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July 1st was always a hectic day in medicine.
It brought an influx of new interns to hospitals across America, fresh out of med school with a shiny new MD tacked onto the end of their name and a brand spanking new Littmann wrapped around their neck. Frank loved teaching them - it was a big part of the reason he chose to do his residency at PTMC in the first place - but their fresh-faced innocence, while occasionally charming, did come with certain… occupational hazards.
He scanned his badge at the door and made his way past the nurses desk, taking note as he walked by. They were easy enough to spot. There was a certain type of calm that settled into a person after enough shifts spent moving through the controlled chaos of the emergency department - a looseness in the shoulders, a steadiness in the eyes. The new ones had absolutely none of that.
Frank clocked them immediately. They all had the distinct wide-eyed stare of a deer in the middle of a clearing during hunting season - a tall, sandy haired kid chewing on the side of his thumb nail, a girl with a round, open face twisting the drawstring of her scrub pants around one finger, and a dark haired girl who was holding both her elbows like she was physically trying to keep from falling apart. Jesus. The day hadn’t even begun yet and they already looked like they’d been dropped in the deep end without their floaties.
Then, he noticed a fourth. She was standing a little apart from the others, leaned back against the desk with her elbows braced behind her, her shoulders set in a way that suggested either confidence or a very convincing imitation of it. She was tall, with intense copper hair and green eyes so bright he noticed them from across the room - there was something almost feline about her. She wasn’t familiar to him, which meant she must be another one of the newbies.
As he passed, he offered her a quick smile. She smirked back. Held his gaze, too, right up until he turned toward the lockers. Confidence bordering on cockiness - she was sure to be interesting.
“Hey, Dr. Langdon.”
The voice came from behind him as he stuffed his backpack into his shitty bottom locker, and his body relaxed in a weirdly Pavlovian way before he even turned around - the familiar, soft cadence of it stimulating something in him that he didn’t fully understand.
He pushed off the floor and turned around to find Dr. Melissa King standing near the end of the bank of lockers, one hand curled loosely around the strap of her tote bag. She was wearing a pale pink t-shirt, her hair pulled up high instead of in the low braid he had an unusual fondness for. Santos had clearly been getting to her. Since they’d gotten close, Mel had been experimenting more with her looks - lip gloss, ponytails, t-shirts that hugged her athletic frame just a little closer than normal. Despite his slight objections to the source of the changes, he had absolutely no complaints.
“Hey, Mel,” he said, leaning one shoulder on the lockers. He couldn’t help but smile at her. “Aren’t we past the formalities yet?”
Her mouth curved upwards. “At work? Never.”
They were, in fact, well past the formalities. Somewhere in the year since he returned to the ED, Mel had become less of a colleague and more of a fixed point in his life. Frank hadn’t noticed how deep it was until it was too late - until her name lighting up his phone could change the entire mood of his day, until grabbing pizza and debriefing after a shift felt like an expectation rather than a casual habit.
There had been one night, months ago now, when he’d come home from meeting her for a drink with his chest warm and stupidly full, and the realization had hit him with such clean, brutal clarity that he’d had to sit in his parked car for a full five minutes before going inside: He hadn’t ever felt this way during his marriage to Abby - not even on the good days, which since The Benzos Incident of 2025 had been fewer and farther between than ever.
If he was being completely honest, things had never really been solid between them. An accidental pregnancy while Frank was still in med school had led to a shotgun marriage at the behest of Abby’s traditionally southern parents (and his own Appalachian sense of duty), followed by residency at the height of COVID, years of missed dinners and sleepless nights and resentment building with nowhere to go. Then, in a decision that would certainly not be featured in any marriage counselling brochures, they’d decided another baby might fix things. And as anyone with two brain cells might deduce, it hadn’t.
He loved his kids more than anything - Tanner and Penny were the only parts of his marriage he hadn’t regretted, not even once. But loving them didn’t mean he and Abby had ever been right for each other. She was a good person - she’d stayed when it had cost her a lot, seen him at his lowest and, for reasons Frank didn’t really understand, hadn’t lit his belongings on fire in the driveway - but he couldn’t shake the feeling that their foundation had been cracked from the beginning.
So he had gotten sober, gotten his job back, become bewitched by a coworker, and left his wife. Not exactly his finest look.
He hadn’t been heartbroken at all - that was the strange part. Sad, yes. Guilty, absolutely. Worried about the kids in a way that could still knock the air out of him if he let himself think about it for too long. But devastated? Nope. That was honestly probably the thing he felt the worst about - that a woman he had known for a few short months had lit something up in him that he hadn’t even known he was missing, so much so that he left his wife and the mother of his children without ever being able to convince himself it was the wrong choice.
He would rather intubate himself with a bendy straw than ever even hint to Mel that she had been the catalyst for the divorce. She already carried guilt like it was her full-time job - the last thing she needed was Frank handing her some grand, awful confession about how she had accidentally pried open the part of his life he’d tried very hard not to look at and laid it all bare in front of him. So, he kept that part to himself.
It was usually easier to do that when she wasn’t standing two feet in front of him, looking at him with that open, attentive expression that made him feel, inconveniently, like there was nowhere to hide.
Mel tilted her head. “You ok?”
Frank blinked and cleared his throat, her voice pulling him back into the room. “Oh, yeah. I’m good. Why?”
“You went quiet.”
“I’m… quiet sometimes,” he said, not remotely convincingly. Quiet wasn’t a word people generally used to describe him.
“You are,” she said, smiling a little. “Just usually means you have something on your mind.”
And there it was - that steady, uncomplicated kindness that made it so easy to open up to her, to tell her things he’d never told anyone else. The way she saw right through him needed to be studied in a lab.
He reached down, fiddling with his badge, mostly to have something to do with his hands. “Nothing serious,” he said. “Just thinking about the new interns out there.”
“Mm,” her smile softened. “Big day. They looked terrified when I passed by.”
“They did - I think it’s us and our patients who should be terrified though.”
