"Reese, come with me!"

Sarah jerks her head up at the call of her name, and sights Dr. Rhodes wheeling in with a patient. She regretfully looks at her half-finished chart, and takes a deep breath. Just one more trauma, before the end of her shift for the day, she tells herself, though it's more of a prayer than a fact.

"Forty-nine-year-old male, high-speed motor vehicle collision, GCS nine, BP eighty-four over sixty, heart rate one twenty-two, sat nighty-three per cent," the paramedic fires off a barrage of information which Sarah is pushing her brain to keep up with, let alone to make sense of.

"Muffled breath sounds on the left," declares Dr. Rhodes as he puts away the stethoscope. "I need a chest X-ray. Reese, start a femoral line."

She's got this. Even though she knows that she can't help but bereft herself again for back when she couldn't get it the first time, the first time she met Dr. Rhodes and he ordered her to do it on his patient. The embarrassment of that moment just seems to haunt her every time she repeats the procedure, and bring about the anxiety and fear of failure.

Looking at the dark red venous blood drawn up the syringe, she lets out a sigh of relief and allows herself to be distracted by the status of the patient for a moment. The man has all of a sudden snaps awake and has improved to a GCS thirteen.

"Whoa glad to see you're with us Mr. Yates," Dr. Rhodes is leaning over to reassure him while unpacking a chest tube kit. "I'm gonna put a tube in your chest to drain the blood so that you can breathe, okay?"

The next steps are easy. Guide the tube in and pull the wire out. Sarah works swiftly and adeptly, and sneaks a moment of being impressed by how Dr. Rhodes keeps his cool as always, no matter the circumstances.

"Lidocaine," the nurse hands him a syringeful of the narcotic. With a learning eye Sarah watches carefully as he inserts the needle in to the intercostal space.

A lot happens in an instant for which no one is ready. The patient suddenly gets hold of the freshly unpacked scalpel from the sterile tray set aside to the bed, and flings his hand at his own neck. Everything happens after that happens so fast that it's all a blur, like someone's been messing with time and space and tossed her into slow motion. Sarah's initial reaction is that the patient is sure dead from a ruptured carotid, and by the time she gets there, time and space has been restored. Dr. Rhodes is stuck in a stalemate with the patient, straining to hold him back from sitting up or hurting himself, and the two of them are so messed up and covered in blood that she can't even see what's going on.

"Reese!" Maggie's lashes out at her while struggling to keep the patient's fractured legs in place. She jumps, and remembers to rummage the drawer for an Ativan, snatching the first syringe that she can get her hands on and hoping to god that it's not the wrong one. She whips round and shoves the needle straight into the man's shoulder.

She feels the tension in his muscles easing up beneath her fist, and just before she can catch a breath, she hears a groan of pain that makes her look, and freeze at the sight of Dr. Rhodes collapsing onto the edge of the gurney and down to the floor.

"Connor!" Maggie rushes to his side and Sarah follows, snapping on a new pair of gloves. He has his ungloved right hand enclosed tightly around his upper left arm, where blood is oozing out through his fingers. He's clenching his jaw, grimacing in pain, and his breathing is quick.

"It looks like it's an artery," somehow all of a sudden her trauma instinct starts to kick in. She demands at Maggie, "I need a tourniquet. Go get the trauma attending on call!"

Maggie sprints to get the equipment while the other nurse sets about moving the patient. Sarah gets on her knees at Connor's side, placing a hand over his to apply more pressure to the bleed. He winces at the move, his eyes tearing up a little. It hurts her to see the pain in them, but she also sees countenance, and trust.

She pulls the tourniquet around his arm as tight as she can, before gently removing his hand to reveal the cut. The bright red blood that instantly flows out confirms her diagnosis. While the cut isn't too long, the knife was pushed in deep with force and has nicked his brachial artery, which puts him at risk of bleeding out. She takes the piece of gauze Maggie hands to her, and presses it against the wound.

"You need to clamp it now," he tells her in between shuddering breaths of pain.

"What – no. We have to wait for the surgeon," she is simply stating the inarguable fact, that she's a med student unauthorized to perform any invasive procedure.

"Dr. Berman is on her way down right now," Maggie adds encouragingly.

