Even in death, old habits die hard. It’s what Ava told herself to justify what she was about to do, knowing full well what Jason would say.

“We really shouldn’t be doing this, Bekker…”

He wasn’t there, though. He didn’t see what Ava saw, he never could. As much as Jason wanted to understand her over-emotional attachment to things, he never would. He could warn her about the shadow people all he wanted. It wouldn’t change the fact that ignoring the scene in front of her would make her as heartless as the living chalked her up to be.

The emergency department was crawling with people, as loud and uncomfortable as Ava remembered. It wasn’t the bloodied faces of patients or screaming of grieving family that upset her that day, though. Instead it was the barely there figure crouching behind a privacy curtain, tiny blue socks just peeking through. Ava had watched the scene unfold merely by accident and she knew better than to interfere, yet something in her was screaming not to turn away.

“Hey, little one,” she tried to speak quietly, though her voice somehow rang out over the bustle of the ED. A tiny squeak told her she had been heard, though no words proceeded.

“Harper?” She remembered the name falling from Doctor Marcel’s lips like a broken promise all those months ago. She had watched the toddler follow her father around for weeks, just barely touching him before he slipped from her tiny grasp yet again. Jason never let her get involved, telling her they couldn’t interfere. It would only hurt the baby, risking her becoming trapped in the hospital just like they were. It was too late now, though. Ava couldn’t let the child’s spirit go, not after what she saw.

“P-papa,” her voice was shaky and Ava wondered if she had even used it after her death. She peeked through the curtain at the woman in front of her, Ava tried not to take it to heart when she cried out. The large wound in her neck was a shock to anyone, even without the blood, but to a baby it would be mortifying.

“Your papa is busy helping people now,” she said slowly, “Did you get scared, Harper?”

Blue eyes met hers again, chemo having robbed her of any eyelashes to catch her tears. Instead they slid freely down her cheeks as she nodded, clutching her stuffed animal tightly to her chest.

“I know it must have been scary…” Ava couldn’t help but think of her own childhood, the things she saw before she could tie her shoes would be enough to make a grown woman weep. She knew Harper went through an insurmountable pain before she was out of diapers, so being haunted by it in death was an injustice no one deserved.

“I’m Ava,” she added as an afterthought, “I can help you find a safer place to play, you can wait for your papa there.”

“Wanna see… see papa…”

“He’s working, darling, and this isn’t a good place for you to be. He’s helping people feel better, you know that?”

It took some more coaxing before Harper would come out from her hiding place. She did eventually, though, and Ava couldn’t help but be relieved. She didn’t know where she would take Harper or what would happen now that she spoke to her. All Ava knew was an ED after a shooting was no place for a toddler and she couldn’t let more trauma befall the kid.

The wind whipped past her with surprising force, though it had no effect on her. Still, Ava couldn’t help the human impulse to shiver at the thought of the chilly Chicago air. She had never truly adjusted to the climate change in her move, nor did she think moving in the first place had been the right choice. Ava wondered deep down if she would still be alive had she never taken the fellowship, if she had never met Connor Rhodes, but she couldn’t answer that for herself. She wouldn’t ever know and that was quite possibly her biggest regret.

“If you think any harder your head will explode.”

“What are you, five?” Ava rolled her eyes at Jason as he materialized beside her, leaning against the concrete ledge she had perched herself on. She knew her companion spent most of his time up there, since his death place wasn’t particularly accessible, but she saw how it impacted him. Jason’s eyes never glanced over the edge and he didn’t make a move to sit beside her or even get any closer to the safety bar. Despite his apparent comfort with the rooftop, he clearly didn’t enjoy the height anymore. It made sense, of course, but it also made him seem much more human to her.

“What are you hyper focused on today, Bekker?”

“Just what-ifs,” she replied, “If I had never moved here, never stepped foot in this damned hospital, would I still be alive?”

“It’s hard to say. I ask myself that a lot,” he admitted, looking up at her. There was a vulnerability in his eyes that made Ava uncomfortable, not because she didn’t want him to be vulnerable with her but because she didn’t know what it meant. He was so calm and reassuring when Ava was brash and impulsive. Jason looking scared and upset wasn’t something she was used to.