“Be nice,” she said, placing her bag in her locker. Her tone had a disapproving edge to it, but her face was still soft and warm.
“You’ve read the studies,” he said. “There’s a noted increased risk of errors that result in preventable complications in teaching hospitals during the month of July.”
“Actually,” she began, shutting her locker door. His stomach fluttered - he loved when she proved him wrong. “A 2021 study proved that old data from the 70’s and 80’s was skewing the results,” she shrugged her shoulders, then smiled. “Give them a chance. We were all new, once.”
Frank was cynical to his core - he always had been - so he sometimes found it difficult to wrap his head around the way Mel’s deep sensitivity and empathy for others came so naturally to her. Her first instinct was always to see the good in others, to help them. She made people better. She made him better.
Her blind faith in him all those months ago on his first day back was maybe the only reason he was still here. He’d had serious thoughts of transferring to another hospital or starting over and choosing another specialty all together, or maybe even just calling it all quits and moving to Butt Fuck Nowhere, Alaska to live off the grid, but Mel believed in him. He wasn’t sure what he did in a past life to deserve having her around.
He smiled back at her, and conceded. “Alright. You win. I’ll be nice.”
She lifted her chin triumphantly. “Knew you would.”
Before he could say anything else, Dana appeared in the doorway.
“There you are,” she said, pointing her pen at Frank. “Robby’s looking for you.”
Dana’s eyes slid to Mel. “You too, princess. We got baby doctors hatching all over the department, and Robby wants everyone present for the annual ‘please don’t kill anybody’ speech.”
Mel’s eyebrows lifted. “That’s the official title?”
“Mm, let’s call it the unofficial title. His name for it is much more diplomatic,” Dana replied, already turning back toward the hall. “Now chop chop, let’s go.”
Frank met Mel's gaze and they shared a look, a thousand words flying between them in a single glance. He sometimes felt like they could speak telepathically, like they could see the inside of each other's brains. He knew when she was getting overwhelmed and needed a break; she knew when he needed her encouragement. They worked side by side in tandem in a way he'd had never experienced before, anticipating the others’ needs before they ever needed to say it.
Mel fell into step beside Frank as they walked out and approached the huddle, her shoulder brushing his arm in a way that sent his pulse into a small frenzy against his will. They stationed themselves near the back of the group with the other more senior residents. Robby was standing by the desk with a paper cup of coffee in one hand, the crop of new interns loosely gathered to the side of him.
Frank’s gaze wandered and, without trying, found the red-haired girl. She was once again separate from the group of newbies, her posture still relaxed and eyes tracking the room with a little too much sharpness for someone so fresh. So maybe it was actual confidence, then. A dangerous quality for an intern - certainly useful if it came with competence, but catastrophic if it didn’t.
As if sensing his attention, she glanced over, her eyes locking on his. Frank gave her a quick, polite, attending-to-intern smile, and she smiled back. Beside him, Mel’s breath caught - barely, but he was so attuned to her that he noticed. He glanced over just in time to catch her turning ahead to focus on Robby with laser precision, her ponytail swinging from the movement.
He studied her, trying to sort through the evidence. It was entirely possible he’d imagined whatever had just happened - if it even was anything. Had she seen the interaction? Frank’s brain wandered, unfortunately, into a no-man’s-land he rarely let himself explore: thinking about Mel’s feelings (or lack thereof) towards him. Had he sensed a hint of jealousy?
Then, because he was a 34 year old divorced man with two children and a passing acquaintance with reality, he dismissed the thought entirely. Mel was kind to everyone in her own earnest, slightly awkward way - she remembered things people mentioned once and then forgot they’d told her, she was sweet to the staff at every cafe and restaurant and bar they went to, and she always filled up people's parking meters if she noticed they were out. Allowing himself to mistake that innate goodness for something more than just friendship was a humiliation ritual he had absolutely no interest in participating in.
“You ok?” he asked quietly.
“Hmm?” she looked up at him, wide eyed and innocent. “Oh, yeah. I’m good. Why?”
He recognized that one - he opened his mouth to continue but was interrupted by Robby clapping his hands together to get everyone’s attention.
“Alright,” he said. “Everyone alive? Great. Let’s keep it that way.”
He started in on his speech - Frank had witnessed it many times over the years. He could probably recite it himself.
“As you can see, we have some new faces joining us today. Two new interns, two med students,” he gestured toward the flock. “Go ahead and introduce yourselves.”
They glanced back and forth at one another nervously, each clearly hoping someone else would go first. Robby pointed at the sandy-haired boy, and he straightened up like he’d been called in front of a firing squad.
“Uh, Ben Callahan, MS3.”
Robby nodded and moved on - the round faced girl was next.
“Maya Patel, intern.” She gave a small smile and wave as she looked around at the group.
“Leah Ortiz, MS4.” said the dark-haired girl, her hands wringing nervously in front of her.
Robby’s gaze then landed on the redhead. She lifted her chin slightly, copper hair catching in the fluorescent light as she looked around the group. “Tess Mercer. Intern.”
“Alright,” Robby continued. “Now that we have names, let’s get into the important stuff. First things first, nobody expects you to know everything. In fact, if you think you know everything, please let me know now so I can assign someone to follow you around with a crash cart.”
A little bit of the tension went out of the group as they chuckled.
“Don’t be afraid to ask questions. I’m here, as well as one of our attendings, Dr. Frank Langdon, and our senior residents Dr. Melissa King and Dr. Cassie McKay.” Robby gestured to them standing at the back of the group.
Frank raised his hand along with the others, and beside him Mel gave a small, encouraging smile. He tried hard not to enjoy being grouped together with her like this - tried even harder not to notice how much he liked the sound of their names in the same sentence.
“And of course,” he said. “our charge nurse Dana Evans. The most important person you’ll meet today, the ringleader of our circus. Do what she says, when she says it.”
Dana smiled warmly. Frank appreciated her commitment to not scaring them off immediately.
Robby continued. “Final points: Ask for help. Don’t guess anything. Don’t let anyone die in chairs. And don’t say the word quiet. Ever.”
