Neil

The year had felt like a roller-coaster of emotions, but Audrey thought she had it all together. Soon after her infection with the SARS-like virus, she and Neil had begun dating and as far as she recalled, their relationship had been the best thing happening to her. She was finally done with one-night stands, ready to lay her emotions and bare hearts with Neil. She truly wanted to make their relationship work but first it had to be a secret. Neil and she had come to the agreement that as long as they were under a microscope, they should keep their relationship private.

But as soon as the threat of a license suspension was over, she had had reservations and Neil had respected her need to keep their relationship a secret. The fact that they had to be discreet at work when really all they wanted was to make out any time they had a chance to, gave her some extra adrenaline. She was enjoying it and was hiding behind it to avoid confronting her total lack of commitment and fear of seeing the relationship end. But a conversation with her friend Laura helped her changing her point of view. And soon the couple was headed to HR to declare their relationship and were finally able to make out in the middle of the ER to announce it. It was the cheesiest way of announcing it. They couldn't have cared less. At the moment, Audrey truly felt like she was ready to commit again, to give herself 100% into the relationship. This was until her career took a turn she hadn't seen coming.

Han had been fired as chief of surgery and Andrews had resigned as president of the hospital, leaving behind him a little surprise for Audrey. She could still recall her conversation with Neil that evening, when she couldn't even fathom getting the position after the backlash they had both been through before Christmas.

"Did you hear about Han?" Neil had said, walking in her office, excited to share the gossip with her.

"Can't imagine Andrews will survive the fallout" she had replied, still packing her things after what had been another long and trying day.

"They're gonna need a new Chief of Surgery; what if either of us is offered the job?" Neil had asked. Clearly, he wasn't over the position yet.

"One of us bossing the other around? I don't think that would fly with HR".

She was right. He knew it, yet he couldn't resist pushing the dream a bit further. "Someone would have to resign. Or we'd have to break up". He also wanted to test her. See where she was ready to go.

"Or... we could turn it down..." she had said, really trying to commit to their relationship though her instinct was screaming not to pass onto such an offer.

"I think... things are great. And they've been great for, what, four weeks now?"

"Just over a month." She was calm. Composed. Still fighting the urge to put her career first, like she had done for the past ten years.

"It'd be crazy to pass on a chance at being a department head." Neil knew deep down. He knew his Audrey so well. She would never pass on such an opportunity.

"Are you that crazy?" she had asked, unable to take a stance herself.

"No" Neil had simply replied, shaking his head. So he knew. But he wanted to be sure. "Are you?" he had asked back. He had to be sure before breaking it to her.

She took a few seconds to reply. And then relieved, she told the truth. "No."

"Good. I talked to Andrews' assistant. Aoki should be calling you with the offer any minute." He couldn't hide his smile though he tried to remain as serious as possible.

Audrey was astonished. She couldn't believe it. Was he messing with her? Was she dreaming this conversation? A ton of thoughts rushed through her mind, preventing her from saying a single word. And then she heard it. The phone. Ringing in the background. Somehow, she felt frozen, not daring to answer, too afraid that the dream she was touching with the tip of her finger would go away. But his smile. His smile meant it was real. He wasn't messing with her. She sighed in relief, and kissed him, while the phone continued to ring.

"You'd better answer that" he said gently and left as she was picking up the she turned her back to look at him again, he was gone. And the breach in their relationship was made.

From then on, they were put on a constant trial. Fights occurred more and more and instead of opening up, Audrey did what she knew best: shutting down and keeping to herself, expecting the worst in Neil. After a few months, she decided to break up with him. Too much was going on. Emma had left the nest to go to university on the opposite coast and though she was proud of her daughter's accomplishment, the maternal instinct she didn't know she had, wanted to protect the baby and keep her at home with her. She had urged her to accept Stanford's scholarship but there was no changing Emma's mind.

"She's not yours, but Gosh you two are as stubborn as is humanly possible to be!" Neil had even teased her.

She was a coward but she was tired of their endless fights at the office. She had considered quitting her job at Saint Bonaventure but this place was her solace and somewhat, she wasn't ready to leave it behind. After an umpteenth fight with Neil – when they had both ended up in Glassman's office – she knew she had to call it quits. She loved Neil, but as she had stated "It wasn't enough". The night she broke up with him, she not only broke his heart but hers as well. She spent that night crying over him, as if she had been the one that had been dumped, wishing he had run after her. But nothing happened. He put on a brave face and went to the office every day until the pain was bearable. Meanwhile, she avoided him for a few weeks before finally acting like the adult she was and letting go, drowning her emotions and feelings in her job and focusing on the only thing she seemed to always do right: surgery.

And it had worked. For month she had managed to balance everything like a champion and even accept the fact that he may move on and find someone else. She just hated the fact that that someone else was Claire. She was glad when Reznick had filed a complaint for favoritism. It gave her arguments to prevent them from being together. But in the end, if it didn't happen in the open, it would happen in secret, just like it had happened between the two of them. And that she wasn't sure she could bear. Letting her imagination go wild, imagining things that probably never existed. At least if they saw each other without hiding it, she could still be in some form of control that reassured her.

