You mentioned in a past post that Dr. Charles is a member of the Terrible Chicago Fathers Club. Who else has a membership lol
Terrible Chicago Fathers Club members (in no particular order);
Daniel Charles - physically and/or emotionally abandoned at least two children but still expected unconditional love, forcefully admitted Robin to psych when he was not her doctor and without consulting her psychiatry team, which was totally messed up and illegal, seriously that man should have lost his license for that
Hank Voight - never held Justin accountable for his actions or let him face any consequences, lied to Erin a lot and usually just supported her in ways that were beneficial to him, has a secret history with Bunny outside of old CI stuff that the show mentioned/alluded to but never elaborated on
Robert Haywood - abandoned Reese, emotionally abusive, serial killer
Patrick Halstead - emotionally abusive, manipulative
Mr. Upton - physically abusive, alcoholic
Mr. Casey - they alluded to him being physically abusive sometimes on the show, had anger issues
Cornelius Rhodes - narcissistic rich scumbag, treats his daughter like dirt, tries to control Connor's life and goes out of his way to do so, uses his wife's death to hurt and manipulate Connor, they alluded that Cornelius had something to do with her death in season 1 of med but never did anything with it
Benny Severide - abandoned Kelly, manipulative, demonstrated lots of toxic masculinity, tried to undermine Kelly's stand in dad (Boden) because of DNA, womanizer, serial cheater
I’m still thinking on this spoiler...cause Robin was in the hospital recovering from surgery when Dr. Charles is shot....so like is it the next day? How does the car crash happen if it’s Mekia?
However, Nina being in a car leaving work to go home kind of makes sense because I don’t think Patti is returning at all...but damn...like the writers are just going to do that?!
They hinted that even though Nat and Will leave their partners they don’t get together as quickly as expected....
Maybe the next girlfriend they give Rhodes will last. I’m guessing his new competition will turn into some sort of attraction and maybe they’ll even bring back his admirer to cause problems.
Robyn is surely destined for some institution which means she can resurface at a later date (if they want her back). I still don’t like how rapid her decline was. This basically comes across as though she was able to function normally all her life and she immediately lunged into an unstable state. I know they chose a mental disorder to tie into her father’s specialty and Rhodes’ family history but their clash seems too manufactured. If they weren’t in such a rush, they could have given it some time for Rhodes to discover he was wrong to get her released. The mad dash to the finish line doesn’t draw me in.
I get the reason they gave for having Jeff leave, but he was really good in the E.D. Noah is laughable at best. He’s a useless character and it’s a pity they saddled April with him. I know she’s giving but I find it hard to believe that she would have sacrificed so much for someone who comes across as he does. It seems as if she would have talked to him a long time ago about his lack of seriousness. Ethan shouldn’t have had to prompt her. She should have already known what her brother was like.
Had April not brought up her loss to the ALS patient, I would have thought the writers forgot all about it. Not even Maggie has said anything further about it. I can’t imagine that Goodwin said nothing. Manning cares so much about all her patients but offered no comfort to her friend.
It’s bad enough that twitter is used to plug Manning and Halstead but I don’t get them soliciting ship names for April and Ethan. Had she not been engaged and pregnant a couple of months ago, I wouldn’t have an issue with it. They could have had them in development earlier this season instead of dead-ending her with Tate. Now this just seems like another one of their rush jobs. I don’t object to the two of them together, I would just prefer them to build it instead of skipping the courtship. I think it’s lazy writing to use work relationships as well they know each other and they’re friends so they don’t need to date or have non-work related interactions.
hi hello howdy happy Friday! 1.) I don’t understand why dr. Charles didn’t get his ASS BEAT for locking Robin up against her will. However comma,,,,, that episode was full of PRIME Dr. Connor-I-Just-Want-Someone-To-Love Rhodes moments
Hey, happy Friday to you too!
Yeah, Dr. Charles did some seriously messed up and illegal shit and faces absolutely ZERO consequences for it. It actually makes me made at Goodwin too cause Reese had literally approached her and said "hey, Dr. Charles is doing some shady shit." And Goodwin did nothing. She knew he was gonna do something and didn't stop him or ensure Robin's safety/privacy.
