Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Robby, 2:33 PM

It had been so close to the perfect shift. Quiet almost, even though Robby would never dare say that word out loud lest he gets a repeat of PittFest and Dana resigns herself to make him suffer a slow, painful demise as she would glare at him over the desks of the nurses’ station. He knew better than saying the Q-word out loud, but he still couldn't help thinking it. 

It’s been a bit over two years since PittFest, but it still keeps him awake some nights. There were wounds from that night that still haven’t healed properly, like scar tissue left in places a better doctor than him would’ve been able to prevent. Sometimes, Robby looks at Langdon and feels like he’s lost something he can't quite put a name on. In the space vacated by their ruined personal relationship, there’s now only room for phantom pains and stilted HR-enforced meetings where Robby’s forced to ask questions he doesn’t want to be the one to ask and Langdon’s forced to answer questions he wishes he didn’t have to answer in the first place. 

The meetings are stilted, atmosphere almost always stifling as they speak in voices lacking the warmth they used to have for each other. Langdon’s been more settled since rehab, even as he worked out his divorce with his ex-wife and a custody agreement that had seemed amicable from the outside. Robby hadn’t spent much time with Abby Langdon, but she’d always seemed like a reasonable woman with a good head on her shoulders. 

It makes something inside Robby feel at least a little bit settled that he didn’t completely shatter Langdon’s life that night as he pushed him away and out of the Pitt by force. 

Because there was guilt there, lodged deep in his sternum when he looks at Langdon across the Pitt sometimes. Memory echoes of Langdon in that hallway all those months ago, defensive and panicky as he told Robby why he tried to rationalise the drug use, why he felt like he had to turn to stealing medication in the first place. He can't shake it and he doesn't think he can try to talk to Langdon about it. At least not yet. 

He might have played a part in the list of factors that put Langdon on the path to addiction, but he'd also been the one to force him to change direction. He doesn't get to make amends before Langdon's put himself back together, and Robby is not the one who can do that. Not when there's someone who has been doing that since the first day Langdon clocked back in at the Pitt.

Langdon’s become more settled over the many, many months that have passed since he got out of rehab. He can see it, even if they rarely talk outside of patient consultations and shift debriefs and those cursed HR-mandated meetings. How he’s calmer as he flits around the ER these days, less jumpy and more assured. It had taken months for him to find his feet in the Pitt again after he’d come back, Robby didn’t have to talk to Langdon to spot the careful look in his eyes as he went up to any of them that first month to ask for assistance prescribing meds or the hesitant pause in his step before following any of them into a trauma room, as if he’d still been unsure if he was allowed to be in there. 

Over time, however, the symptoms of uncertainty in Langdon had lessened and these days he was more or less back to the assertive doctor he’d been before the events of PittFest. He was less cocky, more mature maybe. He'd still throw jokes and one-liners around to the colleagues who didn't gossip behind his back, but he balanced all of that out with encouragements when the med students looked hesitant when dealing with a particularly bad trauma, with warm smiles at patients who came into the ER panicky and afraid.

And it was quite obvious to everyone at the Pitt that they owed this version of Frank Langdon to Doctor Melissa King. 

Mel’s had the day off today, a fact that would’ve been evident even if it hadn’t been Robby’s job to keep track of the staffing schedule because Langdon’s been more jittery than usual without her presence in the Pitt. When Langdon got off shift twenty minutes ago, he’d told Mohan he was heading to Mel’s sister’s recital at the center she was staying at, some of his nerves visibly calming at the prospect. Robby had looked from afar as Langdon had walked out of the glass doors and rushed to his car without saying goodbye to anyone else.

If you had asked Robby the day after PittFest who, if anyone, was going to be able to help Frank piece his life back together once he got clean, he wouldn’t have said the new resident who had spent one shift with Langdon only to not meet him again for seven months.

Mel had though, remarkably well. 

On Langdon’s first shift back, eyes unsure and arms crossed over his chest defensively, Mel had taken one look at him and said “I have a patient with a head lac who needs sutures and I could need another hand. With me?” 

Langdon had nodded and followed her, and Robby isn’t sure he has ever stopped following her since. 

By month three, they’d started carpooling to work when their shifts lined up. By month ten, Robby saw a drawing on the inside of Langdon’s locker signed by Becca King, nestled between drawings signed by Tanner and Isabel. By month eighteen, Dana’s betting pool on when they’d get together hit fifty people placing odds. 

Even Kiara had gotten involved, which seemed a bit unethical to Robby but calling her out on it would mean he'd have to acknowledge it even existed in the first place. 

In the Pitt, the two of them worked together as if they operated on the same frequency. They moved around each other with practiced ease, handing each other gloves and syringes before the other even thought to ask for them. Langdon would let his hand linger an inch away from the bottom of Mel’s spine if they were forced to stand close together in a crowded room, wouldn’t hesitate to stay in the background if a patient presented as aggressive or hostile when Mel was put on charts. Mel, in turn, would watch him across the floor if they were working different cases, would keep a plain protein bar from the third floor vending machine- the only one that carried Langdon’s favourite flavour- on her at all times in case he’d need it. 

So much practised ease, in fact, that Robby had been forced to pull Langdon aside into one of the patient rooms and ask him about it six months ago. He’d had to steel himself for it, unsure what Langdon’s reaction would be. Anger? Frustration? Defensiveness? Would he speak to Robby in the same tone as the day of PittFest, so desperate to hide the truth from Robby that he’d try and manipulate it into whatever he would have wanted Robby to see? 

He hadn’t been prepared for the look of resignation to flash over Langdon’s features before he’d even fully asked the question. 

“I’m not being selfish with her if that's what you're asking, and I'm not trying to trade my addiction to benzos for a new addiction to her. She’s too important. We’re just friends, Robby. I don't know how she feels about me, but she’s my best friend.” 

When they got back onto the floor, Mel had come up to Langdon immediately to ask for a consult on a patient in South Sixteen and Langdon had followed her without missing a step, out of Robby’s sight again. 

And that had been that. 

All that to say, Mel had had today off, and Robby thought it had been a quiet shift. That's why he should’ve been more prepared for what was about to happen when Dana came up to him while he was updating a patient chart and said “car accident, pedestrian patient, two minutes out. EMTs report likely head trauma, bleeding around the abdomen and bruising around her chest. Pushed a kid out of the way and got struck instead. You up for it?”

“Sure,” he responds, already standing up and heading over to grab a trauma gown. “Any other patients coming in? The kid?” 

“No, just her. The kid must’ve been treated at the scene and the driver was unharmed. He’s the one who called 911.” 

“Okay, that’s good.” He reaffirms, scanning the floor to see who he could take. “Mohan, Santos, McKay, with me.” 

They’re by his side just as the ambulance pulls up to the bay, gloves on and prepped when the automatic doors hiss open and the EMTs rush in. On the gurney, a woman lay unconscious with a yellow cervical collar around her neck, almost matching her blonde hair even though some of the strands are caked with dried blood. A sliver of blood was also smeared along her cheekbone, not unfamiliar. 

Not unfamiliar?

“Mel?” Mohan says next to him, disbelief colouring her voice. Mel’s eyelids flutter open for a moment before they close again. “Oh my god.”

Robby rushes them towards Trauma Two before he can even begin to process the reality of the situation. “Okay people, focus. What have we got?”

The EMTs rattle off details as Robby takes her in as they run through the Pitt and past the nurses' station. There’s a laceration on Mel’s forehead with a bruise growing around it and her shirt has turned crimson by blood along her abdomen, a piece of metal from the car lodged into her skin. Jesus. When Santos cuts the shirt off, he can see the discolouration of her skin both above her lung and along her right hip. There’s pieces of gravel stuck in an abrasion on her right arm too from where she must have slid along the pavement upon impact, but his eyes keep going back to the piece of fender. Has Mel even realised it's there? Her entire right side is littered with injuries and blood. The only saving grace Robby can find is in the fact that her legs don't seem to be broken. 

God.

"BP is 80 over 50, tachycardic at 130," one of the EMTs is saying, voice tight. "GCS is around 8, she's been in and out."

Mohan moves to focus on the laceration on Mel's forehead as Santos flits her fingers over Mel’s stomach, McKay slotting in next to her to measure Mel’s breathing with the sort of coordination that only working trauma cases in an ER can give you.

"Prep for immediate CT – head, C-spine, chest, abdomen, pelvis, I want all of them," Robby orders, his mind already racing through more potential injuries. "Mateo, get two large-bore IVs in, wide open. Bloods– CBC, BMP, coags, type and cross. Someone page radiology. And someone get Garcia in here, stat." He glances over to the EMTs. "Do we know how much blood she's lost?"

"Unclear. There was a trail of blood from where the impact happened and where she landed but most of her injuries seem internal," one of the EMTs says as she helps Mohan stabilise Mel's head.

Landed. Robby feels like he's going to be sick. McKay calls out for someone, Princess maybe, to get blood ready.

The other EMT, Isaac Robby thinks his name is, takes a step back to make room for Mateo. “She told a med student at the scene to make sure we don’t give her any benzos. Under no circumstance, she said. She might have a history of addiction.” 

Of fucking course she did. Under any other circumstance Robby might’ve smiled, might have tucked that piece of information away for future use. Instead, he feels like a chasm has been blown wide open inside his chest. 

Mel moans as Santos presses down lightly on her pelvis, eyes opening before going unfocused. “My head,” she rasps. “I think my head’s injured.” 

“I’ve got you King, I’ve got you.” Mohan assures from above her. “I’ll worry about making the diagnosis, you just stay awake for me.” 

The machines beep in the background now that Perlah’s hooked them up and the sound of Mel’s heartbeat becomes a grounding force amidst the chaos. 

“She’s one of yours?” The EMT, Isaac, asks in surprise. 

“Yes,” Robby grits out before reaching for Mel’s limp hand and leaning over her. “Mel, can you hear me? You’re in the Pitt. You were hit by a car.” 

“Wasn’t his fault,” Mel groans. “He tried to brake.” 

“Okay,” Robby says gently as he leans close. God, she really is the best of them. "Let's not worry about that right now. What can I do to make this easier for you? Do you want me to dim the lights?” 

Mel shakes her head, or tries to at least, the cervical collar locking her in place. “You need to-” she gasps, flinching again as McKay puts her hands over her lungs. “- to see. It's not that bad.” 

Robby freezes. The light is bad. Very bad. The fact that she disagrees sets off a thousand alarms all throughout Robby's nervous system. When he looks up to glance at Mohan, she nods grimly as if she had been anticipating the question already. She's Abbott's favourite resident for a reason, he supposes. 

Robby has to confirm it though. When he leans closer to get a better look at her eyes, her pupils should've constricted already, but they haven't. One is slightly larger than the other.

Not a good sign. 

“Christ Mel,” Santos whispers from across the table sounding dazed but doesn’t say anything else. 

Mel flinches away from McKay’s hands and unshed tears are starting to glisten in her eyes in pain. God, how much pain must she be in, writhing on a table in a room she’s as familiar with as the back of her hand? Her colleagues' hands all over her when she’s so careful in always maintaining her distance otherwise. Robby wishes there was something he could do, but as usual Melissa King is right. They do need to see her if they want any chance to save her life. 

Small mercies, that Mel seems so out of it she doesn't pick up on how bright the room is or how many people are crowded around her.

“Becca-” Mel gasps suddenly and clenches down on Robby's hand. “Becca, she’s at the center, she’s gonna worry.” Her speech is slurred now, eyelids fluttering as she tries to speak. Robby squeezes her hand back. 

“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it King. You just hang in there for us.” 

Mel winces and Robby squeezes her hand lightly again, trying to distract her. “Don’t- please don’t call Frank right away. He’s with her, he can’t leave.”

Frank. 

Just then Mel’s chest lifts off the table, her face contorting in pain. "It hurts,” she heaves. “I can't breathe."

“Likely pulmonary contusion," Garcia murmured next to him, her brow furrowed as she listened to Mel’s breathing for a few seconds. Robby hadn’t even registered her coming in. "Decreased air entry on the right. Sounds like pneumothorax in addition to the contusion." She listened to Mel’s breath sounds again with her stethoscope. "Yeah, breath sounds are diminished on the right side."

"Her pressure's dropping," Mateo called out, his voice urgent. "Down to 70 systolic."

"Two liters of crystalloid bolus," Robby shouts. "Let's get her on the rapid infuser. And prepare to intubate. Let's have propofol and dexmedetomidine ready instead of benzodiazepines."

The fucking benzos. Always fucking benzos. Will Robby ever have a traumatic shift that’s not plagued by the existence of benzodiazepines?

"She doesn't want us to give her benzos?" Garcia frowns. "Why?" 

He holds her gaze for a second before shrugging and turning back to Mel, watching as she writhes in pain against where Mohan is steadying her again. "She's our patient, we go off of what she wants and don't speculate about her choices, we honor them."

Just then, Mel’s eyes rolled back and her hand went limp in his hand. 

“Mel? Mel!" Robby urged, voice sharp. "She's desaturating! Get her on high-flow oxygen. What's her SpO2?"

"Eighty-five percent," Perlah reports, lips pressed into a thin line.

"We need to intubate," Mohan states firmly from the head of the table. "Likely chest trauma compromising her airway, and with her GCS we can't risk aspiration. Let's proceed with rapid sequence intubation using etomidate for induction, given her borderline hypotension, and have a ketamine drip ready for post-intubation sedation."

Santos prepped the intubation equipment before handing it for Mohan to use and when Robby turns his head up to look at her he can see her hands shaking slightly. As soon as Mohan finished intubating her, Mel’s body jolted off of the table and descended the room into chaos again. 

"Levetiracetam, 1 gram IV push, now!" Robby ordered immediately. "Let's get a line in her femoral as well, just in case we need it. Mateo, have dexmedetomidine ready for sedation once the seizure is controlled."

"Significant pulmonary contusion and multiple rib fractures, and there's very likely a subdural hematoma in there too,” Garcia says grimly, sounding like she's citing it to herself rather than to anyone else in the room. “We’re lucky it's likely small, but given her fluctuating GCS it still concerns me quite a bit. Also, besides the shard of metal, the bruising and swelling along her abdomen suggests the possibility of internal bleeding as well, but we need to get in the OR to fully evaluate the severity of the bleeding."

“Jesus King,” he murmurs. “You were supposed to have the day off.” 

"OR now," Garcia declared, her voice resolute and making Robby's head shoot up to stare at her. She holds his gaze as she nods her head to indicate to whichever nurse is standing behind him that they need to move. "There's no time for a CT, Robby. We're going to have to find out the damage as we go. We try and get her a CT and we risk aspiration and her choking on her own blood while she's in there. You know this." 

He does, but this is Mel. They can't mess up with her, they can't miss anything. 

"The head lac, her pupils weren't dilating properly earlier." He reminds her.

Her gaze softened, just a little bit. "You're not the only one who cares about her, Robby."

Then, without waiting for a reply, she waves Mohan over. "Dr. Mohan, you're free to join me to observe, Dr. Walsh is already there waiting for us. Mateo, keep a close eye on her neuro and respiratory status until we get there. We need to keep her ICP as low as possible and manage her ventilation to prevent any permanent brain injuries. Let's start a dexmedetomidine infusion in the OR for sedation, since she doesn’t want us to give her any benzos."

"Walsh isn't scheduled today," Santos says as they pull the railings of Mel's bed back up. "When did she get here?" 

"Dana called her in. We're lucky she was nearby." Garcia doesn't look at them as she begins pushing Mel out of the door. 

Mohan only takes a second to shoot the rest of the room a pained nod before following Garcia to the OR. One second they’re submerged in chaos, and the next they're all left standing in an uncomfortably quiet trauma room. Robby still feels like he’s drowning. 

When Robby looks around he sees Mel’s blood on his gloves, on McKay’s trauma gown, on Perlah’s scrubs. Santos’ hands are still shaking in midair, as if she’s ready to put them back on Mel any second. 

It’s not enough blood for the air to taste metallic, but somehow it does anyway. Maybe he’s imagining it, maybe he’s going insane. 

“Hey,” he says when he sees the vacant look in Santos’ eyes. “It could’ve been worse. She didn’t crash, alright? She’s strong. Walsh is going to take care of her. You know she is.” 

Santos nods slowly. “I know. I know she will, I just-” she inhales quickly. “I need a minute.” 

“Take twenty,” he says as Santos walks past him, already heading out of the room. “You too McKay, Perlah, I’ll call her NOK myself.” 

“Okay Dr. Robby,” Perlah says, voice tight. “I’ll ask Dana to pull up her chart.”

He stays in the room for another minute after Perlah leaves, closing his eyes when the door closes behind Perlah as she leaves. He takes a minute to just stand there, breathing in and out before opening his eyes back up to let the realisation finally sink in. 

Melissa King. His best resident, probably. It’s hard to reconcile her with ugly words such as subdural hematoma and pulmonary contusion, even harder to have had to look at her as a patient. How many times had she stood in this very room, trying to save people from the same things she was now fighting for her life from? 

Dana comes knocking after a while though Robby couldn’t tell you how much time has passed by then. She’s holding a chart, presumably Mel’s chart, to her chest as he turns to look at her and something must show on his face because hers fall almost immediately. “How bad was it?” 

He runs his hand through his hair and down over his face. “The important thing is that she’s alive.” 

She nods, face grim. “You need to call Langdon.” 

Yeah, he knows. Fuck.

“You don’t think we should wait a bit longer, until she’s more stable? He just got off shift. She asked me not to call him right before she started seizing.”

“Doesn’t matter what we think,” Dana sighs before handing him the chart and his phone. He must’ve left it at the nurses’ station at some point before his shift went to shit. “She’s listed him as her emergency contact. No clue when.” 

He takes it with unsure hands, staring at her for a beat before looking down to confirm it. There, in black and white under the section his eyes immediately go to, Dr. Frank Langdon. His name is followed by a phone number Robby has had saved on his personal phone for a long time, one he hasn’t used in almost two years now. 

Fuck, he thinks again, like a mantra. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. 

“I’ll leave you to it,” Dana says but Robby can barely hear her over the ringing in his ears. When he looks at her, he can tell she’s trying to be assuring as she nods and squeezes his shoulder before leaving. 

When the room is plunged into silence once again, he lets out a borderline hysterical laugh as he leans against the wall, as he slides down to the floor. With shaking hands he unlocks his phone and pulls up Langdon’s contact, hesitating for long enough that his mind decides to ruin his life, just a little. Am I about to blow up his life again, fully this time? 

Robby swallows the bile that he can feel trying to claw its way up his throat, presses his fingernails into his thighs just to have anything else that his mind can focus on.

Then he sees an imprint of red on his forearm that he hadn't noticed before, it must've gotten on there when Mel first grabbed him, and presses his fingernails down even harder. He stares at it and counts to ten five times over in his head before he’s able to actually press the call button. 

And gets promptly sent to voicemail. It startles another laugh out of him, the anticlimax of it all feeling horribly out of place. He has to try three more times before Langdon actually picks up. 

He doesn't waste time with introductions. 

“I’m off shift, Robby. Whatever you need from me, it can wait until I’m on the clock. You only own me on company time.”

He sighs. “That’s not- look, Langdon. There’s been an accident.” 

“I can’t come in. Becca has a recital today and I’m waiting on Mel to show up, which is why I didn’t pick up, by the way. Now if that’s all,” Langdon trails off, tone agitated. 

Robby's not focusing on that though.

I’m waiting on Mel. He’s waiting on Mel. Langdon’s waiting on Mel. 

He'd known that, he knows. Mel had been in here, bleeding out on a table in front of him using the last of her oxygen to basically plead with Robby to not call Langdon, but it hits him like a hit to the solar plexus all over again. While she had been grasping Robby's hand and fighting unconsciousness Langdon had been waiting for her. 

