A/N: The title is a song from Idina Menzel, from her album, I Stand.
Don't you ever put me in that position again.
She cannot believe he told her that. She admits that it hurt.
She only wanted to help.
When Connor told Robin that he couldn't do the operation on her mother, Ava was listening nearby, wondering why he wouldn't. Robin was right that he never backed away from challenging operations, even if it was a loved one's relative. So Ava went to Caroline Charles' room and asked about her condition. The elder Charles was ready to correct the heart condition she has so that she could proceed with the cancer clinical trial. Robin was there and almost begged Ava to do the operation. So she agreed to do it. Dr Charles didn't know so he went and reprimanded Connor. The latter's response was going to Goodwin.
She got reprimanded by Ms Goodwin and told her that she lacked professional etiquette. She also called hers and Connor's bickering a soap opera and they needed to keep it out of the hospital. But the Chief of Patient Care also told Connor that if he wouldn't do the operation, Dr Bekker would. So he didn't have a choice. He accepted the surgery and joined her in scrubbing in, telling her that she was just doing it to get under his skin. To which she retorted that it was her floor.
But the moment she turned around, she remembered that time when his father first asked her out to dinner to discuss another project. She told him that they would keep their relationship professionally. It had been, until that one miserable fall night. She should never have gone to him. She needed her mind clear because she had a surgery to do. She looked back at Connor scrubbing in and just told herself they should be professional.
Caroline almost didn't make it but Connor made the right call. She was nervous about taking off the clamp, fearing that Caroline Charles wouldn't make it. But she did. She told Robin that her mum was a fighter and she gave her one of the best hugs a patient's relative had given her. And then she hugged Connor.
Ava admits that it was painful to be there. Robin probably doesn't even know that she and Connor were together, even for a short time. He will most likely never tell her or Robin would have already enquired about it.
She looks out the window of her apartment and sighs. She still has nausea from the ART but it's been some weeks now and she's starting to acclimate. She is nearly finished taking them and she hopes that when she gets tested, it'll be negative. She looks at the affected finger. The wound is completely healed and she's happy that she is back doing surgery again. But looking at it takes her back to the day it happened.
It wasn't Connor's fault. She knows it. It may have been hers. She doubts herself now, questions if she ever did it because of him. She is confused and she is now mad at herself. She thinks she has become her own worst enemy when it comes to Connor. But she loves him. She trusts him, entirely. Didn't she tell him that she will do anything for him?
She thinks that she will tell him, try and talk to him again. But she remembers that Robin is there every day and Connor will always be by her side especially her mother is ill. She backs away and goes to her room. She's not even interested in drawing on herself tonight. She's just tired so she puts on her pyjamas and goes to bed, lights still on. She closes her eyes and tries to clear her mind.
The moment she drifts into deep sleep, the nightmares start.