and chest bumped each other before walking away.

"You're kind of low-key famous." Naomi commented.

"Very low-key. Among millennial and Gen X females of a certain age." He turns around to face the group.

"I've never seen "Nick of Time!" Sorry." The med student shook her head.

"Thank God. We'll get along" He nodded in relief.

"Yeah, we will." She smiled.

At the other side of the ED were the older doctors talking among themselves. The front entrance doors opened and appeared was Ripley dressed as Western Ken.

"Oh, I'm guessing this was coordinated." Maggie smiles seeing him dressed and paired up with Hannah standing across from her and Natalie at the nurses' station counter.

Ripley took off his hat, revealing the well fitted blonde wig he was wearing underneath. "I wanted to be an astronaut."

"Yes, but every hero needs a sidekick." Hannah playfully says putting her hand on his left shoulder and grinned at the two women.

"Mm-hmm." Natalie nodded, dressed as Mrs. Incredible and wearing a wig.

"That's how she got me to dress up in this as well." Will approaches the group, dressed as Mr. Incredible. Also wearing a blonde wig.

"Well, it only makes sense we dress as a pair of married couples." His fiancé smiles, placing a hand on his right shoulder.

"You two are wearing that tonight at the party?" Hannah asks them.

Natalie shook her head and removed her hand from Will. "No, first we're gonna take Owen treat-or-treating for the night portion for half an hour as a family. My mother-in-law is taking him right after school for the day run. Afterwards we'll change into our party clothes and head over."

"Jay told me that we should be lucky he's letting us have a joint bachelor/bachelorette party." Will tells her.

"You boys wanted to see some strippers, huh?" Maggie raised her left eyebrows and darted her eyes between both guys.

"You only get married once, right?" Ripley joked. Earning him an elbow jab from Hannah.

"Oh yeah, that reminds me." Maggie turns to her left towards Natalie. "I have something for you."

"What is it? A present?" She playfully says.

"Yes, I do." The nurse turns around, opens a drawer and pulls out something pink. She turns back around and makes a happy gleeful sound as she unwraps the pink item, revealing to be a pink decorated sash that says, "Bride To Be".

"No, Maggie. Please~." Natalie whined at the sight.

'C'mon I don't wanna embarrass myself in front of everyone I work with.'

"Oh, yes. Hey Will." The nurse looked around her at the groom. "Can you tell your fiancé to stop being a killjoy?"

"Huh?" He said looking at the sash.

"She's got to wear this tonight." She tells her.

"Maggie, I would like to maintain a little bit of dignity." The bride informs her.

"You're wearing it. This one's nonnegotiable." Her maid of honor smiles looking at her and hands her the sash.

The couple smile, shaking their heads as Natalie folds the sash.

"Well, I'm gonna hit the head." Ripely says and walks away.

"Well, make it quick. We need you." Said Maggie.

The group watches him walk away and turns to see Hannah still staring at him, grinning wide open.

"Things are going well, between you two?" Natalie leans forward.

"Yeah, he's really been showing up lately after we lost that mother." The obstetrician says softly, recalling recent events with their cases.

"Showing up? The man literally dressed like a Ken doll to please you." The nurse points out.

"Exactly. Clearly he's head over heels for you." Natalie added.

"You two are coming together to the party?" Will asks.

"We'll see." Hannah shrugs her shoulders.

"Howdy!" Noah appears next to her dressed as a cowboy.

"Howdy to you too, partner?" The blonde laughed and tipped her hat at him.

"Another cowboy today?" Maggie playfully shook her head. "You two, Crockett and Ripley and all of the Minion I've been saying. You guys aren't creative enough." She turns her head right and sees Dylan dressed as Sorcerer Micky, Stevie dressed as a witch and Zola dressed as Princess Jasmine talking to one another. "At least those guys are."

"You coming to the party dressed like that, captain?" Noah asks.

"This? No, April, Doris and I are gonna do a group costume. This is only for the Code Orange."

"Maybe I should get another costume for tonight as well?"

Maggie's large pager started to beep loudly. "No, it's gonna have to wait. I need you on the floor." She looks around the room and raises her voice. "Everybody, timeline's moved up. Battle stations now!" She grabs an orange pumpkin bucket and walks towards the elevator entrance.

Doctors and nurses around all picked up a bucket and followed the charge nurse.

"You ready?"

"Come on!"

"All right."

"Let's do it."

"All right."

"Make sure you have enough candy." Maggie tells everyone. "Make sure you have enough."

The staff stood on both sides of the hallways with buckets and hats filled with candy.

