Author's Note:
Thank you to all of my reviewers! You guys are amazing.
To the very first reviewer: whether or not that pun was intended, it made me chuckle. I'm glad there's someone out there who, just like me, was waiting for a Rhekker fiction. I love love love this shipname by the way; hadn't thought about it myself yet!
Marielle: thank you for your kind words, I'm glad you're enjoying this fic. Also, you have good intuition ;)...
A sharp pressure in her lower abdomen woke Ava up.
God, I need to pee, she thought as she opened her eyes.
Wait… where am I?
She carefully lifted her head and was pleased that the movement wasn't accompanied with any dizziness. She was lying right in the middle of her bed with the quilts pulled up to her shoulders.
She frowned, first of all, she never slept in the middle of her bed like that. She always took the left side. Second of all, hadn't she fallen asleep on the sofa after Connor administered the Toradol?
She smiled to herself as she came to the conclusion that he must have carried her to her bed at some point. Ava wished she had been awake for that. She'd have loved to experience being cradled against Connor's chest, his strong arms firmly holding her up as he carefully carried her. Her head would have been resting on his sternum; she might have heard his heart beating.
Oh well.
She pushed the quilt away from her chest and stretched out her arms. A small plaster was stuck to the back of her right hand.
Oh, ok. Connor must have waited for all of the saline to empty into me, then removed the bag and carried me to bed before letting himself out.
Satisfied with that, she sat up, still not feeling light-headed. Also, her body felt more like herself again. Her throat wasn't as constricted and her bones didn't throb. Only a slight ache resided that she could easily ignore. In fact, if she took it easy today, she probably wouldn't even many pain killers.
As bladder seemed to bulge within her abdomen, she quickly stood up.
Still no dizziness, she thought smugly. Before she made her way to the bathroom, she checked the time on her phone. It was quarter to 7 am. Just as Connor had predicted, she'd been knocked out for almost 8 hours.
As she crossed her room, the floor felt unpleasantly cold against her bare soles and goose bumps erupted on her naked legs.
Wait! I'm feeling cold, so that means that the fever finally broke, Ava grinned to herself. The worst was definitely over.
She slipped into the en suite and relieved herself. She then turned on the shower and let the water run to become warm. In the meantime, she stripped off the few clothes she was wearing and threw them into the clothes bin. Maybe pried off was a better-suited verb since they were extremely sticky against her; she had clearly sweated during the night.
Something light tickled her foot. She glanced down and found a small wad of cotton wool on the floor. She picked it up, confused. There was a drop of dried blood on it.
Oh! She remembered that Connor had pressed some cotton against her butt after the injection, then left it there, trapped between her skin and panties. It must have fallen to the ground when she undressed herself. She twisted herself around so that her back was facing the mirror in front of the shower. Yup, she could make out the needle mark, right in the middle of her right butt-cheek. She massaged it lightly, and as expected, the muscle was sore from the injection. Shrugging, it was nothing to worry about after all, she discarded the cotton wool.
Before hopping in the shower, she pulled off the rubber band that was ineffectively holding about half of her hair in a braid and used her fingers to tease it open. Then, she grabbed her toothbrush, applied some toothpaste and stepped into the warm stream of water.
She groaned quietly as the water overhead ran over her body. She just stood there, right under the showerhead, eyes closed, brushing her teeth, letting the warm liquid wash away the stickiness and stale sweat off her skin, smoothen her hair down against her back and clean her face.
Once her mouth tasted fresh and minty again, she spat out the toothpaste and leaned out of the cubicle briefly to set the brush back in its etui by the sink. Then, she started the process of shampooing her hair.
As her fingers massaged the shampoo into her scalp and long hair, she lost herself to her thoughts.
Connor Rhodes had come to her house last night to take care of her. And the night before that, he'd voluntarily given her a life home. When he'd seen that she had no means of going home undrenched and would have had to call herself a cab, he'd just taken her by the arm and led her to his car without an ounce of hesitation.
