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@missmulticouplesxx
on the sun and the moon and eclipses
avatar: the last airbender; season three, episode xvi: the southern raiders (2005) / e.e. cummings, [i carry your heart(i carry it in) (1952) / avatar: the last airbender; season three, episode i: the awakening (2005) / tek it by cafune / avatar: the last airbender; season three, episode xvi: the southern raiders (2005) / the 2017 eclipse
One of the Boys (or Sarah Reese in the Off Campus Universe) Years Later... (Part 2)
Part One | Part Two
TW: Death & Car Accident Mention
"So do you want to tell me what was happening in that clinical trial waiting room?" Sarah's blond headed best friend asked as he fell into step beside her. Joanna was taken back to be examined for the clinical trial and though Sarah and Dean both offered to go back with her, she opted to do it alone. So Sarah was headed back down to the ED and Dean was following after her because after spending a year (She had to work Thanksgiving this year and spent Christmas with Tucker, Jamie, and the rest of his family.) with nothing but FaceTime, phone calls, and text messages, Dean missed his best friend.
"What do you mean?" Sarah asked, punching the elevator button with much more force than necessary. Dean raised in eyebrow silently. He leaned against the wall. "Tall, dark hair, broad shouldered, beard. Why did he look guilty when you came into the room? Or why you were all tense and couldn't look him in the eye when he was so clearly trying to get you to look at him?"
"Don't know what you're talking about," Sarah drawled nonchalantly and any other person might've believed her. Except, Dean wasn't any other person. He had been one of Sarah's best friend's for the last thirteen years.
"Yes, you do. Because I've been your best friend for thirteen years. And I can sense a classic Sarah Reese deflection from a mile away. Want to try again?"
The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. Sarah stepped into the elevator, pushing the button for the ground floor. Dean followed. It was only when the doors closed that Sarah allowed her head to fall against the metallic wall. The words escaping from her in a quiet voice. "Connor. That's tall, dark hair, broad shoulder's name. He is my boyfriend."
Dean felt his eyebrows raise, "Okay, the guilt is making sense because he was all touchy feely with that other girl."
Nodding Sarah folded her arms over her chest. Her words continued to be quiet. But the weight of them, it felt as if she were yelling them. She exhaled, "Because she was his ex-girlfriend."
The blond man blinked as the elevator stopped at one floor. The doors opened but no one got on so they closed again. Then Dean finally said. "That sounds messy as hell."
Humorless laughter bubbled because her best friend said that, but he didn't even know the half of it. "It gets even messier because I was her psychiatrist when they were together. At least for the last three months she was here. And if I'm being completely honest, I kind of feel like a consolation prize because I'm almost ninety percent sure that if she were still in Chicago full time, they'd be together right now. Instead of me." "So how did you end up with him?" Dean was never one to judge. After all, he was one that taught her that whore and slut were just words. They weren't an insult unless you let it be. So she shrugged and explained. "She didn't like how she was recovering in Chicago. The person she was becoming at least that's what Connor told me. So she packed up her life and moved to Minneapolis...And Connor went on what the Gaffney Rumor Mill calls the Connor Rhodes: Ladies Comeback Tour, where he slept and rebounded with over half of the upper class of the female population of Chicago."
"Your boyfriend sounds like a winner there." Sarah knew Dean's words had nothing to do with her and everything to do with Connor. Still she felt the need to defend Connor. "You sound pretty judgmental for a guy who spent the better part of our four years at college with his dick inside of a random girl."
"And there's my best friend. I was wondering when she'd make an appearance, instead of this quiet girl you present to the outside word when I'm on the inside. I know better."
Sarah laughed at his teasing and shrugged again. "We just started talking and not even in a romantic sense. At least not right away. At first, I think he just wanted answers about what happened with her. I think he was lonely in some ways and really hurt that she left. The women were a way to go but I don't think it worked out for him like he thought. Especially after he slept with the married woman."
"Did he know she was married?"
"Not until after." Sarah sighed sadly and shook her head. "The crazy part is I'm not even upset that he went to see her. Or that I found them hugging. I'm upset that he didn't tell me. That he didn't think that much of our relationship to tell me."