One of the interns raised a tentative hand. Frank was uncertain how someone could have a question already based on the information given, but he was excited to hear it.
Robby sighed. “Yes?”
Leah swallowed. “What happens if we say it by accident?”
He felt Mel’s shoulder shake beside him. Robby stared at the intern for one long second.
“Then God help us all,” he said.
The morning passed by with little incident - he’d worked on an elderly dementia patient who’d taken a fall and had a tib fib fracture with Maya, a 7 year old who flew off a hoverboard face first into a ditch and needed suturing, which he delegated to Leah, and a man who had accidentally fallen onto a suspiciously phallic shaped object and needed it removed from his rectum. He got Ben to help him with that one. All in all, a morning filled with the usual PTMC lunacy, but nothing overly stressful.
Frank was standing at a computer charting when he felt someone approach behind him. He looked over his shoulder with a smile, expecting to look down and see blonde hair and glasses, but instead was met almost at eye level by piercing green.
“Dr. Langdon,” she said, voice low and smooth. “Tess Mercer. I’m one of the new interns.”
She extended her hand confidently. He looked down and back up, accepting the handshake.
“Nice to meet you, Tess,” he said, letting his hand fall back to the keyboard. “How’s it going? Making it through the morning?”
“Yeah,” she said coolly. “I mean, I’d been hoping for a trauma or two to get some real practice in, but there’s still 8 hours to go, so. All hope isn’t lost yet.”
He looked at her. He recognized the spunk - very reminiscent of Dr. Santos when she first started. He wasn’t sure if he should be impressed or wary.
“Ah, yeah,” he said. “I’m sure something will roll in. Good to get practice on some of the less exciting procedures too, though.”
She nodded slowly, like she was taking his advice seriously. “So if I want to impress you, I should master the boring stuff first?”
Frank stilled, trying to decide whether this was just an overzealous intern looking to move up the ladder, or if she was actually flirting with him in the way her tone suggested. He glanced over - there was a little spark in her eye, as if she knew exactly how it had sounded and was waiting to see what he’d do with it. Frank took half a second to choose his next words very carefully.
“You should master the boring stuff because it keeps people alive,” he said, keeping his tone even. He hoped that would be the end of it.
“Right,” Tess said, her mouth curving upward. “And impressing you would just be a bonus?”
Jesus. He had literally never in his life been flirted with so openly, so unabashedly. He was a complete dork in high school, so no experience there, and when Abby had pursued him in college he was still too socially inept to recognize most of it until she was already kissing him. But he understood it now. He felt a bit like he was being hunted for sport.
“Let's aim for competent first,” he said. "Impressing me isn't on the intern evaluation form."
She laughed, quick and bright, and touched his arm lightly just above the elbow. “Okay,” she said, patting his arm once. “Duly noted.”
Frank glanced down at the contact, stunned, then back up at her. She didn’t look remotely embarrassed - if anything, her smile deepened.
“Anyway, I’ll let you get back to your charting,” she said, removing her hand. Her eyes flicked toward the screen. “Anything interesting?”
“Uh, rectal foreign body removal on a 53 year old man.”
For the first time since she’d approached him, Tess looked genuinely caught off guard. It was always funny to watch the fresh ones get a hard dose of the realities of the ED. “Oh, wow. Glamorous.”
“Absolutely,” he replied. “Exactly the reason I went into medicine.”
That got another laugh out of her, too much for how stupid the joke was. “I’ll keep that in mind, Dr. Langdon. See you around.”
She held his gaze for a second before turning away, her copper hair swishing behind her. He watched her go for a second, mostly because his brain was in the middle of rebooting, then stared blankly back at the computer. What the actual fuck had just happened?
Mid-dissociation, he caught something pink in his peripheral vision. Glancing up, he made direct eye contact with Mel, who was standing near the PDS across the room. He wondered how long she’d been there - there was something in her expression that suggested longer than he would have liked. He smiled at her, and she smiled back tightly, and just a second too late. She turned around with a little too much gusto and made her way toward the stairwell. Shit.
He pushed back from the desk to follow her. He made it about halfway across the department before the ambulance bay doors slid open, humid air rushing in along with paramedics pushing a gurney. The stairwell and its contents get pushed out of his mind by force, not by choice.
“Twenty nine year-old male, single stab wound to the right upper abdomen,” the paramedic said. “Bleeding controlled with pressure. Initially alert and oriented, started getting more lethargic about five minutes out. BP 86 over 50, heart rate tachy at 138. One 18 gauge in the left AC, fluids running. No known history.”
Frank looked over the patient - he was pale and damp, his eyes half-open but unfocused.
“Sir, my name is Dr. Langdon, can you hear me?”
The patient groaned. Frank looked toward the nurse’s station.
“Dana, what’s open?”
“Trauma 2,” she called.
The air in the department shifted as it always did when a trauma rolled in, sharpening at the edges. Frank obviously never wished harm on anyone, but that feeling and these cases were what had made him want to go into emergency medicine. He liked being forced to think on his feet, to assess and act quickly, and to hopefully save someone’s life in the process. Some might call him an adrenaline junkie - but he knew it was just his ADHD seeking dopamine by any means necessary.
Santos appeared at his side, pulling gloves on with the bright, focused look she got when things were about to get ugly.
“What do we got?”
“Penetrating abdominal trauma, hypotensive, tachy,” Frank said. “Possible intra-abdominal bleed.”
Princess and Jesse were already in the room, calling for blood and setting up the monitors. Santos crossed to the other side of the gurney and reached over as they transferred the patient onto the bed.
“Airway intact,” Frank said.
“Equal breath sounds, lungs sliding bilaterally,” Santos said, stethoscope moving. “Sats holding at 94.”
“Let’s do CBC, CMP, coags, lactate,” Frank said. “Get blood ready. Two large-bores if we can get them.”
Tess appeared in the doorway, because of course she did. She got her wish.
Frank glanced over. “If you’re in, you’re in. Glove up and stay where someone can see you.”