Ding

The elevator ding appeared; the doors opened, revealing various pediatric patients in costumes and had their bags wide open for candy. "Trick or treat!" They called out. The kids slowly walked through the hallway to get candy from the adults.

"Happy Halloween!"

"Happy Halloween, guys!

"Happy Halloween. There you go."

With the early morning Code Orange event with the kids over, everyone changed back into their normal scrubs and went through their day as usual.

For a normal Halloween day that is.

Connor was filling out some paperwork and checking patients on his tablet at the counter of the nurses' station when he overheard Terry talking to Lanik behind him.

"Oh, Dr. Lanik, uh.... I changed the dressing on the patient in Treatment 6 and found the journal articles you requested and here's your latte." The med student handed the ED chief the binders and report covers and his coffee before walking away.

The dark-haired surgeon raised his head in confused when he heard about the drink and was slightly glaring at the doctor.

'Seriously? Is he your med student or is he your secretary, Lanik?'

"Wow. You know, I'm all about giving the med students the occasional scut work," he looks down at the cup, "but having them fetch you coffee, that's classy."

"He wanted to. Rising star, that kid. Real pleaser." Lanik tells him the young man who offered to get him one. He appreciates it nonetheless and walks away.

Connor just shakes his head softly at the chief's words.

'Yeah right. More than taking advantage of the kid.' He sighs and goes back to work.

A second later, a familiar blonde-haired South African woman walks towards the computer station and smiles seeing him.

"Dr. Rhodes." Ava says his name to get his attention. She puts down a folder by the computers. Having come down to put away paperwork for patients and having the excuse to catch a glimpse of him.

He looks up and his mood changes from annoyed to happy in an instant. "Dr. Bekker. What's on tap for you today?"

"Back-to-back CABG's." She sighs and chuckles and starts to walk away.

"You got time for lunch later?" He asks.

"I'll see if I can squeeze you in." She turns around to smile at him and turns her head back towards the elevators.

Connor smiles, staring at her as she walks away.

A few seconds later, the nurse receptionist comes into the ED and calls out loud, "Need some help over here!"

'I can't believe this guy.' Connor angrily thought to himself as he followed Lanik out of the hybrid O.R. after operating on a trauma patient brought in an hour ago with a damaged leg from working construction. When they started to treat him, Connor told Lanik to insert a needle in the groin, only to have Terry do it instead.

But he made a mistake and went into the patient's artery instead.

And now was too harsh on the young med student who was already feeling guilty for his actions.

Lanik pushes the door open upon leaving and Connor stays on his toes and starts talking. "Where do you get off treating him like that?" Lanik stopped walking to turn around to look at him. "What happened was your responsibility." He pointed his goggles at him.

"I didn't stick that guy's artery." Lanik says, not feeling responsible for Terry's actions.

"You were supposed to be supervising." Connor reminded him.

"Look, the only way they learn is under pressure,"

"Not when it endangers my patient." Connor's voice becomes more aggressive.

"Look, would you just relax? You got your line in. Disaster was averted. No harm, no foul." The chief stares at him that it worked out.

"If you ever pull something like that again-" The dark-haired surgeon gets cut off.

"Hey, you might've been the golden boy up in CT, but down here, in A-2 and partially the entire floor, I'm in charge." Lanik reminded him who has more power.

"And I will supervise my med students in whatever way I see fit." He points his right index finger at him and walks away.

Connor glares at the retreating figure in silence, completely unaware someone was standing a few feet behind him.

"Glad to see you found a new sparring partner down here." A familiar female voice got his attention, and he turns around to face her.

Ava stares at him with a smug look and had her arms crossed. "Would hate to see you getting rusty in my absence."

"That guy is an egomaniac." He points behind him and takes a few steps towards her.

"Well, takes one to know one, right?" She nods, knowing very well from personal experience from their fellowship together from the past year.

That remark made Connor chuckle and she widely grins.

'Ughhh…. payback's a bitch, right?' He hangs his head down at the universe giving him a taste of his own medicine.

"Come on. Buy you lunch?" She offers.

"Yeah." He says softly and follows her.

"Feeling better now?" Ava asks as they're 5 minutes into their lunch break in the cafeteria. They were sitting across from each other at a two-person table.

"A little now, yeah." Connor takes a drink from his coffee after taking a couple of bites into his meal.

"You just needed to recharge after doing surgery." She takes a bite from her salad.

"Doing surgery with Lanik." He sighs shaking his head. "Out of all the trauma surgeons in the city and Gwen Garret picks him to be chief."

"Glad to see you've found your match." She finds the situation a bit amusing.

"Don't worry, only you can keep me on my toes in the O.R., Dr. Bekker."