Robby stands back up on shaky legs and staggers over to the belongings the EMTs had brought in with them, sitting in a bag in the corner. He can't remember when they left, somewhere in the flurry of people running in and out of the room. Robby pulls her phone out from a bloodied tote bag and turns the screen on, a photo of Mel and Becca smiling at the camera from across a table at a diner Robby recognises from downtown lighting up on screen. He doesn’t have to wonder for long about who took the picture because his best guess is plastered across the screen. 

Missed Call from: Frank (9)

Robby drags a hand over his face. Something withers and dies in the pit of his stomach. 

“Mel’s here, Langdon. She’s at the PTMC.” 

He’s familiar with anger, for denial, for questions when he has to tell patients their loved ones have been injured and taken into surgery. He’s prepared for urgency and fear. What he’s not prepared for is for Langdon to laugh.

“Put her on the phone then. God, you’re a bastard, you know that Robby? Why’d you drag her there for? It’s her day off. Tell her I'll come pick her up.” 

For a second Robby wishes he could play it off, could pretend he dragged her in on her day off simply because they were understaffed. He wishes that was the truth, the reality being so much worse. As he runs his fingers over his forearm in an effort to ground himself his fingernails catch on another sliver of dried blood, Mel’s blood, that must’ve gotten on him at some point amidst the chaos. It can’t have been more than fifteen minutes that she was in this room, but Robby’s not sure he’ll ever be able to look at these four walls the same. 

He’s not in the business of wishing though. He’s not allowed them. 

His throat feels made of ash. “Langdon, listen to me,” he tries again. “Mel’s here because she was in a car accident.” 

Silence. It's harrowing as Robby listens to Langdon’s breathing on the other side of the line. In and out, in and out. 

Best friend, he’d said months ago, but Robby never fully believed it. He’d thought maybe it was just Langdon who was feeling more, who hesitated to cross a boundary Mel wouldn’t want him to cross. Robby had seen it after all, the degree of respect Langdon always had for her personal space even if she always let him get closer than anyone else. He’d seen the seriousness of which he treated situations where patients got too loud or too aggressive, always letting her handle it but staying close just in case she needed him at any point. 

He’d said he wasn’t trading addictions, and Robby had believed him, but Mel seemed to have taken on his instead. Did Langdon know about that?

Eventually, Langdon speaks on the other side of the phone. “What are her injuries?”

Mel, 2:17 PM

Mel's running late, she knows she’s running late, but the line at the florist's is taking longer than she had planned for and now she can’t get out of line because Becca deserves flowers today. A whole assortment of them, in all of her favorite colors. Mel can’t find that at a grocery store, so she’s here. Standing in a line and ignoring Frank’s attempt to call her because she knows if she picks up and tells her she’s late he’ll leave the center to come pick her up and then they’ll both be late. At least one of them should be there on time for Becca’s pre-show pep talk. 

It just happens that apparently every single person in Pittsburgh wants to buy flowers today. Extremely inconvenient and surprising. 

By the time she’s managed to pay for a bouquet and headed back outside onto the crowded Pittsburgh sidewalk, Frank's tried to call her two more times. A part of her feels guilty, but a bigger part of her just wants to get to him as fast as she can and talking on the phone is going to take too much energy. Rather she gets there in time than talk to him right now. 

However, all thoughts of Frank leaves her when, as she's waiting at a crosswalk for the traffic light to turn green, she can hear a man scream to her right, loud and piercing. 

Her head whips towards the source, eyes searching until they lock on a child walking into the street on the other side of the road. She can’t be older than five, Mel's heart twisting when he realises she looks around Isabel’s age, stumbling as she follows a leaf as it floats in the air. Then her hearing kicks back in and Mel registers the grating, screeching sound of brakes being pressed of a high-speed car quickly approaching in her periphery. 

She really wishes she’d be able to plan how to get herself out of this situation better, but there’s no time. Her instincts take over and she's off the sidewalk before she's even processed the decision.

Do no harm. She’s always tried to prevent harm too, if given the opportunity. 

She drops the flowers- Becca’s flowers- as she runs across the street in as big strides as she can manage, pushing the little girl out of the way so hard she stumbles and falls on the pavement and tries to brace herself on her hands. Mel’s just about to reach for her to check for any abrasions when, well. 

She gets hit by hard, unforgiving metal on her right side less than a second later. Pain explodes along her ribs as she’s tossed into the air from the impact and she barely has time to register the ground disappearing beneath her before she’s sliding along the pavement, gravel tearing her skin apart as she tries to brace herself on one of her forearms. 

Her head is pounding as she finally comes to a stop, the sky a light blue above her. She must’ve slammed her head against the ground somewhere along the fall because her fingers come back bloody when she reaches up to check her forehead once the world stops spinning. 

Great, she thinks, before closing her eyes for a moment to try and gather her bearings. This is probably going to make me even more late. 

She tries to catalogue her injuries as she lies there, the world going quiet around her. She definitely has a head injury of some kind, and her entire right side feels like it’s on fire. Her arm’s a lesser concern, she doesn’t think it’s broken, but she can’t help but groan at the thought of dirty, unsanitary gravel embedded in her skin. 

She can't rule out her injuries being worse than she's currently able to catalogue them. Adrenaline's a hell of a drug, Mel's seen it in victims coming through the Pitt. They'll act fairly normal when they get brought in, telling them they're fine, only to drop unconscious the next moment because throughout all that time they'd spent talking, they'd been slowly bleeding out internally. 

Inhale, exhale.

Just last week, her and Frank had worked on a young woman who came in after being hit by a car as she was biking to work. She'd been adamant that, since she wore a helmet and she felt fine, they should let her go home. Turns out her liver was ruptured the entire time, adrenaline masking most of the symptoms. Frank had been the first to suspect it, and they'd gotten her into the OR just in time.

Frank, she remembers. I really wish I'd picked up the phone now. 

Pain shoots up her hip suddenly and she gasps as she tries to keep her head still in case the head injury is worse than she would like. The world comes back to her as she blinks her eyes open again, the clouds going in and out of focus. 

“Oh my god,” someone says above her, a car door slamming shut somewhere close. “Please don’t be dead.”

“I’m so sorry, oh my god,” comes from further away, a child crying to her right. “Thank you.” 

“Call an ambulance, please,” Mel grinds out and tries to pretend the metallic taste in her mouth isn’t actually there. Inhale, exhale.

The man above her scrambles for his phone and Mel sees his hands shaking as he presses the numbers quickly, sweat forming along his hairline. His eyes are frantic as he watches her for a split second before the call connects. 

She groans. “It’s not your fault, it was an accident.” 

He doesn’t seem to hear her and before she can try again he’s speaking to an operator as he must get through to an operator. She can’t focus on the conversation for too long, only picking up bits and pieces as the man rattles off an address and answers questions while looking down at her like she’s a wild animal he’s trying very hard not to scare. 

Which is ridiculous, because it’s not like she can go anywhere. She can’t even move her head too much to the side in case she’s injured her spine upon impact. She really wishes there was a Megan Thee Stallion lyric she could use to ground herself in this situation but if there is, she can't remember it right now.

Inhale, exhale.

"Woman in her late twenties, maybe early thirties," the man who hit her is saying from somewhere close. Mel wants to tell him the distinction doesn't matter but all that comes out is a groan. "Yes, there is blood."

She doesn’t realise she’s closed her eyes again before someone taps frantically against her cheek, entirely unwelcome but something Mel will forgive under the circumstances. When she opens them back up, a woman, a girl really now that Mel can see her, is pressing her jacket against Mel’s abdomen and making Mel gasp in pain. 

“I’m sorry,” she’s saying. “I need to try and contain the bleeding.” 

Mel tries to list off why stopping her bleeding is good for her in her head to distract herself. Buying time for paramedics to get to her is number one. It takes her more time than she'd admit to remember she should probably be worried about her blood pressure in all of this, that's reason number two. There's also something about oxygen and nutrients and preventing her from going into shock, but she can't focus for long enough to make sense of the words. 

Wait, why is she bleeding? 

Inhale, exhale.

“You a doctor?” Mel grits out instead, even as the pain gets worse. 

“Pre-med,” she replies, one hand coming up to move some strands of Mel’s hair out of her eyes. “My name’s Mouna.” 

“Nice to meet you Mouna,” she groans. “My name’s Mel.” 

Mouna looks away from her for a second to look across from where she’s sitting, but Mel can’t focus on anything besides the expressions flitting across Mouna’s face. Mel can tell she’s putting up a front, but Mel can remember her own med school days. She’s probably scared, afraid to do the wrong thing. 

Mouna looks back down at her. “Ambulance is right around the corner, hold on for me. They’ll be here any second Mel.” 

“You’re doing great Mouna,” Mel replies instead. Inhale, exhale. “I think my lungs are injured too. Can you check my breathing for me? I can’t focus long enough to-” she winces. “-To do it myself.” 

That makes Mouna pause, Mel can see it as something in her eyes shift. Her hands don’t lessen on Mel’s abdomen as she bends down to listen to Mel’s breathing up close, an almost loud silence settling around them for a few seconds. “They’re shallow and diminished.” Mouna says eventually, grimacing.

“What does that tell you?” Mel asks. 

Mouna looks at her then, really looks at her. “Let’s not worry about it yet, I might be wrong, I'm only pre-med. Let’s wait for the ambulance to get here.” 

Mel laughs before wincing, the movement sending a stabbing pain up the back of her skull. “I’m a ER doctor Mouna, you’ve already told me what it means.” 

Her breathing is only going to get worse, she knows. If her lung's really punctured oxygen is going to become a rare commodity in a matter of minutes. She'll lose coherent thought soon enough, consciousness not much later. 

Inhale, exhale.

Mouna looks terrified though, so Mel does the only thing she can think of to distract her from what is likely her first ever real contact with an actual patient.

"What area of medicine are you interested in?" she inhales sharply. "Do you know yet?" 

Mouna looks at Mel like she's crazy for a beat before something's settling in her eyes. Mel's never been the best at reading social cues but she thinks it's something akin to conviction. 

"Not sure, oncology maybe. After this I might consider Emergency Medicine." 

Mel tries to laugh but it comes out as a cough again and Mouna reaches up to wipe something warm away from her chin. She puts in a valiant effort to hide the red from Mel, but Mel can taste the metal in her mouth all the same. Inhale, exha-.

Yeah, something’s definitely wrong with at least one of her lungs.

"Well," she grounds out as she pointedly ignores her throat feeling like glass. "If I make it out of this alive, come find me. I'll write you a recommendation letter when residency applications sneak up on you." 

The lights of the ambulance break their eye contact before Mouna gets the chance to reply. She can see the relief bleeding out of Mouna almost instantly as she clocks its approach, red and blue reflected in her irises. Mel can’t hear it, which should probably feel more ominous than it does right then and there, bloody on a Pittsburgh pavement.

Right now, she has bigger priorities. 

Inhale, ex- exhale.

“Hey,” Mel says, trying to get Mouna’s attention back. One hand reaches up to tug at Mouna's arm and Mel winces as she sees the blood she leaves behind on Mouna's white blouse. She goes to apologise but what comes out instead is, “I need you to do me a favour.” 

“Did I miss anything?” Mouna says hurriedly as her hands press down harder and Mel flinches. 

She tries to shake her head. “No, you were great. It's just, they're gonna-" she gasps suddenly, fire spreading along her veins. "I can feel the adrenaline starting to run out and in case I crash before the paramedics get to me, I need you to tell them,” her head is pounding now. Great, her body is having to put out more fires than it can keep up with. “Don’t let them give me any benzodiazepines."

The fact that she’s able to articulate the word benzodiazepines is something she’s going to take as a good sign though, even if it probably is just the adrenaline keeping her this lucid so far. She needs all the good signs she can get.

Inhale, exhale.

Mouna freezes from where she's now leaning above her. “History of addiction?” 

Mel swallows another laugh, her head starting to feel heavy. She tries to think of Frank's red eyes one night nine months ago when he came over after Becca had already fallen asleep because for the first time in months, he'd gotten his hand on pills, completely accidentally, and instead of taking them he'd showed up on the doorstep of her apartment because I needed to see what I'd be losing, Mel. Thinks of his always warm but slightly unsure smile the day after as they spent the afternoon walking around Highland Park with Becca ranting about the different species of flowers they found along their way. Thinks of all the late nights on Mel's couch and the lights from the TV painting Frank's face in a pale blue. Thinks of all of those early mornings when they've dropped Becca off together. 

Thinks of I need you and you're doing great and you're really growing on me. Thinks of everything else he's said to her since that day where his life had run out of road and he'd forged a new one for himself with his bare hands. Their relationship flashes behind her eyelids in a kaleidoscope of Mel's wanting, reaching for more things than she's able to articulate. 

“Something like that. Just- tell them,” she slurs, oxygen starting to evade her. “Make sure they don’t give me any.” 

By the time the paramedics reach her she’s gasping for air, black spots growing before her vision goes blurry. Great, that’s the head injury making itself known again too. In- in- In...hale?

Before she knows it she’s being lifted on a gurney, There are voices all around her, instructions and assessments being spoken from both left and right as she’s being lifted into an ambulance. Mouna’s hand falls from her body soon after but she doesn’t get to miss the heat, the pressure of them because, well.

By the time they do, Mel has already passed out.

The grey, metallic ceiling of the ambulance feels blinding as Mel opens her eyes back up again. Every inhale feels like she’s drowning, someone shouting about fluid buildup to her right and she winces at the loud noise. Inhale, exhale. One of her hands, the mostly uninjured one, comes up to remove the oxygen mask just for her to grit out “which hospital are we going to?” to the paramedic on her right. 

She recognises him from somewhere, realises belatedly that she’s probably seen him at the Pitt loads of times when she’s been the one to receive incoming patients, but his name eludes her. His gaze is kind when he answers her, placing the oxygen mask back over her mouth. 

“We’re taking you to Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, ma’am. It’s the closest one. We’re two minutes out.” 

She’s sure she should have some reaction to that, something at the back of her mind objecting, wanting her to argue, but she passes out again before she can muster enough strength. 

There’s a loud, constant hum ringing in her ears as she’s jostled around what must be a cramped space when Mel comes to the second time. Her chest burns as she struggles to breathe, shallow gasps trying their hardest to give oxygen to her starving, overcompensating lungs. Somebody above her is trying to say something, she thinks maybe it’s her name but she can’t really make out any words, and the next moment she’s gone again. 

The third time it happens, she feels a bit more lucid as she spots Samira and Robby leaning above her. Someone’s bearing down on her hip so hard she has to fight back tears as she blinks back into consciousness, the overhead light bright and overstimulating. There’s too many hands on her too, making her want to crawl out of her skin as she lays on the table. She thinks Samira’s examining her head before remembering she most likely has a head lac that needs treatments. 

This time when she tries to triage her injuries mentally, she keeps forgetting them as soon as she remembers them. 

Samira only tells her to stay awake when Mel tries to tell her about her head, which feels a bit redundant to Mel. It’s not like she’s trying to pass out, fading in and out of consciousness. 

There’s more noise as people work around her and it takes her a moment too long to recognise the new pressure in the palm of her hand as Robby, squeezing it every time he asks her something as if to reorient Mel’s attention back to him and away from the fire across her hip, the feeling of drowning every time she takes a breath becoming harder and harder to push through. 

She tries to tell them about how it wasn’t the driver’s fault even as she can barely form the words as someone, she thinks it might be Santos, moves her hands to where Mel’s sure there’s a bruise over her lungs by now. Santos is saying something in return and then Mel flinches away from McKay’s touch reflexively as a weight feels like it’s been dropped on her chest but Mel can’t make any of it out. 

Panic spreads through her as she realises she can’t think anymore. Her brain’s the best thing she has, and it’s not working anymore. It’s gone offline as pain is taking turns shooting through her body like she’s a pinball machine, taking turns moving from her hips to her chest to her head. What must she look like to Robby, lying here bloody and disoriented and barely functioning? 

Inhale, exhale.

Clarity slams into her like a freight train suddenly. Becca. Becca’s waiting for her. 

“Becca,” she rasps. “Becca, she’s at the center, she’s gonna worry.” 

Robby’s saying something in response, she can see his lips moving above her in what she assumes must be assurances, but her hearing’s gone. If she was one of the doctors in this room and not the patient, she’d think it’s her vestibulocochlear nerve that’s being compressed, but she’s not and she can’t think. 

Instead, what comes out is “don’t- please don’t call Frank right away. He’s with her, he can’t leave.”

Frank. 

Frank Langdon, who’s probably waiting for her right now at the center. How long has it been since they last talked now, an hour? Two? God, she wants him here. If it was his hands treating her maybe the touches wouldn’t make her skin burn as much, wouldn’t feel so foreign. He’d be able to tell what she was trying to communicate without her having to find the right words. He’d become so good at that over the many months since he got out of rehab.

Mel’s never felt so seen as she does by Frank Langdon, and she likes to think she has the same effect on him. It should've been unsettling to feel his gazes on her across pizzas on her living room floor or from the other side of her couch as Becca rants about the best movies ever made but it never was, when it was him looking at her. 

If he was here, she wouldn’t be as scared as she is. She trusts all of her colleagues implicitly, but there’s no one she trusts in the Pitt more than him. He slotted into her life one day two years ago and she’s been trying so hard to never give him a reason to leave ever since. God, they'd made so much progress. 

Oh god, if only people knew how selfish Melissa King actually was, because she wants him here, now, so badly she could almost cry with it if her nervous system wasn't currently reacting to her body breaking down instead. She wants him so much, in more ways than she's ever going to be able to name, but she wants anyway. Desperately.

But Mel is well aware of what she's not allowed. Especially not now, when there’s nobody else around to take care of her sister.

She knows where Frank is more needed, and it’s not here with her. Mel can’t be selfish with this. 

Inhale, exhale.

Still. She wishes she could be. Wishes it was his voice talking her through the procedures, barking orders and working on her with steady hands. Wishes it was his hands she was bleeding onto as her heart tried to keep up with the rapid blood loss, that it was those same, beautiful, strong hands that would have to intubate her in a few moments. Wishes it had been his calming blue eyes that had checked her pupils for signs of light reaction instead of Robby's, however long ago that was.

Maybe then she could've pretended this was just like any other time, any other case they've worked on together in this very room.

But they’re probably better for it because she’s pretty sure her lung’s collapsing a second later as she feels her chest heave, her back lifting off the table as she tries to inhale inhale inhale without any success. Someone, Santos maybe, hisses to her right as someone else presses down on her shoulders to keep her head steady. Inhale, inhale, INHALE, please god just let me inhale. 

The noises around her go loud again but she can’t hear anything other than a low buzz in the background as she stares up at the ceiling of Trauma Two. Gauze and syringes and an intubation kit are being handed to people all around her, but she can’t make them out anymore, vision going blurry again. 

Oh oh. Two of her senses can’t be going down at the same time, that doesn’t bode well for her. 

Yeah, on second thought, Mel definitely thinks it’s really good that Frank's not in here with her and seeing her like this. Flitting in and out of consciousness as she keeps bleeding from at least four different places and a lung that’s running on fumes at this point. She knows they’ll need to intubate her soon, she can feel every place where her body slowly is giving up inside her and Mel's not sure she’d be able to handle the look on his face if he had to actually watch her go down.

Adrenaline can only do so much and now she’s coming up empty. 

Frank Langdon, she thinks right before she knows she’s finally going to be pulled underneath the waves. I’ll see you on the other side of this one.

Mel exhales. 

Chapter Text

Langdon, before (or: the first year)

The first thing you, yes you, need to know about Frank Langdon is that he is, to his core, a very selfish man. 

He used to have this almost manic desire at work sometimes to be the best at everything he tried to do, driven by a wanting to outshine his fellow residents to prove it to Robby, to himself, to his wife. That he deserved to be there. His wife, who once had put her life on hold so that Langdon could finish med school and not have to worry about anything else. He repays her by stealing drugs from patients at the hospital to treat his own pain because he doesn’t want to come off as weak to the people around him. He only goes to rehab at first so he can return to work one day. 