“I mean we did this to ourselves,” she sighed a little, “Can we really blame the hospital for that one?”

“I mean, were you suicidal before?”

“Before Gaffney?” Ava found it laughable that she even had to think about it, “Borderline Personality Disorder, Jason. Diagnosed when I was 19.”

“Shit.”

“Makes sense now, doesn’t it?”

“I mean… that doesn’t mean you would have snapped and killed someone — or yourself — if you hadn’t left home.”

“Maybe,” it was hard to think of life going any other way than how it had ended, “What about you?”

“It was med school that did it to me. The transition from school to residency was too much. I wasn’t cut out for any of it and I could see that… I was turning into my father,” neither of them mentioned how Jason’s voice shook a little.

“How so?”

“The drinking. I promised myself years before I wouldn’t ever drink and yet… one hard day and I turned to the bottle and it only got worse. I couldn’t take it anymore, Ava, I just saw myself becoming him. So I ended it, before he could take over.”

“I’m sorry, Jason…”

“Why did you do it?”

“What’s that?”

“Kill Connor’s dad,” was the last question Ava expected and it caused her nonexistent heart to jump in her chest. She hated to even think of that man, relieved she had never seen him in her months in the in between. If she never thought about Cornelius Rhodes again it would be too soon, but she felt like Jason deserved to know the truth. 

“I- he was a trigger for me… he was trying to get between Connor and I. My brain, the way it’s wired, I got so paranoid thinking my favourite person would leave me. I hate to say I was obsessed with Connor but that’s how BPD goes sometimes.”

“Is that the only reason?”

Ava knew he could see her holding back, “He- I don’t really know how to say it… Cornelius didn’t have boundaries. He did some stuff to me that brought up not so good memories and I just snapped. It doesn’t excuse what I did, I know that, but he was not a good man, Jason.”

“Oh,” it took a minute but she saw the realization dawn on his face, “Oh, Ava, I’m sorry.”

“I-I didn’t even want to kill him… I would never kill anyone. I was honestly thinking of just offing myself, I don’t know what drove me to administer that laced insulin but it wasn’t just my disorder. I was sick, not evil; tell me you believe that, please?”

“I don’t know who you were when you were living but I believe you,” he answered, “I believe you because this hospital is not kind. It does things… it messes with you.”

“The shadow people?” Ava hated to even bring them up out of fear of them breathing down her neck. She felt their eyes track her every move, following her no matter where she turned.

“Them,” Jason shook his head, “For elusive beings they certainly know how to make themselves known.”

“There’s something about them that I don’t like. What, I don’t know but I don’t like not knowing.”

“There isn’t much to like. None of us know why they’re here or what power the really have, just that they’re in charge.”

“So you don’t even know what you’re warning me against?”

Ava knew better, she really did, but that didn’t stop her from going to the ED. She promised herself it was just because she was bored, with no surgeries to watch in her OR for hours she felt her energy crackling like the campfires she would have with her friends back home. She needed stimulation and what better place to find something interesting than the emergency room.

The halls of Gaffney had finally begun to feel like a second home for Ava, no longer overwhelmed with the way her reality was slightly warped. She glided down the corridor comfortably now, slipping between nurses and watching as Doctor Charles shivered when she passed by him just a bit too closely. It was easy to forget how much she could still interact with the human world, especially with how much power she could feel just under her skin.

The ED was filled with life as always, yet it was also clouded by the weight of the other side. Ava had seen more spirits in this department than any other part of the hospital, somehow they all managed to come back to the emergency room even if they passed elsewhere. The wave of pain and fear that washed over her never failed to surprise Ava, though she had learned to ignore it for the sake of her stability.

There was one spirit she had trouble ignoring, though. One that always appeared like a little flash of blinding light. A pure soul, Jason had explained the light to her, someone who hadn’t done anything wrong in their life. It was near impossible to find a true pure soul, since most people had a couple sins under their belt by late childhood. This one was different, though, and Ava couldn’t seem to keep her attention on anything else as of late.