"I better, or else I think I would lose face in the hospital."

They stared at each other for a few seconds before they started to laugh. They went back into eating their meal. A couple of minutes passed by, and Connor glanced over at his girlfriend and saw she was deep in thought about something.

"Something else on your mind, Dr. Bekker?"

"Umm...." Ava took a sip from her coffee. "Connor, there's something I have to tell you. And it's really big." She had an uneasy facial expression.

"Uh oh. Am I gonna hate this?"

"I don't know how to put this but um...." She bit her lower lip and waited a few seconds before spitting it out. "I saw Josh this morning."

Connor widened his eyes. "What? Josh? He's still in Chicago? I thought he left already?" He adjusted himself in his seat to sit up straight.

'Why is Mr. Top Model still in Chicago for?'

"So, did I. I was surprised when I saw him right after you left."

"Wait.... he showed up after I left you this morning?" He raised both eyebrows.

"Yeah. I was going to the cafe to get some coffee, and he just called out my name right behind me sitting at a table. Had my coffee order ready to go in his hand." She holds up her coffee. "I'm surprised he even remembered." She placed the cup back down on the table.

"What happened?"

"He wanted to talk to me."

"Did you?"

"I did." She nods.

"Okay.” He slowly nods. “What did he say?"

She took another deep breath. "You're not gonna believe this, but...... he's moving to Chicago next month."

His eyes popped out of his head at her words. "What? He's moving here?" He paused for a few seconds to think and then remembered a certain fact. "But the WHO doesn't have a Chicago office."

"Not yet, but after the chaos with the bacteria case, they decided to make one here, along with sending research representatives and scientists to every big science university in the city."

"And Hart took one of the positions?" He asks for clarification.

"He did." She confirmed.

"Did he say why?"

"That it was time to take a break from traveling around the world and to stay in one place for a while."

"I see."

'In Chicago of ALL places in the world?'

"So.... should I expect him to be around the hospital more then?"

"Maybe." She shrugs her shoulders. "He’s assigned at the University of Illinois Chicago and normally their microbiologists and researchers have access and work in the labs here at Med."

"I've seen a few of them." He sighs leaning back in his chair. "Did he say anything else?"

Ava deeply inhaled. "Yeah. Yeah, he did and..." she softly exhaled, "you're not gonna believe this next part. And it's crazy."

"How crazy are we talking?" Now he was intrigued.

“You know how I told you he cheated on me with Annie Perkins, correct.”

He nods remembering what he told her.

"Josh proposed to Perkins back in June, in front of the entire hospital CT department and their family.”

“Okay.” He nods.

‘So Hart fell in love with Ava’s rival.’

“And she said no." Ava then took a bite from her salad.

Connor whistles. "Ouch. That's gotta hurt." He couldn't help the corners of his lips from curving.

'That's what he gets for hurting Ava for cheating.'

"And the reason why she said no, was because she got offered an Attending position,

at the Mayo Clinic,

that you turned down." She pointed at him.

"WHAT?" He stared at her in shock.

"Uh-huh. He said the recruiter was a board member and said the Attending job was first offered to a doctor in the Midwest and he turned down the position back in May in favor of running a new innovated project at their hospital.

Without a doubt, that was you, Connor."

Connor slowly takes in all that information to piece one part to the other in the timeline. "Your old rival broke up with your ex-boyfriend when he proposed to her, to take the job offer I turned down to be with you?"

Ava nods slowly.

"Wow~. That's crazy."

'So I'm the reason Joshua Hart is single? That's a weird way to spin this whole thing.'

"Yeah, I know. That shocked me too." She shook her head annoyed. "I'm pissed off that Perkins got notice by Mayo and is now working there. But I'm even more pissed off at what Josh told me the truth about what really happened back then."

"What do you mean?"

"Josh told me the real reason she seduced him to cheat on me. She wanted me to lose focus and get into my head in both my personal and professional life, so I would fail my residency and get fired."

"Seriously?" He furrowed his eyebrows.

"Yeah, even after I left to the point where she used and stayed with Josh long enough to think they were in love, only to turn down his wedding proposal to go to Mayo."

"Wow, when you said how much you hated this woman, I did not realize she would actually be a sociopath." He blinks twice and thinks back to when he first met Ava. "More and more your early days are making more and more sense now. She really was on a mission to take you down on being number 1."

"Pretty much." She looks down at her salad remains. "If I see that bitch again it be too soon." She says stabbing her bowl.

"Anything else?"

"Josh apologized again for hurting me. Says he's trying to be better guy, not that I really care anymore." She shrugs her shoulders and takes a bite. "Oh, and he asked about you."

