Work Text:
There are other things Mel could be doing with her life. She could be a lawyer — not in a courtroom, obviously, but someone behind the scenes, doing research and filing briefs. She could work in an old library, somewhere with dim lighting and the smell of hundreds of years of knowledge trapped in the pages of the books. Sometimes, when the work feels like too much, Mel finds herself escaping into these alternate realities. Depending on how stressed she is, the dreams take different shapes: a botanist, a pharmacist, a lighthouse keeper. She’ll never act on any of the strange impulses, but it’s comforting to remind herself that she has options, that she’s not trapped.
On Tuesday, Mel is daydreaming about opening a frozen yogurt shop, which is definitely a sign that something is wrong. She’d have to deal with soccer moms and fundraiser nights and teenagers, and Mel didn’t even like teenagers when she was one.
Mel does a quick top-to-bottom scan of her own systems. She’s caffeinated, but not over-caffeinated. She’s tired, but not bone-tired like she will be at the end of her shift. None of her patients have died today. There’s no reason for her to be carrying so much tension in her traps and neck, no reason for her to be wishing she could trade this shift in the Pitt for a life in suburban hell.
“What are you thinking about?” Langdon says, startling her out of her reverie. He looks tired, too, but his gaze is warm as he looks at her.
“I’m doing a differential diagnosis,” Mel tells him, which is sort of true. She’s narrowing down the possibilities, finding the right one.
“Interesting case?”
“Not particularly,” Mel says, shrugging. “Second-year resident presents with a classic case of the Mondays.”
“It’s Tuesday,” Langdon points out.
“I see you’ve fallen for the pervasive medical myth that people only catch the Mondays on Mondays,” Mel says, which is probably taking the joke too far.
Langdon laughs anyway. Mel can feel the tension in her shoulders lessening, just a bit.
“And the best cure for that disease is…?” Langdon asks, adopting the detached, professional tone he uses with interns. When Mel doesn’t immediately respond, he answers his own question: “A cup of coffee.”
“Yeah?”
“That was an invitation, if that wasn’t obvious,” Langdon says. He looks a little sheepish, a little unsteady.
“Thanks,” Mel says, “but there’s a GSW with my name on it, and I’ve got—”
“Not right now,” Langdon says to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. Bizarrely, Mel finds herself leaning into the touch, rather than shrinking away. “After work. Whenever you’ve got a spare moment.”
Mel wants to say, “Yes, of course,” but her brain — usually so quick and agile — seems to have shut down. She doesn’t have a script for this. She’s not equipped to deal with coffee dates and whatever may happen after said coffee dates.
“If you’d like,” Langdon adds. “No pressure.”
Mel should say something reasonable, should ask to set up a date and time, but she doesn’t. Instead:
“This is a weird question,” Mel warns, even as the words are halfway out of her mouth, “but if the Pitt closes, or if — I don’t know, if the world falls apart—”
He just looks at her. Somehow, he can tell she’s not asking for reassurance, and he doesn’t try to give her any.
“—or if aliens descend on Earth,” Mel continues, “would you work in a fro-yo shop with me?”
“Do aliens eat frozen yogurt?” Langdon asks, his lip quirked.
“These ones do.”
Langdon’s expression does something strange. He looks almost fond.
“I’m not saying I want to leave!” Mel reassures him hastily. “It’s just — do you ever think about what you would do if you weren’t a doctor?”
“I used to,” Langdon tells her, and the words sound like a confession. “But not lately.”
“What changed?” Mel asks, her voice dropping to a whisper. Perhaps it’s a conscious choice: now he has to lean closer to be able to hear her.
“Do you want the good answer or the honest answer?” Langdon asks, drawing nearer. They’re close — too close — yet Mel can’t make herself step away.
“Both,” Mel tells him, because she wants to know everything, always.
“The good answer,” Langdon says slowly, “is that I learned to find meaning in every moment. To focus on the lives saved, rather than the suffering I couldn’t cure.”
Mel nods. She knows how to manage vicarious trauma — even if applying the theory is harder than just reading about it. “And the honest answer?”
Langdon takes a deep breath, then whispers right into Mel’s ear, “I met someone who made it all easier.”
Mel is fairly sure she stops breathing, but no one calls a code blue.
“I’ll tell you over a cup of coffee sometime,” Langdon promises, and the words warm her cheek as effectively as if he’d kissed her. A second later, Langdon disappears into the chaos of patients and providers again.
It’s a Tuesday, and Mel can’t imagine being anywhere else.