But yeah, Connor moving heaven and earth to help Robin makes me very happy. I really wish that he'd gotten a happy ending. Robin kinda got one, she moved away from her psycho father, got back together with her ex who she only broke up with cause they didn't wanna do long distance, and got helpful treatment because her psycho father couldn't interfere.
warnings: swearing, mention of abortion, mention of attempting to force abortion, unplanned preganancy, Connor and Robin are still together, Jimmy is still an ass, but now so is Chilli
The next day everyone was acting weird around her. Manning and Maggie were now running away from her, Halstead couldn't meet her eyes, Choi pretended to take a phone call when they were alone in the doctor's lounge, and Doris was completely silent. That never happened. She gossiped about anything and everything, until now Sarah hadn't believed there was a force on earth powerful enough to shut her up.
A distraction came in the form of a mass casualty structural collapse at a construction site. Injured workers flooded in, while Sarah and Choi were tasked with going to the scene and treating people in the field. It was Sarah's first time working like that. So far it had only been fully stocked EDs or ORs with copious amounts of staff ready to jump into action. Here there were limited supplies, limited staff, and unlimited chaos.
So far the building they were constructing was a small five-story apartment building, it didn't have any walls or floors, it was just metal beams and underlying structure. Half of the crossbeams had just... Come off, taking the workers that were on them, towards the concrete foundation, where other workers were. It was a grizzly, awful site. There were going to be so many casualties, no doubt about it. She reached her first patient, a woman no older than twenty, whose arm was being crushed by a beam near the shoulder. It was purple. She had to amputate.
Red tag, red tag, black tag, red tag, black tag, black tag, black tag, red tag, green tag, black tag, red tag.
She hadn’t eaten in ten hours and there were two more action-packed hours left in her shift. While she was finally back in the hospital, she couldn’t help but feel like she was still at the disaster site. One wrong move, one wrong word, and tragedy would occur. Of course at Gaffney it would be social tragedy, but still, she felt like she was navigating a mine field. She’d been on her feet non-stop since her shift started and she was feeling more mentally drained than physically drained. The other interns looked at her the way she imagined vultures would, beady eyes looking at your dying soul, ready to devour your corpse. Except... She wasn’t dying. She was in perfect health, it was apparent that they thought her career was about to be drop-kicked into an active volcano. Boy were they in for a surprise.
“Dr. Reese, scrub up, I need you in the OR with me.” Chad Dovingly, the resident “legacy” intern, almost yelled at Dr. Abrams, but Sarah watched him stop himself. “Sam-”
“Do not call me by my first name, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that. Call me ‘Dr. Abrams’ or don’t speak to me at all.”
“Right, right, my apologies. Dr. Abrams, are you sure that Dr. Reese is the right choice? I mean, I was literally born to be a surgeon, I was in the top ten at my med school, and Dr. Reese, well... Is this because she’s pregnant-”
“Stop. Talking. You may have been in the top ten of your class, but she was the first in hers. She has shown far more dedication and skill than any of you here, and I will not stand here while you not only accuse me of favouritism, but belittle your colleague and fellow intern because of a matter that is absolutely none of your business. The reason you aren’t scrubbing in as much is that you’re not good enough to yet, so if you want to scrub in more, prove to me that you’re worthy of it, because honestly so far Dr. Reese and Dr. Kim are the only ones who have done so.” He dismissed the other interns with only a head nod, leaving the two of them alone in the hallway. “Dr. Reese, the surgery is in two hours. Read up on the procedure and eat something, then meet me in OR four.” The confusion must have been displayed on her face so he sighed and pulled her to the side away from the other interns. “Dr. Manning cornered me earlier and informed me that you’ve been on your feet all day, and you’re going to be staying late. So eat something and then join me in the OR.”
She had a sandwich in her bag, but she doubted that the cold cut meats would still taste good after all this time. She debated going to the cafeteria but at this time all that would be available was heavy fast food. “Sarah?”
“Hi Dr. Manning, don’t worry Dr. Abrams ordered me to eat something before I join him in the OR.”
“Good. I was actually coming to get you, we ordered pizza down in the ED and I was wondering if you wanted to join us?”
“Something tells me you’re not going to take ‘no’ for an answer.”