He lets his marriage fall apart in his absence, both before, during, and after he comes back from the Hope Tree Rehabilitation Center. There had been no big blowout, no fights, no barbed wire raised between them. They’d stuck it out over the summer to make the transition to Tanner starting school easier and it had actually been nice, Langdon and Abby spending time together as strictly friends again. Like they used to be, before. Langdon still hadn’t been allowed back at the Pitt and Abby had just finished editing her book, deadline at the end of May, so they’d both been home with Tanner and Isabel all summer long. 

One last one for the road, Abby had joked one night after he’d put the kids to bed and walked downstairs to see her sitting in one of their armchairs with a glass of red wine in hand. She’d offered him one but, well. 

His vice might not have been alcohol, but he wasn’t in the mood to tempt fate. Substances are substances and his job was already hanging on by a thread. He had considered, for just a second, if he should maybe explain this to her. He’d known she would understand, would apologize for not thinking, but he chose not to in the end. What did it matter, when he was moving out by the end of August anyway? 

Besides, his drug addiction was his and his alone to deal with. He didn’t need Abby to take that on too. 

(You, yes you, might now be thinking “but Langdon, that doesn’t seem like a selfish thing to do at all?” and you’d be correct. You’ll soon come to understand that Frank Langdon is a bit of an unreliable narrator, when it comes to himself.)

They learnt how to be friends again over three months worth of homemade dinners, Tanner’s sudden obsession with koalas and Isabel throwing tantrums if they didn’t let her have ice cream for lunch every other day. It helped Langdon’s recovery immensely to have some sort of stable ground underneath him, even if it had become something different from what it used to be. His hospital-assigned therapist Dr. Sanders had referred to that summer as a crash course in co-parenting when he’d told her about it in one of their first meetings. 

Abby had laughed when Langdon had shared that with her over the dinner table late one night as they were working out how they were going to divide up custody when Langdon went back to work. “Should we quiz each other on the kids’ favorite snacks?" she’d asked. “I’d offer to write a textbook on our kids, but it would probably make it easier for me to cram for the exams.”

God, he’d thought. I am so lucky to have this woman be the mother of my kids. 

He hadn’t always been this selfish. Growing up he always tried to help everyone around him as best he can. Somewhere along the line he’d just lost sight of that, of himself and of who he wanted to be. Of the person Abby had actually wanted to marry, probably. The man she deserved.

At some point selflessness had turned into selfishness but he couldn’t tell you when the shift happened. Pre-med years, maybe? When academic validation became something he craved, even more than the benzos he’d ended up with? Either way, he thought it was a far cry from the man he is today. 

Tanner and Isabel had been as okay with their separation as one can expect from two young children. Isabel was too young to really understand what it meant, but when Tanner went up to them one day in August to ask Langdon and Abby if it was his fault they didn’t love each other anymore Langdon had almost been able to see Abby’s heart break just a little bit again in her chest, in tandem with his. 

“Tanner, sunshine. Your dad and I love each other very much, and we love you even more. It is because we love each other so much that we are going to live separately from now on.” 

And then, because Langdon is selfish and he’d still been able to see Tanner’s bottom lip wobble slightly which he couldn't stand, he’d bent down, ignored his back screaming at him and reached a hand out to ruffle Tanner’s messy curls. “Think of it this way buddy. Two christmases, two birthday parties, two bedrooms to fill up with toys.” 

Abby had laughed above them as Tanner started nodding enthusiastically, making both of them pinky promise before running off somewhere into their backyard. 

And that had been that, really. 

They had had the kids stay with one of Abby’s friends from her book club and signed the divorce papers the day before he moved out, one month before he was due back at work. Langdon had made them dinner as Abby had sat by the counter drawing up notes for her next book, and he'd looked over at her. He’d looked at how her nose always scrunched up a little bit in concentration and at how one of her hands was tapping a pencil against the counter absentmindedly, and all he’d felt was gratitude. Sure, there was love in there too, of course there was, but the gratitude was all the more overwhelming. 

At this woman, who still valued Langdon somehow despite how his selfishness had ruined their marriage. Despite how he’d just let that happen. 

So much gratitude, in fact, that he’d only laughed across from the table later that night when she set down a bowl of ice cream in front of him and said “I’m keeping the name, by the way. At least until I get remarried. You couldn’t pay me to go back to Reagan.” 

Langdon had once promised Abby he’d give her everything she wanted for the rest of his life, for better or for worse. He could, at the very least, still give her this. 

By the time the divorce gets finalized a few months later Langdon’s has been back at the Pitt and working his way back up the ladder for a while. Long enough for the accusatory looks and the curious glances to mostly stop, even if Princess and Perlah have taken to calling him nicknames in Tagalog that they won't explain. 

They always smile at him though, so he allows it. 

The rest of the ER had adjusted back to him too, for the most part. He’d fallen fully back into rhythm after about a month, hesitant at first which he figured was the first thing in a long while that no one could fault him for being. Dana had hovered, and Dr. Whittaker had been afraid to meet his eyes for a couple of weeks, and Dr. Garcia had sent him a few looks that he had chosen to ignore until they went a way. 

Never let it be said that Frank Langdon isn’t a problem solver. A dysfunctional one maybe, but a problem solver nonetheless.

Except for when it comes to Michael Robinavitch. 

Robby is a problem he can’t solve, or maybe Langdon doesn’t want to. Either way, Langdon avoids the issue completely by consciously letting their relationship fade into the background, much like the eyes he always feels at the back of his neck when they work the same shifts. They don’t talk unless they have to, and Langdon doesn’t seek him out if he doesn’t have to. 

See? Selfish. 

Even Santos and him were amicable now, praise be. 

Trinity Santos had been a different problem entirely, one he hadn’t thought he deserved to fix so he hadn’t even tried. His first month back had been hell in part thanks to her, but it’s not like she was saying anything wrong when Langdon overheard a couple of nurses ask Santos if the rumours were true and she replied “well every once in a while they had to be, right?”

Or when she looked at him suspiciously when he recommended a prescription of benzodiazepines to one of their patients, a young girl who came in with some pretty severe muscle spasms and a tennis tournament in a month she just couldn’t miss. She’d even gone to Robby to double check the prescription afterwards, which was just another gut punch entirely. 

Then one day, on a particularly bad shift a month after he’d come back where he’d lost more people than he’d saved, it all stopped. 

Mel and Santos had gotten off shift ten minutes ago, a fact that had been equal parts freeing and stifling. Shifts with Mel usually felt like coming up for fresh air, and shifts with Santos usually felt like being dunked back underwater. Shifts with them together were therefore… interesting. That’s the word he’d used when Dana had asked him if he was okay a few hours ago, anyway.

He was heading towards the bathrooms to scrub his hands clean of where he could still feel the touch of a five year old boy he’d just lost to a drunk driver on the highway. The boy flatlined wearing the same Minecraft badge on his jacket as Tanner did, so he felt a bit off-kilter as he stumbled out of Trauma Two. He was still trying to steady himself completely when he came to a stop right outside the slightly ajar doors of the bathrooms. There were voices inside, Santos ranting about something and Mel humming along, as if distracted. 

Then, abruptly, Mel said “I think you could benefit from some sensitivity training in regards to substance addiction.” 

You’d been able to hear a pin drop in the resounding silence that followed. Langdon’s breath hitched.

Santos stuttered an “I- what?” after a moment, a beat too long. 

“You keep making fun of Dr. Langdon for his addiction to benzodiazepines. As a doctor, you should know better than most people that drug addiction is a disease, yet you treat him differently for it. Why?” 

Langdon stayed frozen in place, hand still outstretched from when he was about to push the door open. Santos seemed in a similar state because Langdon couldn’t hear her say anything back. Eventually, could’ve been seconds could’ve been hours, Mel continued speaking. 

“You know, my father was a drug addict.” 

Oh God, Langdon thought. Just kill me now. 

Santos choked out a “oh my god, Mel. I am so sorry,” and for once Langdon thinks they’d be able to agree on something. 

Him and Mel had worked pretty close together ever since he came back to work. She had been the only one who hadn’t hesitated the day of his return, who hadn’t been wary of him from the get go. She had just looked at him for a second, tilted her head a tiny bit and asked him if he wanted to help her with a head lac. 

He’d practically followed after her like she was offering him his last chance of salvation. 

“So you do have sympathy for drug addicts,” Mel was saying in the here and now. Langdon’s hands were starting to shake just a little bit and he pressed himself closer to the wall so he could hear them better even though he knew the right thing to do would've been to walk away. “Just not when it comes to Dr. Langdon.” 

“Well obviously, Mel! You’re talking about your dad.” 

Mel hummed. “So your empathy towards people with addiction depends on their relationship to me?” 

“That’s not what I said,” Santos rushed to add, sounding a bit strangled. “I just- Mel,” she said, emphasising Mel’s name in a way that seemed reminiscent of the tone Abby used to remind Isabel about the ‘no ice cream for lunch’-rule. “He broke the Hippocratic oath. Do no harm, remember? I think I am well within my rights to be a little bit concerned.” 

Mel hummed again and Langdon felt so tense he could swear he felt the vibrations of it against his own heartbeat. 

“Sure, you can be concerned, but I don’t think that justifies you deliberately mocking a recovering drug addict because he’s a colleague you don’t get along with. Is it not a breach of the Hippocratic oath to act in bad faith with someone’s health? You can’t be mad about him risking our patients’ medical treatments and then actively sabotage Dr. Langdon’s own path to recovery.” 

Langdon’s blood began thrumming in his ear as he tried desperately to control his breathing. 

“I’m not-,” Santos stuttered. “He’s not a patient, Mel.” 

Mel’s voice remained steady, even through the half-open door. “He’s someone’s patient. I wasn’t aware the oath only applied to the patients we were directly put in charge of.” 

“That’s not what I meant, Mel,” Santos eventually whispered. Langdon had to strain to even hear it. 

Mel’s own voice was softer when she spoke again, a familiar tone to Langdon. Friendlier. “I know that Trin, but it is still how you’ve been acting since he came back last month.” 

Santos sighs. “Right, I’ll stop, I promise.” 

“You shouldn’t stop because I’m the one asking you to, Dr. Langdon can take care of himself. You should stop because it is interfering with all of our jobs at this point, especially his ability to do his.” 

The sound of a zipper breaks the tension a few seconds later. “Anyway,” Mel said. “I gotta go pick Becca up for movie night, I’ll see you next shift. Just think about it, okay?” 

Silence, then,

“I’m really sorry about your dad, by the way. I didn’t know.” 

He hears Mel huff. “Don’t be. My father died of totally normal, non-drug related causes before my high school graduation. I only lied to prove a point.” 

Relief surges through Langdon instantly as he exhales a breath he hadn’t even been aware he was holding. 

I haven’t been a walking unnecessary trigger for the one person in this hospital that doesn’t treat me like I’m a loose cannon, he thinks. Mel hasn’t only been kind to me because of some misplaced guilt over her father’s death, he tries really hard not to think but thinks anyway. 

He’s still standing there frozen when one of Mel’s perfect, pale, non-manicured but still kept very clean hands appears right in front of him and pulls the door fully open. 

Langdon’s heart is suddenly pounding so fast in his chest he’s almost afraid it’s going to bruise his ribcage. 

“Oh!” she breathes when she finally sees him standing there. He watches in real time as surprise turns into realisation turns into embarrassment until her cheeks are flushed red and she’s trying to avoid looking at him. 

She’s all he can look at. 

The slope of her nose, the angle of her jaw, the way the light reflects in her irises as she fights to look at him. Her braid’s a little untucked from the shift and a few tendrils have come loose, framing her face in a way that looks, Langdon thinks a little bit hysterically, ethereal. 

If he reached out, would he be able to feel her pulse hammering in her neck, through her jugular? Would he be able to feel her heart beating out of her chest?

His ribs bruise, bruise, bruise in his own. 

She’s wearing a black quarter zip instead of her usual scrub top and something in his mind must short circuit because for a few seconds he can’t think. He’ll understand that reaction in a few months, but right now all he does is vibrate out of his skin for a moment before he gets himself somewhat back under control.

“Dr. King,” he whispers, no clue what he’s supposed to say next. 

“Dr. Langdon,” Mel says, because she always knows just what to say to him. “I was just leaving, have a great rest of your shift.” 

She pushes past him and jogs out of the hallway before Langdon finds the words to say anything else. 

He feels unmoored. Like he’s a ship anchored in a harbour and overnight, someone’s cut his anchor loose. Like he’s woken up in the open sea, waves crashing along the hull, and he has to find a way not to be pulled underneath the waves. Like he has to find his way back home, but he has no idea where to turn. 

Confused, he turns to step into the room and comes face to face with Trinity Santos’ wide eyes as she stares at him in surprise. 

Wrong turn, he thinks nonsensically. Definitely the wrong turn. 

They just look at each other for a long moment, none of them really sure what the protocol is when one of you has just been reprimanded for being insensitive about your superior’s (only a technicality by now and for the rest of his repeat residency year really, but still) addiction to benzos. 

It’s not like he’s expecting Santos to apologise. Sighing, he tells her as much. 

“I wasn’t going to,” she says, sounding very much like someone who is very relieved she wasn’t going to have to. “But I can acknowledge I might’ve taken it a bit too far, at times. I’ll stop.” Then, as if an afterthought, “Dr. Langdon.” 

He nods and steps aside to let her pass once he realises he’s been accidentally blocking her exit since Mel left. It’s not until after she’s walked past him that he calls back for her, now that she’s not essentially trapped. 

“Dr. Santos,” he tried to make his voice light. “I would very much like to keep working with you. We don’t have to be friends, but we don’t have to hate each other either.” 

“There’s a secret third option?” She looks back at him and he takes note of the smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. 

“Yeah,” he smiles. “I think they call it colleagues. Deal?” 

“Deal.” she nods sharply. “Yeah, deal.” 

Something in his sternum is knocked loose. He feels like he can breathe clearer already. 

“Now get out of here, I need to call my kid. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

Santos hightails it out of the hallway as if all she was waiting for was permission and he lets it distract him for a bit longer before he pulls his phone out to call Tanner. Well, call Abby, but it’s the same thing really. 

Most of the tension in his body is already gone by the time Tanner picks up, but he spends ten minutes speaking to him about his day at school anyway. He’s made three new friends this week and last week it was two, so now I’m up to five dad!

Still, even after they hang up and Langdon has to go back to try to and save the life of a seventeen year old with a GSW to the stomach from bleeding out on the table, he can still hear Mel’s voice in the back of his mind saying Dr. Langdon can take care of himself, over and over again. 

He doesn’t think he can yet, the mandatory therapist appointments with Dr. Sanders the first giveaway, but something about the obvious belief she has in him makes him want to try.

Melissa King, he thinks five hours later as he sits in his car after clocking out, you’re a fucking miracle worker.

After that, Langdon spends the next two months becoming friends with Mel King. 

He wouldn’t say they weren’t friends before exactly, but that had been more of a work-based arrangement. Like, Mel had been probably his closest friend at the Pitt, but as soon as he was off company grounds they didn’t see each other. Any free time he had was spent either at home, with his kids or at all things HR-mandated: NA meetings, therapist appointments, debriefs with Robby directly after shifts. 

Yeah, not exactly where he’d thought he’d be a year ago. It was for the best though, he knew it was. He was just waiting for it to feel like it was for the best too. 

But after that afternoon by the bathrooms, something’s changed. 

He starts standing an inch or two closer to her when he can, just to ground himself to something. He’ll try and join her on her cases even if the Langdon from a year ago would’ve thought they were too easy. He makes coffee for her if they’re on break together and starts keeping a hair tie around his wrist that he never gets to offer her because she never forgets to braid her hair. 

He refuses to take it off though, just in case. 

Langdon pretends not to notice the looks Dana will send him occasionally, quirked eyebrows and everything. He ignores the jabs Garcia will throw his way across patient tables when Mel’s not within earshot to hear her and all the incriminating teasing he’s sure she spends all her time thinking of. When one of his patients refers to Mel as his girlfriend, he politely corrects her and spends the next two hours not being able to look Mel in the eyes properly. 

It’s all fine, they’re friends. Just friends. They’re just being nice to each other, he doesn’t know why that seems to be such a hard concept for their coworkers to grasp. 

Or maybe it’s the fact that he’s being nice to someone. Yeah, that’s more likely. Whatever. 

So yeah. Langdon has spent the past two months becoming friends with Mel King. Then things escalate. 

There’s a thunderstorm brewing tonight as Langdon gets off shift, torrential downpour really. Mel had left an hour ago to go pick up her sister so Langdon had spent the last of his shift carefully avoiding any cases that could force him to stay for longer than he needed to be here for. 

Imagine his surprise when he exits the Pitt and sees Mel standing just to the left of the ambulance bay, under an alcove to avoid the rain as best as she can. It takes Langdon a second to process what he’s seeing. She looks on edge, scared almost.

“Dr. King?”

Her face whips towards him so fast it’s amazing she doesn’t get whiplash. “Dr. Langdon?” 

He moves to stand next to her underneath the alcove and tries very hard not to notice how close they’re standing. He fails. 

“Where’s your umbrella? I see you bringing those in with you even on days where the forecast predicts nothing but sunshine.” 

Her laugh is devoid of any humour. “I left it with Becca this morning. It’s so stupid, the center probably has a million of them already, but mine was familiar and I thought it might rain, so. No umbrella.” 

“Okay,” he says, hesitant for only a second before biting the bullet. “And is there a reason you’ve been standing here for an hour because you don’t have an umbrella?” 

“It’s stupid.” Mel says. 

“I struggle to think of a stupid thing you’ve ever said to me.” 

She closes her eyes for a long moment and it takes Langdon a bit too long to realise she’s doing a breathing exercise to calm herself down. He’s about to apologise for asking when she laughs, a tiny breathless one. “Our dad died in the rain coming home from the airport the night before my high school graduation. Heart attack as he was driving, likely dead before he even hit the highway guardrail at seventy miles per hour.” 

The weight of her words slam down onto his chest instantly. 

“Jesus Mel, I’m so sorry for your loss” he says before something registers. “When you said before your graduation to Santos, you meant…”

He can’t quite get the words out. The rain continues to bear down on the pavement a few feet away from them. 

“Yeah, I don’t like lying. Half-truths, they’re not as big of an issue sometimes when I come clean afterwards. Besides, I wanted to prove a point.” 

To get Santos to lay off of you hangs between them in the air, unspoken. 

They stand there for a while, Mel looking out at the rain in displeasure and Langdon looking at her profile. Her jaw is clenched in anxiety.

If she was his patient, he’d prescribe her some anti anxiety meds and tell her the hospital has a great psychiatry department, especially dedicated to treating people with PTSD. He’d tell her caregiver burnout is a very real thing and a therapist could help with that, too. In finding ways to mitigate the risks.

But she’s not a patient, she’s Dr. Melissa King. And he’s not her doctor, he’s her friend, so instead he takes a moment to study the way her eyes track any movement in the parking lot as if she’s cataloguing risks. He watches as she’s digging her nails into her forearms absentmindedly as they’re folded over her chest to tether her to the present. 

“Is that why you’re afraid of driving in the rain?” 

Her head whips back to stare at him. “I never told you that.” 

Langdon shrugs. “It seemed likely, with you standing here over an hour to avoid the rain instead of getting to your car, fifty feet away from us.” 

It takes a moment, then: “My father was the one to teach me how to drive. I’m not afraid, I just don’t like it.” 

He doesn’t understand the relevance, but he doesn’t think she’d benefit from him asking so he doesn’t. All he ever wants to be is useful to her, which is a pretty harrowing realisation to come to but he does anyway.

It slams into him like a freight train. 

He doesn’t think anything good would come from him voicing that so instead he reaches a hand out and places it an inch away from her clenched hand, hovering enough to bring her attention back to him. “Let me drive you to pick Becca up. I’ll bring you two home afterwards, too.” 