After all she should've known better. Women like her, the quiet introverted smart one, who only opened up around certain people, didn't typically get men like Connor Rhodes' in the real world like they did in RomComs. Men like Connor and her best friends' typically fell for Women like Allie, Robin, and Sam Zanetti. The women who were outgoing and confident. It wasn't always a rule because look at Hannah and Grace. They were introverted, but confident in their own way...whereas Sarah was not. She was made to be the placeholder. The girl before the guy got to their happily ever after.
And truthfully, Connor wasn't even her first disappoint in the boy department. Because the last time Sarah Reese had thought that maybe she could be the girl who got the guy...the universe took him away.
But she was not about to tell Dean Heyward Di Laurentis-Mr. Cool Himself-that. First off he didn't know how she was in love with Beau Maxwell all through college. No one did. But especially not Dean. Or that Beau was her first kiss, or that he took her virginity on her 19th birthday. Or while her boys were all busy their last year of college for various reasons, she was more lonely than she wanted to admit so Beau and her started hanging out more...Which lead to dating...and more sex...and they were going to tell the boys and everyone that they were together after Christmas Break...
Except fate intervened with that car accident.
Second off, though she knew her best friend would mean well. She didn't want hear his arguments that her line of thinking wasn't right. Or that she needed to nicer to herself. (She did need to be nicer to herself but Sarah was always was her own worst enemy. Always harder on herself than anyone. A by product of being around her mother for fifteen years until she was emancipated.)
If you want to ask me about this universe or look at the playlist
For The Bloodlines [Season 1 - AU]
Chapter 30: Epilogue
this is honestly just an added tie from the previous chapter with some extra fluff with baby Celene Rhodes. I do hope you enjoy it. If you get a chance please do have a read off the end note for updates on my next lot of projects.
The evening light spilled gold through the glass walls, washing the apartment in warmth. Sarah sat curled into the corner of the sofa with Celene sleeping against her chest, small and impossibly warm beneath the blanket wrapped carefully around her. One hand cradled the back of her daughter’s head while the other traced absent patterns along her spine in movements that had already become instinct. Connor sat behind her angled toward them both, one arm stretched along the back of the sofa while his hand rested against Sarah’s waist. He never seemed entirely still around them anymore, as though some unconscious part of him always needed contact now; reassurance through touch that they were both still there. For a long while, neither of them spoke. The silence between them had changed over the years. It no longer carried tension or restraint, or the weight of things unsaid. It had become something else entirely. Trust. Celene stirred faintly against Sarah’s chest before settling again with a sleepy sound. Connor’s gaze softened instantly. “Do you ever think about it?” Sarah asked quietly after a while. Connor turned his head slightly toward her. “About what?” There was a pause long enough to matter. “About what would have happened if you hadn’t come back.”
you can read the full [short] chapter here:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/81977501/chapters/227049976
Don’t you just love it when you’re trying to write a oneshot and then all of a sudden the characters are holding you hostage and commanding you to expand it into an 80k fic? No? Just me? Okay.
For The Bloodlines [Season 1 - AU]
Chapter 29: The Light at the End of the Tunnel
hi guys! This is the last chapter. I cannot believe we have reached the end of the main chapters...epilogue will be up tomorrow.
The drive home unfolded beneath a silence that was anything but empty. It sat heavily between them, dense with aftermath and memory, carrying the weight of everything that had happened on that rooftop and everything that would continue existing long after tonight was over. Connor did not try to disturb it. One hand remained steady on the wheel while the other rested lightly against Sarah’s thigh, his touch neither demanding nor possessive, simply present in the quiet way he had learned she needed most when words became too sharp to bear. Sarah did not speak once. She sat angled toward the window, though Connor doubted she was truly seeing the city sliding past them. The lights beyond the glass blurred together in restless streaks of gold and white, reflected faintly against her face without ever seeming to reach her. Yet through all of it, one thing remained constant: her hand stayed curved protectively over her stomach, fingers splayed unconsciously across the small rise beneath her clothes as though grounding herself in the one thing that still felt unquestionably real. Connor noticed every time her thumb shifted there. Every slight tightening of her fingers. He said nothing about it. Experience had taught him there were moments when grief could not be dragged into the open without risking fracture. Sarah had spent years surviving by containing pain rather than confronting it, and tonight that instinct was fighting against something far more dangerous: the possibility that the containment itself had finally begun to crack. So, he let the silence exist.
you can read the full chapter here:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/81977501/chapters/226859471
For The Bloodlines [Season 1 - AU]
Chapter 28: The Damage Only A Mother Can Do
tw: mentions/descriptions of suicide, please proceed carefully.
