The very next morning, Connor found himself standing in his kitchen staring at his brand new coffee maker and the beans. His previous machine had been a casualty of Robyn's breakdown. It was unfortunate, since it made the best cup of coffee he had ever tasted in his life, but there was no use crying over spilt milk.
He'd spent as little time as possible at home, alone, in his new apartment since his most recent break up. Which was why he was currently staring from the bag of beans to the offending machine and back, genuinely perplexed as to how the damned thing worked.
This was where Sarah found him. She rounded the corner down the hallway, still pulling her shirt on over the sexy bra he'd given her for her birthday when they were still together last summer. The lingerie had been intended as a bit of a gag gift, but they'd got a lot of use out of it. It was just coincidence she'd been wearing it when she'd found herself here last night. Connor's eyes had lit up like a Christmas tree when he'd realised what it was. It was, after all, one of his favourite sets.
You could really draw your own conclusions as to what had happened from there. One plus one is two, after all. No matter what language you're speaking.
The sound of her footsteps on the polished timber floorboards alerted him to her presence.
"Morning," he said, glancing quickly over to her and then back to the coffee machine.
"Morning," she echoed, still working on buttoning her shirt.
There was a number of ways this situation could pan out. Despite everything - and particularly given their history - neither wanted to fall back into that sense of total domesticity. It wasn't who or what they were anymore. They both knew this morning was going to be awkward. It had to be - they had basically just had a one night stand.
"Uh ... You want me to make you some coffee?"
He'd internally cringed as he'd said it. They had never had a morning like this. Ever.
"I, uh, tend to grab one from the cart at work," she said automatically, then added, "Unless you're making some for yourself?"
"Uh, no." He all but threw the bag of beans down on the counter, adding, "Actually, the cart sounds good. Because I have no idea how to use this thing."
Cue the awkward laughter.
"Um ... so ..."
She looked up at him expectantly, watching him flounder as he tried to find the right words.
"Last night was ... great. Amazing, even. Best night I've had in a long time."
"Connor ..."
"No," he said, shaking his head. "I know what you're going to say. But that - us - we're great together, Sarah."
He wasn't wrong, and she knew it. But that didn't mean she still didn't have some serious reservations.
"Sure," she said, "we're great in bed. We always have been. But we didn't work as a couple."
"We didn't work as a couple because we didn't communicate," he countered.
"What makes you think that would change this time around?"
Connor threw his hands up in exasperation. "Because we're different people now! We've both been through so much, and we've still found ourselves drawn back together. Surely that has to mean something?"
She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, but she couldn't find the words. In fact, she really didn't know what to say. In the end, she settled on possibly the worst option of everything that was running through her head.
Very quietly, she asked him, "Can we table this? I just - I need to think."
"Sure," he conceded. "But for the record?"
She looked back up, brown eyes meeting blue.
"I want this. You and me, and the white picket fence fantasy life we had planned for ourselves. I want that life. I want that future. And I want it with you."
She couldn't help but smile. Deep down, she knew that was the life she wanted for them, too.
"We both need to get to work," she said, completely changing the subject. "What if we meet up later tonight? We could grab a drink. Talk."
He was about to immediately jump in and say yes, and then he remembered why he was feeling to uneasy about today. "I actually have ... plans."
It felt like a cop out, and it sounded like one too, but it really wasn't.
"Plans?" He could hear the disappointment written all over her voice.
"My dad is forcing us into this - you know what, I can cancel." He was thinking out loud now. "You mean more to me than he ever will."
"No," Sarah jumped in immediately. "Keep your plans. It's fine. Time is ... time is a good thing."
She turned and headed back down the hallway, leaving Connor all alone all over again.
"Smooth," he groaned to himself.
That always seemed to be there way these days - one step forward, two steps back.
Up in the cardiac ward later that morning, Dr Charles approached Connor again. Connor purposely didn't move or react, wanting to know exactly what the head of psychiatry wanted with him before he did or said the wrong thing.
"So, um, Robert Haywood is here for a thoracic PET scan."
"Uh, yeah. We're doing a full cardiac work up."
"You think you could add a head study there for me? I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything on my end."
"Sure, no problem."
"Thank you."
The interaction was quiet, almost whispered, and definitely very strained. Just when Connor thought he was home free, Dr Charles was at it again.
"... You do know who he is, right?"
Connor's eyes shot up. "To who?"
He could see the internal argument running through Dr Charles' eyes. When he focused back on Connor again, he simply said, "Check his next of kin."
"His - what?"
"Look into his patient file."
Connor looked at him quizzically, completely confused.
"And be careful what you say," Dr Charles added. "She doesn't know."
As soon as he walked away, Connor made a beeline for one of the workstations in the nurses station. His eyebrows shot up as far as they could go when he saw her name written on the screen in front of him:
Dr Sarah Reese, daughter.
For the second time this morning, Connor found himself groaning and throwing his head down into his hands.
One step forward, two steps back. That's four steps back already today. And it was barely 10 am.
It was well after the end of his shift by the time Connor Rhodes finally had two seconds alone to think. And that happened to be thirty seconds before he ran into Sarah Reese in an upstairs hallway.
"Rough day?" she asked him conversationally, knowing it was almost never a good thing to find him alone and deep in tnhought.
"Actually, no," he answered. "Twelve-year-old kid I've been treating for months got new lungs today."
"You got him to the finish line," she smiled. "He's gonna be okay?"
"He's got the hardware now to live a long and happy life."
They shared a smile, and then he was speaking again.
"Say, uh ..." He watched her raise an eyebrow, then blurted out, "I cancelled my plans."
She was completely silent. He was never sure anymore if that was a good thing or not.
"Um, what do you say we go get that drink?"
The smile that had only moments ago been happy and triumphant suddenly turned into sadness.
"No," she said succinctly, watching his face fall at the prospect of that single syllable. "Last night was a mistake."
He watched her walk away and found himself following her. "That's not the way I see it."
"Connor," she sighed. "We don't work. No matter how much we might want to. Why put ourselves through that?"
"Because I love you. I never stopped."
"Yeah? Well, I don't need you leaving me too!" she whirled around to face him, tears in her eyes.
"Hey, hey," he reached out, holding her arms comfortingly and resisting the overbearing urge to pull her close to him. "What's really going on?"
She wiped away the tears she was refusing to let fall as though she were annoyed with them. Finally, she said, "I just had a long talk with my dad and it turns out he has class three heart failure from cardiomyopathy."
"... I know," he admitted slowly, watching her expression go from worry to confusion to anger and back again. "I'm treating him. And before you say anything, I didn't know he was your dad. I only found out today."
"And you couldn't tell me," she sighed.
He surveyed her closely, then asked, "How are you doing? It's a lot to take in."
"He said he wasn't going to tell me. Said he was afraid. He just came back into my life and now if he dies he doesn't know what it'll do to me. Said he worries he's giving me issues with abandonment and trust."
He was half expecting her to resist, but when she didn't he found himself pulling her in for a tight hug.
"To be fair," he whispered to the top of her head, "you already have issues with abandonment and trust."
Despite herself, she giggled.
"Maybe knowing this, and going through this journey with him ... Maybe it might help with some of that."
He meant well, and he meant what he was saying. Of course, Connor didn't know what Dr Charles knew.
After several minutes, she found herself slowly disentangling herself from his warm embrace.
"As much as I might want to do this," she said quietly. "I just can't. You're here for me, and I love you for it. But last night was still a mistake."
And that made a total of one step forward, six steps back. All in one damn day.
