"the sound of distant thunder suddenly starting to climb
it was the music of something beginning
an era exploding, a century spinning
in riches and rags and in rhythm and rhyme
the people called it ragtime"
RAGTIME
at the 2025 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
What do you think about the HC that Connor's into cars? Especially when he's returned to Chicago.
Like on par with Severide's nice car obsession.
I'm gonna be so honest, I don't think he gives a shit about cars lmao.
The only time we see him interested in a car is when he's going through his midlife crisis after Robin leaves him. From what I could interpret from that scene and his subsequent promiscuity, it was wildly out of character for him. In my opinion, it's because he genuinely believed Robin was the one (I think Colin also interpreted his character this way based on his departure from med and his performance with Mekia in season 4), and losing her sent him spiraling.
With that said, I just don't see it personally. Plus, I don't think anyone is beating out Severide's obsession. That man is dedicated to his cars like he's dedicated to his job.
• Requested by anon: Reader is a nurse and while she’s on duty someone man from the or goes crazy because he wants to be threaded immediately and she tries to calm him down, but he loses his mind and with a pocket knife he has he accidentally hurts her cutting her on her face after which he’s escorted out by the security. Connor and reader are together and as soon as he hears about the incident, he run to her all worried. He cleans her wound.
• Warnings: brief mention of blood, wounds, use of knife, curse words, let me know if I missed something.
• Word count: 3453.
• A/N: it’s been a while since I post and I hate how this turned out bye, please have mercy on me, university is kicking my ass and I have to study for my last exams so I’m trying to write something between lunch break and during the evening. I know it’s not so good 😭 but beside that I missed you all so much, I hope you’re all aright ❤️
A sudden noise caught your attention, making you turn your head towards the entrance of the ER.
The morning seemed relatively quiet, there were patients in the waiting room, doctors and nurses doing their normal work.
You looked around before heading towards the waiting room where you had heard the commotion and noticed a man standing in the middle of the room, a pocket knife in his hand that he was waving vehemently. He was completely out of his mind.
“I want a doctor! Now!” He shouted while all the other terrified patients started running away..
“Sir, put that knife down! Right now!” exclaimed the security guard.
“I’m fucking sick! I want a doctor right now or I’ll kill you all!”
“Sir please,” you spoke in a calm and gentle tone, taking small steps towards him, your hands clearly visible to show him you weren’t a threat, that you wouldn’t do anything to him.
“Y/Ln please stay back, I’ll take care of this,” the guard spoke but you didn’t listen. You couldn’t just turn around and walk away as if nothing was happening.
“I’m a nurse,” you continued while keeping your gaze on the enraged man, “How about you put the knife down and I call a doctor right now? You could come with me to one of the rooms while a doctor comes to examine you.”
“Stay back you bitch! I want a doctor now!” he shouted even louder than before and you swallowed the lump in your throat.
Despite your outward calm, your heart was pounding with fear, especially when the man continued to wave that knife around like it was a toy. You mentally breathed a sigh of relief as you saw the last patient had run away.
“Sir, can you tell me your name please?” You continued. “Do you have your medical records with you so we can take a look at it?”
He approached you in a threatening manner and you spontaneously took a few steps back before the guard stood in front of you to protect you.
“I just called the police, you have five minutes to leave or I will have you arrested immediately.”
At those words the man seemed to get even angrier, something you hadn’t even thought was possible. You let out a scream as the man threw himself on Dave – the guard – who was taken by surprise and got hit.
You only realized what had happened afterwards. Only when you saw Dave’s white uniform shirt turn red you realized he had been stabbed.
You didn’t know what was going through your mind at that moment. You only knew you wanted to get that man off of Dave.
You lunged at him, trying to grab the knife from his hand, which allowed the attacker to take his attention off Dave for a moment, though to your detriment, since it ended up on you.
You screamed as he fell on top of you. Your hands tried to keep his arm away from you but you couldn’t stop him from cutting your cheek.
It burned like a motherfucker but it wasn’t the time to think about the pain, not when that bastard was about to kill you.
“Hey! Get off her!” You heard voices shouting and mentally sighed in relief when you no longer felt his weight on your body. You immediately moved away from him, sliding further back on the floor as you sat up, only to see Will and other doctors and nurses holding the man down and injecting what you assumed was a sedative into his arm.
Your chest rose and fell rapidly, adrenaline coursing through your veins.
“Y/n! Oh god are you okay?” Will asks immediately after walking over to you and helping you up.