As chance would have it, she saw a flash of that light once again. She perched herself on a spare gurney, eyes tracking the man that the light always followed. Doctor Crockett Marcel, all southern drawl and confident eyes, seemed to be a pretty popular doctor since he showed up. Ava didn’t have a reason to hate him yet, though she didn’t really have a reason to like him either. She was more worried about his attachment, if she was being honest.

Eavesdropping wasn’t polite, she knew her mother would have chastised her for it even as a woman in her thirties. Still, it’s hard not to overhear everything when you’re a ghost stuck in a hospital whose walls hear everything. She had simply been floating around, trying to find something to do, and a familiar voice had caught her attention. It was Natalie Manning speaking to the new trauma surgeon, discussing something in hushed voices. Ava heard it all, though, and the story hadn’t left her mind since.

Harper had just turned one when the cancer took her, leukaemia ravaging her small body before intervention could help. Losing her had hurt Crockett far more than he let on, though Ava could feel it in the way his voice became guarded while speaking of his daughter. He wanted to protect her even in death, afraid that his memories could become tainted if in the wrong hands. Ava felt that way about her memories of Connor too, she knew it far too well.

After learning about Crockett’s daughter, Ava had trouble ignoring her. Jason said it was for the best, they shouldn’t interfere with a spirit attachment because it could harm the soul or leave them trapped. Especially for someone so young, telling Harper what was going on or why her dad didn’t pay her any mind would only damage her.

Still, she was only a baby and it hurt Ava to watch her like this. She was toddling after Crockett, watching him with big eyes as he instructed nurses to get labs and waved Will over to help with the transfer of a patient. She looked on the verge of tears, clutching onto a faded stuffed animal that seemed to resemble a rabbit. Wherever the trauma doctor went, so did his daughter, a little hand reaching out to grab the edge of his scrubs but always missing just by a thread.

It was heartbreaking, wishing she could just pick Harper up and hold her for a minute. Ava wasn’t necessarily a maternal person but she knew about sick kids, she knew they craved stability and just one good day. They never wanted to hurt and they always wanted comfort, especially from their family. She knew how hard this must be on the baby, stuck in an endless loop of trying to reach her father but missing him each time. Even as a ghost it would be so damaging to her psyche. Terminal cancer may be the worst part of being human, but the spirit world offered a never ending cycle of what if’s and pain.

“Ava, don’t do it.”

“She’s a baby, Jason.”

“She’s not your baby,” he said pointedly, materializing on the gurney to flank her right side. Ava rolled her eyes, annoyed at the way her friend always had a dramatic entrance in store.

“I know that,” Ava huffed before adding, “Don’t be an ass.”

“I didn’t do anything. You shouldn’t either, you know. Interacting with her will only make it worse.”

“She’s dead,” the blonde couldn’t tear her eyes away from where Harper stood against the wall and stared at a trauma patient her dad was working on. She looked terrified and it took all of Ava’s willpower to not let her energy go at the sight.

“So are you.”

“Yeah but I’m not a literal baby who died of terminal cancer,” she retorted, “We caused this for ourselves. She did not, she didn’t even have a chance to live.”

“And that sucks but there’s nothing we could do.”

“We could talk to her? Give her a real interaction so she doesn’t feel alone at least. The poor kid looks prettified, Jason.”

“It’s a bad idea,” he followed her gaze across the ED, “I know you care but you know-”

“Yeah yeah, the shadow people won’t like it and the hospital will react poorly if I get too upset or attached. I know, you’ve told me billions of times.”

“And yet you never listen.”

“Fuck, I hate this,” the spirit in question didn’t bother looking at her companion, knowing who was behind her before he even full appeared. Her and Jason had become pretty inseparable since her death, even if they did annoy the life out of each other. Something about their relationship had started to remind Ava of her relationship with Connor pre-romance, which hurt just as much as it soothed her broken heart.

“Rhodes isn’t here again, is he?”

“No.”

“Then what is it, Bekker?” Jason phased into her view, peeking over her shoulder through the ED window she had been staring through.

“New trauma doc,” she muttered, her faded hands repeatedly clenching and unclenching as she tried to contain her energy. Ava was a huge energy reservoir, the most powerful that Jason had seen in his time there, and it was a struggle for them all. She felt far too many emotions at once, a result of her near constant depersonalization while she was still alive. As a ghost one doesn’t have anything to depersonalize from, Ava realized quickly, and that meant everything hit her like a bus.