For one disorienting moment, Sarah could not move. The Emergency Department continued around her in fragments of noise and motion, voices overlapping, monitors sounding, wheels striking sharply against polished flooring, but it all seemed to recede behind the single image now fixed in front of her. Her mother. Andrea Ferreira lay on the gurney beneath harsh fluorescent light, blood saturating the front of her prison-issued shirt in widening crimson blooms that no amount of pressure seemed capable of slowing. Paramedics moved around her in urgent synchrony, one adjusting oxygen while another barked out vitals already deteriorating by the second, but Sarah heard none of it clearly. Sound had become distorted somehow, dulled beneath the violent rush of blood pounding against her ears. Her chest tightened so abruptly it bordered on pain. For a second, she genuinely thought her heart had stopped. Then it slammed forward again, too fast, too hard, uneven enough to make her dizzy. Connor felt the shift immediately. Her hand had gone rigid in his, fingers ice-cold despite the warmth of the department, and when he looked at her properly, he saw it happen in real time: the fracture line splitting straight through her composure. The tremor beginning at her shoulders. The way her breathing shortened into shallow, inadequate pulls that never quite reached her lungs. “Sarah.” His voice came low and steady beside her, grounding by instinct even as urgency sharpened around them. His grip loosened from restraint into support, his hand sliding from her wrist to her forearm, anchoring her before she could disappear entirely into shock. She barely reacted. Her eyes remained locked on the gurney as it rushed past. “Single stab wound,” one of the paramedics reported quickly as Will and Ethan intercepted them near Trauma One. “Upper abdominal quadrant. Significant blood loss en route. Pressure’s crashing.” “How long ago?” Will demanded, already moving alongside the bed. “Twenty minutes, maybe less.” “Get blood running now,” Ethan snapped. “And somebody clear Trauma One.” Everything accelerated after that. Nurses scattered into motion. Curtains were torn back. Equipment rolled across the floor in rapid succession. The organised chaos of trauma medicine surged forward with brutal efficiency. Still Sarah stood frozen. Connor stepped closer, forcing himself into her line of sight even when she resisted it. “Hey,” he said more softly, one hand rising to cradle the side of her face. “Look at me.” She couldn’t. Because the gurney was disappearing into the trauma bay and no matter how much damage Andrea Ferreira had inflicted across the years—no matter how much fear, manipulation, humiliation, or pain she had left in her wake—that woman was still her mother. And that truth carried its own kind of violence. Connor saw it written all over her face. The conflict. The grief. The hatred tangled inseparably with love. He pulled her gently toward him, one arm wrapping around her shoulders as though he could physically shield her from what came next. “You don’t need to watch this, baby,” he murmured against her hair, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. But she resisted immediately, not enough to push him away but enough for him to understand that this mattered in ways neither of them could untangle right now. Her hands pressed weakly against his chest, trembling. Her breathing fractured further. “Rhodes!” Will’s voice cracked across the department with sharp urgency. Connor looked up instinctively. “We need you, man.”
you can read the remainder of the chapter here:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/81977501/chapters/226688396
One of the Boys (or Sarah Reese in the Off Campus Universe) Years Later...
TW: Cancer Mention
Joanna was talking to an older woman. Sarah saw when she finally broke away from the chaos that was the ED. (Where they were dealing with the aftermath of someone running through a pop-up street market with their car.) Because of course she was. That's just who Joanna Maxwell was. She was easily the coolest person in the room, but she was also incredibly kind and friendly. She would talk to anyone and everyone. Sarah blinked away the tears trying to form in her eyes because not only was it was unfair for someone like Joanna Maxwell to be sick, but because it was unfair for everyone in that room to be sick.
Shaking her head, Sarah pushed through the door to the clinical trial waiting room. Then she stopped short. The brunette blinked, as if the image in front of her would disappear but no. She tensed and froze because there stood her boyfriend still stood in front of her, hugging his ex-girlfriend very tightly.