You nodded. “Dave… He was stabbed…”
“They already brought him in. He’s on his way to the OR.”
You looked over to where the guard had been lying and only then you realized he was indeed gone. When had they taken him away?
“Are you okay? You hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
Will’s eyes widened as he focused on your cheek. “Shit, you’re not fine. He cut your face.”
You touched your cheek and when you looked at your blood-stained fingertips, you remembered that he had actually hit you.
“It’s just a scratch, I’m fine.”
“Rhodes is going to lose his shit,” Will muttered in a low voice as he looked at your wound. “Come on, I’ll disinfect it. It doesn’t look deep enough to need stitches.”
But Will was right.
Connor really lost his shit.
After years it was no secret you two were together. Everyone knew how protective he was of you and this had often sparked jokes, pranks and teasing from your friends who did nothing but mock him for his overprotectiveness.
He was in the OR closing up a patient after a routine surgery when he heard the interns murmuring something.
“What are you whispering about?” He asked, not being able to make out what they were saying.
“Uhm…” One of them cleared their throat, “We heard there was an attack in the ER, a man with a knife went nuts.”
Connor’s eyes immediately snapped to them, the forceps and suture in his hand frozen, almost about to fall, and even though most of his face was obscured by his mask, his eyes quickly showed his emotions.
His first thought was you.
He knew you were on duty that morning and he couldn’t help but let his nerves heat up.
“Was anyone hurt?” he asked, trying to keep his voice calm and his hands steady as he finished stitching up the patient. There was no need to freak out. You were fine, if anything happened someone would’ve called him.
“I don’t know how many people, I just heard that a security guard was injured but they’re already treating him, he should be in surgery right now.”
Connor nodded, his throat tight as he concentrated on finishing the surgery. He tried to keep his focus solely on the patient because even though the surgery was almost over, the patient deserved nothing less than one hundred percent of his attention. He couldn’t afford to be distracted since complications were always around the corner.
“Someone page Nurse Y/Ln,” he ordered, his eyes on the patient as he stitched even though his mind was racing. He needed to hear your voice, to know you were really fine.
No one answered and there was a moment of silence. It was only a moment but to him it felt like an eternity.
“Now!” He raised his voice, letting the anger, worry, and crippling anxiety he was feeling shine through.
“Dr. Rhodes, we already tried to page her but she’s not answering,” a nurse said fearfully, terrified of his reaction.
“Fuck,” he cursed through gritted teeth. “Someone go find her then instead of standing there like idiots!”
Everyone exchanged a look and the intern who had spoken earlier immediately left the OR, running towards the emergency room. The entire hospital knew how much he doted on you, how he lived for you only, how much he loved you, how crazy he was for you, so they were all holding their breath while waiting for some kind of update.
Silence reigned in the OR, Connor didn’t bother to show the residents what he was doing, he just kept stitching the patient.
His voice was flat, almost like a robot, his hands was steady, his back straight, but only he knew how anxiety was twisting his stomach almost making him threw up. “Keep page her, I want to know where the hell my fiancée is!” was all he exclaimed.
“Nothing yet, doctor.”
“Dr. Blake went to check and he’ll be here shortly, but just take a breath, everything will be fine,” a nurse allowed herself to say and he looked up to glare at her.
“That’s my fiancée we’re talking about, my future wife, it’ll be fine only when I hear from her,” he spat venomously and she nodded – not wanting to contradict him when he wasn’t thinking clearly – before he turned his attention back to the patient.
He hated this situation.
He wasn’t giving his full attention to the surgery and he hated that.
Please god let her be okay.
Only five minutes had passed since the intern had left but to him it seemed like years went by and only when he saw him return he momentarily breathed a sigh of relief.
Everyone’s faces were covered by masks but Connor only had to look into the intern’s eyes, even if only for a couple of seconds, to understand the news weren’t as good as he had hoped. He knew that look, he had used it hundreds of thousands of times to communicate unpleasant news to the patient’ families.
“Where is she?” he asked abruptly, alternating his gaze between the intern and the patient.
“She’s fine sir, doctor... She...” he paused briefly and sighed, “She was slightly hurt, but she’s fine, I swear she’s fine... She’s alert and only has a small wound. She asked me to tell you to stay calm and just focus on the surgery…”
But Connor didn’t hear anything that resident said except those three words.
She was hurt.
You had been hurt.
“Fucking hell.”
