Chapter III: Sometimes I Don't Understand Human Behavior

A/N: Went through several different titles and drafts of this chapter before I found one I liked. I do not own the songs "Rains of Castamere" or Candyman. Looking forward to seeing what you all think!

Monica had been watching her new coworkers in regards to how they were taking to both her and Sabrina's presence. The two of them were not the only new faces at the hospital. Doctor Caradoc Morgenstern had been poached from Walter Reed as an addition to the CT staff.

All three of them seemed to be spoken of well. Though with Sabrina, two exceptions were there. One was easy to figure out why he was pissed. The other one, a Doctor Bekkar, was also not thrilled by Sabrina's presence. Monica had nothing beyond rumor for any explanations.

She knew that Sabrina had some paperwork to do in her office before she was going to check in on her nerve transplant patient, Mr. Stanton, who was also still waiting for a heart. Monica could speak to her for a short time.

Upon knocking on the door, Sabrina called out, "Come in Monica."

Once inside the office and sitting down, she said, "Well, you've already pissed off two of your coworkers in a little less than two weeks."

"I was aware of Doctor Abrams being irked, who's the other one?" Sabrina queried.

"A Doctor Bekkar. She's a CT surgeon like that friend of yours. Talks with a South African accent."

"How could I have pissed her off without ever having met her? What did I do, steal her boyfriend?"

As she walked out of his hospital room, Sabrina was pleased to see that Mr. Stanton was in good spirits. His grandson was thankfully at his job.

Despite this, she'd felt a sense of foreboding since starting her shift. The "Rains of Castamere" had been playing on repeat in her mind.

Nothing bad had happened. Yet.

"Doctor Byrne, care for a chat?"

And so it begins, Sabrina thought before she turned around with her sweetest smile (if one was not being picky), "Mr. Rhodes, what a delight to see you again."

"Cut the crap. We both know you are far from delighted," the older man snarled.

"Good. We get to be blunt with each other. I'll say my piece first. Most importantly, I had no idea Connor worked here. It seems that my family thought it would be a nice surprise. Number two, don't even think about trying to bribe me into staying away from him again. I wasn't interested then, and I'm not now. Lastly, I do have somewhere to be for a consult with Doctor Morgenstern."

"If you had known that my son worked here, would you still have come?"

"With all due respect Mr. Rhodes, that's none of your damn business," Sabrina replied before leaving.

Caradoc watched as Doctor Byrne went over the MRI of his patient. She was muttering imprecations against someone's ancestry and physical agility in what sounded like Russian.

"It's as you suspected, there's spinal nerve damage and it's severe. It can be repaired to a point, but there will be a need for spinal fusion surgery in the future," the neurosurgeon replied.

"Have you ever done a spinal fusion surgery," Caradoc asked.

"No, but I've seen it done several times both at Med school, and during my residency. I know what to do," Byrne replied.

"Where did you learn Russian?"

"Learned it in college," she replied whilst looking at her phone, which had just gone off with a message. "I'm sorry, I have to go. A transplant patients of mine nerves and hopefully heart just came through. I have to go check and see if they're viable.

"Triple bypass surgery."

"Craniectomy, beat that!" When Connor walked around the corner he thought Oh no.

Sabrina had met Ava. He had been concerned about them meeting. He figured they'd either get along famously or (more likely given Sabrina's toothy smile) kill each other.

He got her attention with, "Doctor Byrne, we do need to scrub up."

Sabrina's eyes were gleaming as she walked over to him with a smirk.

The old friends missed the venomous look fired in their direction by the other surgeon.

"You know this isn't the first time one of us has had to do this," he heard Doctor Byrne say.

"I remember the look on your face when Allegra walked in," that was Doctor Rhodes

"Not my fault that the laces came loose. You always did have talented hands," Doctor Byrne snickered.

Doctor Charles hoped against hope that what he thought was going on wasn't. He wanted to be wrong.

While he was thankfully wrong, he noticed that Doctor Byrne was rubbing the back of her head. For her to have hit her head there, she would've had to have been kneeling.

"This isn't what it looks like," both surgeons said somewhat awkwardly.

These two know each other all too well, Doctor Charles thought before replying, "It couldn't be. Good luck on your surgeries."

Daniel could tell there was much more than mere friendship between the two. Anyone with eyes could see it.

Allegra had known for several years now that Connor and Sabrina had very few boundaries with each other.

Seeing it firsthand was not something she had in mind. Connor was retying the laces on Sabrina's red prom dress. When they saw her, they had a deer in the headlights look.

"You. Downstairs. Now!" she hissed to the boy, who darted out.

"Mom, you know nothing happened," Sabrina told her as Allegra finished tying up the last of her laces.

"I know that. You and Connor know that. But his date does not," Allegra said to her daughter in all but blood before continuing with "Elena doesn't like you very much already."

"I have been perfectly civil towards her," the raven haired teenager replied as she put on her shoes.

"Sabrina, if I was your age and I was dating him, I wouldn't like the close female friend, especially if she looked like you."

"That was at least seven different kinds of awkward. What number awkward moment are we up to, Sabrina?" her friend asked.

"I believe we are in the 700s," she replied as one of the nurses gowned her up.

Sabrina noticed the odd look Monica gave her, then the first song came up from her playlist.

"I met him out for dinner on a Friday night, he really had me working up an appetite, he had tattoos up and down his arm, there's nothing more dangerous than a boy with charm.
He's a one stop shop, makes the panties drop, he's a sweet talking sugar coated Candyman!"

Ignoring Connor's choked laugh, Sabrina got to work.

While Lucas had a whole team from McConnell Global to do all the cyber security work at the hospital, he still worked along with them. He was no hilltop commander.

"Mr. McConnell, I wasn't expecting to see you still here," Doctor Charles remarked as he walked back into his office.

"I was just finishing up. Now I have an excuse to visit the WOW Café and have some of those wings in the cafeteria," Lucas replied

As he was putting his tools away, the shrink asked, "You said that you know two of the surgeons that work here?"

Here we go again Lucas mentally groaned before asking, "What Human Resources nightmare have Connor and Sabrina caused this time? Tell me what happened then I'll tell you if anything similar has happened in the past."

"There was bantering. It was borderline harrasment, but neither seemed too bothered by it. Once I was in however, it seemed that Sabrina had hit her head, and the only way she could've done that is if she were kneeling in front of him. There's definitely more than friendship between the two of them," said Doctor Charles.

"I'll answer your questions in order. The banter is completely normal, and they were alone, so they get a bit more charged. Nothing happened between them, trust me, I know them all too well. And something like that did happen when we were seniors in high school, but with Connor tying up the laces on Sabrina's prom dress," Lucas answered than asked a question of his own "In your expert psychological opinion, are Connor and Sabrina just that dense about each other or are they engaging in willful blindness?"

"Neither of them, but it's closer to willful blindness than the other. Both are very much aware of their own feelings, they're just not sure about the other person's. And they obviously don't want to mess up their friendship."

"If you want to join the betting pool on them, the buy in is $25. And you also have to specify how they finally figure it out!"

A/N 2: I had tons of fun writing this chapter.

Too those that did not live to see the sun set on the Longest Day, thank you for the freedom.

OC casting

Caradoc Morgenstern- Tom Ellis