Thank you for reading and for the reviews! Much more Romano-Corday in this chapter. I want to warn everyone, this isn't going to be a quick adjustment between them. I'm going for a slow burn as they work out the consequences of the broken relationship and hopefully inch towards something better.

In my version, Romano is qualified for AESOP because I can't believe a surgeon with about 15 years more experience and a known interest in robotics would have to rely on a resident to lead the surgery.

Three weeks later:

Chapter Four: Operations and Apologies

'So, you see,' Elizabeth said as she led her father into Doc Magoos for breakfast, 'Dr Anspaugh really did have grounds for withdrawing my funding.' They slipped into a booth together and she dropped her gaze. She was embarrassed to look him in the eye after pouring out the whole story.

He reached over and took her hand and paused for a moment. Speaking slowly for emphasis, he said: 'If you were on my staff, I would have done the same.' He paused. 'But I want you to know, darling, that you're my little girl and right or wrong I'll back you to the hilt.'

'Oh, thank you. You can't tell how good it is to hear that.' It warmed her heart to hear it. At least one person in the city was wholeheartedly on her side.

The waitress brought water and took their orders. Having a cup of tea in the morning with her father was just like being back in London. It made her consider the future.

'Would you let me come back to you if…if I made that decision?'

'Of course, I would. I wouldn't want to see that behaviour repeated, though.'

'No, definitely not,' she said humbly.

'I happen to think you're a very talented surgeon, you know.' Her father smiled at her. 'Doing an AESOP procedure today. I'm jealous, you know.'

'AESOP? Oh, I'm rather dreading it to tell the truth.' She sipped her water. 'Dr Anspaugh only permitted it as I'm the only other qualified surgeon and it's quite a big thing for the OR. I'm not dreading the procedure, of course,' she clarified, 'but working with Romano again. We've barely spoken for the last three weeks.'

'What's this?' Charles Corday was astonished. 'My daughter who never backs down from a challenge dreading the idea of making professional conversation for a few hours?' He looked surprised as she flushed and nodded. 'Well, we can't have that. Actually, I'm interested in seeing AESOP in action myself. Do you think I could observe?'

'I'd like that,' she admitted. 'I'd have to ask, of course…', she trailed off, looking behind him. 'Oh god, don't look round now. There he is.'

'Let me ask.' Charles Corday said firmly. He caught Romano's eye as the man strode past with a takeout coffee. 'Dr Romano!'

'Dr Corday,' Romano shook his hand genially. 'On your way to UCSF, I suppose?'

'I will be. I'm hoping to spend a little time with my daughter first. Will you be there?'

'Thursday-Friday. Hey, did you see Glenn Matthews is presenting?' Elizabeth realized that Romano wasn't looking at her directly. His attention was focused on her father.

'I did, actually. I'm looking forward to it. James McConnell from St Thomas is giving a paper too, you know. Good to have the London hospitals represented.' Charles was cordial. 'Oh, our drinks have arrived.' He passed Elizabeth her cup of tea and thanked the waitress. He looked back up at Romano. 'Would you like to join us for a moment?'

Romano looked slightly off-guard, and it took him a moment to reply. 'Ah, sure, thanks.'

He slid into the booth opposite his former manager and took a sip of his coffee. Elizabeth was acutely conscious of him next to her. She supposed he felt the same for he glanced at her quickly before looking away again.

'Good morning, Elizabeth.'

You used to call me Lizzie, she thought. 'Good morning,' she returned politely.

'I was just talking to Elizabeth about the procedure this morning,' her father continued. 'I haven't seen AESOP in action. Would you mind I observed?'

'I'd be honoured.'

'So, is AESOP likely to be a permanent option for County General in the future?' Charles deftly led the conversation into new equipment while Romano finished his coffee.

Romano was good at compartmentalizing his feelings. In the middle of the operation, he had to be. The complex bitterness and pleasure in working with Elizabeth again, the desire to impress Charles Corday and the hospital VIPs and his own enjoyment of the advanced procedure were all pushed aside. He made small talk with a fraction of his attention while directing the laser.

'I read your interview in the Tribune,' Elizabeth said, cautiously.

'Glad you enjoyed it. AESOP move back.'

'Dr Anspaugh said he'd never had an interviewer go wild over his muscles,' Jacy piped up mischievously.

'Guess he should have worked out more,' Romano quipped. Across the table, he saw Elizabeth dip her head to hide a small smile.

'I said we promised to come to the polar bear dip next winter, didn't I?' Jacy was teasing him now. He enjoyed sparking off against the nurses, but he hid it.

'You should try it. Has an amazing effect on the brain.' He gave her a mock-pointed look.

Now Charles Corday was curious. 'What's that?'

Romano was engaged with AESOP and didn't answer for a moment. Elizabeth stepped into the silence.