“The attacker has been sedated and handcuffed to the bed and they’re waiting for the cops,” he continued, trying somehow to reassure Connor. “Dr. Rhodes, seriously, it’s just a small graze I saw it and she’s fine you understand? She’s fine.”
He didn’t answer.
He was silent for the rest of the surgery, not saying a single word.
But as soon as he was out of the OR, Connor literally flew to the emergency room, his cap still in his hand.
He needed to see you, he needed to know you were actually fine.
“April, where’s Y/n?” he asked as soon as he got to the nurses' station.
“She’s okay, Dr. Rhodes...”
“Where the hell is my fiancée?!” He cut her off abruptly, raising his voice and not even letting her finish her sentence. He didn’t mean to be rude but he was out of his mind in that moment and didn’t care about anything or anyone that weren’t you.
She pointed to trauma room one and he ran there before she could say or do anything else. He jerked the closed curtain open and his heart stopped when he saw you sitting on the bed.
“Baby…” he breathed out as if he had taken a breath of oxygen for the first time after hours when he realized – even if it took him too many endless seconds in his opinion – that you were actually fine, you were awake, alert and looking at him with a scared expression.
“Connor, baby, I’m…” you started but it was as if he was in a state of shock. Connor seemed to have realized that Will was there only after endless moments and that he was taking care of the wound on your face.
“Will, I’ll take care of it now, thanks,” he spoke, his eyes never leaving yours. Will nodded, realizing it was time to leave the two of you alone, and tossed away the gauze he was using to clean your wound before leaving the room, closing the curtain again.
“Baby I swear I’m fine, it’s just a little scratch…”
He came closer and before he could say something his arms were already around your body and he was holding you close to his chest. He hugged you so tightly as if it was the first time in years that he saw you again.
He felt your arms return his hug, rest on his back and caress him gently and it was only then that he had finally regained some sense.
You were fine, you were really fine.
You were hugging him.
But he was about to collapse on the ground, his legs feeling like jelly.
“Who did this to you?” he whispered while his lips print kisses at the top of your head, deeply inhaling the scent of your shampoo as if it was oxygen and he had been deprived of it.
“I don’t know who that man was. He just… He really was out of his mind, he wanted immediate care and he wouldn’t listen to anyone. Everyone run away. We tried to calm him down but he had a knife… Dave was hurt…” you finished the last sentence with a sob, bursting into tears there in Connor’s arms, your lifeline and right that second, as he held you, you knew everything would be alright.
“Where is he? I’ll kill that son of a bitch with my own hands,” he furiously retorted and started to move away from you but you held him back by his uniform. “No, no, no please baby… Please don’t leave me, stay here with me.”
You looked at him with those big eyes of yours, filled with tears, a destroyed expression on your face and Connor held you again, squeezing his eyes closed in an attempt to stay calm and not go crazy.
“Shh, I’m not going anywhere, I’m not leaving you okay? I’m here with you. It’s okay my love, you’re okay, Dave also will be okay too,” he kept whispering as you cried in his arms.
“I was so… I was so scared…”
His heart tightened with pain as he heard your voice broken by tears. Very few other times in his life he had been so angry and all of those the times were about his father or something that had happened to you.
“I know baby but it’s over, you’re safe now. I won’t let anything happen to you again you hear me? You’re safe,” he kept whispering, trying to keep a sweet and calm tone even though he was shaking so much he was about to have a seizure.
He couldn’t even imagine what you felt in those moments, how scared you felt but despite this tried to stop the attacker. He hated knowing all this was happening a few steps away from him, he hated he hadn’t been there to protect you.
God only knew how he would’ve killed anyone on this planet just to prevent a single scratch from scarring you.
He pulled away from the hug and literally felt his stomach twist on itself when he saw the cut on your cheek. He stroked your hair gently, trying to calm you down.
“You were so good and so brave, I’m so proud of you baby you know that right?” He kissed your forehead, a small smile gracing his lips as he looked into your tear-filled eyes.
You nodded.
“But I’d rather you let someone else with experience do this job okay? I can’t stand the thought of you getting hurt, please promise me.”
“I promise.”
He kissed your forehead again, his eyes closed for a moment and stayed in that position for a while as if trying to convince himself it wasn’t just a dream.
“Now, let me take care of your wound is it okay?” He continued and you nodded. He disinfected his hands and put on some gloves.