It’s truly a testament to how out of it Mel is that she doesn’t argue, doesn’t question why he would do that. He tells her to stay under the alcove as he goes to get his car, runs through the pelting water and shuffles into the driver’s seat before taking a moment to rest his forehead against the steering wheel. 

Langdon’s definitely in over his head. He can’t think about that though, not now when Melissa King is waiting for him to drive her home. 

Two minutes later he drives into the ambulance bay, stopping in a way that ensures she doesn’t have to cross the rain on her way to his car and drop down into the passenger seat. 

The drive is silent, Mel staring out as the rain makes noise every time it comes into contact with the metal of Langdon’s car and Langdon glancing over at her every time they get to a red light. If he stops at every yellow, well. He tells himself he’s doing it strictly out of precaution. 

The last thing he needs is Mel getting into a car crash because of him. 

It’s not until they’re parked by Becca’s center that he ruins her peace by reaching over the console to hover over her hand until she notices it and reaches up to let Langdon take hers into his. 

“I’m sure he’d be very proud of you, Mel.” 

She smiles at him wistfully. “Oh, thank you Dr. Langdon. I know he was, I quoted him saying that to me in my valedictorian speech.” 

Langdon fucking hates how smart you have to be to get into med school sometimes. Of course she was her high school’s valedictorian. He was at his. Just another box ticked in the list of similarities between them.

“You had to give a valedictorian speech the day after your father died.” It was meant to be a question but it comes out as a statement. 

“Well, yeah. Nobody else had prepared one and I didn’t want to leave everyone hanging. It wasn’t just my graduation, you know?” 

Langdon has to swallow around the growing lump in his throat before he can answer her. “You’re very selfless, you know that Mel?” 

“Trust me Dr. Langdon, I want plenty of things I’m in no position to ask for.” She laughs sharply then, tightening her fingers around the curve of his hand. 

He breathes, so quietly he wouldn’t be aware of it if he couldn’t feel his lungs expand beneath his ribcage. Bruise bruise bruise. “Like what?” 

She looks over at him, eyes shifting before she turns her face away. When she answers, it's as she's staring out at the rain again. “Maybe I’ll tell you one day.” 

Then, 

“I need to get Becca, I’ll be back as quickly as I can. Shouldn’t be longer than twenty minutes, I promise.” 

Langdon feels horribly off-kilter from the subject change but he manages to find his voice before she’s able to open the door, hand freezing over the handle. “You’re not an inconvenience to me, Mel. Take your time.” 

Time stops for a moment. And another. And another. Mel turns slowly back to him, hand still grasping the handle but unmoving. He hears her exhale loudly and Langdon feels suspended in the air suddenly, or like he’s standing on a precipice somewhere and he’s about to jump, not knowing where he’s going to land. 

After what feels like an eternity, Mel tilts her head and says, quietly, “do you want to come in and meet her?” 

It takes Langdon less than a millisecond to realise he does. Quite a lot, actually. He nods. 

Meeting Becca King for the first time is an experience Langdon will remember for the rest of his life. At first it feels a bit like showing up on the first day of class and being handed an exam without any notice, being told it’ll account for at least eighty percent of his final grade. He’s being asked questions about movies he barely remembers watching and opinions on female rappers (this, he at least knows the correct answers to) as Mel stands behind her, smiling softly as she watches them. 

Her smile makes it all worth it.

It’s as if a light switch has been flipped suddenly when Becca smiles so bright at him that he forgets what her last question was, what he had answered with. All he knows is her jumping out of her seat and dragging Mel behind her as she moves towards the exit, asking Mel where Langdon’s car is. 

Oh, he thinks. Becca’s smile makes it all worth it too. 

A beat later, Mel holds her free hand out for him even as she’s being dragged away. Her smile is so wide and distracting now that Langdon fumbles all over himself, almost trips on his own feet in his haste to stand back up and jog behind her to catch up. 

When he slots his hand back in hers right as they get outside, it feels like a breath of fresh air in more ways than one and he inhales deeply. 

He manages to convince Mel to let him pick her up in the morning (your car is still at the hospital, Mel. Let me drive you back at least.) before he drops the King sisters off at their apartment, only a ten minute drive away from his own. He’s already tucking that piece of information away for the carpooling proposal he’s strategically going to present her with in a few days after he’s come up with enough arguments and counterarguments to the ones he knows she’ll raise, not willing to gamble on only his rumored charisma this time. This feels too important. 

Besides. Logic is the way to go with Mel King. 

When he falls asleep later that night, he can still feel an indentation in the shape of her hand in his, her laughter echoing in his ears as Becca had dragged them both out of the center. 

He sleeps better than he’s done in months. 

They’re two months into this whole carpooling thing when Frank Langdon remembers who he is. 

The sixty-something mornings he’s spent picking her up and driving them to work to the tune of one of Mel’s many playlists has helped him finally establish some routine in his life. He’d been good with routine when it was his time with Tanner and Isabel, but without them to keep him busy he’d struggled to find something solid to hold onto that didn’t change every other week. 

Mel had changed all of that. 

Sometimes they’d have dinner with Becca at their place, homemade tacos Langdon would make from scratch as Becca watched TV in the other room, as Mel watched him across her countertop, head propped up on one of her fists. They’d talk about patients, or recent medical discoveries that Mel had read in one of the many medical journals she was subscribing to, or about that time Isabel punched a kid in her kindergarten class and Abby had called Langdon in a panic because she was having an existential crisis and thought their divorce had messed up their kids so irrevocably that their youngest was going around punching other kids. 

It had turned out when they got there that a boy had been tugging on one of Isabel’s braids that morning so Isabel shoved him to the ground to get him to stop. All three of them - Langdon, Mel, and Abby, that is- had calmed down a bit after that. 

Sometimes, when Becca spent the night at the center, they’d have dinner at Langdon’s place that Mel was helping him decorate, one piece of furniture or decor at a time. They’d usually order in when they were at his place, if only because he didn’t have a dishwasher and he didn’t want to do the dishes by hand. 

(This was, of course, an excuse. Langdon had seen the sorry state of Mel’s freezer on one of the first nights he’d been over to her place and realised that on nights she didn’t have Becca, she didn’t really care about what she ate as long as it contained the necessary nutrients. Effective, Mel had said when he called her out on it. Depriving yourself of things you enjoy because you’d rather give everything you have to your sister, Langdon had very wisely not said. He’d thought it though, and stayed up long after Mel went to bed in his guest room to look up what symptoms of caregiver burnout he should look out for, just in case.) 

It was nice to have a friend so in sync with his own life. On days where they didn’t see each other outside of the shared rides and grueling shifts at the Pitt, it was comforting to know that she was only a phone call away if he wanted to call her. During his weeks with the kids, he would text her pictures of the drawings Tanner and Isabel would make for him, and would keep her updated on how Tanner’s soccer league team was doing in their games. 

So when he realises, two days after it had been a year since he got sober and five months since he signed his divorce papers that he is about to start falling all the way in love with Melissa King, he stops dead in his tracks as he’s following her towards his car in the parking lot of the PTMC, rooted to the spot.

Not her. I can’t be selfish with her. 

“You forget something?” Mel calls out when she notices he’s not right behind her anymore. “You did, didn’t you?" 

Her laugh sounds so bright it’s going to start haunting him soon enough. 

“I’ll give you ten minutes until I leave without you. The pizzas are not going to pick up themselves.” Mel adds before turning to look at him fully. When he doesn’t say anything, she tilts her head. 

Right. Right right right right right. Yep, he needs to move. 

“I’ll be right back,” he says and he sounds strangled even to his own ears. He prays Mel doesn’t pick up on it and doesn’t stay long enough to find out, running back around the corner and out of her sight before she can get a word out in response. 

He spends eight of his allotted ten minutes with his eyes closed and leaning back against the brick wall of the hospital, making a list in his head about why falling in love with Melissa King is a terrible fucking idea. It goes something like this: 

One. He’s a recovering drug addict

Two. He comes with so much baggage it wouldn’t all fit on one plane. 

Three. She’s his best friend. He’s not willing to jeopardize that. 

Four. Melissa King is the type of woman who men used to start wars for. Langdon’s already caused enough destruction in his life, he doesn’t want to bring her down with him. 

Five. See point one. 

When he feels like he’s gotten a handle on himself again, he steps back around the corner and sees Mel leaning against his car as she’s undoing one of her braids. Jesus. 

She’s my best friend, he reminds himself in his head. Do not fuck this up. 

When he unlocks the car and she slides in like it’s her own, crossing her legs as she leans back against the headrest and closing her eyes for a bit, Langdon has to force himself to keep his eyes away from her face. He knows that, if he were to turn his head, he’d be able to see the column of her neck exposed, long and thin and warm. He knows there’s a mole there that he suddenly has a vicious urge to run his thumb over, and he’s not even looking at her. 

You can’t fall in love with her, he chastises himself as he puts the car into reverse and backs out of the parking space. 

Then, in response to his car moving, he can see Mel looking over at him in his periphery and all that resolve crumbles like sand in an instant. He meets her gaze, mistake number one, and she smiles warmly at him with her head still tilted back against the headrest. She reaches out for his free hand and he gives it to her without hesitation. Mistake number two. 

His car. His headrest. His hand. His his his. Mistake number three. 

You’re the most selfish man on earth, his brain screams at him when he squeezes her hand over the console. She deserves more than you can offer her. 

She squeezes his hand back, three times in quick succession, and Langdon promptly spends the next twelve months falling in love with her anyway. 

Mel, before (or: the second year)

The first thing Melissa King would like you, yes you, to know about her is that she’s never had a thing for married men. Absolutely not. She doesn’t have a thing for divorced men either, no matter what Samira might tell you. 

But she does have a thing for Frank Langdon specifically. A pretty big thing. She’s woman enough to admit that, if only to you (yes, you) and Dr. Samira Mohan, who has spent the last year becoming Mel’s closest friend from work. Maybe even closest friend in general, besides Becca obviously. 

And Langdon, obviously, but that was different. Because of the aforementioned big thing she had for him, you remember? Anyway. 

It had started like this. 

Langdon’s been away in rehab for three months and it’s not like Mel’s paying attention, really, it’s just that him going away happened on her first shift so the date is stuck at the back of her brain every day. It’s not like she cared about him especially. Besides, he was a married man, so. 

She drops that train of thought like it’s hot coal in her overeager hand and barely has time to feel embarrassed before Dr. Mohan drops down beside her in the break room and holds an apple out for her to take, smiling slightly. Mel hadn’t even noticed she came in. 

“I wanted to ask you for a favour, Dr. King,” she says and wiggles the apple slightly until Mel takes it from her. 

It’s green. She’ll take it home and give it to Becca. “Of course Dr, Mohan. What do you need?” 

“I assume you’ve heard of the party Santos and Whitaker are throwing this weekend?” 

Mel felt uneasy already. She’d hoped this was about some cool medical procedure, not whatever this is. “I’m not going to that, I’m-” she winces and hopes Dr. Mohan doesn’t pick up on it. “I’m busy.” 

With a new edition of a medical journal she recently subscribed to, that is. She just didn’t see the point in clarifying that to Santos lest she be accused of anti-social behaviour again. 

It wasn’t even that she disliked hanging out with her colleagues, she did very much in fact like spending time with them! In smaller doses and less chaotic places than the Pitt, is all. Somewhere the music wasn’t too loud and there weren’t too many people for her to focus on at once. 

Hence her date with a medical journal.

“Yeah,” Dr. Mohan smiles at her, knowingly. “Me too. This is the part where I ask you for a favour. I’ll owe you one.” 

Mel steels herself. She likes Dr. Mohan very much, has enjoyed working closer with her since Dr. Langdon left and Mel was left feeling slightly adrift. She just hadn’t realised they were on a favour-asking level of their relationship. 

“Here’s the thing. I'm not really comfortable with social events like that but Dr. Robby keeps implying I should branch out, and I get the feeling you aren’t either. I propose we make a pact and decide to ditch social events together.”

She considers this. It would be nice to have an excuse she could actually tell others instead of having to be vague and dismissive about it until they get bored or a trauma came in their doors, whichever happened first. 

There was also the fact that Dr. Mohan was nice. Mel would like her as a friend. 

Dr. Mohan seems to take her silence for hesitation because she rushes to talk again. “You’d be doing me a huge favour, Mel. I was also kind of hoping you could teach me to socialise? Please?”

Mel quirks an eyebrow. “You want me to teach you how to socialise?” 

“Ugh,” Dr. Mohan groans. “I know it’s embarrassing.” 

“No, no, that’s not what I meant. It’s just that I’ve never been asked to teach someone how to socialise before.” 

“Yeah, because who even asks for that?” Dr. Mohan moans, head now against her hands as she’s lying face down over the table. “It’s just, I’ve been told I have tunnel vision when it comes to my career. I want to branch out a little but I have no clue where to start. Please, Mel.” 

“And you’re sure you want me to help you with that?” 

Dr. Mohan stares at her for a beat, as if she doesn’t understand the question, and sits back up. “Well, yeah? The nurses all love you, Garcia calls you ER Barbie. You’re clearly doing something right.” 

Mel very pointedly tries to repress the memory of who Garcia used to call ER Ken. She’s not entirely successful and prays her cheeks don’t flush under this harsh light. 

“Just think about it,” Dr. Mohan says, unaware of Mel’s slight internal panic. “Let me know, okay? I think we’re both off-shift on Friday night.” 

Dr. Mohan leaves as quickly as she came in, but Mel doesn’t have time to really process the interaction before Dr. Robby leans his head in through the door and says “Mel, there you are. Ambulance is two minutes out with a STEMI incoming, you like those ones right? Do you wanna join?” 

She’s on her feet instantly, nodding as she follows Dr. Robby to the ambulance bay and very pointedly does not think about Frank Langdon. 

She finds Dr. Mohan at the end of her shift by the locker rooms. “I want to do it, Dr. Mohan. On Friday, that is. I would prefer if we do it at my place though, if that’s okay. That way I can make a pie and prepare flashcards for, uh,” Mel stutters. "For socialising. I'll try and plan out a curriculum of some kind."

Dr. Mohan’s face lights up, her smile’s so bright Mel kind of understands why Dr. Abbot had walked into a wall last week when she grinned at him after they had succeeded in getting a bigger than average subdural hematoma up to the OR in time. 

“Great! Here’s my number, please text me your address and food preferences, I’ll bring us dinner!” Dr. Mohan scribbles numbers down on a post-it note she steals from Dana’s desk. “Also, you should call me Samira if we’re going to be friends.” 

Samira. That was going to take some getting used to. 

“Ugh,” Samira moans into the table. “He’s going to kill me. I think he’s actively trying to kill me. Did you see the t-shirt he wore coming into work tonight? His arms are obscene, Mel. I don’t know for how much longer I can go on.” 

They’re at a bar this time, one of the quieter ones close to Samira’s place where the music isn’t too loud and the men usually leave them alone in their booth in the corner. They’d found this place a couple of months ago randomly and every other week her and Samira try and spend at least one night debriefing their lives. 

Tonight, Becca had texted her this morning that they were having a Christmas-themed movie night at the center and she wanted to try and get them to watch Elf, so she needed to stay. Kind of odd to have a Christmas themed movie night in February, she thought, but she wasn’t going to put up a fight. Becca would come home tomorrow instead and Mel would probably have to watch it then anyways. 

So, Samira. 

Over the last couple of months, the topic of conversation has pretty much been exclusively them strategizing how to get Langdon and Dr. Abbot to pay attention to them. It’s getting sort of ridiculous, but Samira’s the only one who understands her situation right now so Mel participates like the good friend she is. Samira’s suggestions about how to get Langdon’s attention usually works pretty well, so who is Mel to complain. 

Or, they had worked pretty well. More on that later. 

“Have you considered picking up more night shifts?” 

Samira tilts her head back up at her. “I feel like I’m stalking him at this point. Why am I the one who has to make a move? I try so hard and he won’t even look at me.” 

“I don’t think that’s true. I saw him look after you when we left today. He even asked me where we were going.” 

Samira shoots upright. “What? Why didn’t you tell me this before? What did you tell him?” 

“What we agreed on, obviously. I said you were going on a date and I was helping you get ready. He looked kind of concerned and then you took your hair down by the locker rooms and he almost swallowed his tongue.” 

“Really?” Samira laughs. “You should’ve said! You just let me wallow in desperation for fifteen minutes.” 

“It was kind of funny, I was collecting blackmail material for when you guys eventually get together so Dr. Abbot and I can make fun of you and call it a bonding experience.” 

Samira pushes lightly at Mel’s shoulder as she grins. “You’re evil, you know that? I have no clue how you’ve managed to charm the nurses when this is how you act off the clock. You didn’t see me collecting blackmail material when you were sitting here gushing about you should’ve seen him when he came to pick me up this morning Samira, Langdon’s hair was still disheveled from sleep, I had to sit on my hands to stop myself from running my fingers through it.”

Samira keeps talking as Mel tries to object. 

“Or when you pulled me aside in one of the radiology hallways because Langdon had just helped Garcia with an emergency thoracotomy and, I’m quoting you here Mel, his hair fell into his eyes as he was leaning over the table and for a second I wanted to walk over and push those two strands aside so he could focus on keeping a man’s rib cage open in peace. You even went into very vivid detail about how his jaw had looked when it had flexed in concentration. I wanted to bite it, you said. 

Mel had wanted to bite it. She can’t even try to deny it, Samira will know it’s a bold-faced lie. 

“One time when he brushed his hands over the back of your spine in North Five you looked like you were about to have an aneurysm, and don’t think I have forgotten about that time he looked at you over his shoulder, blood up to his forearms working on a patient but answering your question anyway, and you dragged me into a storage closet ten minutes later because, and again I quote, Samira this is unsustainable. Oh god, I think I have a thing for competent men. And I haven’t even begun to bring up how much you talk about him being kind to your sister.”

Mel holds up her palms and stares at Samira for a moment. “I think maybe you and I should know less about each other.” 

Samira’s grin is as blinding as it always is when she sends it Mel’s way. If this is how she looks at Mel, Mel can’t imagine how Dr. Abbot has persevered for this long. 

Their bartender interrupts with another round of drinks and Mel feels eternally grateful for the small reprieve it allows her before Samira asks what she’s inevitably going to ask. What she’s asked about every time they’ve met up in the past month and found time for on every shift Langdon’s not been working with them for just as long.

“How’s that going by the way, he still ignoring you?” 

The short answer is yes. Yes, he’s ignoring her and Mel can’t figure out why. What she did. 

The longer answer is that he still picks her up most mornings, still has dinners with her multiple times a week and still comes with her to pick Becca up to the point where Becca gets a bit mad if Mel comes alone. She still sleeps over in his guest room a few times on the weeks Abby has the kids. He’s keeping up with the very tentative friendship he and Santos have struck up, which Mel is pretty sure is mostly for her sake but she’s not about to shatter the peace by asking for clarification. He still asks her to join him on cases where he needs an extra set of hands. 

The longer answer is that while he’s doing all of that, he’s also begun keeping her at a distance. It’s barely noticeable to anyone else, Samira had even questioned it when Mel first brought it to her, but there’s an extra inch between them when they work cases together. He keeps his hands at his sides when he has to brush past her in cramped spaces instead of hovering against the curve of her spine. He’ll never kick her out of his apartment but he’ll cut the evenings short now, 11 PM on the dot, whereas up until a month ago they’d stay up together until they physically couldn’t anymore. 

Worst of all, he only asks her on cases where he needs an extra set of hands. A month ago, he’d pull a ‘this could be a teaching moment Mel’ excuse to get her to join cases even if he didn’t technically need her there. Even if he wasn’t supposed to be teaching anyone right now.

He’s put space between them in places Mel never wanted space in the first place. It’s confusing her and it breaks her heart a little bit that she’s no longer able to talk to him about it and know for sure she’s going to get a clear answer. Just the thought of it makes her feel sick, so she doesn’t ask at all. 

