"So, it's been a few months. How are you feeling overall?" Connor asked.
"You know, pretty good. Really pretty good." Dr. Charles assured him. "I may get a little tired during the end of the day." He stood up from the patient bed and tucked in his shirt into his pants and walked towards the coat hanger.
"You could have taken a little more time off." Connor walked pass him.
"I was going nuts."
"How are you doing emotionally?"
"Hey!" Dr. Charles turned around. "Who's the shrink here!?" He joked.
Connor grinned at him.
"I'm doing fine. Thank you, thank you for asking." He assured him.
Connor nodded. "So, you had some pain and I padded your abdomen. So, I like you to get a CT, a SVC with some white count and make sure you don't have an issue."
"I can't do it today. It's Jack Kellogg's trial, I'm testifying." He looked down at his watch. "Oh crap!" He turned around to grab his coat.
Connor crossed his arms. "Guy could've died and it would've made everyone's life a little easier, huh?"
"Thank you, doctor." Dr Charles spoke before leaving the room.
Once he left, Connor let out a huge yawn. He has spent the last week working on a bunch of trauma related cases. Even though he was doing his CT fellowship, he was still a trauma surgeon when needed.
He had a major operation schedule later in the afternoon and was looking forward to it. It was a rare case that doesn't appear often. And luckily for him it was his case and Ava wasn't going to be a part of it.
Ever since they first met, they've gotten to know each other, little by little. But most of all, Connor learned that she's very competitive and always wants to be seen better than him as a surgeon. They were always fighting over who gets the better case or be seen as the better pupil to Dr. Latham. Since he started working at Med, he was used being the top of his field compared to other surgeons, till Ava Bekker moved to Chicago. She was someone who always kept him up on his toes.
She was definitely someone whom he can call his rival.
Some people at Med call her, Cruella de Vil, due to her being strict, always speaking what's on her mind, and getting what she wants. And there are doctors and nurses who are afraid of her.
Connor looked at the clock to see what time is was, 8:32 AM. He yawned again. He wasn't due in the OR till 2:30 PM, that's enough time to go back to his condo and take a good long nap in his soft mattress before coming back. He paged Dr. Latham about it before leaving the hospital.
"Dr. Bekker." Ava was walking towards the nurses' station when she heard Dr. Latham call her name. She took a quick glance at him before she turned to face the computer. "Busy day. How are we progressing?" He asked her.
"I've completed my valve replacement. Triple bypass' being prep now and Dr. Rhodes' pulmonary thromboendarterectomy is schedule for this afternoon."
Dr. Latham nodded, "He paged me that he went home to get some rest. He's been working on a lot of trauma cases lately and I agreed that he deserved to get some rest." He looked down at his watch. "He said he'll be here before then for his surgery."
"You know, Dr. Latham." Ava saw an opening with Connor's absence. "I'm thinking, my bypass patient is stable, in fact he could probably use another day or two for his heart to rest."
"And?"
"Pulmonary thromboendarterectomy, is a difficult procedure. With everything that Dr. Rhodes is dealing with and the amount lack of sleep he's been having, I could take some of the pressure off and perform his lobectomy." She looked at him with hopeful eyes. "With your permission of course."
Dr. Latham thought about it for a moment. "That's very considering of you." He stated.
"We're a team." She gave a small smile, though beneath it, she was smirking.
The older man looked down at his tablet then back up. "Yes, take the lobectomy. I'm sure Dr. Rhodes will appreciate it." He looked back down at his tablet as he walked away.
Ava turned back to the computer with a satisfying smile on her face.
'Sweet dreams sleeping beauty.' She thought in her head.
When he arrived back the hospital, he heard from Beth that another team was given his case and the patient was already in surgery. He quickly tracked down Dr. Latham.
"Dr. Latham." Connor entered the recovery room and found the doctor. "Uh, the pre-op team told me that my pulmonary thromboendarterectomy was already taken into surgery. I don't understand."
The two walked out of the room and into the main floor.
"Dr. Bekker kindly offer to take the case, I okayed it."
"Why?" Connor furrowed his eyebrows.
Dr. Latham stopped walking and turned to face the younger surgeon. "With all the trauma cases you've been working on, Dr. Bekker thought you would be relieved to have a difficult procedure taken off of your plate."
"Really?" Connor spoke in a stern tone. "How considered of her."
"Ah, that's what I said." He agreed. "It's gratifying, Dr. Rhodes, to see the two of you working so well together."
"Yeah." Connor spoke softly before walking away.
Connor headed straight to find out what OR Ava took his patient to. Once he found out, he barged straight into the operating room where Ava had opened his patient's chest.
"This is my case!" He finished putting on a mask.
"It was your case." Ava slightly turned her head in his direction before focusing back on her work. "And I don't need your assistance."