"Me? Like what?"

"Asked if we were sleeping together. Apparently, he saw me in your car that night when we went to Molly's. And claims he didn't know we were heading there, and it was Halstead who invited him out for a drink to celebrate."

"And you told him?"

"Yeah, he was very persistent on knowing whether or not we were together. I think he only wanted to know cause Perkins left him to focus on her career and not be tied down. Then he sees me again after a while and sees I’m with someone else. Probably was feeling sad for himself and his love life."

"You think he still has some feelings for you?" That part he needed to know with her ex moving into town.

The blonde shook her head. "I think he's more upset that his proposal was ruined and is just taking that anger out on you. Plus, us being together is adding more fuel to his anger of him not getting what he wants, but everyone else is. Especially now knowing the connection between you, Mayo and Perkins now."

"I bet. That's a lot of information to take in"

"Some Halloween this turned out to be." Ava sighs leaning back against her chair.

"I'm now looking forward to the party tonight even more. Cause I really need a drink. And not just because of Lanik."

The workday came and ended and with the usual amount of crazy Halloween shenanigans and accidents people get into every year. The hospital staff from the day shift were more than happy clock out. Some having Halloween plans and some just wanting to go home after the long crazy day.

As for most of the staff in the ED, they were getting ready to head out to Will and Natalie's engagement party. 

✉️  I'm outside waiting for you ✉️

Connor texted Ava as he was walking out of the hospital. Dressed in his usual black clothes. He wasn't going to do much for his costume, only planned to wear a skull pirate bandana. More of a cool casual pirate.

Ava on the other hand, kept her costume a complete secret from him so he's looking forward to the surprise.

He smiles thinking about it and looked up around the valet parking area to find one of the employees working and instead saw Terry on his left sitting down on a bench looking lost. He softly exhales recalling today's events.

The case didn't turn out the way he hoped after they performed the earlier surgery, the line Terry put in resulted in them having to amputate the good leg. Lanik was against it due to the patient having no chance of survival when he first arrived and was also afraid of the slightest chance of him surviving. Likely the patient would have filed a malpractice suit with the loss of his good leg and him being in charge would have taken a hit along with bringing Terry with him. Connor still cut off the leg, but the patient still didn't make it.

No doubt Terry was blaming himself for his actions and even questioned his career choices of turning down an NFL contract to be a doctor.

The surgeon walks over to the med student and sits down next to him on his right. "First one's the hardest." He puts his messenger down on his right.

Terry turned his head realizing someone next to him. "Huh?"

"You didn't cause his death, you know that, right?" The doctor turns his head to look at him.

"That's not it." Terry slightly shook his head; he wasn't upset about that.

The doctor was confused by those words as he stayed silent for a few seconds before speaking. "When Mitch died for a moment, for a split second......" The younger man looked down then turn his head to look at him. "I was relieved to be in the clear."

Connor nodded his head, understanding. "You're human."

The two started at each other.

"Now, look, the minute that you walk into this hospital, the only person relying on you needs to be your patient. This is already a high-pressured gig and you need to find a way to leave everything else at the door. You got me?" He advised.

Terry nodded. "I hear you." He looks down for a few seconds and then backs up. "Thanks, Dr. Rhodes."

Connor nods his head again and the two men stand up. He puts his strap back over his right shoulder and turns to look at the med student again. He gives him a reassuring grin. "You hang in there, Terry. You're going to be fine."

Terry nods taking in his words and softly smiles as he walks around him, getting a quick pat over his right shoulder by the doctor.

As Connor turns around, he sees his date walking towards him happily grinning.

'Ah~ good timing...and uh.... hello~.'

Ava was wearing a black top with white polka dots and puffy sleeves. The shirt appeared thin and had a long v neck, exposing part of her chest and the shirt was a little short as it revealed a small portion of her bare waist. Her pants were long black knit with front slits for both legs that went up to her knees, showing off black boots that went below her knees. Along with the pirate hat headband, her other accessories included were large golden hoop earrings that matched three necklaces. One necklace was a large chain that was wrapped closer to her neck, the second necklace was thin and had a small circle pendant, and the final necklace hung loose around her neck and appeared to look like a compass. She wore her hair in her normal curly fashion; he could tell it she fixed some of her curls from doing surgeries all day.

She put a lot of effort into her costume.

'I can see why she didn't want to dress up before coming to work now. This is not something you wear for work or in the daytime.'

Connor chuckles taking a few steps towards her. "Arr, matey." He imitated a pirate.

She chuckles at him.