“Got it,” she said, stepping inside immediately.
Mel came through the door behind her. “What do you need?”
Frank looked at her - her face was calm, but not in the usual way it was. There was something hardened about it that he'd never seen in her before.
“Uh, pressure here,” Frank said. “And page Garcia.”
“On it.” Mel stepped in beside Tess and took over the gauze at the wound site, pressing down firmly. Tess hovered a half a step back, watching with open concentration. Frank started cutting through the patient’s shirt with trauma shears.
“Dr. Mercer,” Mel said, lifting her hand to let him move the shirt away and then pressing down again. “Right upper abdominal stab wound with hypotension. What are you worried about?”
“Liver injury, bowel injury, uh,” Tess stammered. “Diaphragm if the wound tracks high.”
“Good,” Mel said, her tone lacking any warmth. “And what kind of shock should we be looking for?”
Tess hesitated. “Um -”
“Um is not a recognized form of shock, Dr. Mercer,” Mel retorted. “Last time I checked.”
The sharp tone of her voice drew his eyes up. Frank stared at her for a second too long, wondering if he’d hit his head and was in some kind of weird coma dream, before turning and catching a glimpse of Santos. She looked at him as if to say “what the fuck” with her eyes, a rare shared moment between them.
“Hemorrhagic shock,” Mel continued. “would have been the correct answer.”
“Right,” Tess said. “Sorry, Dr. King.”
Mel shook her head. “Don’t apologize to me. I’m not the one bleeding out on the table.”
Princess turned from where she was on the phone with Garcia, entertained surprise colouring her face. Frank watched her and Jesse make silent eye contact, clearly signaling they would be talking about this later.
“Uh, EFAST, Santos?” he said after picking his jaw up off the ground.
She moved the probe. “No pericardial effusion,” she paused. “But there’s fluid in Morrison’s.”
“Great,” Frank muttered. “Where’s Garcia?”
“On her way,” Princess said.
Mel looked at Tess again. “Positive EFAST in an unstable patient with penetrating trauma. What does that mean?”
Tess’s eyes flicked briefly to Frank, help me all but written on her forehead.
“Don’t look at him,” Mel said. “I asked you.”
Frank felt his eyebrows lift. So, he hadn’t imagined it, then. Unfortunately, however, confirming that Mel King might be jealous of an intern who flirted with him was going to have to wait, because Mel King was also currently being an asshole to said intern, and one of those things was more immediately his responsibility than the other.
“Mel,” he said, low.
She didn’t look at him. “What?”
She'd never spoken to him like that. Hell, he’d never heard her speak to anyone like that. Not even to the middle aged man last week who'd called her every name under the sun because he waited 8 hours to be seen for an ankle sprain. She’d stood there, hands folded in front of her, cheeks pink, her voice gentle when she said “Sir, I understand you’re frustrated…” with the patience of a saint.
Tess answered her question in an attempt to ease the tension, but Frank suspected she was placing herself directly back in the line of fire by doing so. “Positive EFAST, CT if stable, immediate surgical intervention if not.”
“Well, our patient is unstable,” Mel said. “So…”
Tess’s jaw tightened. “Surgical intervention.”
“Better.”
Frank stared at her, in absolute shock at what he was witnessing. Before he could tell her to go get some clearly much needed air, Garcia pushed her way through the door. “Alright, who’s ruining my morning today?”
“Uh, stab wound to the right upper abdomen, positive EFAST, hypotensive.” Frank said.
“How hypotensive?” she asked, moving to the bedside. All business, no clue of the shitshow she just walked into.
“88 systolic, tachy to 130.” Santos replied.
Garcia looked at the monitor, then at the patient. “He needs CT if he can handle it, OR right away if he drops.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Frank said.
“Wow,” Garcia said, dripping with sarcasm. “The Doctor Frank Langdon Seal of Approval. Whatever will I do with myself after receiving such an accolade?”
Mel handed Tess gauze without looking at her. “Hold pressure there.”
Tess took it. “Here?”
“Is that where the wound is?” Mel asked sarcastically, but unlike Garcia, there was something vicious behind it.
Garcia looked from Mel to Tess, then slowly back to Frank, assessing the situation. This had gone way too far - Mel might be his friend, but he was her attending at the end of the day. This behaviour had no place in the ED.
“Dr. King,” Frank said, his voice even but tinged with authority. She glanced up at him, caught off guard by the formal use of her professional name, and for the first time she looked like she realized what she was doing. Guilt flashed quickly across her face.
“Sorry,” she said quickly, looking back at the patient. “Uh, just there. Hold firm.”
They worked for another few minutes in clipped, focused, bursts until eventually the patient was stable enough to be moved.
“Alright, CT first,” Garcia said. “Then we’ll prep for surgery.”
As the team prepared to roll out the patient, Mel stripped off her gloves and her sterile gown and looked at Tess. “I need you for something.”
Tess glanced at Frank, then back to Mel. “Uh, okay.”
Mel smiled, and to anyone else, it might have seemed genuine. But Frank knew it was off. It was too cold, too flat. It didn’t reach her eyes and make them crinkle at the edges like when he brought her boba, or when she laughed at his dumb jokes, or when she -
“Great,” she said. “Come with me.”
Frank watched silently as they walked out the door together, Tess’s posture much more subdued than it was 10 minutes ago. Mel walked ahead of her with purpose, and he was honestly nervous for whatever she was about to put the intern through. The doors swung shut behind them.
For a moment that seemed to draw on for an hour, nobody said anything, the awkward shock of whatever the hell had just occurred settling between them all. Garcia turned toward Frank slowly.
“What the fuck is up with ER Barbie today?” she asked. “Did Poison Ivy over there key her car or something?”
Santos had to cover her mouth to stifle the laugh that burst out. She would think this was hilarious. He bit his tongue so he didn’t say anything he’d regret - they were just beginning to tolerate each other.
Frank stared out the closed doors. “I have no idea.”