“A correct assumption, come on it should be here by now.”
They were almost at the doctor’s lounge when Sarah couldn’t ignore the need to ask anymore. “... You know, don’t you?”
“Yes. We all do. I’m sorry that we’ve been avoiding you all day, we just didn’t want to ruin the surprise.”
“What sur-”
“SURPRISE!” Sarah jumped out of her skin and then looked around the lounge. There was a shiny blue ‘congratulations’ banner along the back wall, streamers taped to the ceiling and a stack of pizza boxes on the table. “We want you to know that we’re here for you and that we’re happy for you. I know that you don’t have a lot of time, she needs to scrub up at OR four in... one hour and fifty-one minutes, but celebrate with us a little now, we just want to make sure that you feel supported.”
“And that you eat, no one needs you fainting in an OR.”
“Thank you, all of you, so much... I really appreciate this, I was pretty scared at first, I still am, but I’m confident in my decision.”
“Trust me, we know Sarah.” Puzzled, she looked around at her co-workers and found them all snickering in the direction of Connor and Robin. Connor blushed and lowered his head with anawkward smirk while Robin rolled her eyes. “Doris tried to talk smack and I can honestly say that I have never seen someone get verbally eviscerated so viciously. Showed all of us not to mess with Robin.” Everyone around her chuckled and seemed to unanimously agree with Maggie. “Thanks.”
“No problem, Sarah. Besides I think it was about time someone knocked her down a peg. I mean, I know that gossip is just a part of hospital life, but she just takes it to a whole other level.”
Maggie and Nat were the least tense around her since this whole thing started, Choi and Halstead just seemed relieved that there wasn’t anything wrong with her, April and Noah just seemed content to make her laugh as loud as possible, Robin made sassy quips about the two of them sticking together, and Connor just made sure she always had pizza on her plate. They exchanged a smile when he made sure that she was the first one to eat ‘I know that it’s not salad but it’s still pretty good’. Sarah couldn’t have been more delighted to see Connor moving more freely, lighter, with an enormous weight having been removed from his shoulders.
The surgery... Did not go well, but it wasn’t anyone’s fault thankfully. Their patient had the largest tumor she’d ever seen in the centre of their brain and when Dr. Abrams removed it, it looked horrifying to be frank. There was literally a hole in this poor man’s brain which unfortunately resulted in brain damage. It was a serious risk from the beginning, so the patient and family had been informed numerous times in the days leading up to and of the surgery. Delivering that news had been assigned to Sarah and she was not looking forward to it. She left the recovery suite where the patient has just been examined after waking up and went to the waiting room where his husband was waiting along with his twin sister were after Dr. Abrams told them to wait while they examined him. “How is he?”
“He’s okay, right?”
“I am so sorry to tell you this, but he did sustain significant brain damage and it’s very likely that it’s permanent. There’s also a possibility that he could... Pass away due to the severity.” The second that the word ‘sorry’ was out of her mouth they both broke down in tears, holding onto each other for dear life. “You can see him, if you want, and I can explain a few things. Dr. Abrams will check on him again tomorrow at seven am, to give him more time to improve-”
“So, he could get better, my brother could recover.”
“I need to stress that while that is a vague possibility, it is incredibly unlikely, and I don’t want to get your hopes up. I’m so sorry.”
“... Can you take us to him? Or at least me? I totally understand if you can’t see him yet, he’s your twin, but... We- He’s the love of my life. I need to see him.” Sarah nodded and gestured for them to follow her, she wasn’t sure if his sister would at first, but she did, with a far-off, grave look in her eyes. Sarah tried not to think about it, after all, this poor woman was just told her twin brother suffered brain damage and would probably never be the same again, she was allowed to react however she needed to. Still... Sarah couldn’t help but feel like foreshadowing had taken physical form, like her patient’s sister knew more than she was saying.