Ignoring her outright would’ve been easier, Mel thought. At least then she could confront him about it. This way she couldn’t without running the risk of coming off as insane or overly attached, which she absolutely didn’t want to do because she had kind of started to think she was. Overly attached, that is, not insane. Yet, maybe. 

“I don’t know,” she says when she remembers Samira’s expecting a response. “Maybe he’s started dating someone else. He did pass one year of sobriety last month, so. Not completely impossible.” 

Samira snorts loudly. “Mel. Just two days ago he walked into the nurse’s station because you did that hot thing you do with your stethoscope and he kept staring at you instead of looking where he was going. Last week he took a punch for you when that drunk came in first thing in the morning looking for a fight and wouldn’t let someone as beneath him as a woman treat him. I heard from Princess and Perlah that he’s been staring at you from across the floor when you’re seeing patients with the curtains open to the extent that Dana has had to tell him off. He can’t be dating anyone else.” 

“What hot stethoscope thing?” Mel says, confused. 

“It's the one where you have it hanging around your neck like the rest of us but then you like, swing it off you and it makes your braid fling a little. You look super confident every time you do it, Langdon’s not the only one who’s noticed. Now, did you hear anything else I just said?”

“I’m kind of stuck on the stethoscope thing. That’s attractive to people?”

Samira groans. “I think it’s more of a ‘Mel King’ thing than a general thing and Frank Langdon would crawl over glass for you. Does that answer your question?”

“Not really,” she says.

Samira straightens up. “I think it’s that sort of thing that’s attractive if you’re already attracted to someone. Take your competency kink for Langdon for example,” Mel squawks. “You think it’s hot that he does that, right? But Robby being good at his job wouldn’t be attractive to you because you’re not already attracted to Robby. Or Dr. Shen for that matter, his hair doesn’t do it for you either.” 

Then, because Samira has a questionable but also somehow respectable taste in men, she smirks and adds “just like I don’t look at Dr. Langdon as he’s holding someone’s ribcage open and think about having sex with him in the on-call room like we’re not actual ER doctors and instead starring on Grey’s Anatomy.”

Definitely more questionable than respectable, she thinks. She’s not going to complain though.

“I think we need to stop referring to our bosses as attractive,” Mel murmurs instead in an effort to not have to give a real response. 

Samira throws one hand up in faux annoyance. A year ago Mel wouldn’t have been able to tell. She doesn’t know if it’s a testament to the success of their initial arrangement to teach each other social skills (she had insisted on mutual benefit at the first dinner they’d had, that first Friday. “We’ll be two friends using each other for mutual benefits,” she’d said and Samira had to explain to her how that sounded like they were going to be hooking up on the regular. Lesson one, she remembers thinking) or if it’s just because her and Samira have gotten so close. She likes it either way. 

“Well damn, Mel. That’s like my whole thing here.” 

Mel grinned. “I also think this is a sign for us to stop talking about men. I think we’re bad feminists if we have a girls night out and somehow manage to fail the Bechdel test.”

Samira laughed, and they’d spent the next three hours talking about weird cases at the Pitt lately or how Samira’s mother kept trying to insist she’d go on more dates because apparently, to her, it didn’t matter that Samira was a brilliant doctor as long as she didn’t have a man to come home to every night. 

“Well it’s not for lack of trying”, Samira says, and then cringed and added “we’re failing the Bechdel test again, let's move on.” 

Mel had talked about Becca, and about the new pilates classes she had started going to before she invited Samira to join her. They discussed this author that Mel had read a lot from who recently discovered how to repair liver damage using lab-grown cells due to the liver-donation shortage nationwide. Samira asked her if Mel wanted to go to Trinity’s get together next week and Mel confessed she was planning on asking Samira the same thing. They laughed. 

By the end of the night they’d even managed to pass the Peirce Test so Mel would say it was a resounding success. As their girls nights always were. 

Samira didn’t bring Langdon up again until the end of the night as they were waiting for Samira’s Uber on the curb outside. 

“Maybe you should take a page out of my book and try to make him jealous. It seems to be working on Abbot, maybe it would work on Langdon too?” 

Mel considers this for a second. “I wouldn’t like lying to him though.” 

“It doesn’t have to be lying. You know how gossip spreads at work. Just, like,” Samira pauses. “Just start mentioning our girls nights as dates, maybe? Or when you go out with Trinity and Whitaker. That's what I’m doing to Abbot. Instead of saying ‘oh I’m meeting up with Samira tonight’ just say you’re going on a date instead. Friend dates are a thing, I think, so really you’re just dropping the first word. Out of efficiency, you could think of it as. You don’t even need to say it to him.”

Mel hums. Half-truths she could deal with. “I’ll consider it,” she says as the Uber pulls up to the curb. “At least my man isn’t an attending. Maybe it’s the attending/resident nexus that’s stopping your man from acting on his jealousy.” 

“Well you better act fast then,” Samira grins before she gets the car door open and confirms the driver’s name. “We only have, what? A little over half a year before Langdon and I become attendings too. If it’s the nexus you’re worried about. 

She really wishes she could hit Samira, lovingly of course, but she’s already shutting the car door behind her before Mel gets the chance. She can still hear her laugh through the metal for a millisecond though, or maybe it’s just ringing in her ear anyway. 

Less than a minute later, Langdon’s familiar white Honda pulls up in the space Samira just vacated, the passenger side window already rolled down. “Nice night?” Langdon asks. 

I am going to die alone, she thinks, if he keeps this up. 

Which hadn’t sounded too terrible to Mel a few years back when she first moved to Pittsburgh. She had Becca and that was more than enough for her. Romantic relationships, she’d thought, were too much work, too much energy that she would rather reserve for her patients and saving their lives. Then Langdon had come back from rehab, notably divorced, and Mel had suddenly felt like that would be very terrible. 

This is the kind of thing that makes Samira think she has a thing for divorced men. She’s wrong, but Mel can’t really figure out a way to refute the argument. 

She gets into his car without answering and pushes the window back up before turning to look at him. He’s looking out across the parking lot. 

“Thank you for coming to get me.” 

Because he always does, without fail, ever since they started carpooling together. It’s the kind of thing he does that makes Mel think she can’t be alone in feeling like this when they’re together. She’ll text him thirty minutes before she and Samira are planning to leave and he’ll show up sometime in between and park at the opposite end of the parking lot so Samira doesn’t see him. Mel will wait with Samira for her to get into her Uber safely and she never has to wait long for Langdon to show up for her. 

It drives her crazy knowing he must be looking at her from across the parking lot every time only for him to promptly stop looking at her once she gets into his car. It doesn’t make any sense to her at all. 

It’s also the one thing she hasn’t told Samira about. She hasn’t even told Becca. She doesn’t know how to justify her asking him to do this, him actually doing it, while still claiming they’re not already together. 

Because it sounds disgustingly domestic, doesn’t it? Him always showing up for her. How does she tell them this and then claim he’s been ignoring her? Like she said, she’s going insane. 

“Any time,” Langdon says and pulls away from the curb. The muscles on his arm work as she grabs the gearstick and she’s getting hot all of a sudden despite the cold winter air having felt biting just moments ago. She has to close her eyes and lean her head back onto his headrest before she does something insanely stupid like ask him to pull over so she can kiss him up against his car. 

She groans loudly, hoping he’ll ask her what’s wrong. He doesn’t so she tries a different tactic and goes for a slightly overexaggerated moan instead. Still, no dice. When she cracks her left eye open to glance over at him without having to move her head too much, she sees him staring straight ahead, jaw clenched. 

A month ago he would have reached over the console to hold her hand, asking her what’s wrong. These days all she gets is silence until she eventually folds and puts one of her playlists on. 

This is what she means, him ignoring her. They can be alone in his car and he still won't look at her, but Samira keeps telling her he’s always looking at her from across a crowded ER. Why is he suddenly so scared of talking to her when they’re alone but he’s not shy about the attention he gives her at work. 

She’s going to die alone and she’s going to go insane before doing it and it’s all going to be Frank Langdon’s fault. She kind of hates herself for still wanting to press him against his car to bite at his jaw undisturbed, except for the fact that she doesn’t. She really wants to know what he tastes like. 

But he won’t even look at her. She kind of hates him for that too, except for the fact that she doesn’t.

She closes her eyes again and thinks I’m going to have to try the jealousy angle, aren’t I?

Mel argues the pros and cons in her head for the rest of the car ride until the car pulls to a stop outside her apartment complex. When she looks over at him, for real this time, he’s smiling softly at her just like he always does before she leaves him. 

“Goodnight, Mel. I’ll see you tomorrow. Tanner and Isabel are looking forward to meeting Becca again.” 

Domestic, her brain shouts at her. Domestic, domestic, domestic!

They’re going to the science center because Tanner is going through a phase, it’s not likely to be too overstimulating for Becca, and Isabel’s too young to complain and too in awe of her big brother that she’ll do anything he wants to do. 

Samira does know about that. She’d laughed hysterically when Mel had first told her and said ‘so you’re coparenting his kids too’ which Mel had had to vehemently deny before telling her to shut up. 

“I’m looking forward to all of you too,” she says. If he picks on the fact that she includes him in that too, he doesn’t show it. 

He stays parked outside as Mel takes the stairs up to her door and she doesn’t hear him leave until she’s locked the door behind her. Like he always does. 

She leans back against the door so hard it’s the only thing keeping her standing and thunks her head against the unforgiving wood, so hard it makes her groan. 

Yeah, she decides. I think I have to try the jealousy angle. 

The Jealousy Angle​​™ goes something like this: 

“Wow, hair down tonight Dr. King, you going somewhere fancy?” Trinity says as the two of them plus Langdon are by the lockers after a particularly exhausting shift. Her hair had come undone during her last case for the evening, a little girl who had liked tugging on her hair tie, and she hadn’t bothered to put it back up since all she was doing after this was getting ice cream with Becca. 

Langdon freezes where he’s standing next to her though, she can almost feel it against her arm, so she doesn’t say any of that. 

“Ice cream date,” she says. If either of them pick up on the uncertain note in her tone they don’t mention it. Trinity grins brilliantly at her and Langdon does the opposite but stays silent even as Trinity tries to ask her questions she refuses to answer. 

When she leaves a minute later, Langdon still hasn’t changed his shoes. 

Two weeks after that both her and Langdon are working a rare night shift together when Dr. Shen, very loudly from across the floor, calls out to her. Her and Langdon are just existing pedes when they hear a “hey Dr. King, are we still on for breakfast later?”

Langdon walks into a table immediately. 

The breakfast in question is Dr. Shen wanting to hear Mel’s thoughts on the golden age of Indian medicine. She’s not exactly sure why he wants to hear them, but she has a lot of them and he’s apparently, according to Mateo, been asking a lot of doctors different questions about the history of medicine so it’s not like Mel feels singled out, which is nice. It’s also why she’d agreed. They’re going to have protein bars on the roof. 

“I think it’s like a bonding exercise for him,” Donnie had said when Mel asked him about it. 

Dr. Shen must’ve not asked Langdon about it yet, given how shocked he looks as his eyes flit between Mel and Dr. Shen, hand grabbing his side from where he must’ve hit the table. 

She wants to drag him away into an empty patient room just so she can sink to her knees, pull his scrub shirt up so she can see the bruise it’s going to leave and taste it with her tongue. 

But that’s not an option, so instead she just shouts a “yeah, sure. I’ll meet you there.” back at Dr. Shen before going back to volunteer herself to work chairs, just so she can shake the thought of Langdon grinning down at her as she’s on her knees out of her head.

It’s a long shift after that.

It’s another two weeks later when a patient she and Langdon are working on together asks her out just as she’s finishing up his stitches. Langdon’s hovering in the door, as he tends to do, when the thirty-something guy who’s in town for an engineering conference grins her, wide and bright white teeth on display, and says “I know this is probably bad form, but would you want to get dinner tonight?”

Langdon’s breath hitches behind her, likely unnoticeable to anyone who wasn't her. He doesn’t say anything and Mel’s not sure if it’s because he’s letting her handle it or if he wants to hear her answer too. 

She doesn’t know which alternative she would prefer. 

“I’m sorry,” she says and tries to soften the blow with a smile of her own. “I don’t think that would be fair. My schedule’s pretty hectic here so I don’t know when I’d find the time. Also, I have plans tonight.”

I’m also pretty sure I’m in love with the guy standing ten feet behind me. Tell me, is he looking jealous right now? 

She doesn’t say that obviously but she really, really wants to. 

Her plans for the night is another pilates class with Samira before they’re having dinner at Samira’s place, but neither this guy or Langdon know that. 

The engineering guy takes it in stride and keeps chatting with her as she reminds him to have his stitches taken out in around two weeks and then she’s walking out of Central Eleven only to realise Langdon had left at some point because he’s already standing over at the nurses’ desk saying something snarky to Dana. 

She doesn’t know how to interpret that. She’ll ask Samira later. 

(However, she doesn’t get the chance to ask Samira about it because when they meet up at the building for pilates it takes Samira all of five minutes of them putting their shoes on to tell Mel that her and Dr. Abbot, Jack she calls him now, had marathon sex for seven hours the night before and they’re going to see where that goes. They ditch pilates and instead spends the rest of the night debriefing that entire experience and they most certainly do not pass the Bechdel test this time. Talking so openly about other people’s sex lives would’ve made her wildly uncomfortable a year ago, but with Samira it’s become more digestible. She’s not sure she likes knowing that Dr. Abbot is capable of having marathon sex though, but at least it’s for Samira’s benefit.

Mel still avoids looking him in the eye for their next shift together and she’s pretty sure he does the same to her.) 

It all comes to a head three weeks after Samira and Dr. Abbot got together as Mel calls it, when a paramedic starts to pretty openly flirt with her after dropping off a patient. It’s making her part uncomfortable and part just wanting to go check on the patient, even if she knows Dr. Collins and Santos are taking great care of him. This is a colleague though, in a roundabout kind of way, so Mel’s not really sure how to shut this down without making it awkward. She lets him put his number into her phone with no intention to ever call him and only feels a little guilty about it.

She clocks Langdon coming out of the stairwell the second he does it, but she doesn’t know how long he’s been standing inside. How much he might’ve heard. 

Still, she sees an out and she’s going to grab it with both hands. 

“Dr. Langdon! Do you need me for something?” 

I need you, from over a year ago now, is dug out of her subconscious and pushed through to the forefront of her mind immediately and she can feel herself flush. 

Langdon’s looking between her and the paramedic (Lance, Mel thinks maybe his name is) for a second before something settles in his eyes. It looks a whole lot like determination. His jaw tenses. 

Bite, bite, bite Mel thinks and flushes even more.

“Yes actually, patient in reception. I could use an extra set of hands.” 

Mel tries very hard to not think about how that would get her the furthest way possible away from maybe-Lance. She also tries very hard not to think about how that’s the move she’d pulled on him on his first day back, wedding ring gone from his finger and nervousness obvious even to Mel. 

The ‘I could use an extra set of hands for this procedure that you and I both know only requires one of us’- move. 

“Sure thing, Dr. Langdon,” she says and moves to follow him. Then, stopping herself, she turns back to maybe-Lance and says “it was nice talking to you.” 

It wasn’t really but she sees Langdon’s hand flex at his side as they walk past the nurses’ desk and there’s something so Jane Austen about it she almost swoons right then and there. Which would also be very Jane Austen of her. 

Langdon doesn’t head for the reception though. Instead, he walks both of them into the break room and closes the door behind her so quickly that one second she’s delighting in the fact that his ‘I could use an extra set of hands for this procedure that you and I both know only requires one of us’- move actually seems to have been a move and the next she’s pressed up between him and the door. His bicep is flexing besides her head from where he pushed the door shut. 

Her breath catches as he looks at her for a long moment. His jaw is tense again and Mel stares at it trying very hard not to reach out and feel it in her palm. 

Mercifully, he pulls back a second later and the air flying in to fill the sudden vacuum between them jumpstarts her brain back online. 

“Are you going to call him?” Langdon says, only just slightly above a whisper. 

She blinks. “Who?” 

“The paramedic,” he clarifies and suddenly avoids looking at her. “The one who just gave you his number." 

“Oh, Lance?”

Langdon winces as soon as she says it. 

Now, Mel takes a second to consider her choices. She knows Samira would want her to say yes here, but something about the way Langdon looks has her hesitating. It wouldn’t be a half-truth this time, she’d be outright lying. She’s pretty sure she’s never going to think about Lance ever again. 

“He wanted to grab dinner on Saturday,” she continues just to buy herself some more time. 

She regrets it when she sees how absolutely devastated he looks suddenly. The way his face falls, shoulders dropping. He has to lean himself back on the counter to keep himself upright. 

“That’s nice,” he says, voice shaky. “I’m happy for you. I’ll tell Tanner and Isabel something came up, don’t worry.” 

Now it’s Mel’s turn to freeze in her spot. Tanner and Isabel. 

They’re going to the zoo this Saturday, Tanner is going through a new phase where he’s obsessed with giraffes and Becca has dance practice so it’ll just be the four of them this time, something Mel had mildly worried about until she splashed some cold water on her face in the bathroom for five minutes straight after Langdon had asked her. 

It’s not a date, she had sternly told herself. She’d still been largely unsuccessful in keeping the butterflies in her stomach away and put it in her journal anyway. 

“Well, obviously I’m not going,”

Langdon whips his face up to look at her. “You’re not?”

Her heart breaks a little in her chest. How could he ever think she’d choose some random date over his kids?

“Langdon, you have to know I’d choose you, Tanner, and Isabel at every turn, right? You’re some of my favorite people in the world.” 

Langdon just stares at her disbelief and something dies in Mel’s stomach. Maybe it’s the butterflies. 

Oh no, she realises. I might’ve taken this too far. 

“Here,” she says and hands him her phone. “Unlock it.” 

His hands are shaking when he does, knowing her and Becca’s birthday by heart. Sometimes she feels her love for him threatening to bleed out of her, spilling out of her mouth every time they talk. Right now is no different. 

It opens on maybe-Lance’s contact and Langdon looks slightly pained again as he looks at her, question unspoken. 

“Delete it.” she tells him, and he only pauses for a second before he does. 

They stand there for a minute, Langdon looking down at something on her phone and Mel looking at him.

Eventually, he pushes himself off the counter and rushes out of the room before Mel can even blink, saying something about needing a minute before the door closes behind him. He leaves her phone on the counter and when Mel picks it back up she sees the screen open on Langdon’s contact instead. 

‘Lance’ and ‘Langdon’ would be right next to each other, so that’s not necessarily weird. It’s more so the fact that at some point Langdon must’ve pressed the photo she has assigned his number open because staring back at her is a picture of all five of them from a picnic months ago now. Isabel’s sitting in Langdon’s lap as Tanner has his arms wrapped around Mel as he’s standing behind her and Becca’s sitting in between Langdon and her. Abby had been called out of state for some publishing event so Langdon had gotten an extra day to spend with them and he‘d asked Mel and Becca to tag along. A young girl had asked them if they wanted her to take a photo of them and Tanner had practically begged them to take it. 

Langdon wouldn’t ever tell anyone this, but he’s a sucker for his son’s wishes. Mel too, to a lesser extent, but she’s a sucker for Langdon’s, so. There hadn’t been any reason to object when Becca had also agreed to it. 

She doesn’t have time to freak out over his reaction because from across the room, sitting in the corner, Samira says “I take it The Jealousy Angle​​™ isn't working then?” 

Mel turns and stares at her in shock. 

Had she been there the whole time? Oh my god, how hadn’t she noticed? Had Langdon noticed? 

“Samira,” she breathes. “I think I might’ve taken it too far.” 

“Yeah, he looked pretty shaken. Let’s debrief on Thursday, I’ll bring Jack. We might need a man’s perspective.” 

“Do you think he could drive me home after?” 

“Sure, he’ll do it if I ask. Why, Uber money starting to run out?” 

Mel winces then. She doesn’t know, suddenly. Can she ask Langdon now? Maybe it’s good to have a contingency plan put in place just in case. 