"You clean up nice, Dr. Bekker." He says in his normal voice.

"You're not so bad yourself." She complimented him.

He chuckles again and offers his right arm to her. "Shall we?

With the sun having gone down for the day and the moon up, so was the buzzing Chicago nightlife for Halloween night for everyone in the city. Kids trick-or-treating, teenagers and adults going to haunted houses, partying or causing mischief.

♫ Gyal

Wid ah body like dat

When you Snapchat me, girl

Sey me haffi screenshot

So me call her scotch bonnet so di gyal hot

She a bubble like soup, dat a real pepper pot

Check ya iPhone fi di iMessages ♫

Most of the ED staff, along with their friends at Firehouse 51 and the 21st District, were having fun drinking, dancing and celebrating Will and Natalie's engagement at O'Rourke's Pub for their joint bachelor and bachelorette party. Lots of laughter mingled with the sound of clinking glasses and upbeat music everyone was dancing to, creating a festive atmosphere of the special occasion before the upcoming big day. Almost everyone was dressed in costumes, mostly the women were, some of men didn't care to dress up but still wore something nice.

♫ Seh me outside park up inna di X6

Wid the guinness and magnum ready wid di mix

So me know tonight your business get fixed, gyal

Mi love how you wine and bubble gyal

When you go pon your toe and tip pon it

Body look tight and right, gyal ♫

The bar was alive with so many familiar faces and decorated with various Halloween decor and balloons representing the bride and groom and signs relating to wedding engagement. Maggie, April and Doris changed from their earlier costumes into going as the Pink Ladies from Grease. The bride wore a red dress that showed off her bare shoulders with some black floral designs sticking out that matches the Halloween season along with the sash her maid of honor made her wear. The groom wore a dark navy-black suit and blue shirt and tie combo with a black decorated hat that said "Groom" written in light blue.

♫ When you quint up your ting and grip on it

Treat me like a App when you hot

Put me pon di desktop then you double click pon it

Mi waan you boom flick pon it

Do all kind ah tricks pon it ♫

The bride and groom were dancing in the middle with everyone surrounding them. They cheered when Will dipped Natlie backwards.

"I'll go get us another round." The bride says after kissing him.

"Got it."

♫ Wine gyal, same way

Wine gyal, mi no come yah fi no game play

Wine gyal, same way

Wine gyal, do all kind ah tricks pon it ♫

Soon an hour passed and some of the women were getting tired dancing on their feet and decided to sit down at one of the corner booth counter areas to chat among themselves. Sitting left to right were: Kim, Hailey, Ava, Brett, Natalie, Maggie, Stella, and Foster.

"So, how's the bride to be enjoying herself so far tonight?" Kim asked, she was dressed as Morticia Addams.

"After the day I had, I needed to blow off some steam tonight." Natalie replied, adjusting her sash.

"Amen to that. I can't tell you how many false alarms we had on the ambo. And of course, the many Halloween mishaps." Brett groaned, she was dressed as a witch.

"No kidding. We had a guy who almost beheaded himself with a guillotine decor on his front lawn." Said Stella, she was dressed as Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

"Taking Halloween scare a little too far there." Maggie looked at the firefighter. "Hey, how's Severide doing?"

Stella looked at her and then over at the bar counter where her boyfriend was, along with Casey and Ethan. "Okay."

"Glad to hear it." The nurse nods.

"Yeah, I mean, at least that's what he tells me, but-"

"Severide being Severide." Foster finishes for her. She was dressed as vampire.

"Exactly. It is a mystery what goes on in that head of his." Stella shook her head.

"You look tired. Are you okay?" Natalie asks.

"You know, my sleep has been terrible lately. I-I think I need a new pillow. But until then, this next shot of tequila is just going to have to do. Cheers." Stella holds up her glass beer signaling the rest to go the same. "Forget about me, it's your night girl. To Natalie!"

"To Natalie!” the group roared back, their voices mingling in a harmonious chorus, and glasses clinked together.

Ava took a sip from her beer to think back a few weeks again to the last time she saw the squad lieutenant.

==Flashback==

"Excuse me. Do you have any information on a Benjamin Severide? Admitted for a stroke." Severide asks Doris when he sees the nearest nurse.

"Let me check." The nurse says before turning around.

Severide stands by himself for a moment before Ava calls out his name. "Lieutenant Severide?"

He approaches her and she has a sad facial expression that tells him it's bad news.

"I'm sorry." She speaks. "We did everything we could." She softly inhaled before saying, "Your father passed away ten minutes ago."

"What?"

"I'm so sorry, Kelly."