And then the unimaginable happened. California was sometimes subjected to earthquakes but they seldom happened. So it was always a massive mess whenever one happened. She wished she hadn't cleared his surgery schedule that evening, she wished she had used her power as chief of surgery to ask him to stay and not to go, she wished she had been able to predict the future and saved him. Audrey wished a lot of things that night and discovered that despite being the gifted trauma surgeon that she was, she too, was fallible.

He had forgiven her though. "No blame" he had said in a muffled voice, trying not to sob, hoping that she would forgive herself too. But she couldn't. She just couldn't. She had failed him in every possible way. He was her best friend, the love of her life, her colleague, her family, and she had let him down, not even being able to ensure the mesenteric bypass would work and ensure proper revascularization.

So she had been to Glassman. He was her last resort.

"I could do a trauma whipple." That was a bold move.

"A stomach whipple?"

Was she out of her mind? How could the great Dr Lim that he knew, come up with such a shaky surgical plan? She knew the risks and consequences of a whipple surgery, especially in Neil's case. And it hit him. She was desperate. She had fooled everyone, had made them believe she was over him when clearly, she was not. She wasn't ready to let go and she was biased, not ready to give up on him, on the one she loved and cared for so deeply. And the only way to talk her out of this crazy scheme was to bring her back on the right path. Let her see the limit between being a doctor and being a friend.

"Okay, here goes" Glass man had said sighing. It was painful for him too. "The mesenteric bypass already failed. His lactates have more than doubled, from 4 to 8.1. Any significant revascularization is already out of the question. If by some miracle he were to survive the surgery, he'd be tube-fed, a diabetic with an ostomy bag, waiting for a liver transplant".

Audrey's face as he spoke was just heartbreaking. He painfully watched her losing all the composure she had struggled so hard to keep, as he was stating fact after fact, taking to pieces the idea she had come up with, hoping she could still save him. Neil was past the point of treatment, past the point of being saved but she was in denial. She couldn't even look at him in the eyes for otherwise, she would have cried. She focused on a point behind him, trying to gather her thoughts to find counter arguments. Yet nothing came up. Her mind was just a blank slate.

"Your turn." He had added but she remained speechless, still avoiding his gaze. He wasn't even judging her. Just trying to bring her back to reason. "It's time to stop being a doctor. Be a friend" had been his best advice. He had left and Audrey had stood there, fighting even harder the tears that were threatening to break her walls. He was going to die and though Neil had accepted it, she hadn't.

Came the awful moment when she had to said goodbye. She contemplated professing her love again. But admitting she still loved him would hurt even more than trying to burry the feeling deep down. She walked into his room, her heart beating hard, palms sweaty but with a composed face. She had indeed taken the time to let her tears fall and then carefully washed her face and done all she could to hide the traces of her meltdown. She sat on the side of his bed. He was still awake, not delirious from the fever. He was still himself and that wouldn't last for much longer.

"I'm sorry" she apologized because at this point, it was really all she could do. She tried not to cry. Her body couldn't betray her now. "I should've been able to do more. Faster, better".

"I know you want to find blame." He knew her so well, knew the sensitive, brilliant woman hiding behind the apology and the strong face that wasn't going to last for very long. "If there's blame, there's a reason. Sometimes..." now it was him crying. Losing her was too hard, too painful. "...there just isn't" his voice broke. He could feel the fever slowly spiking as his breathing was becoming shaky. "It pisses me off, too. I could have spent a lifetime drinking whiskey with you". He couldn't help but smile, thinking about the meaning of these words. And they both knew he meant it, not only as a friend but as a partner as well.

"I was even starting to like it neat" she said, trying to joke a bit. But she needed to give into her emotions or she would have even more regrets and sorrows. "What did we do?" and now the tears were falling. But with him she could. She could be vulnerable; she could be her true self. She was no longer chief of surgery during those minutes. She was no longer his boss; just the one he had loved.

"No blame" he said again. And now they were both crying over their mistakes, both wishing things had taken a different turn.

That night, Audrey couldn't go back home after all the trauma patients were dealt with. She stayed, her heart aching knowing that Neil was spending his last minutes with Claire and not with her. But she let it happened because he was no longer her lover, just her good friend. And Claire loved him. She waited until Claire came out of the room, at a little past 6.00 in the morning.

His burial was beautiful. She was magnificent, dressed in black, her long hair displayed around her face so that it hid it just enough for her to be able to weep without being too noticeable. She tried her best to support Claire whose pain seemed even greater than hers. And too soon after his death, which had already turned her world upside down, the pandemic hit. And she wasn't ready for what was coming ahead.

End of part 1! Thank you to everyone who took the time to read my fiction!