Which was a bold-faced lie - he had an idea, alright. An idea that, selfishly, made his heart swell and made him feel hopeful in a way he hadn’t allowed himself to before, but he unfortunately had to take care of this professionally before he even let himself consider any of that.
Once the patient was on his way up to surgery, Frank made his way out and past the nurses desk. Princess was speaking to Perlah in hushed Tagalog, clearly filling her in on the drama. He took a deep breath, and found Dana.
“You seen Mel anywhere?”
Princess and Perlah stopped talking and not so subtly turned around to get a better view.
“North 4,” Dana said, leaning in and lowering her voice. “I heard something went down in there. Everything ok with her?”
Frank felt heat rising to his cheeks. He was the attending on duty, and one of his senior residents just publicly eviscerated an intern in front of other colleagues. It was inappropriate on so many levels, including but not limited to the fact that it was essentially his fault.
“Uh, yeah. No, yeah, she’s fine,” he stammered as he pushed off the desk. “I’ll fill you in later.”
“Alright, kid,” she replied. “Whatever you say.”
As he rounded the corner to North 4, he tried to come up with some sort of game plan, but failed miserably. He had no idea how he was supposed to approach this - How to Defuse an Emotional Bomb You Are Kind of Responsible For and Chastise the Senior Resident You’re in Love With 101 was notably missing from the med school curriculum. Defeated, he opened the curtain to find the patient, an elderly man, lying on his right side. Tess stood behind him, hands gloved with lube dripping down her pointer finger. Mel stood next to her, calmly preparing supplies and a stainless steel bedpan on a tray.
Tess looked over at him, her brows knotted together slightly. “Dr. Langdon,” she said. Her voice had lost about 90% of the silkiness it’d had earlier.
Mel glanced up, sunny and polite, still not herself but definitely cheerier. “Oh, hey.” It was like seeing Dr. Jekyll after having been in the presence of Mr. Hyde for the last 20 minutes - it was giving him whiplash. He glanced from Mel, to Tess, down to the supplies on the tray.
“Everything ok in here?”
“Fecal impaction,” Mel said brightly. “Quite severe. Dr. Mercer is going to be manually disimpacting.”
Tess took a deep breath and pressed her lips together tightly in what could almost be mistaken as a smile, though Frank suspected it was much more of an attempt to physically stop herself from saying something.
The patient groaned from the bed. “I told you, I haven’t gone in nine days.”
“I know,” Mel said, turning back to him with immediate softness. “We’re going to help you, Mr. Power. I promise.”
There she was - the warm, competent doctor he knew. Then, as if flicking off a light switch, she turned to Tess, her tone hardening. “Can you explain why we avoid phosphate enemas in certain elderly patients?”
Tess blinked. Frank’s eyes narrowed. Enough was enough - this wasn’t the way they did things here.
“Dr. King,” he said before Tess could respond.
Mel looked up at him, all innocence. “Yes?”
“Can I borrow you for a second?”
She looked down, then back at him. “Uh, I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
Tess looked down like she would rather be literally anywhere else in the known universe. She never asked to be brought into this - her only crime was being a little overconfident on her first day. Definitely not grounds to be sentenced to torture at the hands of Mel King.
“Now, Dr. King. Dr. McKay can step in.”
Mel held his gaze for an extended moment before turning to the patient. This was one instance when Frank felt like he couldn’t read her mind. “Mr. Power, I’m going to step out for just a moment. Dr. Mercer and Dr. McKay will stay with you.”
“Fine by me,” the patient muttered. “Long as somebody fixes it.”
Frank turned his head toward the hall. “Cassie?”
She appeared a moment later, expression already suspicious. “Yeah?”
“Can you observe Dr. Mercer for a few minutes?”
Cassie glanced past him into the room, took in Tess, the supplies, the patient, and then looked directly at Frank. Her eyebrows rose, and Frank gave her the smallest shake of his head.
Do not.
She seemed to get the message. “Sure thing.”
“Thank you.”
Mel stripped off her gloves with a snap and followed him out into the hall. Frank walked them down near the family room, away from the main flow of traffic. He could feel eyes on them - the word had clearly spread among the staff. This place was no better than a middle school sometimes.
He turned to face her, and neither of them spoke for a few seconds. Mel crossed her arms in front of her, her jaw set tightly, then dropped them just as quickly. Frank took a deep breath before beginning.
“Alright,” he said quietly. “What the hell was that?”
“What?” she asked.
He sighed deeply. “Mel, don’t do that.”
She opened her mouth as if to say something, but stopped. She pressed her lips together, looking off to the side before starting again. “I was - I was teaching.”
“Is that how we teach now? By belittling and harassing?” he asked incredulously, putting his hands on his hips. “You’re better than that, Mel. What you did in there was completely inappropriate.”
She avoided his gaze like her life depended on it. The uncharacteristic defensiveness and bravado she’d had faded away, and hiding underneath it was something much more uncertain and strangely childlike that he was sure she didn’t want him to see.
“You’re senior leadership here now,” he continued, slightly softer but still firm. “You can’t take it out on people when you’re pissed off.”
Her eyes shot up. “I wasn’t pissed off.”
“Okay,” he said. “Then what were you?”
Her breath caught - he could almost physically see the gears turning in her head as she fumbled for an answer. “I… I don’t know.”
He hated this. Hated the way her eyes dropped, the way shoulders curved inwards, the way her cheeks reddened with embarrassment. He had to physically fight the urge to reach forward and comfort her.
“You are one of the kindest people here,” he said. “And I mean every word of that. You’re sensitive, empathetic, you’re good. Good with people in a way that most of us have to work really hard at. So when you act like… that?”
She flinched a little, and he seriously considered walking into traffic. He could see her biting her lower lip, and he thought he caught a glimpse of shininess in her eyes that twisted the dagger currently sitting in his chest even deeper.
“People notice, Mel. I noticed.” he continued. He took a deep breath in an attempt to gather some composure. “Look, I’m not trying to make you feel worse. I just needed to say it so we can move on.”