“Something like that.” 

On Thursday, after she goes through every single part of The Jealousy Angle​​™ at length with Dr. Abbot - Jack, Samira insists- he spends half an hour trying to grasp the fact that she even likes Langdon in the first place. She’s mildly offended on Langdon’s behalf until Dr. Abbot- Jack- clarifies that he’s just very surprised. 

“Obviously he likes you King, I’m just surprised you like him back because I would assume if you did, you’d be together.” 

Which is wildly unhelpful but somehow also assuring. She’ll sort out what that means later. 

The next hour is spent trying to figure out a course correction after they call time of death on the whole The Jealousy Angle​​™ thing. 

“It might’ve worked for you Samira, but I think Langdon’s pretty different from Jack,” she says. 

It's like she’d dropped a bomb on their now three-person booth. 

“You were actively trying to make me jealous?” Jack laughs, almost gleefully. 

“Thanks a lot Mel.” Samira grumbles. 

“You’re welcome,” then. “I think we’re going to need more drinks.” 

She leaves them to go up to the bartender and takes just a little pleasure in Samira’s attempts to defend her actions as Jack just keeps laughing. Mel can see the mirth in his eyes all the way from the barstool she’s sitting on waiting for their drinks. 

It’s still a little weird, seeing Dr. Abbot like this. They’d danced around each other for the first couple of weeks after him and Samira got together, both of them a bit unsure of how to adapt to this new dynamic. It had taken Samira and Mel ambushing him once by the lockers on a quiet night shift for them to get over it. 

(Mel is sure Samira would’ve ambushed her as well if she didn’t know Mel as well as she does.) 

They’re good together, Mel thinks. As she watches them now, she’s happy for them. Samira mostly, of course, but Jack too. She thinks they’re good for each other. 

She wishes Langdon were here though. She misses him like a phantom limb sometimes in moments like these, when she thinks he should be here by her side but he just isn’t. 

Time to get a new game plan. 

Things get better between them after that. 

She stops referring to things as dates which eases a lot of tension between them almost immediately and Mel punches Samira on the shoulder for even suggesting it at their next get together. They start going out for coffee after shifts before Langdon drives her either home or to Becca, or both. Mel starts to very tentatively push the boundaries on the nights when she sleeps at his place, sometimes falling asleep on his shoulder if they’re watching a movie or letting him fall asleep in her lap while she massages his scalp, trying to relieve some of the tension he’s built up. She won’t wake him up, and she is cautiously optimistic about what his reasons for not waking her up might be. 

She still hasn’t managed to figure out a new game plan when Langdon shows up at her doorstep in the middle of the night one day in May looking like he’s been put through five MCI’s all at once. 

“Langdon?” she says, surprise evident. “What are you doing here?” 

Becca’s already asleep in her room and Mel was just about to get to bed herself when she’d heard the sharp knocks on her front door. She hadn’t been expecting visitors so she’s a bit regretful that he’s currently standing in front of her while she’s wearing nothing more than a pair of shorts and a loose-fitting t-shirt with her med school logo on it. He doesn’t really seem to see her though, so it probably doesn’t matter. 

“Take these,” he says breathlessly and pushes a plastic bag of pills, benzodiazepines presumably, into her hands. 

Mel freezes for only a second before throwing them in the trash can right next to the door and grasping onto his outstretched arm to pull him over her threshold, closing the door behind them. 

“Where did you get them?” 

Langdon exhales slowly. “One of Abby’s uncles gave it to me yesterday at Isabel’s birthday party. Abby must not have told him about the ‘drug addiction being a reason for our divorce’ thing because he just saw my back twinging after I carried Isabel around for a bit and gave them to me and said that he had a few spares, told me I could have them and I didn’t say no.” 

He sounds so heartbroken about it Mel feels like it’s her own heart breaking in her chest. It probably is.

“Did you take any?” She has to ask and hates herself for it. 

“No,” he exhales again. “But I could’ve, and that feels equally horrible.” 

Mel inhales for four seconds, holds for four, exhales. She believes him. When she’s done Langdon still isn’t looking at her. 

“Why did you come here?” she says, carefully as to not spook him. “Why did you come to me?” 

He looks up at her then, finally. “Abby’s staying a few days longer with the kids at her parents’ so I couldn’t get to the kids and I just-” he cuts himself off, considers something, and then sags into her arms. “I needed to see what I’d be losing, Mel.” Then, much quieter as if he doesn’t want her to hear, he adds “Sweetheart.”

Mel holds onto him just as much as he’s holding onto her and thinks, nonsensically, oh. We’ve made it back to the shore. 

She doesn’t know what to say. The moment feels too precarious and Langdon’s shaking with sobs in her arms so badly she thinks saying the wrong words might send him off of a ledge. She needs to think, and right now she can’t focus on anything besides her base instinct to make sure he’s okay. 

“Let’s go to bed,” she says and it’s a true testament to how out of it he is that he doesn’t refuse, doesn’t insist on taking the couch. Instead he stays still as Mel pushes the jacket off of him and lets her walk them over to her bedroom, standing still as Mel closes her bedroom door behind him and pulls him slowly over before sitting him down on the side of her bed. 

Langdon doesn’t react as she steps closer, as she reaches out to comb his hair out of his face. He doesn’t react as she tries to talk to him, tries to assure him that it’s a good thing he came to her. He’s almost catatonic as he just stares at Mel’s stomach as if he can see right through it. 

How much energy had he expended by coming over to her? By spending twenty four hours being in possession of the same substance that had once taken everything from him? 

Then, suddenly, he lets his head fall forward and presses his forehead into her stomach instead. Mel can hear him breathe deeply as his shoulders shakes but she can’t tell if he’s crying again or if it’s just his body tensing over and over again. Either way, she uses one hand to press him closer and keeps running her other one through his hair in hopes it’ll soothe him, calm him down. 

It’s a true testament to how secure he always makes her feel that it doesn’t become too much for her. She doesn’t know how long they stay there, could be minutes, could be years, but eventually he starts to go completely still. It takes her another minute to realise he’s fallen asleep sitting up. 

She moves him carefully so he’s lying down on top of her comforter, on her king-sized bed, without waking him up. He’s heavy in sleep but Mel’s need to make sure he’s comfortable is stronger. She watches him for a moment, his face finally anxiety- free before tiptoeing out of the room and down the hall, towards the trash can by the door. She grabs the pills quickly and stares down at them, white and unassuming. 

She sees benzodiazepines every day at work. They’re harmless most of the time. Very effective for pain management. She could swallow these right now and be fine. 

But as she looks down at them now, at these specific ones, all she can see is destruction. 

Jerkily she rushes over to Becca’s bathroom, the one further away from Mel’s own bedroom, and dumps the pills down the toilet. She hears them breach the surface tension and flushes before they fully land at the bottom. 

When the world goes quiet around her again, she slides down the wall and lets the cold tiles underneath her bare legs keep her from floating away. 

He didn’t take any, she repeats to herself. He’s fine, he didn’t take any. He was around them for a whole day and he didn’t take any. He came to you. He came to you. He came to you. 

How much must he have been hurting, for him to show up like this and fall apart in her arms. How hard must he have been trying to keep himself in control around her? They see each other almost every day. 

Then, unbidden, she thinks why did it take him twenty four hours to get to me? 

She shakes herself out of it and stumbles back to her own bedroom with an urgent need to confirm he’s still there, that he’s still safe. When she walks back in she sees him in the same position she left him in, a slight frown on his face. 

She already knows she’s not getting any sleep tonight when she shuffles in beside him and leans back slightly against the headboard, careful not to wake him. She can see his face as it’s angled towards her and she takes a minute to study it, allowed in a way she so rarely feels like she is. 

Because she knows, doesn’t she? Has known for a while now. Since maybe-Lance definitely, probably ever since Abby let Mel meet her kids for the first time without feeling the need to also be there. She’s felt it every time he came to pick her up after girls night and every time she’s felt his eyes on her in the Pitt. 

She knows he loves her just as much as she loves him. She just can’t figure out why he’s holding himself back. Surely he must know she loves him too? She trusts him with Becca, she loves his kids. It’s him keeping her away. 

God, this is such a horrible time for Mel to come to terms with this. She doesn’t need anybody else to tell her that. 

But then Langdon starts grumbling something in his sleep sounding agitated and Mel feels hopeless as she reaches out and lifts his head so he can lean it against her stomach instead and he calms down immediately and oh. 

Jesus christ. 

She doesn’t dare to breathe for a moment as he makes himself comfortable and she lets him. She counts to ten in her mind five times, a calming ritual she learned from Robby about a month after Langdon went to rehab and he wasn’t there with a dog in the break room to calm her down, before she dares herself to reach her hand down to brush his hair back from his forehead from where sweat has made it stick to his skin.

It’s kind of heartbreaking, the way he leans into her touch immediately, subconsciously. 

Then, because Frank Langdon has always had this uncanny ability to throw Melissa King’s life for a loop whenever he’s close to her, he starts mumbling in his sleep. 

“Baby,” he murmurs. “Baby, please don’t go.” 

Silence fills Mel’s bedroom instantly, Langdon’s voice as loud as a jet engine in her ears. Is he calling her baby? Her hands freeze in his hair but Langdon’s not done.

“Baby, sweetheart, I’m sorry.”

Mel has to check if he’s woken up but his eyes are still closed as he whispers “selfish, selfish, don’t be selfish Frank,” against the fabric of her t-shirt just above her belly button. 

Maybe she’s finally going insane. 

She can’t make any sense of his words. Mel wishes he was more selfish, maybe then they wouldn’t be existing in this weird in-between right now where everyone at work jokes about them being married every day but he won’t look at her sometimes even if they’re in the same room. This in-between where Mel keeps sleeping over in his guest room and everything will be fine but then sometimes it’s like he’ll catch himself and put distance back in between them. This in-between where Garcia calls her ER Barbie and will look at Langdon very pointedly as if waiting for him to react but he never does. 

This in-between where he’ll walk into tables at the implication Mel is going on dates but won’t do anything to stop her. This in-between where he’ll take punches meant for her and buy her coffee and treat her better than any of her ex-boyfriends ever did but still won’t let Mel get too close. It’s maddening. 

It’s not like Mel hasn’t been doing anything for him in return. Christ, she told him about her dad. She loves Tanner and Isabel so much because she knows how much they mean to him, and she made it a point to have him delete maybe-Lance’s number so that he could see she valued him above anyone else. She keeps trying to push the boundaries of their friendship, Langdon’s the one who keeps putting up walls. 

And now he’s here, choosing her over pills, trusting her with his sobriety, and she has no idea what any of it means. 

He calms down when Mel starts running a thumb over his cheekbone, going quiet not too long after. The lines on his forehead smoothen out fully twenty minutes later. 

Mel knows this, because she doesn’t stop looking at him for a long time. 

She doesn’t fall asleep until three hours later, and she hasn’t figured anything out at all by then either. 

Langdon’s not in bed with her when she wakes up which makes Mel panic for all of the thirty seconds it takes for her to shoot up from her bed and run down the hall towards the front door and sees him sitting in her kitchen, shirtless. He has his back to her but turns after most likely hearing her sprinting against her hardwood floor, which means he catches her as Mel’s eyes are tracing the curve of his spine without her having any control over them. 

It’s a nice back, she thinks miserably. It’s a shame it’s caused him so many problems. 

“Hello,” he sounds a bit sheepish. “I dropped Becca off at the center this morning because I didn’t want to wake you and she really didn’t want to miss dance practice, I hope that was okay.” 

“You left to drop Becca off at dance practice and came back?” 

Langdon winces. “Yeah, uhm. I didn’t want you to wake up and Becca just being gone.” 

She looks outside where the sun is high in the sky already. “What time is it?”

“A bit past noon.” 

“Okay,” she breathes. “That’s- okay. Thank you for doing that.” 

His laugh is devoid of any humor. “I don’t think you’re the one who should be thanking me today.” 

All she hears is selfish, selfish, don’t be selfish Frank but she doesn’t know how to talk to him about that yet. He still looks unnerved as Mel takes a few tentative steps towards him but him even being here has to mean something, right?

“No I think I am,” she argues. “You took care of my sister and let me sleep in. You’re making me tea as we speak,” she nods towards where the kettle is turned on, about to boil any second. He must’ve put it on when he heard her open her door. “And you came to me yesterday when you could’ve gone somewhere else. Why wouldn’t I thank you?” 

“You must’ve had other plans today instead of having to take care of me and my mess,” he shrugs, and oh. 

Selfish, selfish, don’t be selfish Frank.

“Frank Langdon,” she says very carefully as she walks over to jump up on the counter right next to where he’s standing. This close she can see his fists clenched at his side that Mel bumps her leg against when she pushes her body up to land on the marble stone. “Do you think you are in any way, shape, or form a burden to me?”

Next to her, Langdon exhales loudly but doesn’t answer. 

Oh my god. 

If this was any other time, Mel might’ve reached over and pulled him to kiss him, would’ve pressed words into his skin that she’s been carrying inside herself for almost a year now. Would’ve left marks on his skin to make Langdon remember just how wanted he is, how much she wants him. 

It kind of kills her, that she can’t. Not the morning after he almost relapsed and came to her so out of it he disassociated right in her bedroom. 

“Aren’t I?” he whispers, and a part of Mel dies, just a little bit. It’s like she’s turned around a corner on a peaceful walk around the city only to see a car crash in front of her that she hadn’t seen coming. 

She reaches both her hands out in front of her but Langdon doesn’t move. When she tries to look him in the eye he looks away. When she bumps her leg against his side again he winces. 

She grasps his jaw in a firm grip and forces his face back towards hers as he inhales in surprise and Mel’s not going to give him the opportunity to look away again. 

“I swear to god, Langdon. I need you to hug me. You scared me last night, and I need you to come here so that I can make sure you’re fine.” 

Need. It’s like she’s said the magic word by the way he immediately folds into her. Mel moves her thighs so he’s standing in between them before she pulls at his head to have it rest at the juncture of her neck and collarbone. She doesn’t even need to use her hand to have him pressing in close, so close she can feel his breaths against her jugular. 

His arms wrap around her a moment later and Mel feels so relieved she feels like she could fly with it. 

They stay there for a while, just breathing together. They’re so close Mel can feel Langdon’s heart pound beneath her own. In other circumstances she’d be worried he’s going into tachycardia. 

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he whispers into her neck after a while. “I just wanted to see you.” 

“That’s okay,” she whispers back into his hair. “I always want to see you too. No matter the circumstances.” 

Frank exhales but doesn’t reply. 

“I’m okay with being scared Langdon. I’m a big girl. If you ever do something I’m uncomfortable with I’ll tell you.” 

Another exhale. “I don’t want to hurt you Mel. I wouldn’t be able to stand it.” 

“You’ve never hurt me, even all these months you’ve spent keeping me at arms length. I don’t know why you’ve done it and you don’t have to explain it to me before you’re ready but even then, you never hurt me. It stung, sure, and I’ve been confused but you’re one of the most important people in my life. I am a doctor, Langdon, do you think it’s news to me that you’re a recovering drug addict?”

“It’s different, knowing and seeing. I didn’t want you to see me like that.” 

“Like what? Like you were strong enough and secure enough in your recovery to not give into temptation when you had the pills in your hand?” 

He looks up at her then, wrenching his face away from her neck. His arms still around her is the only thing keeping her from panicking. 

“You think what I was last night was strong?" 

“I think what you were last night was a man who was handed his first real risk at relapsing in over a year and instead of following through, you came to me.”

“We work in a hospital Mel, I’ve run the risk of relapsing every day since I came back.”

“To an extent, yes. I know it’s been an everyday struggle for you, I’m not denying that. But at work you have a whole support system with you every single step you take. You have me, and McKay, and Dana, and everyone else who cares about you even half as much as I do. I know you want to deny it, but you have Robby too.” 

Mel presses a finger to his lips when he, rather predictably, goes to argue. 

“Yesterday, you had no one around you. Nobody who’s been with you at every turn since you came back. You weren’t near any of us, and what you did when you got the pills in your hands was drive back to me. Do you know how loved that makes me feel?” 

Langdon falters but Mel presses on. 

“You think you’re a burden to me? Langdon, you’re the only one, the only one, I have in my life that I know I have in my corner no matter what happens. I love Becca, and Becca loves me, but I can’t rely on her the way she relies on me. You act as if you’re something that’s constantly dragging me down but you couldn’t be more wrong. You’re the pillar holding me up.”

When he still doesn’t say anything she moves so she can rest her chin on his hair. “You don’t even realise, do you? There’s plenty of things you would lose if you would’ve swallowed those pills yesterday Langdon, but you wouldn’t lose me.” 

This time when he exhales, Mel can actually see the weight of it leave him in the way the tension leaves his shoulders and he sobs into her neck. Can feel it in the way his arms tighten around her and the way she leans into her touch when she starts rubbing circles into his posterior. 

She feels something loosen in her chest too when he eventually goes lax against her. 

My man, she thinks. How have you been treating yourself?

They pick Becca up after lunch to go walk around Highland Park for a while, all three of them benefitting from some fresh air. Becca, of course, is more focused on showing Langdon all the different types of flowers and explaining what they mean than anything else and Langdon lets her. 

Becca has him eating out of the palm of her hand sometimes, and it does nothing to mitigate the fact that Mel almost gets dizzy with how much she wants him every time it happens. 

Mel convinces Langdon to stay over for another night by shamelessly using Becca as an excuse, citing the fact that it’s been too long since all three of us watched Elf together. Becca nods as Mel says this, very predictably, and Langdon relents eventually. 

They order pizza and watch Elf and when Becca heads to her room to talk to a friend of hers on the phone, Langdon turns to Mel, says “I’ve got something for you,” and pushes his one year sobriety chip into her hands. 

She blanches. 

“This isn’t because of last night. Honestly I wanted to give this to you as soon as I got it, but I got a bit, well, scared.” He shrugs. As if this isn’t a huge deal. As if neither of them fully understand how monumental this is. 

But of course they do. 

Mel doesn’t know what to say. She knows she says something when he smiles at her and she knows they must be the right words when, later, he doesn’t even argue about the couch, just follows her to her bedroom when she holds her hand out. She must have said something, but she can’t hear it over the waves crashing in the background as she looks at him, safe and sound on her couch. 

She wants to keep him there forever.

She knows whatever she said was the right thing when, even as he insists on sleeping on top of the covers, he reaches his arm out towards her and lets her tuck herself in under his arm, face into his neck. 

Knows it’s the right thing when, just as she’s about to be pulled under, she hears him call her baby under his breath before kissing her forehead. 

Yeah. This is definitely the right thing. It’s the most right thing in her entire life. 

Whatever walls Langdon had been putting up between them were knocked down after that. 

He’s back to being all over her at work, which he had never really stopped being but now he lets her see it again. Mel had gotten so used to missing it, missing him, even when they were in the same room together that it’s almost disorienting, the first week he does it. Lets her back in. 

Langdon’s all “Mel, with me!” and “Mel can do it.” and “Dr. King is an excellent doctor, you couldn’t be in better hands.” He’s all “Mel, do you want to have lunch on the roof today?” and “could someone page Dr. King, I want to consult with her,” in a way that has the new PGY-1’s thinking she’s some kind of medical prodigy just because of how much he asks for her. 

Dana’s delighted. Mel can’t be sure why exactly but she has a pretty good guess and tries not to think too much about it or she'll go place a bet herself. She’s pretty sure that’d be considered interference, or something. 

Samira notices too, of course. Obviously. 

“He gave you his sobriety chip?” she’d practically screamed when Mel told her, pulling down her shirt to show where she’d turned into a necklace so she could keep it on at work underneath her scrubs. When she had shown Langdon on one of those aforementioned lunches on the roof he’d stumbled back so hard he’d nearly fallen off the building. Mel had had to catch him and everything. 

