Again, it had been weeks since Sarah and Connor had spoken. All of a sudden, she was avoiding him in the hallways again. It was harder this time around, now that he wasn't afraid of stepping into the psych ward anymore. It wasn't uncommon for him to drop in and try to grab her for lunch. She'd head in the other direction the moment she saw him out in the reception area, claiming she had a patient to see or a resident research project to hurriedly finish off. He knew her better than that, of course, but he just went with it. She would come to him when she was ready to talk.

Imagine Sarah's surprise when she got a note from her father. The man had sent her two birthday cards in twenty years, then he relocates to Chicago and wants to catch up? And his idea of contacting her was to leave a note. A note!

The nerve of the man.

Connor had just finished assisting Ava on a complicated surgery. He actually froze in shock when he exited the OR and came face-to-face with Sarah in the hallway.

"Hi," she said somewhat lamely.

"Sarah. Hey."

Ava looked from one to the other several times before she said anything. "So, I'm gonna go and be anywhere but here."

Both turned their heads and watched her walk away before they turned their attention back to each other.

"This is stupid," Sarah said, shaking her head and beginning to walk away. "I shouldn't be here. You don't ..."

He leaned out and lightly grabbed her shoulder. Suddenly very concerned, he asked, "I don't what, Sarah?"

"Care," she said, exhaling resignedly. "You don't care. At least, you shouldn't. There is literally no reason for you to, so."

He found himself running to keep up with her pace as she headed back down the hallway.

"Sarah, I care," he said when he finally caught up with her. "I care a lot. You need me, I'm here. That's the way it's always been."

"Is it?" she asked him with tears in his eyes. "Because that's not what it's felt like recently. You seem to be interested in literally every woman in Chicago but me. And yet for some unknown reason, I find myself needing to talk to someone about something that I know you'd understand, and I come running back to you."

He lightly grabbed hold of her elbow and turned her to face him. "I know you don't believe me, but you're not going to stop me from proving it. You need me, I'm here. That's just what we do."

Wordlessly, they made their way up to the rooftop side by side. The coffee cart was up here today so it was less than quiet, but they managed to find themselves a secluded spot over by the far corner. They sat there together for a solid five minutes before either said a word. He'd been hoping she'd open the conversation, being the one who needed to talk and all, but he found himself the one breaking the silence.

"What's going on?"

The wind blew through her hair as she took deep breaths and looked anywhere but at him. "My dad is trying to get in touch with me."

Her voice was emotionless. It was odd, considering her normal reaction was to feel everything. He could tell just but her voice now conflicted she really was.

"Wow."

She laughed humourlessly at his automatic stunned response. "Really? That's all you've got?"

"Well, I'm not exactly the best example of what to do when a father suddenly wants to come back into your life," he conceded. "Remember the day by dad tried that? The man rolled up in a limousine and I told him exactly where he could go and what he could do with it."

"But you get it."

"Oh, I get it."

The conflicting emotions? The constant 'what ifs' running through your head? The thought of giving him a chance being alluring, but the crippling trust issues / fear of abandonment immediately squashing any concept of any of it?

Connor understood exactly where she was sitting right now. She had one foot on either side of the fence.

"What did your mom have to say about it?" he asked, knowing she would've already asked the elusive woman for her opinion.

In response, Sarah pulled out her phone and passed it to him, already open on her mother's email:

Stay away from him. He'll only hurt you.

"My mom is a mess," she told him quietly. "She hates my dad. I never should've written her."

He looked at her again, then spoke quietly and comfortingly. "Maybe there's more to it than that. Maybe she's just trying to protect you."

She looked to him, then asked, "What would you do? If you were me."

"I really don't know," he answered her honestly. "As much as I hate to say it, I think you owe it to yourself to meet him. Even if it's only once."

"I knew you were going to say that."

"That's because I know you so well," he said, wrapping one arm around her shoulders. "You made your mind up the second you saw his note. You just needed someone else to remind you of what you already know."

She leaned her head on his shoulder now. It was comforting for both of them, something they hadn't felt in such a long time.