"And you opened him up!" He spoke as he put on goggles. "I had him scheduled for interventional radiology."
Inside the monitor room, Dr. Latham walked in.
"That would have been a good idea, if you were trying to kill him." Ava mocked him.
"You poached my case and you've changed the procedure." Connor countered.
Dr. Latham turned on the mic. "Dr. Rhodes, outside, now!"
The two surgeons looked up at the monitor room. Ava looked back down at her work while Connor took one last look at her before angrily leaving the OR taking off his goggles and mask.
Ava looked back up when she heard the door open and turned to look at his retreating figure, wearing a smirk under her mask before going back to her work.
Outside the OR, Dr. Latham was waiting for Connor with a tablet in his hands.
"I can make better use of your time than kibitzing with Dr. Bekker." The two started to walk together.
"Dr. Latham." Connor started to speak.
"She is immense skilled and qualified to perform the lobectomy"
"Yeah." Connor couldn't help but agree that was in fact true.
Dr. Latham then walked in front of him. "We have a patient, in cardiac failure, a heart had just been procured for transplantation. But it, proceeds significant size mismatch."
"So, you won't have to completely reconstruct both the in and out flow tracks."
"No, you will have to reconstruct them." He handed him the tablet. "It's your case."
Connor looked down at the tablet then back up at the taller man before taking it.
Dr. Latham took one last look at him before walking away.
After completing the surgery, Connor was ready to leave to go home after today, he went back to the nurses' station to check a few folders. Ava was heading to the nurses' workstation when she looked up and saw he was standing there, ready to leave.
She stood be hide him and sat down a folder before she started to talk. "Hear you one up me." Her voice alerted him to turn around to face her. "Heart transplant with a significant mismatch looks good on a CV." A small smile appeared on her face. "Guess you admit that taking that lobectomy off your hands."
"Ava, I'm not in the mood." He took a quick look at her before opening another folder.
Seeing that he wasn't in the mood to continue their snarky conversations, she picked up the same folder. "You should go home and get some sleep." She said to him before walking away.
Connor looked back up and stared as her retreating figure on his left.
- Two Weeks Later -
Connor quickly parked his car and ran straight through the ED entrance and inside the ED where Ava and Dr. Latham were waiting for him.
"Dr. Rhodes, you're late." Said Dr. Latham.
"I know, I'm sorry. Bad traffic on my way here." He apologized.
"I get that you had some busy cases but try not to make this a habit."
"I assure you, I will not." Connor's eyes fall onto Ava's.
Maggie then approached them, "Dr. Rhodes, your CT patient is here." The charge nurse stated.
"Yeah." He replied.
"You're going to one." She replied.
Appearing from the walk in were two paramedics with an older man on the stretcher.
"Jerry Wills, 54. Called 911 with shortness of breath..." Paramedic Courtney continued to explain the patient's condition.
"Mr. Wills, what are you doing back so soon?" Connor asked as he helped the medics and nurses bring his patient into the treatment room.
"I've been having trouble breathing. It started a few days after I left." Jerry replied.
"How much trouble are we talking about?" Connor asked.
"Coughing, he's wheezing." Mrs. Wills answered. "It's been getting worse."
"Alright, let's move him on my count." Connor stated getting ready to lift him onto the patient's bed. He looked over to Dr. Latham to assist. He older gentlemen took notice of them and proceed forward to help. Ava was already on the other side of the bed.
"Alright and, 1, 2, 3" The doctors, nurses and medics all lifted the patient over to the bed.
Ava put on her stethoscope to check Jerry's heart.
"I replaced his aortic valve two weeks ago." Connor explained the surgery to Dr. Latham and the two men discussed what happened that time.
"I hear a murmur. The valve is leaking." Ava stating looking at Connor.
"No, that's impossible." He replied and suggested that she must be hearing something else.
"Is it possible that you misoriented the valve or..." Dr. Latham asked for other possible situations that he could have missed.
"No, I remember it very clearly." Connor was preparing to get the machine ready. "Surgery went off without a hitch." He placed the wand over Jerry's chest to look inside him.
Appearing on the monitor was contradicting with Connor words and concurring with Ava's. Connor stared in disbelief at the screen.
"We should order an echo." Ava turned to look at Dr. Latham.
"What? What's wrong?" Mrs. Wills asked.
"Aortic insufficiency. The valve is definitely leaking." Dr. Latham answered.
"Wait, you just replaced it. How could it leak?" Jerry turned his head and asked Connor.
"I don't know, it doesn't make any sense." Connor answered. "I-" He started to stumble his words together.
Ava took off her gloves and walked outside the treatment room. "Maybe Dr. Rhodes made a mistake." She spoke softly to Dr. Latham before leaving the area.
Dr. Latham stared at her back before turn to face Connor.
Connor turned around and furrowed his eyebrows.