Which, it’s not like she wants Langdon to fall off a building, but it had been pretty nice to see that her showing him a bit of cleavage had that effect on him. 

The next three months are a whirlwind of Mel falling more and more in love with Langdon every day in ways she didn’t even know existed. He wears a baseball cap one day when they’re with Abby at one of Tanner’s soccer games and Mel nearly falls on her face when she spots him. Abby just looks at her for a long moment before grinning and Mel turns away from her before her face can reveal anything else without her consent.

One day when a mother comes in in acute respiratory failure and Langdon’s a bit too late to work the case, Collins and Samira already on it, he sits with her son and competes with him in throwing jelly beans up in the air and trying to catch it with their mouths. It shouldn’t be as attractive as it is but Mel has to take a breather before she can go back to her patient in North Two anyways. 

Samira finds all of this hilarious. 

“Clock’s ticking,” she says at another one of their girls nights. Langdon’s coming to pick her up in an hour, but that’s something Samira still doesn’t know about. 

Oh, and Jack’s there. He started to crash their nights a few weeks back, but it’s okay, Mel forgives him. She’s planning to start crashing their dates in about two weeks time and we’ll see how forgiving he is then. 

“For what?”

“For you to get together with Langdon before he becomes an attending. As it stands, it looks like we’re gonna have to pass the baton onto you guys.”

Mel glares at her as Samira grins. She can see her and Jack holding hands under the table and she’s willing to bet their ankles are overlapping too. Mel’s really happy for her, she is, but she doesn’t want to talk about Langdon becoming an attending right as they’re getting back to stable ground in their relationship so, instead, she turns to Dr. Abbot. 

“So, Jack, has Samira told you about the time she wallowed to me at this very table because she thought, and I quote, his arms are obscene?” 

Samira punches her shoulder as Jack smirks at her. “Oh, really?” 

“This isn’t fair.” Samira grumbles. “I can’t use any of the blackmail material I have on you because you and Langdon won’t get your shit together. Now all I’m going to hear about for the next month is jabs about his arms.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous ‘Mira,” Jack says, leaning into her. “Two weeks tops.” 

Mel leaves the booth about five seconds before he leans in to bite Samira’s earlobe. She really doesn’t need to see that. 

The final puzzle piece that Mel has kept an eye out for since the night before Highland Park comes to her on an unassuming Tuesday shift in August when Robby pulls Langdon aside as he and Santos are working a case together. Mel had been watching them from where she’s filling in a patient’s chart with updated information when she catches Robby looking at her funny out of the corner of her eye before stalking over to where Langdon’s sitting by the bed and pulling him aside. This confuses even Santos’ because there’s no logical reason for Robby to pull the more senior resident off a case for no reason,

So, it’s not really Mel’s fault that she watches them go back towards the stairwell by the ambulance bay. That, as soon as they’re out of sight, she follows them only to stop where they can’t see her there. 

It’s not her fault, but her blood still freezes in her veins when she hears Robby ask Langdon if they’re romantically involved. 

It takes Langdon a while to reply, and Mel desperately wants to see his face, wants to at least try and gauge his reaction to the question.

Then, 

“I’m not being selfish with her if that's what you're asking, and I'm not trying to trade my addiction to benzos for a new addiction to her. She’s too important. We’re just friends, Robby. I don't know how she feels about me, but she’s my best friend.” 

Mel almost speedwalks in her haste to get away from the wall. When she gets to Dana she asks her for a patient, any patient, and sighs in relief when Dana just looks at her funny for a moment before handing her a male in his late thirties with a head lac and pretty obvious anxiety over it in South Sixteen. When she’s out of the room ten minutes later to get a suture kit she sees Langdon come back onto the floor and she rushes, almost trips over her own feet, towards him to pretend she needs a patient consultation. 

When they finish up South Sixteen and send the patient home with a prescription of Prozac and instructions to come back in ten days and Langdon asks her if she lied, she smiles conspiratorially. 

They’re standing by the bathrooms, only partially shielded by the Trauma bays and Princess and Perlah’s prying eyes, when Langdon spins on his heel and Mel almost walks into his chest. 

“I thought you didn’t like lying?” he grins down at her. They’re standing so close now it makes her head spin, just a little, but she’s not willing to step back. He isn’t either. 

“I think you’ll find there are very few lengths I wouldn’t go to to make you smile, Frank Langdon.”

Mel feels like she’s flying when Langdon throws his head back and laughs loudly. His neck is right there and she has to once again stop herself from reaching out to touch touch touch. It would fit so nicely in her hand, she’s sure of it. 

“What would I do without you, Melissa King?” 

“Well, for one,” Mel reaches up to pat his cheek, startling him a little. “You’d starve. Becca wants to come over tonight for dinner. In thanks she’ll let you do the dishes afterwards.” 

Langdon leans into her touch, a blink and you’ll miss it move really, but Mel doesn’t miss anything about Frank Langdon. “Dinner with the King sisters and I get to do the dishes? How could I ever turn you down?” 

“Let’s hope we never find out,” she says and leaves him behind her as she cuts through Trauma Two. She doesn’t turn to look back, but Donnie comes up to ask her if Dr. Langdon spending five minutes in the bathroom splashing cold water onto his face had anything to do with her. 

It feels rewarding enough. 

It’s not until they’ve gone to bed and Langdon’s fallen asleep, one arm thrown protectively over Mel’s stomach, that Mel lets her brain start putting the pieces together. 

(Langdon had agreed to start sleeping under the covers with her just three weeks ago! Big progress was happening. Samira was very proud and Jack had been mildly impressed. Not with her, he’d said, but with Langdon for ‘being able to still hold out’. Samira had punched him in Mel and Langdon’s honour but then Mel had seen them make out for a bit before Jack even started his car half an hour later as they were leaving so Mel was unsure of how serious she was about that. Anyway, Langdon is in her bed under the covers. Can she get some applause?) 

She falls asleep before she can. It takes her two more weeks until she finally sees the full picture. 

It slams into her on one of the rare nights they don’t spend together because Langdon’s working the night shift and Mel should be asleep, exhausted from a particularly nasty shift of her own. There’s a thunderstorm terrorising Pittsburgh, reminiscent of the first time Langdon ever drove her home. There were two hours between her shift ending and his beginning which usually meant they’d try to grab a quick dinner/breakfast near the hospital before she borrowed his car to go back home and he’d take the bus to come pick it up in the morning. 

No such luck tonight, with the rain. He’d picked her up, drove her home in silence as she stared at the raindrops hitting his passenger window while he held her hand over the console and then made her tea before he had to drive back to start his shift. 

Domestic, domestic, domestic her brain had screamed at her as he’d pulled her into him by her neck and kissed her forehead before he left. 

It’s not even nine pm when she begins nodding off on the couch, trying to fight off sleep for at least another hour in an effort to try and get her circadian rhythm some semblance of consistency. Langdon’s only three hours into his twelve-hour shift by now, nine more hours to go, which means she can’t even try and call him for at least another two when he promised he’d try and go on a break. 

So her having no way to reach him seems to be the perfect time for her subconscious to start lobbing puzzle pieces at her left and right. She sits up so quickly she’s definitely gotten whiplash this time.

Selfish, selfish, don’t be selfish Frank. 

Baby, sweetheart, I’m sorry. 

Take care of me and my mess. 

I don’t want to hurt you Mel. I wouldn’t be able to stand it. 

I'm not trying to trade my addiction to benzos for a new addiction to her. She’s too important.

Then, at the same time, 

I don't know how she feels about me.

Oh. Oh my god.

My man, she remembers thinking four months ago. How have you been treating yourself?

Like a self-sacrificing idiot convinced he wants to die a martyr, apparently. 

She calls Samira as soon as she gets to Langdon’s apartment.

Her neighbour, bless him, had let Mel borrow his car when she’d come pounding on his door ten minutes past nine in her pajamas and hair undone. He’d been hesitant at first, advising her that maybe she shouldn’t drive in her state in this weather. Wasn’t that ironic? 

She’d said she was an ER doctor and “sir, as you will understand, they need all the help they can get. It’s an emergency! Please be a hero and let me borrow your car!” 

She’s an expert in half-truths. The Pitt probably would’ve loved it if she came in to help, but Mel wasn’t planning to. 

She had considered it though, just for a moment. Showing up at the ER, marching into the Pitt in her wellies and dragging Langdon into the break room where it had all begun to lay into him for all of their colleagues to see. Would serve him right, she’d thought. 

But then she realised three quite important things. One, that felt a bit too Grey’s Anatomy for her. Not like what she was planning to do instead wasn’t also a bit Grey’s Anatomy, but slightly less so. Two, if she kissed Langdon for the first time in the break room with the entire night shifts’ nurses’ desk pressed up against the door, Princess and Perlah might kill her. 

Third, she was kind of hoping to get laid within the next twelve hours or so. Doing that in the break room would probably be a bigger HR violation than Langdon touching her in the privacy of his home would be. 

So here she was, standing in Langdon’s empty apartment in her pajamas t-minus eight hours and twenty minutes until he gets off shift, probably another twenty minutes until he gets back, and all she knows is she cannot, under any circumstance, fall asleep. 

Hence, Samira. 

“Hello?” Samira groans into her microphone, clearly asleep. 

“I’m calling in my favour. The one I’ve been holding onto since day one.” 

“Damn, who died? ” 

“Langdon,” Mel says. Then, after Samira’s gasped herself wide awake, she adds “in about nine hours or so.” 

“Mel!” 

“Sorry, but Samira. I figured it out. His age gap thing.” 

Samira splutters. “His age gap thing???” 

“Yeah, like what his hangup is. Why we aren’t blissfully together yet. The thing stopping Jack from going after you at first was the age gap, right? I’ve figured out what’s stopping Langdon.” 

“Oh right, because I was gonna say. You’re only like three years apart.” 

“Samira, focus! How fast can you get here?” 

“Uh, where is here exactly?

“Langdon’s apartment, obviously.” 

“Nothing in this conversation can be described as obvious, Mel."  

“I’ll text you the address. Tell Jack I need you for the night.”

She puts the phone on speaker and texts Samira her location. 

“Oh, Jack’s not here. He went into work when the storm got worse,” she pauses for a second. “Oh, that’s pretty close, I can be there in ten, probably. Hey I live even closer to Langdon than you do, why do you think he’s never asked me to carpool to work with him?”

“Now is not the time, Samira. Put your clothes on and get here before I start stress baking.” 

“A late night phone call and you’re telling me to put my clothes on, aren’t you supposed to try and get me out of my clothes instead?” Samira says but Mel can hear her shuffling around in the background, presumably listening to Mel anyway. 

“I kind of hate that Jack has made you more inclined to make sexual jokes with me. Not in a ‘it-makes- me-uncomfortable” way but more in like a ‘I’m-really-happy-you’re-having-sex-on-the-regular-Samira-but-unfortunately-my-man-would-rather-make-himself-miserable-for-the-rest-of-time-instead-of-kissing-me-so-I’m-feeling-a-little-bit-left-out’ way.” 

There’s silence for a few seconds on the phone before Mel thinks she hears the sound of Samira’s fridge open. 

“That sounds very complicated, I think I’ll die if I don’t get the details. How many bottles of wine should I bring?” 

“Samira,” Mel chides. “You’re going to a recovering addict's house. I don’t care if it’s not from alcohol, we’re not drinking wine in Langdon’s house.”

“Right, I forgot, sorry,” the fridge closes in the background. “I’ve been awake for five minutes, I’m not thinking straight.” 

“I know, I’m not mad. I just really need you to get here so I can tell you how much of an idiot your fellow PGY-4 is.” 

“Attendings, Mel. We’re attendings now.” Mel pinches her forehead. “Has anyone ever told you you’re kinda hot when you go all protective like that. Langdon’s going to be a very lucky man soon.” 

“Yeah well Langdon could’ve been a very lucky man for like a year now. God, I’m going to strangle him when he gets home.”

“Do you want me to text Jack? I can have him give Langdon all the toughest cases in punishment.”

“Absolutely not. He’s going to need all the energy he can get once I get my hands on him.” 

“Oh wow,” Samira laughs. “Hey Mel, I’m in my car and I really shouldn’t drive in this weather while on the phone.” 

“Of course, text me when you get here, I’ll buzz you up,” Mel instructs her. “Remember to stop at every yellow.” 

“I will, I’ll see you in a bit.” 

It’s when the line goes dead that Mel realises she’s standing, alone, in Langdon’s house. As in, he’s not there. 

It’s not the first time, she’s had a key to his place ever since Abby trusted her alone with Isabel and Tanner. Apparently she’d told Langdon that it would make her feel safer if Mel had a key, just in case. She hadn’t wanted to make any assumptions but Langdon had been a little bit flushed as he told her the story so she hadn’t been able to stop herself from assuming anyway. 

But it is the first time she’s here without him knowing, which. Yeah. 

She’s halfway through digging out the ingredients for cinnamon rolls when the intercom buzzes. Three minutes later, Samira Mohan walks into Langdon’s house. 

“You know,” she says in the entryway as she’s taking her shoes off. “Jack and I were right. We are passing the baton to you guys. I can’t wait for your sordid love affair with a superior to begin.” 

“Langdon being an attending is probably the least sordid part of our relationship,” Mel takes her jacket and puts it on a hanger on the clothes rack next to their door before following her into the kitchen. “And Christ Samira, don’t call it a love affair either. He’s been divorced for almost two years.” 

“You’re stress baking already?” Samira says, the ingredients spread all around the counter. 

Mel rolls her eyes and walks over to crack the eggs. “You act as if you didn’t know I was going to do that already when I called you.”

“I love you so much, Melissa King,” Samira laughs. “Langdon’s a very lucky man.” 

“Why, because I’m stress baking at 10 PM in a thunderstorm?”

Samira jumps up on the counter. “Yeah, and because of everything else. Now show me what you’ve got, Paul Hollywood.” 

Melissa wrinkles her nose. “Who?” 

“Oh my god, I told him normal people don’t watch that show. Ignore it Mel, just a reference to some British show that Jack makes me watch sometimes.” 

“Okay,” Mel hands her a flat spatula, the one Isabel prefers to use when Mel and her bake together. Jesus. “But you have to help.” 

“Ugh,” Samira groans. “Dragged away from blissful sleep to do manual labour. You’re lucky I love you King.” 

“Yeah yeah, I love you too. Still, let’s not pretend you’re not plotting in your head as we speak how to see what the rest of Langdon’s apartment looks like.”

“Can’t a girl be curious? You spend so much time here yet I’ve never seen it. It’s like a whole other life you have.” 

Mel points towards the bowl before raising an eyebrow. “Start whisking or you’ll never see it.” 

Samira pauses only to put her hair up before turning to her, giving a mock salute. “Yes chef! Where do you need me, chef!” 

Mel stares at her for a few seconds before her facade breaks and she starts giggling furiously and Samira follows suit. 

T-minus seven and a half hours until Langdon gets back. She can stay up that long now that Samira’s here, for sure. 

“Wait, so his age gap thing is that he doesn’t think he deserves you?” Samira gasps, a glass or orange juice in her hands. 

Mel shows the last cinnamon roll into her mouth before throwing her hands in the air. “Right? Like hey, maybe just ask me? What does deserve even mean?” 

“I never would’ve guessed. He’s always so confident in the Pitt, bar those weird first couple of months. It’s only going to get worse now that he’s an attending.” 

Mel freezes, smile slipping slightly. “You think?” 

“Riiiiiight,” Samira drawls and smirks over her orange juice filled wine glass. “The competency kink. Yeah, that’s going to be bad for you for a while I think.” 

She groans. “I’d tell you that I really think you and I should know less about each other but at this point I think I’m in too deep.” 

“Hey, do you think we can make another batch? Langdon has kids, surely there’s more ingredients to go?” 

“Sure, what do you want? Brownies?”

Samira claps her hand as Mel grabs the egg carton out of the fridge again. 

T-minus six hours. They can definitely do this. 

“We need to let them cool on the counter anyway, Mel! Please show me around, please!”

“Fine, follow me.” Mel waves her and walks past the living room to the other side of the floor plan.

“Here’s the bathroom,” she waves at a normal looking bathroom with five sets of hand towels hanging by the sink. “Here’s Langdon’s study, which is more like storage space for Tanner and Isabel’s toys by now but my medical journals are in there too.” She waves to a normal looking study, she thinks. 

“Right,” Samira drawls from behind her. “Your medical journals.” 

“I’m not showing you the kids’ rooms because that feels weird.” 

“The kids,” Samira says again, very slowly. “Right, that makes sense.” 

Mel nods and walks past a third door. Samira taps her shoulder. “Hey, what’s in there?” 

“Oh, that’s Langdon’s bedroom.” Mel says and keeps walking. It takes her maybe five steps until Samira’s no longer right behind her. She turns around. 

“You’re not gonna show me Langdon’s bedroom either?”

Mel frowns. “Of course not. That feels like an invasion of his privacy. He doesn’t even know you’re in his home. ” 

Samira looks at her for a long moment. “Oh I get it, you’re feeling territorial. That’s fine.” 

“I’m not feeling territorial, ” Mel denies. It falls pretty flat since she’s realising in this very moment that she is feeling territorial. She doesn’t bother explaining further, opting instead to keep walking to the last door. “Anyway, here’s my bedroom. Well, it’s a guest room I guess, but this is where I sleep when I stay over.” She steps aside to let Samira in. 

“Uh, Mel?” Samira smiles. “Are you aware there’s like at least seven photos in here of you and Langdon with Becca and his kids?” 

“Of course I am, I’m the one who put them there.” 

Samira’s full on grinning now. “Langdon let you put pictures of yourself and your sister together with him and his kids in his guest room.” 

She says it like it’s a statement but Mel feels the need to answer anyway. 

“Well, like I said. I sleep here often.” 

Samira hums. “I’m just curious, which room is bigger, his or this one?” 

She doesn’t know where Samira’s going with this. “This one. Because the bed is bigger.” 

“Right,” Samira says again, still grinning. “That makes sense.”

Mel’s missing something here, that much is obvious, but she doesn’t have time or energy to dissect it right now. Instead she walks back to the kitchen. “The brownies should be cool enough now, let’s go try them.” 

Samira follows her without objecting, thank god. Small mercies. 

T-minus five hours and fifteen minutes. This has been easier than she thought. 

This is so much harder than I thought, Mel thinks, t-minus three hours until Langdon gets off-shift and roughly three and a half hours since they ate ten cinnamon buns each in a matter of thirty minutes. 

“You know,” Samira says as she’s struggling to keep herself awake on her side of the couch. “Maybe we could sleep just a little bit? Just for like, two hours or so. That still gives us plenty of time to strategise the riot act you’re going to read him.”

“I don’t understand what you just said besides proposing we should go sleep for a bit,” Mel says, already half asleep. “Come on, we can sleep in my bed.” 

It’s a testament to how tired they both are that Samira doesn’t question her usage of the word my. Instead, she just follows Mel as she drags them towards Mel’s bedroom. 

“I’d offer you some clothes to sleep in but I didn’t bring an overnight bag,” Mel says as soon as they get there. Samira’s already hit the mattress snoring so Mel figures she’ll be fine. She stumbles into Langdon’s bedroom and changes into one of his shirts, slowly and impressively uncoordinated, before walking back to Samira and dropping down beside her. 

Just for two hours, she thinks. It’ll be fine. 

Neither of them set an alarm. 

Langdon, before again

Langdon doesn’t know what he’s done in this life to deserve having to work during a thunderstorm without Mel King beside him, and he hopes to god he never has to find out. He supposes it might’ve been the divorce, but even then there’s plenty of divorced men in this country that didn’t suffer the same fate he had this shift so that would be a little bit unfair, he thinks. Garcia once called him the most divorced man in the continental United States, so maybe that’s why. 

Dr. Abbot had come in to help at the start of it, and Langdon has no idea how they would’ve survived without him. 