She shivered. Did this all mean anything? Or was he simply a really thoughtful guy that had grown to consider her a friend? (Cos the first 2 months they worked together, he'd probably have been pleased for her to fall sick and most definitely wouldn't have helped her. She was horribly competitive after all and until he got used to her pushing, to him it must have felt like she was stepping all over his toes).
It could be the case that he was simply thoughtful; from what she'd managed to squeeze out from fellow co-workers, he used to be quite a one-woman guy and that required a lot of attention to detail, right?
Apparently, Connor had had 2 serious relationships in the 2 years he'd been at Gaffney before her arrival. The relationship to the first woman ended when she accepted a position as Head of Trauma at John Hopkins. So he probably didn't believe in long-term relationships. She didn't, either. That people could continue a relationship without intimacy was beyond her. She couldn't comprehend giving up not only sex, but also simple gestures such as touching a loved person's arm or giving them a goodnight kiss and still maintain that a relationship existed. So, the end of that relationship was understandable.
Then there was Robin. From what she had observed herself, Robin leaving him stemmed from her illness, not because he'd been unfaithful or unloving. She had needed a clean start elsewhere to the expense of their relationship. Everyone at hospital had been unsubtly tiptoeing around her and treating her with kid gloves upon her return, just waiting to see if she would go crazy again. That was no healthy environment to recover in; Ava would've run off too if she were in Robin's shoes. Hell, she had run away from South Africa herself after Mattheu, right?
She squeezed her eyes shut tighter, her brain furiously sorting through everything.
What else had there been that could indicate..? Oh, yeah, his blushing when it came to my body, she remembered. And the, "Yeah, you're hot" comment. Those could mean he liked her but could also mean nothing at all. Maybe he'd been agreeing that she was (temperature) hot since he'd just taken a thermometer reading. Maybe he'd semi-blushed because he didn't want her to be embarrassed by it all when she was well and alert again.
She snorted at that thought, she had no problem showing off, be it her skills, experience or body. But he wouldn't know that, the nagging part of her mind that was trying to shelter her from being hurt again said. It was making a very strong case that all of her 'evidence' that Connor was sexually interested in her was purely circumstantial and she shouldn't get carried away just yet.
Ava sighed. Before she could work up a headache agonising over the details and might bes and what ifs, she concentrated on washing away all remnants of having been sick.
A quarter of an hour later, she turned the water off and stood in the cubicle for a minute, squeezing her hair out and letting the excess water drip off her body.
Then, she stepped out into the cool bathroom, reached for the blue towel on the rail and wrapped it around her torso. Ava picked up her brush and began untangling her hair. As it became easier to brush through her hair with each stroke, she was pleased to see how long it was. It reached her mid-back when she brushed it out. It would appear shorter once she towel-dried it and let the curls set in, but that was nothing compared to the short, bob-style cut she'd worn back at home.
Satisfied that she'd untangled all the knots, Ava unwrapped the towel and dried her body off before using it to rub her hair dry, too. By the time she discarded it into the clothes bin, damp, and padded back into her bedroom, her hair had become wavy again and was mostly dry.
She opened her wardrobe and quickly donned clean underwear and a pair of grey hand-knit socks. Bless my mother, she thought fondly as balanced on a leg to put the socks on. She loved hand knitted socks because they were so thick. In Africa, she couldn't appreciate them too much because of the heat. But here, her toes would go numb from the cold if she didn't wear them.
Once her feet were protected from the floor, her eyes flitted through the small piles of clothes in the shelves to see what she should wear. She ended up choosing black cotton leggings and a loose, light-grey t-shirt (no surprise there; half of her shirts were grey, it was her favourite colour to wear). Because it was cool, she finished off the comfortable jammies outfit with a pink robe that fell to her thighs.
As she tied its belt at her waist, Ava walked out of her bedroom, intent on going to the kitchen and having something to drink. Now that she was done with IV fluids, she needed to keep herself orally hydrated. It shouldn't be a problem anymore since her stomach felt like normal.