Mel looked up, eyes glistening, confirming his worst fear. What little resolve he had left was withering away by the second.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I don’t - I don’t know what came over me. She was… standing there, talking to you, and she was so confident, and she touched your arm, and then in the trauma bay she kept looking at you, and I -” she cut herself off with a sharp shake of her head, bringing her hand up to wipe the tears that came loose. “Forget it. There’s no excuse.”
Frank felt like he’d been hit by a freight train - he’d known what was going on from the second he caught her watching them from across the department, but hearing the words actually come out of her mouth filled him with something so stupid and warm he didn’t know what to do with it.
“Hey,” he said softly. “I’m not going to act like she was perfect, either. She came in hot, and she definitely crossed the line. But I was handling it.”
He paused for a second before continuing, lowering his voice.
“And, this,” he gestured between them. “is clearly something we should have discussed a long time ago. I don’t think it’s fair that she got caught in the crossfire of our emotional constipation.”
He looked over at North 4. “Or… actual constipation.”
That got a laugh out of her. Frank knew then with absolute certainty that he would do just about anything to keep her laughing for the rest of his life.
“Seriously, though,” he said. “Manual disimpaction as a weapon? I’m like, 90% sure that’s listed somewhere in the Geneva convention under biological warfare.”
She scrunched up her nose, which may have been the cutest thing he’s ever seen. “Yeah, not my finest moment.”
They started walking side by side back towards North 4. He nudged her arm with his elbow. “Didn’t know you had it in you, Mel-ssolini.”
“Me, neither,” she said while huffing out a laugh. “God, I’m so embarrassed.”
Before they made it to the door, Cassie came out, closing it behind her and walking towards them.
“Mr. Power is feeling much better,” she said. “And I would like hazard pay for dealing with the smell.”
“Thanks, Cassie.” Frank said.
“Also,” she turned to look at Mel. “Dr. Mercer is wondering if she should come find you, or if she should keep hiding in North 4 until it’s safe.”
Mel closed her eyes and swallowed. “No, I’ll go to her.”
Frank looked down at her, folding his arms across his chest. “You sure? Want me to come with?”
“No,” she said quietly. “I need to do this one on my own.” She straightened her shoulders, took a deep breath, and he watched her come back to herself - the sweet, awkward, kind, determined version he knew so well. God, he was fucked.
She turned towards the door, then paused before turning back around. “Frank?”
His heart leapt in his chest at her use of his first name - the mundane things she did that his body reacted to surprised him sometimes. “Yeah?”
“Thanks,” she said. “For calling me out.”
He smiled softly. “Anytime.”
She nodded and turned around, walking through the door to North 4. Frank and Cassie watched her go, then she turned to look at Frank. He kept his head fixed forward.
“Nope.” he said.
“I didn’t say a word,” she said, dripping with faux innocence.
“You were about to.”
Cassie hummed. “I was just thinking about how this place is so much more fun when I’m not the problem.”
He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Go away, Cassie.”
“Gladly,” she said, patting his arm affectionately. Between her and Garcia, he would never hear the end of this.
Frank walked back to the desk, hoping to catch up on some charting so he could get out of there on time for once in his life. He passed by Santos on the way, and she fell into step with him. He seriously felt cursed - maybe Abby had paid a witch on Etsy to cast a hex on him as punishment.
“So,” she began. “That was crazy.”
“Don’t really want to talk about it,” he replied.
“Come on,” she whined. “Let me have this. I’ve never seen her crash out like that before. It was scary. And also kind of hot.”
Frank would never, ever in one million years let her know this, but he thought so too. If he hadn’t been so shocked he probably would have had to think about his grandma’s funeral to calm down (his go-to boner killer). He pushed the thought away, filing it somewhere to explore later.
He closed his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Santos.”
She threw her hands up. “Only the truth. You gotta admit I'm right."
Frank shook his head, scanning his pass on the closest computer and opening the chart in front of him, staring at it without absorbing a single word. He could feel her still looking at him. “Can I help you with something?” he said dryly, looking over at her.
She rolled her eyes and pushed away from the desk. “Ugh, you’re no fun. Later, Frank.” She said his name with a level of sarcasm that was almost nuclear - she once told him it should be a felony to look at a baby and name it Frank. Again, he’d never tell her, but he kind of agreed.
The rest of the afternoon went by quietly. A never ending stream of cases, as always, but ones that were mostly manageable. He worked with Mel on a couple, falling into their natural rhythm like they always did. He worked with Tess on some, carefully and professionally guiding her through a few boring procedures, but also pulling her in to help insert a chest tube - which she did a great job with. And, he caught up on his charting. Win/win/win.
As he was gearing up to grab his things and get out of there, Tess came up to him, changed into her street clothes already with her bag slung over her shoulder.
“Hey, Dr. Langdon,” she said. “Just wanted to say thanks for today.”
He exhaled. “No worries, Dr. Mercer. You did great,” he paused for a second. “And, uh, about earlier…”
She shook her head. “No, it’s all good. Dr. King apologized - said the way she spoke to me was inappropriate, and that she took something out on me that had nothing to do with my performance.” She included air quotes around the last part.
Mel did always have a tendency to be direct, but Jesus. She really put it all out there. Frank nodded. “Oh, uh, good. I’m glad.”
Tess shifted her weight and slung her backpack up a little higher on her shoulder. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t mean to cause all of that.”
Frank raised his eyebrows. “No?”
“No,” she said, then shrugged one shoulder. “I mean, I knew I was flirting with you. I just…”
He braced himself for whatever was about to come out of her mouth next. The odds on Abby’s Etsy witch hex were slipping more and more into the negatives.
“I didn’t realize I was, uh. Walking into something.” Her expression was careful - perceptive in a way that made him feel exposed. He decided immediately a subject change was in order.
“Tess,” he said, gently, because this was still her first day and he was still her attending. “You’re smart. You’re confident. Both of those things will help you here - but you need to learn how to read the room. Flirting with an attending on day 1 isn’t professional, regardless of anything else.”