He tried to stop his fingers from shaking but he couldn’t, he tried to convince himself it was over but he just couldn’t. It was as if his mind couldn’t really thinking about anything that wasn’t the fact he really risked to lose you, that you might’ve been in Dave’s place, that son of a bitch might’ve taken away from him.
He took a deep breath, turning his back to you so as not to make you worry even more than you already were.
Connor approached you again and gently took your face in one hand, turning your head slightly so he could observe the wound. Luckily it wasn’t deep, it didn’t even need stitches, but that didn’t make him feel any better. It was just a reminder he wasn’t there to protect you.
“It’s going to sting a little.”
“I know baby, don’t worry.”
He could feel your eyes on him as he tried to stay focused and disinfect your cheek, but he didn’t look back, he knew he’d break down and you didn’t need that after what you went through.
His free hand rested on your healthy cheek as he drew imaginary circles on your skin, completely involuntarily.
“Baby?”
“Yes, love?”
“You’re shaking,” you whispered.
He let out a small sigh before sightly stepping away and turning his back to you. His fingers were shaking and he felt terribly guilty for being the one to have that reaction, because you were the one in that horrible situation, you were the one who had faced that crazy guy and you were the one who got hurt.
But he was the one who was at risk of losing you and the thought of it took the air from his lungs, it made him unable to breathe.
Was it dramatic? Probably yes. But he didn’t care. Knowing something had happened to you was destroying him.
“Baby, hey, talk to me.”
Your sweet and gentle tone made his eyes fill with tears, but he didn’t want to cry, not right there in front of you. He felt your fingers curl around his, as if to encourage him to turn towards you again.
“C’mon, look at me,” you spoke again when he continued to pretend to look and analyze your wound.
He then met your eyes, full of concern, and he couldn’t hold back any longer, letting a tear escape down his cheek.
“I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t be the one crying,” he tried to ease the tension. His heart exploded when you smiled at him and placed a hand on his cheek, wiping away the tears that had escaped with your thumb.
“Look at me carefully, okay?” You urged. “I’m fine, love, nothing happened…”
“I know, I know,” he smiled through silent tears, “But it literally hurts my heart to know you are in danger, even if it’s just for a second. God baby, you really don’t understand how much my existence depends on you, how much I would give my life just for you to be safe. I would die if anything happened to you and…” He sniffed. “T-the fact I wasn’t there to help you and protect you… It makes me feel so sick I can’t breathe.” He put a hand on his chest, right there where it hurt so bad. You put your hand on his as the other one continued to wipe away his tears. “I was so fucking scared.”
In response you tugged at the collar of his uniform and kissed him, both of you tasting the saltiness of your tears. “I love you so much Connor, god, I love you so fucking much. I don’t know what I’d do without you,” you whispered against his lips and he kissed you again till both of you couldn’t breathe, before pulling away and hugging you again.
“I love you so much more.” Connor rested his cheek at the top of your head as he held you, constantly leaving kisses on your hair and being especially careful not to touch your bruised cheek. “I swear, I will lock you in a cellar and throw away the key for all the heart attacks you give me. How the hell do you always end up in these situations?”
You let out a small laugh, relieved that he had calmed down. “Faults of being an ER nurse, you always meet crazy people.”
“Well I’ll ask to change your department. How about gynecology? Oh wait, dermatology is even better.”
You pulled away from him, tilting your head slightly so you could look him in the face. “I know you would never do that.”
He sighed, stroking your hair and drying the tears on your face. “No, but locking yourself in a cellar? Absolutely, I can’t die of a heart attack before I’m forty.”
“Look at you Dr. Rhodes, so worried about your fiancée.”
He gave you a fake glare. “I don’t play about you baby, I think I scared the crap out of the surgical team, they probably think I’m batshit crazy now. Worrying about you is an understatement.”
You giggle, imagining the way he was barking orders and shouting in the OR. “You’re really the best thing that has ever happened to me you know that right? I’m so glad I can always count on you.”
“Always baby, I’m always with you.” He smiled softly before kissing the tip of you nose. “How about we put a band-aid on this so we can get out of here?” He then kissed your forehead and you smiled again.
“Get out of here? But our shift isn’t over yet.”
“I’m sure Goodwin will understand the circumstances, I have no other scheduled surgeries and if they need a surgeon, Dr. Latham is available. I just want to go home and hold you until you’re out of breath. Plus you’re still shaking and I want you to rest.”
You slightly smiled again and nodded, without even thinking about it twice. “I’m in, Dr. Rhodes.”