She emerged into the hall that served as the crossroad of her little bungalow. Right opposite the bedroom was a guest bathroom. To the left there was the kitchenette and dining room and to the right there was the living room. While the bedroom and bathroom both had their own door, the doorways to the living room and kitchen were open plane.
Before heading into the kitchen, Ava glanced to her right first; towards the living room. It was purely a habitual glance; as if to reassure herself that the front door was intact and no-one had tried robbing the place.
And she did a double take when she saw that there was a figure on her sofa. She quietly popped her head around the open doorway, and her heart stuttered as she saw that Connor Rhodes was lying fast asleep on her 3-seater, looking somewhat cramped.
Her mouth dropped and she took it all in. Her scrubs, blue socks and a belt she didn't recognise were folded neatly on the table next to a full-looking cloth bag; it probably contained the medical supplies he'd brought but not used since the rest of the table was now bare.
His shoes were lying next to hers by the door and her coat and scarf hung on the rack; Connor must have picked it up for she clearly remembered simply letting everything drop to the floor when she arrived home from hospital and stripped in that nauseous hot flush. His jacket hung there, right next to hers.
Connor himself was a sight for sore eyes. His body was too long for the couch and so his knees were bent outwards. The pillows he'd removed from her bed for her were now supporting his neck, and her ripple blanket covered most of his body but stopped short at his shoulders. He was still wearing that dark blue jumper and his hair was jutting out at odd angles. She had to supress a grin as she studied her colleague. He looked so peaceful when he was unaware of everything. She loved how his mouth was slightly open and no lines marred his face. Sleeping lowered his guard and made him look younger.
Connor had stayed the night to make sure she woke up ok. What!? This time, she didn't manage to supress that grin.
She stared at him for a few minutes, leaning against the doorway, still grinning and feeling all warm and fuzzy on the inside.
Finally, she pulled herself out of it. She couldn't keep staring at him forever; if she woke him now and he got going , he could be at work before 8 am, not too late to raise concern or get into trouble.
She decided it would be appropriate to make him up with a fresh cup of coffee as a thank you for everything he'd done for her before waking him.
So she headed a bit too eagerly into the kitchen and started the kettle. Until the water boiled, she prepared two mugs. She had an odd assortment since she'd bought them second hand from a flea market upon her arrival. She couldn't justify buying some perfect matching set when good quality kitchenware at bargain prices could be bought from such a bazar.
Her mug had a cartoon drawing of a great white shark and a seal with one of its flippers in a sling. A speech-bubble coming from the seal said, "Do not consume if seal is broken!" She'd fallen instantly in love with that mug when she spotted it as it was the perfect combination of her love for sharks and puns. If she ever moved again, there was no way she'd leave it behind.
The one she chose for Connor had delicate flowers painted all over it. She smirked, it wasn't masculine but the 'best boyfriend ever' mug didn't seem appropriate, and flowers were far prettier than the other solid-coloured mugs she had. And no matter how grateful she was towards him for everything, he was not getting her shark mug.
She spooned some soluble coffee into each, then added sugar to his. In the very beginning, when he was having a rough time with balancing taking Robin home and work, she'd bought him a coffee which he hadn't accepted. If he had, he would've been surprised to find she knew his flavour. Ava had asked the lady at the coffee cart what, "Doctor Rhodes, you know, the ridiculously hot cardio surgeon?" drank and the cart lady had giggled, recognising the description. He apparently liked his coffee with lots of milk and a teaspoon of sugar.
Soon, she was carefully walking towards the living room with hot mugs in either hand. She placed his down on the table, centimetres away from his face. Then, she lowered herself into the armchair, folding her legs underneath her body. She wrapped her second hand around the mug, relishing in its warmth, and decided she could wait a couple of minutes before waking him up.
She wanted to study his features and permanently trap the memory in her brain while he was still unaware of her gaze.