“Oh yeah, him. Doctor Marcel?”

“Couldn’t tell you,” Ava admitted, “I could not care less. But look.”

“At what?” Jason nudged her to the side so he could peer into the emergency room from a better angle. He saw the new doctor in question, talking to April Sexton about something, but that clearly wasn’t what was bugging Ava. Behind the man, clearly not visible to him or anyone around them, was another spirit.

The way Ava’s energy rippled with distress and stabbed at his own due to their proximity told Jason this was the problem. A new spirit was hard to adjust to but it was even worse when they hadn’t died at Gaffney, moving places in the in-between could be painful. That wasn’t the worst part, though.

“Look at her,” Ava’s eyes were still glued on the figure behind Doctor Marcel, “She’s a baby…”

“Can’t be older than two,” he agreed as they watched her toddle after the man she was clearly attached to. She was impossibly tiny, a baby blue hospital gown hanging off her emaciated form. With lips almost matching the shade of her outfit, the child looked more like a corpse than any baby should. Her hair was patchy, clearly just starting to fall out, and that gave them a pretty clear idea of what had killed her.

“Cancer,” Ava voiced what they were both thinking, “Or something autoimmune.”

“Poor kid, she probably has no clue why she’s here suddenly.”

“I hate this, Jason,” Ava’s hand had travelled to her throat, idly running over the unhealed wound that no longer bled. She did that when she was anxious, he had noticed, and he understood why. An attached spirit was difficult to get through to, since they came and went with whoever was their human host. The fact that she was a toddler complicated things, since the little ghost probably didn’t even know what being dead meant.

“Let’s just hope she can adjust,” he said slowly, “Don’t let yourself get upset again, Bekker. the shadow people can deal with it, we shouldn’t interfere.”

“She’s a baby,” the glare he received was harsh and Jason was slightly surprised by the anger in her tone, “There’s no way in hell I would trust them with an infant.”

Jason had warned Ava not to get upset when she was finally able to leave her OR. It had been a few months from what he had told her, and things might be very different in the hospital. The two ghosts had their differences, a lot of butting heads, but slowly Ava had let her guard down. Jason was a pain in the ass but he was also her only link to the living world, the rest of the spirits inhabiting this hospital too faded or traumatized to help her.

"I just want to see what's going on," Ava told him as she let her form fade from existence enough to pass through the double doors, "And I've been practicing; I want to leave this place."

"Don't push yourself, Bekker," he reminded her, "It'll hurt to be away from your death place for the first while, don't be a dumbass."

"Says the dumbass."

"I take offense to that," he replied, his voice disembodied as Jason phased out again. He spent a lot of time up on the roof, she figured, even though technically his death place would have been somewhere midair before he hit the ground. Still, she didn't bother wondering what he was up to when he wasn't driving her insane. The resident had his own thing, he had been here way longer than her, and she really didn't care all too much anyway.

It felt weird, being out of the OR for the first time in her new form. She had watched plenty of surgeries since her incident, the crime scene tape being swapped out for sterile drapes once again. She never saw Connor again, though, not since the last time her body had occupied that room. Jason had seemed off when she mentioned how she wanted to find Connor, his eyes giving away the concern he didn't voice. She knew she shouldn't, though he wouldn't be able to see Ava anyway, but a part of her needed to find him again; for closure if anything else.

Navigating things in the in between - that's what Jason called their place between living and the afterlife - was weird. Ava had not gotten used to floating through objects, even after so long, and she rolled her eyes every time she flinched before not colliding with a wall. passing between floors was also hard to adjust to, still unsure about just how the others got enough height to pass through the ceiling.

It took some time for Ava to find the ED, feeling like a stranger in Gaffney once again. That was something she never really told Connor, or anyone, when she was still alive. She had been in Chicago for so long and yet she never felt like she had a place outside the operating room. Ava was always the afterthought, only included if Connor was the one to invite her. She didn't really have friends, not in this damned hospital, and it hurt far more than she ever admitted. Maybe that's why no one noticed the way she spiraled in the months leading up to her death; Ava Bekker was just a stranger that no one paid mind to.