'It's some sort of jump into Lake Michigan in winter. For charity, apparently.'

'Oh, that sort of thing's becoming quite popular,' her father said. 'Not on a massive scale, of course, but the New Year's Day swim is gaining some ground. I gather they do it in the Thames, amongst other places. It's supposed to be wonderfully invigorating and boost the cardiovascular system. I worked with colleagues from Scandinavia who swear by it. I wouldn't be able to bring myself to do it myself.'

There was a collective murmur of agreement from the assembled doctors and nurses. Romano gathered that no-one else was converted to the hobby, but that suited him just fine. He indicated the patient. 'Someone should have told this guy about it,' he joked. He moved AESOP to a new position. 'Everyone covered?' He waited for the team to flip down protective lenses. 'Shooting.'

It seemed that Elizabeth couldn't leave the subject of the interview alone.

'I liked your explanation of why you chose a career in surgery,' she said a little nervously.

That sounded like a tentative olive branch. She must have read the article which was interesting to know. While he examined the laser cautery site, the back of his mind was running over the question of how many times she had read it. Out of instinct, he deflected the topic.

'It's the family business for you,' he countered.

'I take it that it wasn't for you?'

Now she wanted to know more about his family. He remembered the last time he trusted Elizabeth and it made him cagey.

'Surgery? No.'

'But medicine?' she pushed.

'Well, you might be onto something there,' he answered enigmatically. He directed AESOP to a new position a few millimetres away and targeted the patient again. Behind the observation windows, he could see the VIPs watching and pointing. OR funding could get a big boost here. Under normal circumstance, he would have turned the conversation and probed Elizabeth's reaction to the interview, but he couldn't spare enough attention to play the game as he liked. For the remainder of the surgery, he led the conversation safely on the upcoming UCSF conference.

During the lunch break, Romano prowled the ER in search of a doctor he could trust to keep quiet. He had spent nearly three weeks getting in early and leaving late to shower and change outside the main rush to hide his injured shoulder. Surgeons talked too much. Nurses talked more. Anyone in the OR was going to take one look at his shoulder and let the whole floor know about it. Here in the ER, it was a long shot, but there might be one or two who could take out the stitches and not run their mouths. There. Mark Greene would do. Nasal and dull, but reliable enough. Romano caught up with him.

'Hey, Dr Greene. You got a minute?'

'Sure. What's up?'

'Can you take a few stitches out for me?'

'Huh. Yeah, sure. Who's the patient?'

Jesus, Greene could be slow. 'That would be me.'

'And surgeons don't do this kind of thing?' Greene must have seen his impatience because he added, 'Not saying no; just asking.'

'Yeah, sure. If I wanted to hear about it every time I reached across the table for something,' Romano retorted.

'OK, no problem. Let's take a look.' Mark led the way into the suture room where Romano bared his shoulder. 'Oh wow. That's a good one. Take it you got that three weeks ago?'

'Hey, no. I got a big dog and she was goofing around,' Romano lied promptly.

'Yeah, sure. Dog the size of a lion, maybe.' The other doctor wasn't buying it. 'Anyway, not my business.' He began to pluck out the stiches. Yep, Greene was a good choice.

In the meantime, Elizabeth was using her lunch break to go through her letters. Rejection, rejection, rejection…an interview out of state in the middle of nowhere…rejection.' Apparently, it was harder to get hired as a foreign national surgeon than she expected. She decided to ask Mark's advice. Spotting him in the suture room, she pushed open the door.

'Mark! I wanted to ask you about my applications -' she realised he was working on a patient. 'Oh! I'm sorry to interrupt you.' The patient had his back to her. 'I'll wait outside. Sorry.'

'Be with you in a moment, Elizabeth,' Mark said steadily.

'Applications, Dr Corday?' Romano asked suddenly.

'Oh my god.'

Of all the people she had to barge in on, talking about applications, it had to be Romano. He was the very last person she wanted to find out. In her heart of hearts, she wished she had a secure position and could spring it on him that she had every right to stay in Chicago independently.

Telling herself it was professional curiosity, she side-stepped Mark and glanced at his back. Nearly three weeks after the injury, the bruises were still fading into a mottled yellow and green from his shoulder almost down to the small of his back. She couldn't stop staring.

Mark plucked out the last of the stitches she had set. 'There you go. OK, Elizabeth, I'm all yours.'

'No doubt' Romano murmured sarcastically as he pulled his scrub top back on.

She met his eye as he turned to face her, and she read the challenge in his expression. He wanted to see how she was going to play this. She forced the concern and embarrassment off her face, but she suspected it was too late. Thank goodness for gently spoken, reliable Mark. He never looked through her as if he were trying to see her soul. He was kind to help her with the applications. She dropped her gaze and followed Mark thankfully out of the room.