"I'll lose too much blood," the tenderness in his voice makes her flinch. He is pleading, and perhaps a touch afraid. She sees it in his eyes, those that are looking unswervingly into hers, and then, "I trust you."

For a brief moment she is completely taken by the look in his eyes, which she did not think was possible in any person, on top of the pain and the fear, a confidence in trusting his life to her just as much as he would trust it to himself.

"I can't," she states, maybe a little too impassively, yanking herself out of that moment of enchantment. If nothing else she doesn't want to hurt him. "Let's just get you to a treatment room. Here, hold this."

She places a clean piece of gauze on top of the three that's been soaked through, and lets him take over. He lowers his eyes, a saddened, miserable look that tears at her heart. She steps back frustrated being unable to help as he struggles to get up without a free hand to support himself, and Maggie is there to haul him up by his uninjured arm.

"Treatment three," Maggie motions at the room next door as she strokes comfortingly down his arm. Then she catches Sarah in passing, "You'll be okay?"

"Sure," she gives a quick nod before following Connor out the room.

"Lie down," she commands as he hops onto the treatment table.

"I don't need –"

"Could you do me a favor and not be another one of those difficult patients?"

He obeys, not because of her being snappy – she has every right to be for now he's simply her patient and not her supervising doctor – but because he can't hold it together anymore. Just as she feared, he's becoming hypotensive from the blood loss. He turns his head away from her and blinks his eyes shut, and she notices the beads of sweat on his neck and his skin is losing color.

"What happened?" Dr. Berman shows at the door.

"The patient went nuts and cut his arm with a scalpel. Lacerated brachial artery."

"That was your call?" the surgeon unpacks a suture kit and snaps on a pair of gloves as Sarah nods in conformity. "Good one. How long with the tourniquet?"

"About five minutes."

"Push eight of morphine," Dr. Berman orders as she peels the layers of gauze from Connor's arm. "Damn. That's at least a pint."

His veins are not hard to find, blue and bulging against his pale skin. He looks at her through the slits of his eyes as she slides the needle in, but does not flinch a bit, which is normal since the mind has a tendency to divert itself toward where it's experiencing the worst pain.

"Alright it's clamped," announces Dr. Berman as she scrutinizes the cut and evaluates the extent of the damage. "There's a hole in your brachial artery," she tells him, then turns to Sarah, "I think we can get away with the glue."

That's something Sarah didn't think of before. The glue is commonly used as a temporary fix, when a damaged vessel needs to be sealed and for some reason the patient is temporarily inviable for surgery. Then as she finds it from the supply cabinet, she remembers it being mentioned in one of her emergency medicine classes that the glue is a minimally invasive repair for smaller tears, despite being not as stable as a suture with a risk of secondary bleeding.

She hands the glue to Dr. Berman, worried by the fact that Connor is not opening his eyes while Dr. Berman works, not until Sarah presses her fingers to his neck to make sure he's not in hypovolemic shock, but is merely under the effects of morphine and his pupils are constricted. His eyes stay on her for a few seconds, before looking to Dr. Berman as she finishes with the glue and moves on to unclamping the artery.

"Okay now these can come off and we'll see if the bleeding stops," Dr. Berman carefully removes the clamp and loosens up the tourniquet. The wound is still a little oozy from the damaged capillaries, anyhow Sarah is relieved to see the lower extremity of Connor's arm regain its pristine color.

Dr. Berman's pager goes off just as she's about to close up the wound. "I have to get this," she tells Sarah. "Can you finish up here?"

"Yes," reassuringly she sends Dr. Berman on her way. Suturing is not one of the myriad of procedures that she hasn't done about a hundred times in her third year, she can't promise not to leave a scar though, not that he would mind.

"Okay. Here goes," she mumbles to herself as she picks up the needle, but somehow she says it loud enough for him to hear.

"You know, I would've done a better job," Connor turns his head to face her, his eyes glazed over and a little sluggish from the drug. "If I weren't kind of…out of it, thanks to you."

"Sure you could take it having someone clamp off your artery without narcotics," she huffs. She can sense that he doesn't like this. She wouldn't either. The time a doctor wants to get over with a situation as fast as possible, is when they are the patient themselves, and truth be told, it has more to do with the embarrassment of not being able to care for their own body than with the knowledge-informed fear of suffering, which is hardly a surprise to see in an unadulterated egotist like Connor.