Sarah had forty minutes left in her shift when alarms started blaring. She knew before she even turned around who it was and what the outcome would be. Despite being in her usual ‘crap someone’s dying’ speed her ankles felt like lead, and her soul had stayed at the computer she was working on. Her mind was still there, still searching her head for the best course of action before conducting it, giving orders to nurses, telling someone to get his loved ones out of the room, and shouting for someone to page the on-call neurosurgeon... But it was no use. And from the way everyone was looking at each other that this was the outcome they expected. “Time of death, 21:37.” Her voice felt so out of place, the vibrations her thoat made were irritating. The late patient’s fiance and sister were in the doorway. He was sobbing so inconsolably, so loud, it made Sarah’s heart clench. She however, looked numb, like a part of her just died. She looked Srah dead in the eyes and Sarah’s heart broke all over again. She’d known. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you Dr. Reese... I know that you and Dr. Abrams did everything you could. Could- could we have a moment with my brother? To say... Goodbye?”
When she finally left the hospital she was in tatters. She wasn’t sure if it was the pregnancy hormones or if it was her patient’s death, but all that she really wanted to do was cry. No, she needed to cry. Sadness and despair was bubbling up inside of her and she just didn’t want to keep it inside her. But of course the universe had other plans. When she finally made it to her car the last two people she wanted to see were standing beside it and sitting on it. She sighed, on the verge of tears and not in any mood to deal with either of them. “Jimmy. Chilli.”
“We need to talk.”
“We don’t actually. We really, really don’t. You don’t want to be involved and that’s fine. When they’re born we’ll do a paternity test because that’s what’s required for you to sign away your rights, and then you’ll do just that, and then you’ll walk away. It’s okay.”
“No it’s not. I’m not okay with you having my baby.”
“And I’m not okay with it either, he’s my... Boyfriend and I don’t want another chick to have his child.”
“Okay, first of all, neither of you get a say and whether or not I have this child. My body, my decision, that’s it. Second, Chilli, you have absolutely no say here in anything. You are not the mother or the father and I’m not even sure if you guys are dating given your hesitation in calling Jimmy your ‘boyfriend’ and you have such a volatile on/off relationship, you get zero say in anything even remotely related to my baby.”
“HEY! DON’T TALK TO HER LIKE THAT-”
“Speak to me like an adult or don’t speak to me at all. You don’t get to yell at me, you don’t get to use that tone with me, it’s not okay.”
“I CAN SPEAK TO YOU HOWEVER I WANT! AND YOU ARE GETTING AN ABORTION EVEN IF I HAVE TO DRAG YOU THERE MYSELF!” In the next three seconds Sarah observed three things:
There were two of them and one of her
They were in a dimly lit, poorly monitored parking garage alone
They had to deal with violent people at their jobs more than she did and would likely overpower her
“The hell she is! She made her choice Borelli and you didn’t get a say in it!” Okay, so #2 was not true apparently, as Connor walked closer to them from the entrance. “This isn’t any of your business doc, so just go, okay?”
“You’re threatening my friend in a dark parking garage. Yes, it is my business. But it isn’t yours, you’ve said that you don’t want to be a dad, so you won’t be, and I don’t even know why Chilli is here, so you two need to get off of Sarah’s car and leave her alone.”
“No. We don’t have to listen to you. I’ll talk to her however I fucking want, I don’t have to move away from her car, and Chilli doesn’t have to get off it. Fuck. Off.”
“Connor, you worked a long shift, you shouldn’t have to stay for this, I’ll figure it out.”
“I appreciate the thought Sarah, but you worked a long day too and I’m seriously worried about your safety around them. Why don’t I just drive you home? It really isn’t a big deal.”
“If you’re sure.”
“I am-”
“HEY! DON’T TALK ABOUT US LIKE WE AREN’T HERE! AND THIS ISN’T ANY OF YOUR BUSINESS!”
“Oh, go suck an egg, Borelli. Lead the way, Connor.”
“Gladly.”
They’d managed to make it to his car before the, quite honestly delusional, couple(?) realized they were seriously leaving, and Connor was pulling away with them shouting expletives and trying to chase the car on foot. “Thanks Connor, I really appreciate this.”
“Anytime Sarah, seriously. I care about you, you’ve become someone I trust and I want you to be safe and happy. I’ll help to make that happen if you ever need it.” Maybe it was the hormones, the encounter with Jimmy and Chilli, or the day just catching up with her, but she just couldn’t keep the exhaustion and gratitude out of her voice. “Thank you.”