The ED was bustling with activity like always, though time moved in an oddly different way for Ava. She could see things happening in normal speed, yet everyone's voices had a bit of echo, as if trapped in a tunnel. She tried to keep herself half phased to avoid accidentally moving anything, not wanting to give herself away.

Maggie was there, running her department with that familiar ease once again. Ava studied her movements for a moment, watching her send patients to different rooms and look over a chart someone was showing her. There was a sense of peace to watching Maggie work, even though the ED was a constant rush of panic and hurt. Sure enough, Ava could feel that she wasn't the only spirit in the department, though they all stayed hidden from her view. A lot of the people who couldn't pass on stayed quiet until they faded, not ready to face the afterlife stuck at Gaffney. Ava understood that, though she herself couldn't stay idle indefinitely.

She was torn out of her thoughts by a familiar voice, the tone catching her attention immediately. Natalie, she identified quickly, had announced her presence to Maggie as she walked through the ED doors.

"Look what the cat dragged in," the charge nurse exclaimed as she zeroed in on the person walking a bit behind the doctor. Ava realized just who that figure was as her attention snapped from Natalie to him.

"Connor, good to see you," Maggie had hugged him quickly, unaware of the ghostly eyes burning daggers through her back.

Connor was there, he really was, and Ava didn't know how to cope with it. It all hit her too hard, much more than she expected, and she felt a wave of emotions overcome her. In the worst instance since it happened, all the details of her death came flooding back. All she could feel was pain, flooding her lungs like they still existed. her neck wound ached, in a way she had never experience - didn't think ghosts could - and she wanted to scream. The memory of his touch, his arms being the last thing she felt, was no longer comforting to her. Ava was frozen, eyes tracking his every move because it was all she could do.

"How's Mayo?"

Maggie's question made her stop, the words hitting her like a bag of bricks. Mayo clinic... he had left. Connor had taken the Mayo job, after all she did to keep him in Chicago; to keep them together. He was gone the second she died, Ava realized, and it hurt way more than that goddamned scalpel ever did.

"Christ, you have some gall," she found herself saying as she inched closer to the nurses' station, "You really fucking left me didn't you? You ran away the second you saw the chance."

The man her angry words were aimed at didn't hear her, of course he didn't, yet Ava couldn't stop. She wanted to walk over there and hit him but she also wanted to grab at his coat and beg him to come back. It didn't matter that she was dead, Connor wasn't supposed to leave her ever. That's why she did all of this, she did everything for him and all she got in return was fucking pain.

"It's good... really good," his words tore into her as she watched again, feeling her form flickering in her anger. She didn't notice the way Natalie suddenly looked uncomfortable, the woman glancing over her shoulder and looking right through Ava. Maybe if she calmed down she would have realized the doctor could feel Ava there, an angry presence filling the air, yet she was too upset to care.

"Oh of course it is," she spat, "I bet you forgot all about me, didn't you? You went on to your cushy little job in the private sector the second you got rid of me."

Ava was fuming, all of her pain and the months of idle anger hitting her at once. He was never supposed to leave, especially not like this. She had given up so many things to ensure he never went to Mayo, she had risked her job and her safety by going to his father back then and he didn't even care. Ava had given up her dignity and her consent the second she asked Cornelius Rhodes for help, never feeling safe in her own body after that. She didn't care in the end, though, because it had all been for Connor. He was her person, her safety in all of the fear she felt, and she would do anything for his love. Everything she had done, everything she had risked, was for him and he continued to be ungrateful.

"What the fuck, Connor," suddenly the lights in the ED flickered harshly, matching the way her whole form stuttered. Everyone looked up at the anomaly in confusion, considering there was no reason for the power to flicker at all. Ava didn't care, even though Jason's warnings about interacting with the human world rang though her head. She was far too hurt and upset to care, tears tracking down her face as she stared at the man she loved.

"Don't you remember me?" she begged, "How have you forgotten about me… about us?"

Hands landed on Ava's shoulders, something she didn't expect because they weren't technically there. Before she could continue her assault of words she was being dragged, the lights ceasing their strobe effect the second she had been pulled into the conference room.

"Bekker, what the fuck are you doing?"