"This one's probably going to stick around," Sarah declares lightly as the bleeding diminishes under her stiches. There are nine of them, placed across a red angry gash that's approximately two-inch long. "Pardon me for not having Saudis pay me well not to leave unsightly scars."

He just smiles at her, a touch enlightened that she remembers. Nothing about Connor Rhodes has been quite a secret ever since he got here. Being grudging as well as flattered to admit that he's one for turning heads around here, he was kinda hoping that in time they would turn away so he can focus on his work for just the time being with Downey, but now he realizes he may be wrong, because she remembers, and she knows him all-too-little and vice versa.

"All done," Sarah makes sure the elastic bandages are stuck firmly in place before snapping off her gloves, and gives up on trying to clean up as she reflexively presses a hand on Connor's chest to stop him from sitting up. "Whoa, what do you think you are doing?"

"I'm just gonna go home," he says in a casual manner and she can't help being amused that his eyes look like an innocent puppy.

"You just lost about a liter of blood," she puts on an unbelievable look even though she completely understands. "And it'll be three to four hours before the morphine starts to wear off. You're kept in observation for the night. Dr. Berman made that very clear."

"No she didn't," he blows her off, jesting.

"She's going to," Sarah springs to her feet. "Don't try anything before I get back."

He throws himself back on the bed in defeat, closing his eyes with a weary sigh, though she does not let slip the roll of his eyes underneath.

"Hey Maggie," she sneaks in from the side and distracts the nurse from her iPad for a second. "Do you know where I can find Dr. Berman?"

"She's still in surgery…" Maggie looks up at her, worried. "Is something wrong?"

"No, he's okay, other than being a stubborn idiot," Sarah rolls her eyes, frantically hoping that sounded like a joke, surprised at how she's just let it slip, otherwise that would not be a nice thing to say about Dr. Rhodes.

"That's the Connor I know," Maggie smirks, clearly as relieved as she is. "What do you need Dr. Berman for? I could ask her to –"

"Actually, you know what never mind," she cuts her off dismissingly, turning away.

"You sure?" Maggie calls to her back.

"Yep," she knows exactly how this is gonna end once she goes about letting Dr. Berman handle the situation.

She slips across the waiting room. There's the usual evening gloom in the air, when it's getting dark outside and most of the out patients have been sent on their way and it's just a few families left devasted, anxiously waiting for a word on their loved ones, and you almost hear a bizarre echo in air as the empty hall brace itself for the catastrophe looming in the dark of the night out there.

That's why the night shift is always the tough one. No one wants to stay in on a night like this, and she among all things is glad that she doesn't have to do it, not tonight.

She grabs the orange juice from the vending machine, running face to face into Will as she turns to take her leave. She hears jealousy in his goodnight to her, which only makes her smirk bigger as she wishes him good luck with his shift.

Expectedly she finds Connor in the lounge, standing in front of his lock and struggling to pull on his jacket. He throws at her a glance as she enters, and stops at a second look seeing the bottle in her hand.

"Seriously?"

She raises an eyebrow at him, making a silent uh-hum.

He stares for a moment, then takes the bottle from her, blinking in thanks.

"Here," she picks up the side of his jacket to let him stiffly shove in his injured arm, and before he has the chance to thank her a second time, she announces in an indisputable manner – or so she hopes, "I'm taking you home."

He chuckles softly, "That's not necessary –"

"I'm keeping you under observation," she cuts him off and straight to the point. "And if you're more comfortable doing it at home that's fine by me."

Judging by the caught-off-guard look on his face she'd say she pulled that one off pretty slick. And so she's not hesitant to fuel the flame, "By the way I just saved you an AMA from Dr. Berman."

"I didn't know you had a car," is all he can think of to say.

Puppy eyes, a little hurt, tired, and defeated – but in a good way. They send them butterflies all flappy in her stomach.

"Not one you'd fancy sitting in," she didn't use to be bothered by the slumped backseat or the smell in that piece of second-hand junk she owns, and yet he's a Rhodes.

"We'll take mine then," he says halfheartedly, and pretends to be grudging about it.