Functional Dysfunction - Chapter 3 - Abortion Day - Rheese
written by @anotheronechicagobog
warnings: swearing, abortion, mention of vomit, stress, Daniel Charles is an ass, Connor is still dating Robyn just so you guys know
Avoiding Maggie and Manning was easier said than done. She was working in neuro, not the ED, but they still managed to corner her only forty-five minutes into her shift. She'd managed to escape by being called to do rounds but she knew she wouldn't be so lucky next time. She was trying to think of a game plan or an excuse, just something she could use when they hunted her down next time, but she was coming up empty. Manning had mother's intuition and Maggie is a living, breathing lie detector. So she was drowning herself in work, Dr. Abrams had just given her a bland stare when she was in his office that morning. "I'll give you the extra work because Anderson is out sick, but don't take this as an invitation to distract yourself because of your pregnancy." Sarah had only managed to make choking noises as she wished a hole would swallow her. "I'm a doctor, don't look so shocked. I will need to know what adjustments will need to be made to your schedule depending on your condition, but that can be handled at a later date. I will not tell anyone because I do not partake in hospital gossip, but I must ask that you refrain from talking about it excessively should you choose to share the news, this is a workplace."
"O-of course." So, now two people knew and neither of them was the father. But she was getting an abortion so what did it matter? Plus, Jimmy had gotten back together with Chilli for the... Third? Time... Honestly, she'd stopped keeping track because, to be frank, she wasn't a fan of gossip herself. So she was pushing everything but neurology to the back of her mind and focusing on her patients. It was actually helping, being methodical and relatively unemotional. She'd heard when she was a med student that Dr. Abrams was unnecessarily cruel but Sarah didn't believe that to be true at all. Sure he was cold and blunt, but in his field, there was even less room for error than there usually was when treating someone. Dousing bad odds in sugar wasn't going to make anything better and Sarah thought that his demeanour and the way he presented things actually made patients sober up and recognize just how serious he was being. And no, the man did not have a humble bone in his body, but everyone has flaws and considering how low his mortality rate is compared to other neurosurgeons, she considers it a flaw well-earned.
Sarah was doing the pre-ops for a patient who was going to have a sizable brain tumour removed, the tumour was actually in the best spot possible, you know, considering it's a brain tumour. She was going to be scrubbing in provided she completed the pre-ops to Dr. Abrams' expectations. "Reese."
"Ah!" She whirled around to see Manning standing behind her a pensive look on the older woman's face. "Dr. Manning, you snuck up behind me." She placed her hand over her chest in an attempt to slow her racing heart, not just from being startled, but because now might be time for the confrontation she'd been working so diligently to avoid. "How else was I supposed to talk to you? You've been avoiding Maggie and I."
"Not actively, I just have a lot of work to do. You know how much effort and time it takes to do a double specialty."
"Don't lie to me Reese, I know that something's wrong. We can help you, you just need to talk to us!"
"There is nothing wrong, though! I am fine, I just need you and Maggie to stop jumping down my throat."
"Wow, settle down, Sarah. You're not usually this irritable, so there definitely is something wrong."
"Dr. Manning I need my resident now, so if you could stop interrogating her in the hallway that would be wonderful."
"Bye Dr. Manning."
"Reese-" Sarah turned back to Natalie to give her a quick thumbs up and smile, something she hoped would reassure her, before continuing behind Dr. Abrams at a speedy pace. "How's our patient doing?"
"His labs are good, cell count normal, temp hasn't gone up, the scans were a little concerning though. The tumour has gotten bigger since the last scan. By half a millimetre." Dr. Abrams stopped walking abruptly, grabbed the scan from the still speed-walking Sarah, and studied it intently while Sarah nearly tripped over herself trying to stop. "You are correct. His tumour is growing, we need to remove it today. It's impressive that a first-year resident caught that slight discrepancy. Scrub up and inform the head OR scheduling team." She nodded and ran ahead to the neuro nurse's station.
Dr. Abrams' steady hands delicately probed their patient's brain, carefully moving the scalpel to separate the tumour from the rest of the brain. Sarah was at his side studying his movements and answering all his questions. " And what do we do next Dr. Reese?"
"The tumour is ready to be removed, we place it in a surgical tray to get transferred to pathology to be tested."