"And there she is now! Reese's Pieces," Joanna called out softly as she stood up and moved across the room. Connor and Robin Charles broke apart and turned to stare at her. Robin looked surprised, yet delighted to see her while Connor looked guilty. Even muscle in her body seized up. Because in her head this was conformation enough. She was only ever Connor Rhodes' consolation prize. (Across the room Dean clocked the shift in Sarah's body language immediately.) But Sarah had only glanced at him for a moment before she adverted her eyes from his to look at her friend.
"You know I wish I could say that it's been a while since someone called me that, but it was only this morning." Sarah laughed as Beau's older sister wrapped her in a tight hug. Sarah returned it just as tightly. It wasn't a Beau Maxwell hug. Sarah hadn't had one of those since she was nineteen. But it was a very close second and it brought tears to her eyes. Joanna hummed, "When was the last time we saw each other?" "Two years ago? I was on my yearly trip with the boys and it was Dean's turn to host so we were in New York. You had just landed Janis in Mean Girls on Broadway so you insisted we come to the opening night."
"It can't be that long ago." Watery laughter bubbled out of Sarah's mouth before she squeezed the other woman tighter. Then Joanna pulled away and grabbed her hand, "Come meet my new friend! I was telling her all about you and how you told me about this new clinical trial. This is Caroline Charles. Caroline, this is Sarah Reese. "
"Dr. Reese was also my psychiatrist Mom, before we knew I had the tumor in my head. She was the one who made me feel normal even when I was going crazy. She's also one of Dad's residents." Robin Charles called softly, before she made her way back over to where her mother was with Connor in tow. Sarah's heart clenched. Especially with Connor now hovering over her shoulder.
Because this was the problem with her jealousy of Robin Charles. Sarah felt as if she didn't have any kind of justification for it, because the woman had been nothing but kind to her. Even when Sarah hadn't been able to diagnose her properly. It would be easier if Robin was a bitch. But she wasn't. But she Connor's last serious girlfriend before Sarah. And Sarah wasn't dumb okay? She knew she was Connor's rebound after Robin left. Her and over half of the greater female population. But she was the one that stuck. But it didn't change what she was. Connor's consolation prize because he couldn't have the one he really wanted.
"Then I must shake your hand. For not only helping my daughter when she needed it. But also putting up with my ex-husband. I know that isn't easy all the time." Sarah smiled tightly as the older woman grabbed her hand. But it didn't meet her eyes. (Another thing Dean cataloged in his best friend. Also how she seemed to shuffle a little so she wasn't touching even shoulders with the dark haired man behind her.)
"And this is Connor Rhodes, Connor this is my mom. Caroline Charles." Robin introduced and Connor reached around Sarah to offer her his hand.
"Connor, I have wanted to meet you for a very long time. Thank you so much for taking such good care of my girl when she needed you."
Sarah inhaled tightly because this was starting to feel more and more like a boyfriend meeting the girlfriend's parents. She ignored the look Connor threw her when no one was looking. ( Or when he thought no one was looking. Except Dean was. He might not know what was going on with his best friend and the other man, but he had had enough of it. He stood up.)
"Okay Jo, quit hogging my best friend. After she was mine first." Dean said easily, opening his arms for Sarah. Sarah took the out for what it was and darted into Dean's waiting arms. His arms locked around her waist, lifted her off her feet and, just like that she was home.
Even as Joanna laughed, "Actually, I think she was Tucker's first."
She almost sobbed. Her other friends and Connor were lovely and she loved Chicago, but they weren't her boys or even their better halves and Boston...Boston was the first place she felt at home anywhere.
If you want to ask me about this universe or look at the playlist
For The Bloodlines [Season 1 - AU]
Chapter 27: When Wolves Circle
to anyone who still cares about this fic lol...this one is a rough one for Sarah. I do hope you enjoy this one. please read the end note for an update on scheduled upload for the remaining chapters.