She nodded her head, cheeks colouring slightly. He hadn’t meant to embarrass her - God knows she’d had enough of that today - but he was glad to see his message had landed.
“Not saying that to be an asshole. Promise.”
“Understood, Dr. Langdon,” she said. She gave him a small, rueful smile. “See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow,” he replied, extremely grateful to have that over with and proud of himself for having so many horrendously awkward conversations today. He knew there was one more he’d definitely need to have sooner or later, though.
He fished his bag out of his shitty bottom locker, changed out of his scrubs, and nonchalantly waited around for a couple of minutes to see if Mel would come in. But to his disappointment, she didn’t.
Maybe she ran out of there, he thought as he gave up and made his way towards the doors. Maybe she’d been so embarrassed by what had happened that she’d quit and was planning to flee the state. Maybe she realized pining over some loser divorced drug addict and having a very public crash out about it was the result of some kind of catastrophic frontal lobe tumour altering her personality. Maybe -
As he passed by the door to the stairwell, he caught a flash of pink out of the corner of his eye. He stopped and peered through the window - she was sitting on the step, pieces of blonde hair flowing around her face, her head in her hands. He moved as if he was powered by a machine, pushing open the door and letting it close behind him. She looked up at the small click, her eyes glassy and red.
“Mel,” he said, trying to contain his panic. Did she have a frontal lobe tumour? Was he a psychic now, too? “What’s wrong?”
She sniffed and shook her head as if it were obvious. “I made a fool of myself today, Frank. And you. I literally can’t come back here ever again.”
He felt his shoulders relax as he realized this was a fixable issue and not something actually serious. He walked over and sat next to her, close enough to feel the warmth of her but not so close that she felt crowded - she wasn’t big on physical touch, and he figured that was doubly true when she was upset.
“Nobody will remember what happened today in a week,” he reassured her. “You know what it’s like here. Something insane will happen tomorrow and this whole day will be old news.”
Mel gave him a look over the top of her glasses. Even teary eyed and miserable, she managed to (very adorably) make it clear she was not convinced in the slightest.
“Ok,” he conceded. “Princess and Perlah will remember forever. But I learned if you pay them off they won’t remind anyone.”
A wet laugh escaped her before she could stop it, and she covered her face immediately.
“Ah, there she is,” he said softly.
She shook her head, pressing the heel of her hands into her eyes. “Don’t be nice to me.”
He nudged her arm. “Didn’t you tell me to be nice this morning?”
“Yeah, to the sweet new interns,” she said. “Not to me. I’m a nightmare.”
“Unfortunately it’s all or nothing, Mel. If I’m mean to you I have to be mean to them. Can’t pick favourites.” He knew very well that he did pick favourites, and that she was absolutely his - but that would ruin the moment so he kept it to himself.
She lowered her hands, resting them on her knees, staring down at the landing below them. Her shoulders were drawn in, her ponytail loosened from the day, blonde hair falling in soft pieces around her face. He hated that she felt this way, and he couldn’t stand the thought that she’d been sitting out here alone, replaying every second of the day until she’d convinced herself she’d permanently ruined her life over one stupid mistake.
“I apologized to Tess,” she said quietly.
He looked over. “I heard.”
“She probably hates me,” she turned to look at him, her eyes still glistening. “I was awful to her.”
“You were,” he said slowly. His stomach twisted when she flinched at his words, but he kept going. “But you apologized. You meant it. You’ll do better tomorrow.”
He reached out and put his hand over hers, resting on her knee. “And she doesn’t hate you. She has thick skin. Hell, she’ll probably respect you more now for being mean to her.”
She looked down at her knee, at the contact of his hand on hers. He thought about pulling away, thought about the possibility that he’d misread this whole thing and that he was making her uncomfortable, but before he could act she turned to face him, touching her knee off of his. His pulse raced at the contact, and he wondered if she could see it through his neck.
“It’s not - it’s not just that I was mean to her that’s bothering me,” she said, tentatively. “It’s that I was… jealous.”
Frank didn’t move - he couldn’t. If he moved he was pretty sure his heart would fall out of his ass right onto the stairwell.
Mel seemed to take his silence as a sign to keep talking. She broke his gaze, flush creeping up her neck. “And I know I had absolutely no right to be. I know that. You don’t owe me anything, I mean we’re friends, and Tess didn’t do anything except be braver than me and flirt with a nice man who is single and smart and attractive and -”
“Mel,” he said, forcing his dumb horny caveman brain to move on from the fact that she called him nice and smart and attractive for now - that was another thing he’d file away for later use.
“- I acted like an insane person because I apparently have the emotional regulation skills of a toddler, but I’ve never felt like this before and I didn’t know it would affect me this much, and…” She drew in a breath and exhaled.
“I just hated it,” she admitted, slowing down. “Seeing her touch you, seeing you smile at her. And then I hated myself for hating it. But… I couldn’t help it. I’m really sorry, Frank.”
He stared at her, his hand still resting on hers. For the first time maybe ever in his life, he didn’t have a joke ready. He didn’t have a deflection, or a smartass comment, or a convenient little hatch to escape out of before conversations got too honest. And the thing was, he actually wanted to be honest with her. More than he ever had with anyone else. So, he took a deep breath.
“Mel,” he repeated. “I wasn't a willing participant in that.”
She looked back up at him. Her eyes darted across his face, he assumed looking for the part where he’d say he was joking.
“I was just trying to be polite,” he continued. “And honestly I was confused, because that kind of thing hasn’t happened to me a lot, so I didn’t really know what was going on until she was already elbows deep.”
She laughed a tiny, broken laugh, but her eyes stayed locked on his.
“But that wasn’t -” he exhaled, trying to find the right words. “That wasn’t what this is.”
Mel’s breath hitched, and he could feel her hand tense under his. “What is this?” she asked, barely above a whisper.