==Flashback Ends==

Severide's father had come in from a stroke when Ava was down in the ED and Connor was in the middle of performing a trauma in the hybrid O.R. She tried her best to save him, but it was already too late. Losing a patient is part of the job, but it's a little harder when it's a family relative of someone you know.

"So, Ava...." Brett's voice pulled her out of her thoughts and turned to face her on her left. "Stella says that you personally know Dr. Joshua Hart back home in South Africa?"

The blonde South African turned her head to look further down the corner booth at the female firefighter, who pretended to drink and look away.

Ava slowly nods her head. "Yes. That part is true."

"Wait, Dr. Joshua Hart? AKA the smoking hot microbiologist that helped during the flesh-eating bacteria chaos. That doctor?" Foster widens her eyes at the gossip.

"That be him." The surgeon nods again.

"That man is F-I-N-E. Fine." Foster said with wide eyes looking at Stella.

"I'm only asking cause Violet Mikami took him out of Molly's that night." The blonde paramedic reveals.

"Oh, so it was Violet he was talking about. Must have turned him on with her chemistry trivia facts." The blonde surgeon took a sip from her drink. "Believe me when I say this, that guy takes full advantage of his looks to get women in bed with him." She rolled her eyes.

"Does that include you?" Kim asks, feeling interested in poking into Ava's past.

Ava's eyes roll up from her drink to slightly glare at the cop. "Really? Do I seem like the type of woman that would take off my pants easily for a guy who uses his looks to get laid?"

"There wasn't a "no" in that entire sentence." Hailey points out sitting right next to her. She was dressed as Wednesday Addams.

Ava turned to her left and saw the rest of the ladies were eagerly waiting to hear what she had to say. She groans and rolls her eyes again, knowing these ladies well enough, they'll not going to back down. "The guy is persistent. I'll give him that. It took him 5 years for me to agree to go out with him. First casual then into a relationship." She admitted.

"Ha!" Foster pointed. "Is he good?"

"Why, you looking for a new hookup?" She playfully raised her left eyebrow.

"Always. Now spill the truth girl."

Ava exhaled as her eyes rolled up towards the ceiling. "If you're just looking for a hot night, then he's good for that."

"That's all I needed to hear."

"Lucky for you, he told me he's moving to Chicago next month." Ava reveals to the group.

"Even better." The paramedic grinned.

"Foster, you're seriously asking Ava about wanting to sleep with her ex?" Brett exclaimed.

"Hey, don't mind me." Ava holds up both her hands. "I don't care if you want to sleep with him. I don't want him. Not anymore, not after what he did." That little detail caught their attention.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know it wasn't amicable." Foster changed her demeanor from excited to sincere.

Ava shook her head and held up her left hand. "I'm over now, so it's fine to talk about it."

"What happened?" Natalie asks.

"Caught him cheating with this old rival of mine from Groote Schuur."

"Ouch." Said Maggie. "The new hot scientist's a dog, I see."

"That's why I applied to America for my CT fellowship, to get far away from my past. It blew up pretty bad afterwards. Not a lot of good memories. But then Connor got the position, and I had to wait the next year for Latham to let me in. Which I was grateful for. I hated working at the same place with Perkins every day." Ava takes a long sip from her drink as she leans back against the burgundy color booth cushion.

"Perkins? That the name of the woman?" Natalie asks.

"Yeah, Annie Perkins. Before meeting Connor, she was the real thorn to my side."

"So, in a way, like you when you first arrived and acted towards Connor to other doctors then?" The bride asks.

The heart surgeon paused for a few seconds to think and then nodded. "Yeah, pretty much."

"That's explains it now." Maggie widens her eyes at the information.

'Looks like Connor and the others just got the foot end of what Ava went through with this Perkins chick.'

"The day I left for Chicago, Josh actually showed up at the airport to say goodbye." Ava tells them.

"He did? To apologize?" Brett asks.

"That and defend himself, saying he hoped I find someone who makes me happy, and he and Perkins were meant to be. Bla bla bla." Ava waves her left hand back and forth. "And wished me good luck in my career in America."

"Well, good news is you did turn out great here. He on the other hand...." Stella's voice trails off.

"He told me he proposed to Perkins back in early June, but she turned him down." The blonde-haired doctor reveals to them.

Brett widened her eyes and opened her mouth. "Wow, and he ruined a future with you for her only to get dumped in the end."

"And he had a large audience watching, including their parents."

Hailey whistles. "The best karma there is."

"Yeah, small world for the reason why she did actually." Ava lifts her right index finger.

"What do you mean?" The detective asks.