The hospital greeted them the way it always did—already awake, already moving, already demanding something from everyone who stepped inside it. The atmosphere shifted the moment the sliding doors opened. Phones rang somewhere beyond reception. Monitors sounded in layered rhythms from deeper within the department. Nurses crossed the corridor with purposeful urgency, coffee cups in hand and patient charts tucked against their sides. Stretchers rolled past at speed. Overhead pages crackled intermittently through the ceiling speakers, dissolving into the familiar undercurrent of organised chaos that defined the Emergency Department. To most people, it would have felt overwhelming. To Sarah, it felt like breathing again. She slowed almost imperceptibly just inside the entrance, drawing in a quiet breath as her gaze swept across the department floor. Something in her posture shifted instantly—subtle but unmistakable. Her shoulders straightened. Her focus sharpened. The lingering fragility she carried at home seemed to recede beneath the instinctive pull of the place. Connor noticed it immediately. His hand rose without thought, brushing lightly against the back of her neck before he leaned down to press a brief kiss against the crown of her head. “Stay within your limits,” he murmured quietly. Sarah tilted her face toward him, one brow lifting faintly. “You say that like I’m notoriously difficult.” Connor gave her a flat look. “Because you are, luna.” “I’ll be a good girl, Dr Rhodes.” His eyes darkened.
you can read the remainder of the chapter here:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/81977501/chapters/226336016
For The Bloodlines [Season 1 - AU]
Chapter 26: The Quiet After The Storm
a chapter of fluff?
Connor crossed the room slowly, setting his bag down on the chair beside her bed before finally speaking. “Hey, baby.” His voice was low, roughened faintly by fatigue. Sarah swallowed against the sudden thickness in her throat. “Hi.” Another silence followed, softer this time. Connor stepped closer to the bed, studying her with the same measured attention he used when approaching something wounded and precious. “How are you feeling?” But Sarah didn’t answer. Instead, she pushed the blanket aside. A faint furrow appeared between Connor’s brows as she shifted carefully onto her knees atop the mattress. Before he could ask what, she was doing, Sarah leaned forward abruptly and wrapped herself around him. The force of it made him brace instinctively. Her arms locked tightly around his shoulders, fingers curling into the fabric of his scrubs as though she needed the physical reassurance of him beneath her hands. Connor froze for half a heartbeat in surprise. Then his arms closed around her immediately. Strong. Protective. Certain. “Hey,” he murmured softly, one hand sliding into her hair as the other spread carefully against her back. “What’s this?” But Sarah only held him tighter, burying her face against the side of his neck. Connor stilled completely then. The teasing warmth faded from his expression, replaced by something quieter. More attentive. His fingers moved slowly through her hair in soothing strokes. “Sarah,” he said again, gentler this time. “What’s wrong?” Her voice came muffled against his collar. “I love you.” The words were barely louder than breath, but Connor felt them like something physical. He went still. Sarah felt the subtle shift in him immediately—the way his hold tightened almost imperceptibly, the way his head dipped lower toward hers. For a moment he said nothing at all, and when he finally spoke, his voice carried that deep, unwavering certainty she had come to depend on more than her own heartbeat. “I love you too.” Simple words. But spoken like a vow carved into stone. Connor pressed a lingering kiss into her hairline, his eyes closing briefly as he held her. They stayed like that for several quiet seconds, tangled together in the pale morning light while the world beyond Room 301 continued moving without them.
you can read the full chapter here:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/81977501/chapters/225969026
One of the Boys (or Sarah Reese in the Off Campus Universe)
Sarah Reese was technically sixteen when she went to college. It wasn't her fault that she graduated high school early and Freshman Orientation at Briar University fell a week just shy of her sixteenth birthday. She was also technically an adult, being emancipated from her mother earlier in the year. Being an emancipated sixteen teen year old definitely came with its challenges. The top one being money. Which meant that when Briar University in Boston offered her a very lucrative scholarship, she took it. She'd still have to get a part time job, but at least her tuition and almost all of her living expenses would be taken care of.
She was technically an adult in the eyes of society, but just because was an adult that didn't stop the deer in headlights look she had going during Freshman Orientation. Because she was still just a week shy of her sixteenth birthday. But maybe fate knew what it was doing because that look, along with her stumbling made John Tucker stop and notice her.
"Hey, are you okay?" A male voice with a Texas accent asked somewhere above her, after she stumbled and her books went flying.
Still in a crouch to pick up her things, Sarah answered with a nod. She wasn't here to make friends, she was here to learn and figure out what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. Besides she wasn't dumb, most guys in college would probably only want one thing from her. They would probably see her age and think she was naive. She was definitely not. The boy crouched down to help her gather her things.
"Thank you," Sarah said then visibly cringed because her voice was still small. Girls older than her, old enough to go to college, their voices were fuller. If she was going to convince people she belonged here, she was going to have to project her voice more.