Despite herself, Sarah found herself wishing this moment never had to end.

Their conversation was what led her to walking into the very back of one of her father's lectures. He'd spotted her, she knew it, but he carried on just long enough to end the class. While each of his students headed up toward the exit, she found herself descending down the stairs, deeper into the lecture hall.

"Sarah."

She wasn't sure what she was feeling. It was strange, seeing a man she hadn't seen since she was such a young child. And yet he still seemed to know her.

"How do you know what I look like?"

"You have every right to be angry with me," he said, stepping closer.

She wasn't about to get into this. "What do you want?"

"Just another chance."

An hour later, she was back at Med telling Dr Charles all about her visit with her father.

"What made you change your mind?" he asked her interestedly.

"It was something Connor said," she answered him honestly. "All these years I've wondered who he is, why he left. You always tell me there are two sides to every story. I wanted to hear my dad's."

"Makes sense."

"You know," she added conversationally, "my dad said he did write me."

"Really?"

"Yeah. My mom must've thrown the letters away," she continued on, not noticing the slight change in her mentor's demeanour. "He's not really the monster she made him out to be. He's a professor of astrophysics. He's brilliant, his students love him. He's taking me out for dinner on Friday at the faculty club."

It was ringing big, glaring alarm bells in Dr Charles' head, but he could not tell Sarah about that. HIPAA privacy laws would prevent him from saying anything at all or giving her any type of warning. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but there was just something off about this guy. He made a mental note to keep a very close eye on this situation.

At the end of his shift, Connor found himself up in the doctor's lounge in the cardiac ward drinking coffee with Ava Bekker.

"You were throwing some beautiful stitches back there," he said conversationally. "Fast."

"Well, you moved right with me," she replied. "Spot on with the graft."

He took another sip of his coffee, not sure what either of them would say next.

"So, which of your myriad of girlfriends gets Dr Rhodes tonight?"

He should've known it would be something vaguely inappropriate. Laughing, he answered, "Yeah, no. Tonight it is just me and Jimmy Fallon. I've gotta pace myself, you know?"

He knew how egotistical it sounded, but they both knew it was a joke.

"You're a real mystery," she commented. "You used to be such a one woman guy."

"Yeah, that didn't work out particularly well, did it?"

A ghost of a smile appeared on Ava's face. "That's not the woman I was talking about."

He scoffed. "That didn't end well either."

"I think the problem is more that it didn't end," she said thoughtfully. "You're still in love with her."

One thing Ava Bekker was definitely not was subtle.

"Yeah," he said, sighing long and hard. "I am."

"And have you told her this?"

He looked over to her quizzically, partially wondering why they were having this conversation but also genuinely interested in what she had to say next. "I screwed up badly with her, Ava. We both did. And I keep on screwing up, over and over again. Just because you love someone doesn't mean it's right."

"It doesn't mean it's wrong either." She paused, then added, "She's still in love with you too, you know."

"And how could you possibly know that?"

That ghost of a smile was back. "Because I've been there, Connor. I know what it looks like."

They were interrupted then by Dr Latham bringing them a case - or rather, dangling a carrot. A multi-disciplinary team of doctors was preparing to seperate conjoined twins in the fairly near future, but Latham would only be assigning one of his cardiothoracic fellows to work alongside him on their case. Suddenly, Connor and Ava were in competition again.

When Latham left, Connor found himself turning back to Ava.

"Before," he said quietly, "what was the end of that?"

"The end of what?"

"There was more to it. What did you want to say?"

She paused, then looked him dead in the eyes. "You love her. So do something about it."

Sarah had spent the last half an hour sitting alone on the rooftop, staring out over the city. Instinctively, Connor had known exactly where to find her.

She'd felt his eyes watching her before she turned around and actually saw him. In seconds, she was on her feet and he was pulling her close, kissing her longer and deeper than he ever had before.

When they finally did pull up for air, she found herself asking, "What are we doing here, Connor?"

"I'm taking a friend's advice," he said, placing a tender kiss to the top of her head. "I'm not doing the are-we-or-aren't-we dance anymore. I'm all in."