"He said, part of the reason why she turned him down was because she got offered the exact same Mayo Clinic job that Connor turned down to stay in Chicago to be with me." That got a reaction from the table.

"Shut up!"

"Are you serious?"

"No way!"

"Dang! This is a small world."

Ava nods. "According to him, she told him the only reason she dated him was to get into my head. Mess up both my personal and professional life. Even went as far as manipulating him into thinking they were in love."

"Wow~ that's some...." Kim looked off to the side to think, couldn't find the right words to say.

"Sociopath level insanity." Foster finishes for her.

"Yeah, that's the word I'm looking for." The cop thanked her.

"She was that fixated on you even after you moved out of the continent?" Hailey asks.

"I wanna say no, but then again I don't really know what goes on in that head of hers. I think she just liked the stats of being one of the top CT surgeons at the hospital and dating an attractive guy with high family status that many women in Cape Town had fallen for. I would be more surprised if she only stayed with him just to spite me. Especially given the fact that I wasn't planning on moving back home at all permanently. Taking a trip back home is as far as what I'm willing to do. I meant what I said about starting over my life over here." Ava stares at her.

"You got your dream job and life and so did she at Mayo. And Josh gets nothing in the end and somehow ends up coming back into your life a year after you left." Maggie states.

"He said it was a coincidence he was sent by WHO to help the CDC on the case. I never told him what hospital I was doing my fellowship at in Chicago, so I guess I can believe him in that part." Ava shrugs her shoulders.

"And him moving to Chicago? You think he's moving here to fix things between you guys?" Brett asks.

"I'm not really sure of anything at the moment with him. Just that I think he's pissed at Connor for "ruining" his proposal to Perkins by inadvertently sending the Mayo Clinic offer her way."

"Men always need someone to blame when things don't go the way they want." Stella states taking another swing from her drink.

"Sorry to ask but, do you have some feelings for Josh still?" Natalie asks.

Ava widens her eyes at her friend's words and stand up straight to look at her. "What? Of course I don't!! Any romantic feeling I had for Josh died the night I caught him with Perkins. I would never leave Connor for that guy, ever. Do you know how long it took me to trust another guy after Josh?" She exclaimed.

"A year, right? Cause you started sleeping with Connor back in May." Hailey asks next to her.

Ava looked at her and then darted her eyes to the upper left. "For the most part, yes."

The blonde detective under the black wig caught that little detail. "What was that?"

"What was what?" The blonde doctor pretended to not know what she was talking about and took another drink, only to realize her beer was empty.

'Damn. I need another drink. Since when did I become this open about my personal life with others? Oh yeah.... because I actually made friends.'

"That thing with your eyes." Hailey squinted her eyes as she looked carefully at her. "Connor Rhodes wasn't the first guy you slept with after Josh, was he?" She raised her left eyebrow.

Ava leaned away slightly from her and looking at the rest of the table were also eyeing her carefully. They were all feeling motivated with the alcohol in their systems.

"I thought we were here to celebrate Natalie." She tried to move onto a new topic.

"Oh, we will, after you answer the question." Natalie devilishly grinned leaning her left elbow against the table to stare at her. "Spill it, Bekker. Who was the guy after Josh, but before Connor?"

"Okay fine." She sighs in defeat......

but then playfully grinned at a thought.

'I might as well have a little fun here. I saw the way they acted when HE was in town. And I already told Connor about him.' Her playful grin turned devilishly, feeling the liquid encouragement going through her system.

"I hooked up with NY Hottie Cop back in December when he came to Chicago." Ava discloses to them. They exploded around her, slamming their hands and drinks against the table.

"What?!"

"Shut up!"

"Damn it!"

"No way!"

"You slept with Detective Carisi?" Kim widens her eyes.

Detective Dominick Carisi Jr., from Manhattan’s Special Victims Unit. He was a very attractive, tall well-dressed man with well styled brown hair. He had come to Chicago alone a year ago to work on a case with the Intelligence Unit that connected back to an old case he worked on. While working on the case he crossed paths with multiple first responders, many were women that gossiped among each other. Giving him the nickname, “NY Hottie Cop” when talking about him in private. He spent a good amount of time at the hospital and out on the field when talking to victims. And of course, taking down perps in the case. His kind personality, empathy and compassion with victims and others really won over many of the first responders. 

That and he knew how to wear a suit. That also played a part in becoming an eye candy to the female first responders that met him.

Many were upset when the case ended, and he went back to New York.

"Thought it would be a good Christmas present for myself." She crossed her arms. "And I also wanted to take a chance on putting myself out there after Josh. I gotta say, it was hard to convince him, he was going through something personal. Not gonna say what it was for privacy reasons. But I eventually hooked him in." She smiles.