"I'm John Tucker," Sarah finally looked up to see a boy with kind eyes. They were brown. He also had curly black hair that he kept up in a ponytail. He smiled at her and despite herself, Sarah found herself smiling back. There was a tightness in her chest and his smile seemed to loosen something. At least until he asked, "How old are you?"
"Sixteen," Sarah answered truthfully anyway. Because she was only a week away from her sixteenth birthday. "I'm Sarah. Sarah Reese,"
It seemed fate knew what it was doing though. Because from that fateful meeting John Tucker took her under his wing and became one of her best friends. Along with Dean Di Laurentis, John Logan, and Garrett Graham and later her roommates. (Though she had to put up with other girls thinking she was sleeping with one of the boys on a daily basis.)
When they graduated, and she went to med school, she thought they'd loose touch. But instead the boys became lifelong friends and she was added to the group chat, but she was closest to Tucker and Dean.
For The Bloodlines [Season 1 - AU]
Chapter 25: The Fault line
to anyone still reading...there are some warnings for this chapter. While it starts heavy, we do progress into something lighter. There are warnings of pregnancy discussions [including abortion] and elements of smut as well. I do hope you enjoy the chapter nonetheless. Here's a sneak peak:
The bathroom door opened slowly. Sarah stepped out looking like the aftermath of a war. Her face was pale beneath the fluorescent light, tears slipping unchecked down her cheeks, but for once she made no attempt to hide them from him. There was something devastating in that alone. Their eyes met across the room, and the moment they did, something inside her seemed to fracture completely. “I can’t do this.” Her voice broke around the words. Connor’s heart dropped straight through his chest. Sarah shook her head once, hard, like she was trying to dislodge the panic clawing through her chest. “I can’t be a mother.” The confession came out ragged. Painful. Connor did not interrupt her. Sarah wiped furiously at her cheeks, but the tears kept coming anyway. “I wouldn’t even know how,” she whispered. “I don’t know how to be that for someone when the only version of motherhood I’ve ever known felt like surviving a war.” Her breathing hitched sharply. “What if I become her?” Connor’s chest tightened. Sarah laughed once, bitterly, and the sound nearly undid him. “What if one day I wake up and realise I’ve turned into the same woman who spent my childhood making me feel small enough to disappear.” Her breathing quickened. “What if I do the same thing?” Connor watched her carefully. “What if I hurt them the way she hurt me?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “What if I fail them?” Connor took a slow step toward her. “Sarah—”
you can read the rest of the chapter here:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/81977501/chapters/225435056
For The Bloodlines [Season 1 - AU]
Chapter 24: The Space Between Breaths
...upcoming angst...sorry?
Three weeks had passed since Sarah’s second surgery, and recovery had become something measured not in miracles, but in increments so fragile most people would have overlooked them entirely. The graft was holding. The infection that had nearly consumed her body had finally retreated beneath the relentless assault of antibiotics. Her kidneys had stabilised. Her liver function was improving slowly. Every chart, every blood panel, every cautious nod from the ICU staff suggested she was inching her way back toward the living. And yet the ventilator still breathed for her. Its steady mechanical rhythm filled the room day and night, a sound Connor had come to know with terrifying intimacy. He could distinguish the cadence of that machine from halfway down the corridor now; he knew when the pressure shifted, when the cycle deepened, when the alarms hinted at strain before they even sounded. Somewhere along the line, the hiss of artificial breath had embedded itself into him. Tonight, it sounded unchanged. Connor pushed open the ICU door quietly, fatigue dragging heavily through his limbs after a trauma surgery that had devoured most of the night. The exhaustion sat deep in his shoulders, beneath his ribs, behind his eyes. He barely noticed it anymore. Kal sat beside Sarah’s bed, one ankle hooked over his knee, dark eyes lifting the moment Connor entered the room. “You look like hell,” he said quietly. Connor didn’t bother denying it. Instead, he crossed immediately to Sarah. She looked exactly as she had twelve hours earlier when he’d left for surgery: pale against the white pillow, dark hair loosely braided by one of the nurses so it wouldn’t tangle around the tubing at her throat. Connor bent and pressed a careful kiss to her forehead. “Hey, Luna.” The softness in his voice arrived instinctively whenever he spoke to her now, as though his body understood gentleness around her before his mind did. He dragged the chair closer and sat beside the bed, one hand immediately reaching for hers beneath the blanket.
you can read the rest of the chapter here:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/81977501/chapters/225085641
For The Bloodlines [Season 1 - AU]
Chapter 23: A Rageful Tune
Ummm...so this chapter is chaos. I lost the plot [like my actual sanity]. Enjoy? Please be advised that there are elements of a Dom/sub dynamic in the smut of this chapter ft. Connor Rhodes as Mr. Dirty Talker...and there's also violence and blood.