Later that afternoon, Eizabeth assisted Dr Anspaugh on a bowel resection. Anspaugh was surprisingly amiable, perhaps because AESOP's success reflected well on County OR. For the first time in nearly three weeks, he had engaged her in conversation throughout the procedure. Her father's visit, upcoming conferences, the AESOP and his concerns about Scott. She hoped it was a sign of better things to come. She even began to hope he might change his mind and allow her to stay on the Fellowship sponsorship. Unless they got a new candidate, the sponsorship funding should still be there.

'No injuries to the left ureter,' Anspaugh announced.

It looked as if they might even finish on time, too. How lovely. She'd have plenty of time for a nice dinner with her father. She checked the site herself to confirm. Damn. It felt as if there was an injury. Nothing visible, but her professional conscience wouldn't allow her to leave it alone.

'I think there's a tear just below the UV junction.'

Anspaugh examined the site. 'No tear.' He motioned to Kit. 'Bovie.'

'No really, I think there is,' she pushed. She felt it with a sixth sense, like a malformation under the skin. 'Let's run an amp of IV methylene blue to check.'

He looked at her sternly. 'I said there's no tear, Dr Corday. Proceed with closing up.' He bovied a stray bleeder.

'It wouldn't take a moment to check.' She couldn't leave the young man with a possible injury.

'Do you intend to run this operation?' It was clear from his tone that she was treading on thin ice.

'No, I don't, of course,' she said hastily. 'All the same, though, I really feel we ought to check.'

He sighed and handed back the bovie. 'Retractor.' He bent in close to the site, examined the tube thoroughly and shook his head. 'No sign of a tear. Close the patient up, Dr Corday.' His tone brooked no opposition.

With misgivings, she began to set the closing stitches.

As their patient lay in Recovery and Dr Anspaugh went home to his family, Elizabeth lingered. Her father was waiting for her, but she couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. It galled her to be overridden when a simple check would have revealed any problems. Romano would have allowed her to run it. She sighed. Romano, Romano, Romano. How could nearly two years of working increasingly closely together have come crashing down in such a short time? He was still on-call, so she instinctively avoided the surgeon's lounge where he was likely to be found. She took herself down to the canteen instead to get a coffee and work on another application.

Her pager jerked her out of the applications. Up in the OR, her patient complained of abdominal pain and nausea with symptoms of sliding into shock. She raced back. When she burst into the scrub room, Romano was already there.

'One of yours, Dr Corday?' He scrubbed swiftly up to his elbows.

'I operated with Dr Anspaugh earlier, yes. I suspected a tear in the left ureter.'

'And?'

'Dr Anspaugh….' Even if Anspaugh throws me out tomorrow because of this, he needs to know. Damn surgical hierarchy anyway. 'I wanted to run IV methylene blue to check. Dr Anspaugh didn't agree and insisted on closing.'

Romano gave her a swift glance and she thought he approved of her honesty. He rinsed off his arms and backed into the theater.

'Ten blade.'

The situation was more desperate than their measured earlier operation; the young man fighting against shock.

'BP 90 over 60 and he's tachy at 120.'

'Get a line in.'

To Elizabeth, it was like the difference between piloting a commercial flight and piloting a fighter jet. The reactions had to be such much quicker, their decisions faultless each time. This was no AESOP procedure. She and Romano were wrist deep in the patient, the old-fashioned way.

She held her hand out to Kit. 'DeBakey forceps.' Lifted the tissue out of the way. There it was; just above the UV junction, more prominent now. Any movement would have made it worse. She was right after all.

'Suction.' Romano began to close the original tear with impossibly fine stitches as Elizabeth delicately repaired the fresh injury to the bladder. Their heads were almost touching as they bent over the patient. Gradually, the patient began to stabilize.

Romano examined Anspaugh's original handiwork before they closed.

'Looks good,' he announced finally. 'So, Li – Elizabeth. Thinking of staying here after all?'

'It's certainly something I'm looking into,' she answered cautiously.

'I suppose you've given some thought to your references.'

She stared at him across the table. 'I, er, yes. That is…yes.' Mark Greene had volunteered to be one reference. Her father was another. Romano or Anspaugh would have been much stronger references for surgical positions in the US, but she couldn't bring herself to test their responses.

'Well,' he looked at her blandly. 'Just as long as no-one gets any surprises.

She presumed he meant don't ask me. She couldn't help remembering the surgeon she had known in London. Would there be many more chances to work together? Probably not. He was still watching her.

'Something you wanted to say?'

'I'm sorry,' she said sincerely. She meant I'm sorry for going behind your back in the hemo-aid study; I'm sorry for our disagreements over Alison; I'm sorry for the hasty snap at you in the ER and I'm sorry things ended this way.

He looked her in the eyes for a moment before looking back down at the patient. She didn't know how much of that he had understood. She didn't know how much of the apology he had accepted.