"Good. I want you to take the tumour there personally, the growth rate is concerning. Attend to my post-ops afterwards."
"Of course Dr. Abrams." Sarah took his orders very seriously and refrained from doing a happy dance the second she exited the OR. The tumour was moved from the surgical tray to a plastic container marked for biological testing before she washed her arms and scrubbed down. As she headed to the elevator she noticed Maggie talking to the OR nurses stationed at the desk. Their eyes met and Sarah knew that Maggie, like Manning, weren't going to stop insisting she was acting differently until she wasn't. As the doors closed she took a deep breath and revelled in the relief that her abortion was tomorrow.
Sarah finished her shift completely starving and a little disheartened. News of Robyn's admittance to the hospital had become widespread, she'd had to act like she hadn't already known when Doris jumped next to her in the cafeteria before flittering off to tell another person who had no business knowing that information. Sarah felt angry on Robyn's behalf, the poor woman was going through something so terrifying, and now she wasn't even able to defend herself from others slandering her. She'd wanted to say something to Doris, snap back at her, but the gossip had slithered away before she could even get a word out.
Her day got even worse when Jimmy came in with a victim, riding in ambo 61 while Sylvie was on vacation visiting her parents. It was hands down the most awkward interaction ever. He handed off the patient to her, but then wouldn't go away. And Chilli was glaring at her the whole time. Sarah briefly considered that maybe they were on a break or having a tiff and he was trying to make the other paramedic jealous, and then just got more annoyed. She just looked at him incredulously before focusing back on the patient. He still didn't leave. "Jimmy, let's go restock... Jimmy. Let's go." She could feel his eyes boring into her and could feel her blood boiling. What was his problem? His job was done, it was time for her to do hers now. Instead, he was jabbering on about shrimp, the Blackhawks, and her hair, of all things. She closed the curtains on him, only for him to open them back up with a smug smile. All despite the fact that everyone was telling him to leave, Dr. Manning, April, Doris, Maggie. "Uh, hey, dude? Could you maybe leave her alone? She's supposed to fix my arm which has a shard of glass sticking out of it, not being creeped on by you." She couldn't believe it took her patient saying something to get him to leave.
Sarah rolled her neck, trying to shake the day away while she relished in a moment of silence in her hiding place when Connor found her. "I heard that you had a pretty crappy morning."
"You could say that."
"So, Jimmy showed up?"
"He was a paramedic today."
"Well, that's debatable. Paramedics leave after they hand off a patient."
"Yeah, I know. It was... Really weird. Honestly, it's probably because he's working with Chilli and they're going through something."
"They're always going through something."
"Tell me about it."
"So what really happened? Cause I've heard a few different versions at this point."
"The ambulance called ahead with possible neurological damage, he was fine but it's better to be safe than sorry, and Jimmy just wouldn't leave. I was just trying to do my job and he was just standing there, watching me, and talking about my hair. He was asked to leave so many times, Dr. Manning, nurses, hell even his partner joined in. I tried to close the curtain twice but he just opened it again, and actually looked a little insulted that I did. I don't know what his deal was."
"Damn. I don't know him very well but he kinda seems like a tool."
"He is, but I wasn't exactly looking for anything long-term with him."
"Fair enough."
"Speaking of long-term relationships, how's Robyn doing? Your meeting with the hospital about her release is today, right?"
"Yeah, it's in an hour. Robyn's been doing good, I'm just trying to calm down right now."
"Nervous?"
"Angry."
"About?"
"Dr. Charles is her father who abandoned her and has spent the last several months trying to forge some kind of a relationship with her. He has no right to claim to know what's best for her, personal or professional. She was meeting with a psychiatrist, they'd come up with a treatment plan, she was actually talking about admitting herself to psych. But now? She's totally shut down, completely defensive, and I want to help her but she won't let me."
"Something to bring up to her is resuming treatment and all the plans she had before, just at a different hospital. Gaffney isn't the only hospital with psych facilities, Lakeshore's is actually better rated. So she'd still get treatment but her files wouldn't be accessible by her father and none of his orders regarding her care would be taken seriously, he doesn't have clearance there."