For a few fragile moments, the world narrowed to the three of them standing beneath the grey dawn: grandmother, grandson, granddaughter—survivors picking through the wreckage of a dynasty. Then Connor felt it. A shift in the air behind him. A pull beneath his ribs sharp enough to stop breath itself. He turned. Sarah stood across the pavement between Lorenzo and Kal. The sight of her hit him with the force of impact. She wore a dark coat someone had thrown over her shoulders after processing, the fabric too large for her frame. Her hair had come loose entirely now, dark strands curling wildly around her face, and exhaustion lingered beneath her eyes like bruises. But she was standing. Alive. Unbroken. And when her gaze found his, something fierce lit inside it. For one suspended heartbeat neither of them moved. The city disappeared. The noise disappeared. There was only the brutal gravity pulling them toward each other. Then Sarah ran. Connor released Claire before he consciously registered doing it. He descended the stairs two at a time, every instinct in him narrowing toward one thing alone. Her. She collided with him hard enough to force the breath from his lungs. Connor caught her instantly, arms locking around her waist as she wrapped herself around him with desperate strength, fingers knotting at the back of his shirt like she feared he might vanish if she loosened her grip even slightly. And perhaps she did. Perhaps after the night they had survived, disappearing no longer felt impossible. He buried his face briefly against her hair, breathing her in with something dangerously close to desperation. Safe. She was safe. The realization hit him like prayer. Sarah pulled back only enough to look at him properly, both hands immediately moving across his face, his shoulders, his ribs, as though cataloguing damage with clinical precision. Her fingers brushed the bruising darkening along his jaw, then slid lower to his split knuckles. Her expression tightened. “Connor…” He caught her wrist gently before she could continue inspecting him. “I’m alright.”
you can read the rest of the chapter here:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/81977501/chapters/224538406
NHL! Connor Rhodes (With Childhood Crush!Rhesse)
“Reese,” Maggie’s voice floated somewhere above her and Sarah looked up from where she was helping April unpack supplies so they could stock the supply closet. It wasn’t the call of her name that made her look up though, but the confusion in the charge nurse’s voice.
“Yeah Mags, what’s up?”
“There is a man here. Dr. Halstead says he’s the right wringer for the Blackhawks.”
“Okay...” the brunette drew out the word, unsure of why the other woman was telling her this.
“What does that have to do with me Maggie?” Sarah asked as her confusion grew. It wasn’t like she kept up with the sport. Except that Claire’s big brother played the sport professionally.
“He says he’s your husband.”
“What?”
It was Claire’s brother. Sarah saw as she followed behind the charge nurse to where this right-winger was (whatever that was) and there stood Connor Rhodes. Because of course, her best friend's older brother would say something idiotic like he was her husband.
"Hey! There is Mrs. Connor Rhodes now!" He grinned broadly when he saw her walking towards him. All eyes turned to her and she felt a flush of heat running up...everywhere. She was probably as red as a tomato by now.
"I'm not your wife," she muttered glaring at him. But Connor didn't seem fazed. In fact, his grin morphed into one she had only seen a few times. It was soft and his ocean-blue eyes seemed to brighten into stars and those stars seemed to twinkle.
"You doodling Mrs. Sarah Rhodes in your math notebook says otherwise." He teased softly.
"I was ten years old!" The brunette protested, wishing the floor would just open up and swallow her whole. Why shouldn't the rumor mill of Gaffney know about her childhood crush of the man in front of her? But the man in front of her still didn't seem fazed at her words.
"Claire told me she's bringing you to tonight's game." He said holding up a jersey for her to see, "And with it being my first homecoming game back with the Blackhawks-"
Connor had been traded to Boston before Sarah started medical school and had been traded back just before the season started. "-I thought my future wife could wear my jersey."
