#sorry this took eons to answer zee 😭

[punksarahreese]

hii cj id love to know more about the bottom right moodboard (red haired norma is everything actually)

Red haired Norma my beloved <3

TW for mention of Ava’s suicide and Cornelius being a sketchy guy, a sex offender, and literal criminal 🥴

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So this AU would take place after the events of 5x1. Ava doesn’t die on the operating table, Connor and Latham managed to repair the damage done to her carotid and surrounding tissue, though she needed a pretty substantial patch and stent. Ava lost a lot of blood and they still didn’t know if she would have any deficits to nerve or muscle function in her neck/face.

She was transferred to the ICU but by then the truth had gotten out and so she was under 24h guard with a member of CPD there at all times. Connor was at a crossroads because obviously he couldn’t forgive her for what she did but she was so vulnerable and almost died under his scalpel hours before. She had, for all intents and purposes, killed herself in his arms and that was something he could never forget. His feelings for her and the anger he felt mixed with shame that he didn’t see anything like this coming.

No one else was ready to forgive Ava, for obvious reasons. She’s a criminal in their eyes and they were just waiting for her to wake up and be sent to the prison hospital so everyone could have some peace of mind. Ava woke up days later, completely alone aside from Kim sitting in a chair by the doorway. She couldn’t find her voice, whether it be physical or psychological, and all she could do was cry silently. To Ava this was worse than death, no one knew the truth and she was still stuck in that damn hospital.

Once she was stable and they were sure she wouldn’t code on the way there she was airlifted to a federal prison where she was in a solitary hospital cell. It took weeks for her to get the energy to stand and she did have minor nerve damage that meant the impaired side of her face didn’t quite move right. That and the still healing cut on her throat reminded her of what she had done and how she failed.

When she could talk she was interrogated for hours, labelled homicidal by everyone in the hospital for what seemed like obvious reasons. Yet after over an hour of questioning she broke, tearfully explaining what happened to lead up to this.

She explains that Cornelius Rhodes had been involved in some FBI level fraud and corruption. She had found out by accident when she was in his office asking for money, he had left her alone for a while when an issue came up in the store and she happened to catch some emails pulled up on his computer. He caught her though, and Cornelius was quick to threaten her into silence.

It got worse as time went on. After a while he had collected information that might impact her career, such as her borderline personality disorder diagnosis and some violence charges in her youth that had been buried. He claimed that if Ava didn’t do as he said he would not only ruin her reputation as a doctor but target her family as well. He would force her to be a middle man in his illegal activity, making her do hand offs for money laundering and keeping her on a short leash when she was allowed out of his sight. The reason Ava didn’t have any friends in Chicago was not avoidance, rather it was Connor’s own father forcing her into solitude to cover his own ass.

He forced himself on Ava too, threatening to lie to Connor about them being together if she didn’t do as he wanted. Even more, Cornelius threatened his own son’s life to keep Ava under his control. He saw how attached she was to Connor and had no qualms about abusing that knowledge. None of their “relationship” was consensual, contrary to rumours that spread after the gala.

The final straw had been whispers of Cornelius running underground trafficking dens. He was flaunting Ava to his associates, pushing her into meetings and making suggestive remarks, bringing her to hidden locations full of girls. He was taunting her, threatening to sell her body instead of keeping her for himself. It was more terrifying than any of his previous threats and it caused her to fall into a BPD split so severe all she could do was lash out. That’s why she gave him the insulin and that’s why she tried to end her own life; she felt trapped and abused and had no escape.

A thorough investigation of Cornelius and his associates confirmed Ava’s statement. Her first degree charges were dropped and instead changed to a manslaughter charge, though no one outside was informed due to the circumstances. She underwent over a year of psychiatric rehabilitation in prison and sought out every type of reform she could. Threats on her life kept coming as more of Cornelius’ associates realized she had been the one to rat them out. It got to the point where the FBI agreed she could not be released for her own safety.

As her parole date approached she was prepared to be released into witness protection. She was to assume a new identity and everyone was informed that Ava Bekker had died in federal prison at 16:22. A lot of people at med were actually pleased to hear that news, still under the impression that Ava had been a cold blooded killer as the information about Cornelius’ crimes were on a need to know basis due to their sensitivity.

Ava dyed her hair and changed the way she dressed and acted. She changed her name and even her family believed she was dead. She could no longer practice medicine for the time being and was moved to Texas under WITSEC supervision. Her face and neck were permanently scarred from the damage she did that day and her psyche was no better. It felt impossible to rebuild her life when she felt that no one in the entire world knew or cared that Ava Bekker was still alive.

So this AU is about Ava being moved under witness protection and changed her identity to keep her safe from Cornelius’ posthumous wrath :)