Frank had imagined this moment more times than he’d ever admit. In his fantasies, it happened in nicer, safer places. The front seat of his car. In his kitchen, leaned against the counter. Sitting at their favourite dive bar after a long shift. One major common denominator was that in absolutely none of these scenarios had Mel been sobbing in the stairwell after emotionally terrorizing an intern and assigning her to manually remove stool from an old man’s rectum. But, here they were.
“This,” he said softly. “is me being in love with you.”
The moment stretched between them, enormous. His heart hammered in his throat, but he willed himself to stay still.
“I’m in love with you,” he repeated, nodding his head. “And I have been for a long time.”
Mel blinked hard, tears spilling down her cheeks again. Her eyes were wide. “Really?”
If a patient had an arrhythmia like the one he was experiencing right now, he’d probably order them an EKG. He squeezed her hand where his still laid on top of it. “Really.”
“I thought it was just me,” she laughed, relief washing over her. “I thought I was losing my mind. Because you were my friend, and you were going through a divorce, and you have the kids, and you were trying so hard to get your life back together, and I didn’t - I didn’t want to be another thing you had to worry about.”
How funny, he thought, that the two of them had been pining for each other in secret like this, each thinking it was impossible that the other felt the same. For a moment, he mourned the time they could have spent together if either of them had just been a little braver. But hey, no time like the present.
Mel continued. “And then you’d text me, or we’d get pizza after work, or you’d look at me like - “ she paused with a small smile, her cheeks flushing. “Like that. And I kept telling myself that I was making it up, because you were just being nice to me. I didn’t want to ruin the one thing in my life that was easy.”
Easy. That was exactly it, wasn’t it? The thing he’d been too scared to name, but that had been there all along. Mel had become the easiest part of his life when everything around him was falling apart. Easy in the same way it felt to breathe, in the same way it felt to come home.
“I’m in love with you, too, Frank,” she said, finally, turning her hand over and lacing her fingers through his.
He looked down at their joined hands, at the way they fit perfectly together, and he had the sudden thought that he would remember this exact second for the rest of his life. The feeling of the tiled stair beneath him, Mel’s soft pink t-shirt, the loose pieces of hair around her face. The fact that she was smiling and crying at the same time, so beautiful it almost made him feel sick.
He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. When he looked up, she was close enough for him to see the tears caught on her lashes. Her eyes dropped to his mouth, then lifted back to his, and something in the air shifted. He knew, obviously, that they were still at work, still sitting in a very public stairwell where anyone could walk in at anytime. But unfortunately Melissa King was looking at him in a way that lit his skin on fire, and he was only a man.
“Mel,” he said quietly, leaning in.
“Yeah?”
He looked down at her lips, then back up to her eyes. "Is this okay?"
"Yes," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
He lifted his hand to her cheek, slow enough that she could pull away if she wanted to, but she didn't. She leaned into the touch, just a little, and that was what undid him. He closed the space between them, and her eyes fluttered shut right before he pressed his mouth to hers.
It was gentle. Perfect. Her lips were soft, and when she brought one hand up to rest on his forearm he felt like there were thousands of tiny lightning bolts flying between their skin. She made a soft sound into his mouth that almost sent him over the edge, but he resisted the urge to deepen the kiss - he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for the restraint he'd shown today. When they broke apart, he didn’t move very far, and she didn’t either. Their foreheads were almost touching, and she was close enough that her breath warmed his mouth.
“Wow,” she said.
“Yeah,” he repeated with a small laugh. “Wow.”
Once again, this was a moment he’d fantasized about many times. He decided, though, that none of his fantasies would have been as good as this - the reality of kissing Mel was better than he could have ever imagined.
She looked a little dazed, and she let out a giggle as she leaned her head down to rest on his shoulder. He brought his hand up to rest on the back of her head, twisting her ponytail in his fingers. It was such a small thing - her head on his shoulder, his hand in her hair - but it nearly took him out at the knees. Before he could think about it too much, he heard the click of the door about to open. Mel heard it too, and they jerked away like guilty teenagers.
“King, Langdon,” Dana said as she appeared in the doorway, backlit by the fluorescent lights of the department behind her. “Robby’s wondering why you haven’t signed out.”
Frank cleared his throat. “Mhm, yep. On the way.” There was absolutely no way she didn’t know what was going on. Anyone with eyeballs could tell, let alone someone as perceptive as Dana - Mel’s mouth was red and swollen, her cheeks flushed. He could only imagine what he looked like. He’d be mortified if he wasn’t so overwhelmingly happy.
Dana looked back and forth between them, assessing. He would absolutely have to explain this to her later. “Ok,” she said as she backed out the door.
Once the door clicked shut and they were alone again, Frank let out a slow breath. “Well,” he said. “That could have been worse.”
Mel pressed her lips together, fighting a smile. “She absolutely knows.”
“Oh, without a doubt. 100%.”
She looked up at him, and smiled. Really, genuinely smiled - the one he loved that made her eyes crinkle at the edges. “So,” she said. “What now?”
Frank smiled back, shaking his head as he stood and offered her his hand. Of course that was her question. His sweet Mel - practical, anxious, earnest to a fault, already trying to build a plan. She grabbed his hand, holding it for just a second longer than necessary once she was standing.
“Hmm, what now,” he pondered. “Well, first, we sign out so Dana and Robby don’t kill us.”
She nodded. “Good plan.”
He opened the door, the noise of the ED rushing back in around them. “Then, I take you out to dinner,” he said. “If you want.”
“I want,” she said, nodding. “Very much.” Her enthusiasm was so endearing, and he wasn't sure how he'd ever get used to the fact that it was for him. She paused for a second, thinking. “Can we get pizza?”
Of course she wanted pizza - not overpriced champagne in some candlelit restaurant where they’d sit across from each other pretending to know which fork to use. Greasy, familiar, post-shift pizza from the place down the street that knew their order and never judged the state they were in when they showed up. It was so perfectly Mel, so perfectly them, that it made his chest ache. He would’ve bought her pizza from every mediocre place in Pittsburgh if she asked, and considered it a privilege.
“Yeah,” he said, smiling down at her. “We definitely can.”
He couldn’t think of anything better.