Sarah took the red jersey with the writing: Rhodes: 15 on the back of it.
"Connor, this looks like the real thing and not just something you get fans. You need this to play."
She glanced up to see Connor rolling his eyes. "Sarah, give me some credit. This is my old jersey. Before I was traded. You know the one you wore the night before I left for Boston..."
A second flush started to creep up her cheeks. Because images of that night had started to flash in her mind.
"And Claire?"
"My sister is wearing my away jersey." Connor reassured the curly-haired brunette, pushing a stray curly behind her ear as he leaned into her personal space to whisper, "Besides, this jersey is no one else's but yours. After all, we did christen it together."
A third flush started to creep up her cheeks.
For The Bloodlines [Season 1 - AU]
Chapter 22: The Poised Blade:
warnings: this chapter contains detailed smut [as teased below], depictions of violence on multiple accounts and a hell of a lot of politics and plannings. I call this a climax chapter but 23 is just as bad...so i may need to redefine what i mean by that.
| Rhodes- Ferreira Penthouse | 7:35 AM Morning arrived reluctantly, pale light spilling through the glass walls of the penthouse in silver ribbons that stretched across tangled sheets and bare skin. The city beyond still lingered in half-silence, suspended in that fragile hour before Chicago fully woke, but inside the bedroom the world had narrowed to warmth, breath, and the slow aftermath of surrender. Sarah stirred first. The movement was subtle—barely more than the shift of her shoulder against the pillow—but Connor felt it instantly. Even in sleep, some part of him remained attuned to her, watchful in the way predators guarded what was theirs. Before she could pull away, his arm tightened around her waist, drawing her firmly back against the heat of his chest. His mouth brushed the curve of her shoulder, voice roughened by sleep and something darker beneath it. “Trying to escape me already, little luna?” A shiver travelled through her at the sound alone. She turned her head slightly, enough for him to catch the faint smile touching her lips. “I wasn’t escaping.” “Good.” His hand spread possessively across her stomach, fingers splaying against soft skin before drifting lower with deliberate intent. “Because I wasn’t finished with my wife yet.” Her breath caught immediately. The reaction pleased him; she felt it in the low sound that vibrated through his chest, half growl, half satisfaction. Her body yielded instinctively beneath his touch now, opening for him before thought could intervene, and Connor, who spent his life controlling every impulse with surgical precision, felt his restraint fray at the edges. His fingers moved slowly between her thighs, teasing rather than taking, tracing circles against the opening of her cunt that made her hips press back against him in silent plea. “You’re sore,” he murmured, though his tone carried little conviction. “I should let you rest.” Sarah twisted just enough to look at him over her shoulder. Sleep still lingered in her eyes, but desire burned through it unmistakably. “Don’t.” The word came soft. Certain. His jaw tightened. There it was again, that dangerous thing she did to him without effort. The way she offered trust so completely it became its own form of power. The wolf inside him, the part sharpened by obsession and devotion in equal measure, rose instantly to meet it. “On your stomach.” The command unfurled through the room like silk over steel.
You can read the rest of the chapter here:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/81977501/chapters/224169571
For The Bloodlines [Season 1 - AU]
Chapter 21: The King's Gambit
this chapter contains smut with light Dom/sub dynamics
Sarah stood at the counter in black silk that clung to her like poured midnight, a robe hanging open and careless from her shoulders. Her hair was pinned loosely back, though several dark strands had escaped to frame her face, catching the candlelight like ink brushed with gold. Before her sat a small cake crowned with flickering flames. When she looked up and saw him, surprise flashed briefly across her features before softening into something infinitely warmer. “Happy birthday,” she said quietly. The tension left him in stages. Not all at once, but enough for his shoulders to loosen as he crossed the threshold, his gaze fixed entirely on her. The candles painted shifting light across her skin, and suddenly the penthouse—usually all steel and silence—felt intimate in a way that unsettled him more profoundly than any battlefield ever had. Sarah lifted her chin slightly. “Make a wish.” His mouth almost curved. He could have told her there was nothing left to wish for. Not when she was standing there looking at him like that. Not when she had become, somehow, the centre of every future he had once refused to imagine for himself. Still, he bent toward the candles and extinguished them in one steady breath. Smoke curled upward between them.
You can read the rest of the chapter here:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/81977501/chapters/223823706