Connor was in the cafeteria looking over Jerry's files on everything that happened two weeks ago.
Ava was walking by and saw him stressed out by the ordeal and placed her purchased coffee onto the table. Connor stared at the coffee for a brief second.
"You look like you need this more than I do."
"I'm fine." He replied.
"Sure." She spoke. "Hair's a mess, bags under your eyes, you look great." She spoke sarcastically.
Connor ignored her comments.
"Don't be so hard on yourself. You've been having a tough two weeks working between CT and trauma cases. You work our schedule and go home with a limited amount of sleep, then you come back and do it all over again."
Connor continued to ignore her.
"Something like this was bound to happen. It could happen to anyone who's been overworking themselves." She continued.
"Really, is that so?" He finally answered by turning his head to look at her with an annoyed look.
"At least it hasn't affected your sunny disposition." She picked up her coffee. "Keep up the good work." She spoke as she walked away.
Connor was then later paged to the ICU when something was wrong with Jerry.
"What happen?" Connor asked the nurse when he quickly ran inside.
"Status are at 78 and dropping." Said Nurse Dina.
Connor put on his stethoscope to check Jerry's heart. At the exact moment, Ava walked into the room.
"He's in pulmonary edema." He took off his stethoscope and gave the nurse instructions.
Ava came up right beside him and lowered one of the side railings. "He's my patient." The two stared at one another. Connor sighed and took a step back to give her space and she gave new instructions to the nurses.
"What's happening?" Jerry gasped as Nurse Dina placed a face mask over him.
"The leak in your valve is causing fluids to back up into your lungs."
Another nurse brought in a machine.
"Bypass at 100%, balloon pump is here." Nurse Dina pointed.
"What's that?" Mrs. Wills asked.
"It's a pump that we can implant directly into his aorta to take the strain off of his heart." Connor answered while the nurse was helping Ava put on a pair of gloves.
"Meds are in, still stating at 78." Said Nurse Dina.
Connor kept his eyes on the monitor.
"So, then he's hooked up to a machine to a machine forever?" Mrs. Wills asked.
"Possibly." Ava had a long needle in her hands. "If his heart doesn't respond to the medication."
"Oh my god." Mrs. Wills turned to face Connor.
"Betadine." Ava asked the nurse.
"Oh hold." Said Connor.
"Dr. Rhodes." Ava faced sideways to him.
"Give the meds a minute to work." Connor had his eyes glued onto the monitor.
"We may not have a minute." She turned her body to face him.
"Look." He pointed with his head, causing everyone to look at the monitor. It was showing that the medication was working, and his status were improving.
"Your status are coming up." Ava took off her gloves. "We'll hold off for now." She looked back at Connor briefly before giving further instructions to the nurses and leaving the room.
Connor went to check on Jerry later, informing him that Dr. Bekker and Dr. Latham would be taking care of him for here on out. Jerry then asked him if there was a way for him to go back to the way he was before. Connor stated yes, by redoing his valve replacement but would come with significant risks. But Jerry was willing to take the risk. This causes Dr. Latham to bench Connor from ever stepping foot in the operating room till he deemed him reliable to perform surgeries again.
So, he was now watching Dr. Latham and Ava perform the valve replacement on Jerry as he requested from the monitor room.
"I'm not seeing any cause for the leak." Dr. Latham commented as he and Ava were trying to figure out the cause of the valve leaking in the first place.
Taking a closer look from where he was standing in the monitor room, Connor finally figured out what was the problem. He turned on the mic, "It's the valve." The two ignored him. "It's the valve." He repeated.
Dr. Latham turned his head briefly till Ava spoke. "Dr. Rhodes, no one asked for your opinion." She looked up to the side and saw him coming into the room holding a mask to his face.
"It's a brand-new valve. That's ridiculous." Said Ava as she looked back down.
He stated that part of the valve should be asymmetrical, if not then that would cause an opening, large enough for the blood to keep leaking back through.
Dr. Latham took in Connor's words and checked the valve itself realized that he was right.
"It does appear like they're not closing."
The new valve part Connor placed the first time was the problem, not his surgical performance. And this new one they were going to put in would continue to do the same thing.
"Really? They gave us a bad valve?" Ava widen her eyes in surprised as she looked at him.
"It appears so." He replied then briefly turned his head in Connor's direction. "Dr. Rhodes, go change of clothes. I like you to scrub in for the remainder of the surgery."
Ava didn't say a word but look at Dr. Latham with a concern look on her face.
'I guess he does have better eyes than me, one in a while.' Ava thought in her head.
This chapter covered 3x01-3x02
And if you haven't noticed, I'm writing this story based on the episodes. If though he's not with Robin at the beginning when he first met Ava, I'm pretty sure the two would have started out as rivals.
Tell me what you think of it!