"That's a great idea, Sarah. Thank you, I'll make sure to bring it up with her."
"No problem. I really hope that Robyn gets proper treatment and as much space from her father as she wants."
"Me too. I should probably get going, I have to change out of my scrubs and meet with my lawyer before the meeting."
"You haven't really been coming out with us a lot, are you okay?"
"Did I ever really go that often in the past?"
"Touché."
"And, I'm fine. Completely fine, but Manning and Maggie don't believe me and I suspect that they go to you too, Choi."
"Guilty as charged, we're just worried about you."
"But there is nothing to be worried about."
"You can't eat, you've been throwing up, you've somehow gotten even more private and secretive, and Borelli's been really weird lately. Always asking where you are, how you're doing, what your day was like, and then there was that whole incident in the ED. Something's going on, Sarah. We are worried about you."
"You're right, something's going on, but it's nothing bad and certainly nothing I can't handle myself."
"So there is something going on." She just sighed and gave him an exasperated look. He held his hands up in defence and sent a weak smile her way. "I guess I'll see you later then, Reese."
It was abortion day, as Connor had so lovingly dubbed it. Sarah was nervous beyond belief and she had no idea why. It was a quick, painless procedure. A procedure she wanted. There was nothing to be afraid of. She'd been in an OR a couple of times to watch abortions being performed during her OB/GYN rotation. The procedure was simple and safe, there should not have been an entire damn zoo stomping around in her stomach, there was nothing to be nervous about... Right? The knots in her stomach kept twisting and twisting, bile was rising up her throat and she just couldn't hold it back. She barely made it to the bathroom in time.
She spent ten minutes gripping the toilet bowl as her body shook and was drained of energy every time she opened her mouth. Her hair had clumps of vomit and toilet water infect her curls. She was cold everywhere but her throat which felt like it was burned with how raw it was. Tears prickled her eyes, but she had no idea why. Yes, she was going through hormone changes but she hadn't actually reached the hormone stage of pregnancy yet. Stage of pregnancy. She felt so strange whenever she thought about it, so she tried not to. She'd finished getting dressed in leggings and a sweater when her buzzer went off. Puzzled, she pressed the button on the intercom system. "Hello?"
"Sarah? Hi, it's Connor. I'm here to take you to the clinic for your procedure if you want. Just to be supportive and take you home after."
"Connor, you don't have to."
"I know, I'm offering. Everyone needs a support system. You've been mine while dealing with this whole Robyn debacle, I'll be yours through this."
"Thank you, Connor. I'll take you up on it, I'll be downstairs in a few minutes."
The car ride was smooth and luxurious, solely because of Connor's high-end car. Inside, Sarah was nothing but nerves. The sinking feeling in her stomach that had been present since she booked the abortion got heavier and heavier the closer they got to the clinic. Connor was trying to keep the mood light by talking about how hectic med school had been in Guadulajara but was failing through no fault of his own, it was all Sarah's. When they actually made it to the clinic Sarah was on the verge of violently vomiting all over the interior of the car. "Sarah? Are you okay?"
"I'll be fine."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Sarah, you don;t have to do this if you don't want to."
"I know."
"Okay. Then take a deep breath, I've got you."
Sarah doesn't actually remember exiting the car on shakey legs. Or pushing through the mob of pro-life jackasses. Or being escorted to the admitting room by a security guard. One moment she was sitting in the passenger seat with Connor holding her hand and running his thumb across her knuckles and the next she was standing beside him in line to talk to the secretary who sat behind bullet-proof glass. The blue walls and colourful decor felt alien to her for some reason. "Name?"
"Sarah Reese."
"And is this your support person?"
"Yes."
She answered the rest of the secretary's questions despite feeling like she was underwater, and was instructed to take a seat and wait for her name to be called. The longer she sat there, the more suffocated she felt, and Connor's supportive hand-holding and an arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders only did so much. It felt like they sat there for eternity, time dragging on in the most cruel, painful way. The woman who had been opening the frosted door to call out names and guide people through to the back reappeared. "Sarah Reese?" She didn't move. She couldn't. "Sarah?" This time it was Connor. "Sarah? Please say something, anything." She could feel the weight of everyone in the room staring at her. "I can't do this Connor."