"I find it hard to believe for a man to turn you down, Bekker." Maggie playfully scoffed. "I mean ......" She motioned her arm towards up and down at her appearance. "You're one smoking hot babe, hot stuff."

"He had a pretty strong will. But I got him talking and well.... seduced him to spend one night with me." The blonde grins.

"Any details you like to share?" Brett asks.

"Well for starters, he's better than Josh." Her grin becomes wider.

"In what way?"

"Just... wow~." Ava whistles. "This isn't related to what he was going through, but his girlfriend dumped him two months prior."

"What?!" Brett exclaimed. "A woman dumped someone who looked like that? New Yorker's have some pretty weird standards."

"Said there were trust issues when working on a case. Though, a cop dating a reporter doesn't exactly sound like a good combination."

"No, it does not." Hailey shakes her head.

"Still though, he could give Connor a run for his money in the bedroom and being a good kisser." Ava playfully bit her lower lip. The girls whistle at her words and laugh. "I'm just saying, whoever ends up becoming Mrs. Carisi will be one lucky lady."

"I bet." Natalie nods.

"You sure you were good to drive? You're lucky we didn't get pulled over." Ava chuckles as they stumble into his condo.

"Don't worry, I didn't go nuts like some of the others did. I will however drink a little more when the wedding comes up next week." Connor steps out of his shoes and then drops his bag onto the kitchen counter as he walks to get a glass of water. He pulls off the pirate bandana and uses it to wipe away some head sweat.

"We're getting an Uber that night, aren't we?" She says walking towards the bedroom to take off her outfit. She first stops at the mirror dresser to take off all her pirate accessories starting from the top of her head to around her neck. Once everything is taken off, she walks towards the bedroom bench at the foot of the bed to take off her boots. She starts with her left boot, resting her ankle against her right knee to unzip it.

"I'm sure we won't be the only ones. Might as well charter a party bus at this rate." Connor walks into the bedroom and sees her slowly getting out of her pirate outfit. The whole night he couldn't stop thinking about how good she looked and how much he wanted to take that off himself in private away from prying perverted eyes.

'Most of us did take tomorrow off. And uh.... who says the party has to stop once we leave the bar?'

"Careful, you might have jinxed it." She smiles, still feeling the alcohol in her system and holds up her loosen left boot. "Do you mind?" The blonde gave him an alluring look for him to finish for her.

He glanced between her and her boot and gave her a knowing look.

Not saying a word, he walks over to her, kneels and proceeds to remove her left boot from her foot. He rests her foot against his right knee as he proceeds to the other.

"As long as we're all having fun, right?" He holds onto her right leg and unzips her boot and pulls it off.

"Speaking of fun, the night's not over just yet." He leans down towards the exposed skin of her calf and slowly caresses her skin against his face.

Ava closes her eyes and leans her head back as she softly sighs at his gentle touches.

"I've been thinking about this outfit all night. You looked so good in it." He pulls his head back and to look at her as he spreads her legs wide open. He leans forward up towards her neck and starts pressing soft kisses.

"You wanna see this on the floor instead?" She softly gasps as she scoots herself to the bed behind her as he pushes her down on her back against the mattress.

"Not my fault you chose to dress as a sexy pirate to the party." His kisses move slowly towards her revealed chest area of her v neck top.

"Hmm. You blame me?" Ava moans holding the back of his head in her right hand when he presses his right hand against her left breast over the thin fabric.

"Uh-huh." He chuckles while his other hand works on pulling up her shirt.

"You want to punish me? She sits up a bit to help remove the shirt, leaving her completely topless.

"So bad." He grins against her lips as they start to fight for dominance and start taking off both their clothes.

-

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-

-

-

At the same time, somewhere else in the Windy city was a man holding a glass of whiskey in his right hand, he stood by the window, the cold glass pressed against his left shoulder as he leaned against. He gazed at the Chicago skyline view from below.

Dressed in nothing but a towel that hung loosely around his waist, he raised the glass to his lips, relishing the warmth that spread through him as the amber liquid slid down his throat. It was a simple pleasure after the evening he just had. Just hours earlier, laughter had filled the room, mingling with the hushed whispers of shared secrets and fleeting touches.

He turns his head around right to look at the sleeping faceless naked woman in his hotel bed.

He took another sip of whiskey, his eyes drifting back to the window, seeing his own reflection.

The man was in deep thought after everything that has happened today, but one thing was clear to him.

A name that stuck to him.

A name whom his former lover had fallen in love with.

Connor Rhodes.