All this to say he can’t fucking wait to get back home and sleep it off. The storm’s turned into a light drizzle as he pulls into his parking lot and if he was less tired he’d probably notice the fact that Dr. Abbot’s car is parked three spots away from his. 

But he’s very tired, so. He doesn’t. 

However, he is not too tired to notice the unfamiliar boots laying haphazardly across his doormat that makes him stumble a little bit once he’s gotten his door open. Nor does he miss the unfamiliar jacket hanging off his clothes-rack. 

He also can’t miss the noises coming from Mel’s bedroom. 

Now a married man might think he’s stumbled home and is about to catch his wife cheating on him with some hot colleague from the wife's work. Langdon is very famously not married nor is he a part of the ensemble cast for Grey’s Anatomy, so he hadn’t expected to ever find himself in this scenario. 

He starts walking slowly towards Mel’s bedroom, as if not to disturb what’s going on in there. On the way he sees a half-eaten tin of brownies in kitchen but before he can try to figure out what kind of robber pauses to bake brownies in a stranger’s kitchen in the middle of the night during a thunderstorm, Mel stumbles out in front of him and pulls the door shut behind her. 

“Mel?” Langdon breathes, voice coming out almost like a whimper. 

Langdon is only a man and Melissa King is standing in his apartment with nothing on but one of his t-shirts from med school. Nothing else, meaning Langdon’s stumbled home from a shift from hell only to be faced with one of this world’s greatest temptations instead. 

Oh my god. 

Her hair is undone and rumpled, a dead giveaway she'd been asleep just moments ago. How long had she been here, in his space, without him knowing? Had she been eating his food? She must've, she's baked brownies he thinks a little hysterically. He'd tried to call her on his break last night but she hadn't picked up. He'd thought she'd been asleep, was happy for it, but had she been here instead?

His, his, his, His mind chants as Melissa King reduces him down to his most primal instincts. Bruise, bruise, bruise, his heart is pounding. 

“Look, I can explain,” Mel says, and then stays completely silent. 

Langdon tilts his head, still staring at her legs. She’s so bound to notice but Langdon can’t stop. He’s seen them before of course, but that had been at her place, or outside. Never in the general vicinity of his bedroom. “Go on. I’d love to hear this.” 

“Okay,” Mel breathes. “But it’s not what it looks like, I promise. I just needed the support.” 

That makes him frown slightly and drag his eyes back up to meet hers. Is he a part of the ensemble cast of Grey’s Anatomy after all? Maybe some other medical drama? Or did he pass out in the break room and this is an exhaustion-fuelled dream/nightmare where Mel and him are married but she leaves him for someone else?

“Mel,” he starts, taking a tentative step towards her. “Do you want to open the door baby?” 

“Of course,” Mel nods jerkily. “It’s your house, of course. Your rules.” 

Neither of them move for another moment. Mel starts fidgeting with the hem of her, his, shirt absentmindedly, a telltale sign of her anxiety. Right. 

“It’s okay sweetheart,” he says, taking another step. “Whoever’s in there is fine. I’d just like to know who it is.”

Unless it’s Robby. Langdon might have to flee the state if Mel’s having an affair with Robby in his house. 

“Oh my fucking god, I can’t take this anymore,” someone, a woman, says from the other side of the door. Langdon barely has time to process the fact that he knows that voice before Dr. Samira Mohan wrenches the door open behind Mel and steps out into Langdon’s hallway. 

“Dr. Mohan?” Langdon asks. 

“Dr. Langdon.” Mohan nods, grinning. 

“Dr. King,” Mel says before cringing. “Sorry, bad joke.” 

Langdon doesn’t think Mel has ever told him a bad joke since he’s known her. Time and place could use some improvement though. 

“Not that I don’t find you delightful Mohan, but why are you in my house?”

Mohan shrugs. “Your girl needed some moral support, duty called. It’s not like I’m the one who picked the place.”

His girl. Langdon has to close his eyes for a moment before he can look at either of them again. 

“Okay, well. Do either of you want some coffee? Tea?” 

Mel makes a noise that sounds like she’s being strangled and Mohan laughs. 

“No no, though I appreciate you offering to make me breakfast Dr. Langdon. I would say my ride’s here, but I actually stole his car so I actually need to go pick him up. You okay here Mel?” 

I didn’t mention breakfast, Langdon thinks as Mel waves Mohan off and shoves her past Langdon towards the door. 

Mohan laughs. “Alright well. Mel, focus. Remember the time wasted, remember the age-gap thing, the lack of choice!” 

He whirls around to Dr. Mohan in shock and sees her shrugging her jacket on. The age-gap thing!?

When he looks back at Mel, it’s like a switch has been flipped. She looks like she wants to kill him, suddenly. 

Well, Langdon thinks. There are worse ways to go. 

He hears Mohan stumble into her shoes behind him but he and Mel are locked into some sort of staring contest so he doesn’t deign it worth it to turn to look. A ringtone he doesn’t recognise suddenly rings out in his very quiet apartment. 

“Jack!” He hears Mohan exclaim as she opens Langdon’s front door. “You won’t believe the night I’ve had.”

Then she’s gone, and it’s just him and Mel in his apartment at six thirty in the morning, Mel wearing nothing but his shirt. 

Jesus. He might need to sit down. 

“Follow me,“ she says and walks past him into the kitchen, rounding the kitchen aisle to stuff a piece of brownie in her mouth before indicating for him to sit on one of the barstools opposite her. Her legs disappear suddenly and he feels robbed, slightly. 

He takes a seat. 

“Wait,” he says now that he doesn’t have to focus on keeping himself upright. “How did you even get here?” 

Mel shrugs and eats another piece of brownie. “I drove.” 

“You drove?” 

“Desperate times,” she says, as if that somehow explains it. 

“Is Becca okay?” 

She seems to consider this for a moment, tilting her head at him before sighing and looking back down at Langdon’s countertop. “Becca’s fine, dance practice today so she was already planning to stay over yesterday. Anyway, I’m not here to talk about my sister.”

“Mel, you could’ve crashed. You should’ve called me, or Mohan, or someone. Why would you drive in the rain?” 

Mel swallows harshly before looking back up at him, eyes narrowed in consideration. “Maybe I was being selfish.”

Langdon’s spine goes rigid instantly. His jaw clenches subconsciously and he can see the exact millisecond Mel clocks the move by the way her eyes widen a fraction. He feels, nonsensically, like a bug that’s gotten caught in a spider’s web. 

“I was right,” Mel nods to herself. “That’s your thing, isn’t it?” 

“My thing?” 

Mel moves around the kitchen aisle finally to jump up on the counter right next to him, horribly reminiscent of an early morning months ago that Langdon’s not too proud of. Mel hadn’t been wearing his clothes that time though, which he’s certain would’ve made the experience at least ten times better. 

She’s close enough to touch, now. Looking down at him from where she’s sitting on his marble countertop. Bare legs pressed into stone. Jesus. 

His, his, his.

“Your thing,” she repeats. “Your reason for not allowing yourself to be in love with me.”

Oh. 

Oh. 

“Oh,” he exhales. 

Mel doesn’t let him catch his breath. 

“You think I deserve better than you, right? That you letting yourself love me would be selfish? That there’s someone out there who’s going to love me better than you ever could. That it’s just a matter of time until I meet him and I’m going to leave you behind, or something. That because you’re a drug addict, I could never love you back.”

When he doesn’t move, she reaches out to grip his jaw in one hand and slowly tilt his head up and down, up and down until he finally realises what she’s doing. 

“I’m going to need you to either confirm or deny, Langdon. I’m pretty sure I’m right, but I need you to confirm the diagnosis.” 

“Yes.” he chokes out, because the heart of his problem has always been his inability to lie to Melissa King. With her, he can only work in half-truths, and denying her words couldn’t be able to be justified that way. Not now. 

She tsks. “Thank you Dr. Langdon. Now forgive me for this, but I’m going to have to knock some sense into my patient with a pretty unconventional treatment plan.”

She yanks his chair over, close enough so that she can swing one of her thighs on either side of him and Langdon has to try extremely hard to not let his eyes move away from her face as she shuffles closer to him. 

Then Melissa King is leaning down and kissing him, and Frank Langdon can’t think much at all.

She presses into him almost desperately, her thumbs coming up to press into either side of Langdon’s cheeks. She tastes of chocolate and cinnamon, somehow, and that’s the last coherent thought he has before he loses his mind completely to instinct and presses back into her. 

When she moans directly into his mouth, her hands coming up to pull at his hair to get a better angle, Langdon can’t stop himself from swallowing it down and pressing deeper into her as he reaches up to run one of his hands up her bare thigh. She’s so warm in his hands, still soft from sleep at his place, and Langdon finds himself wanting her so badly he doesn’t know what to do with it. 

He pulls back suddenly to try and inhale, to try to steady himself with one hand steadying himself on the counter and the other not letting go of her leg, hitched at the back of her knee. Mel’s own hands come back down to rest against the back of his neck. 

“I can’t be selfish with you,” Langdon whispers into the space between them.

Mel rubs circles into the tendons on his neck until he finds the courage to look up at her again. 

He finds her smiling down at him. “That’s okay. I can be selfish enough for both of us.”

It can't be that easy, he thinks even as his heartbeat quickens. He’s sure she can feel the way his pulse jumps against her palms. 

“Being with me wouldn’t mean trading one addiction for another. You wouldn’t be trading benzodiazepines for me, Langdon,” Mel continues. “I don’t want to be an addiction, I want to be your anchor. Please let me.” 

He leans his forehead against her sternum and tries to take a deep breath to stop himself from doing extremely stupid and that would possibly fuck up his back for good. “I can’t tell what the difference is.” 

Mel doesn’t say anything for a little bit as she lets him rest against her. He can practically hear her brain going a mile a minute as her heartbeat sounds slightly elevated. Langdon’s too out of it to properly count but it sounds pretty fast. 

Too soon, Mel pushes him off of her but only far enough away that she can look him in the eyes again. 

“I think maybe you would benefit from thinking about your life in terms of box breathing.” 

He stares at her. 

“We usually tell patients to inhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds, exhale for four seconds right? To slow people’s minds from running away from them. It works, of course it does, but I think you can flip it on its head- exhale, hold, inhale.” 

He can tell that she can tell he’s not following, but she keeps going before he can ask. 

“You’ve spent so much of your life before we met doing things that drove you to your addiction, and I think you think of these things as baggage that makes you unworthy of love. My love in particular, but more generally too. You think it’s too much and that no one else should ever be weighed down by it, that it is your burden alone to bear. I’m trying to tell you that you don’t have to bear it either. Nobody’s asking you too. Abby’s not, and Robby’s not, and I’m definitely not.” 

Mel pauses to run her thumb over his jaw again and his breath hitches. 

“You think of your drug addiction as some sort of character flaw but you’re just sick, honey. It doesn’t define who you are as a person. Who you are is made up out of the patients you’ve saved, and the way Tanner and Isabel look at you every time they see you, and how seen you always make Becca feel. You’re made up of how you look in the morning when you come pick me up, or from across the table at our coffee shop, or how you make me feel just by existing close to me. You’re made up of so many good things, Langdon, and I hate that you keep looking in the mirror only to see one small blip in your entire life’s history and you think it defines you. That it overshadows everything else.” 

“Mel,” he whispers, but doesn’t know what to say next. 

“I think you’ve been holding your breath for a really long time,” she whispers before leaning down to kiss his neck, right over his pulse. “You’ve gotta exhale before you can inhale, it’s not the other way around. Let go before you can move on.” 

Langdon swallows and thinks he’s fraying at the seams. He’s never been known like this in his life. 

“I can feel you holding your breath, Frank,” she continues as she works her way back up past his jaw, past his cheek. Frank, Frank, Frank. “It’s only me here. Nobody’s going to judge you if you let the past go.”

She reaches her hand down to rest it against his ribcage underneath his scrubs, warm skin against warm skin. "Exhale, honey. Trust that I'm going to be here on the other side when you do. Then we'll inhale together."

He shudders for a second, tilts his head back up just enough for their lips to line up, and exhales into her mouth before pulling her lips back to his. 

You’re the most selfish man on earth, his mind would’ve told him a year ago. Today, it can’t reach him anymore. 

She makes him feel fucking invincible. 

“Look, it’s going to be fine, Langdon. It’s just a double date, what’s the worst that could happen?”

She’s getting ready in his bathroom while he’s pacing outside, obviously stressed and unable to hide it. He can’t believe she’s not seeing the urgency in this. 

“What’s the worst that could happen? Well for starters, you’ve told me Samira’s boyfriend is some older army vet who acts like he would kill for her. What if I try to joke with her and he like, searches my name up online and stabs me in my sleep? He probably knows exactly how to get away with it too, considering he was most likely trained for it.” 

“He’s not going to do that,” Mel says and sends him a look in the mirror. “He’s very nice. He’s listened to me complaining about you for months and tried to give me advice.” 

Langdon stops. “Complaining about me?” 

“Yes. You were very infuriating at times. I loved you much and I was pretty sure you loved me too but I couldn’t work out why you were ignoring it. It was nice to have another guy around to talk to about you that wasn’t, well. You.” 

He walks up behind her to wrap his arms around his middle, giving her ample warning in the mirror so she can walk away if she wants to. She doesn’t, so he uses his arms to press them close together. He’s just about to whisper apologies into her neck when she holds a hand up. 

“You don’t need to apologise. Make it up to me by coming to meet him tonight.”

“Fine,” he groans. “But if I end up stabbed in my sleep, I’ll blame it on you. You're going to have to be the one to call the ambulance in the middle of the night.”

Mel smirks in the mirror. "Night shift, perfect. I'm sure Dr. Abbot will take good care of you when they wheel you into Trauma Two."   

It plays out like what he imagines watching a car crash happen in slow motion would look like. One second he’s parking his car in the same parking lot he’s been picking Mel up from for over a year now, and the next they’re walking through the doors (first time he’s actually been inside, can you imagine?) and he sees Dr. Abbot sitting in a booth in the far corner with Mel’s best friend- holding hands. 

“I’m hallucinating,” he whispers to Mel. “I think we need to go to the Pitt, I might have a brain tumour.” 

“You’re being dramatic,” Mel snorts and takes his hand in hers to pull him towards the car crash. Langdon kind of wants to hightail it out of there, but okay. 

He’d told Mel last night he’d go wherever she goes. He just hadn’t accounted for this particular scenario. 

“Dr. Langdon,” Dr. Abbot grins at him when Mel gets them close enough. “Nice of you to finally join us.” 

Mel has to place a firm hand on his bicep to stop him from turning around. 

“Langdon, please.” 

Well, when she puts it that way. Langdon drops into the booth immediately but he makes sure to sigh loudly as he does it. He can’t let Mel in on the fact that he’d do whatever she asked without hesitation yet. 

He has a feeling Mel already knows anyway, but they’re keeping up the pretense for now. 

“We’re not even that late,” he grumbles. 

Dr. Abbot smirks and it feels unnatural to see it outside of the Pitt.“I was talking about months, we’ve been waiting for you to show up for the past six. Samira was starting to wonder if you were ever going to show up, but I kept the faith.” 

“Jack,” Samira frowns at him before shooting a placating smile Mel and Langdon’s way. “I never doubted you guys, Jack just wants to start shit because it makes him feel alive.” 

Mel just waves her off and Langdon’s brain is stuck on Mohan calling Dr. Abbot Jack. It makes sense given the context, but he still hasn’t digested it. 

It gets better throughout the night as the shock wears off. It’s fascinating watching Mel interact with people he doesn’t usually see her interact with like this. It’s amazing to watch Mel talk with Dr. Abbot like they’re friends, not colleagues who sometimes work together. Langdon wonders if he would’ve picked up on this layer of their dynamic if he’d seen them work together more often at the Pitt. 

At one point Dr. Abbot turns to him and Mel and says “so now that the baton’s been passed onto you guys, I’m always here if you need any advice Langdon” to which Mel groans into her hands and Langdon has to ask for clarification because Mel won't explain. 

“We told Mel a while ago, six months or so, that if you two didn’t get together before you became an attending we’d have to pass the baton onto you. You know, the token attending-resident relationship of the ER. You dragged it out so now it’s yours. Congratulations.” 

Then, because Langdon can’t come up with a response and Dr. Abbot wants to ruin his life a little more, he adds “I can give you some advice on what it’s like to date a resident. Anytime, you know where to find me.” 

Langdon promptly dunks his forehead down onto the table after that and doesn’t worry about getting a concussion until Mel starts checking him over. Mohan laughs at them, but Langdon’s quickly learning that that seems par for the course from now on. 

He's just started thinking about exit strategies a while later when Mohan leans over slightly and says, very loudly for someone who’s pretending to whisper, “I have so much blackmail material on Mel from all of these months. I’m just saying, I think you’ll want to come out with us again.”

... Oh?

"Like what?" 

Mohan grins brightly and ignores the very pointed look he can see Mel sending her out of the corner in his eye. Langdon chances a glance at Dr. Abbot and sees him tapping his glass in apparent amusement as Mohan pretends to think. 

"Samira," Mel warns. "Tonight is not the night." 

"That's funny Mel, you've never cared about the timing before," then before Mel has the chance to reply, "Mel's described to me on plenty of occasions how much she wants to bite your jaw every time you clench it in concentration at work. The first time she told me about it she spent fifteen minutes trying to rationalise it before giving up. That was like, a year ago."

A year ago. 

Langdon smirks immediately and Mel stares at him for a beat before reaching out for his hand that’s been resting on her bare thigh and halfway underneath her dress for the better part of an hour now. She pulls it away and places his hand, palm up towards the ceiling instead, on the table before she dramatically dunks her head down on it, imitating him from earlier. 

God, he’s so in love with her he could burst with it. 

Mel’s in the process of tugging his jacket off while he’s stumbling out of his shoes in the hallway later that night when something Dr. Abbot said comes back to him. If it wasn’t Mel he was kissing he’d worry she’d be offended by him thinking about their superior but it is so he isn’t. 

“Hold on, pause. Did they say they’d been dating for six months?"

Mel sounds out of breath. “More or less. Why?” 

“I just can’t believe you’ve been hanging out with Dr. Abbot twice a month for six months without telling me.” 

Mel keeps her hands busy by unbuttoning his shirt, one by one. “Oh it’s been more than that, I started crashing their dates a few months back. Not every time, but I tricked him into sharing his location with me once and he either hasn’t noticed or can’t figure out how to turn it off and doesn’t want to ask for help.” She looks up at him through her lashes as her fingers still. “I got pretty tired of third wheeling though.”

There’s something sad in her eyes for just a moment that he kind of hates himself for having put it there but he knows she won’t let him apologise for it. Instead, he leans forward to press a kiss to her hairline. 

“Well sweetheart, you don’t have to worry about that ever again. We’ll crash their dates together from now on.” 

He feels her smile into his collarbone. “That sounds nice. I’ve only been throwing myself at you for nine months and we’ve already gone on like seventy three dates, not counting the nights we sleep over at each other’s apartments or the meals we share at work, but it’s nice that you’ve finally caught on.” 

Langdon pulls away to look at her. “Seventy three dates? ” 

“Yeah, I’ve been journalling them. The coffee dates, the walks we go on et cetera. I was struggling to decide if the things we do with Becca or your kids would count so I've just been reviewing them on a case-by-case basis. You can check the data later if you want.” 

Oh my god, he thinks. I’m going to have to marry this woman if she lets me.

“I kind of want to see it now, sweetheart. I feel like I have some catching up to do.”

Mel groans before stepping away fully. He thinks she might be going to get the journal but she stays put, just looking at him for a few seconds. 

“Okay well, I’ll give you your options for tonight. Either I go dig out that journal from the kitchen drawers, or we go into my bedroom and I let you do whatever it is you’ve been wanting to do with me during all those months when you were convinced it was selfish of you to want me but you wanted me anyway. You pick, but you can only pick one.” 

Fuck. 

He rubs a hand over his face as he feels himself getting hard just from the idea of her in bed with him. “That’s not fair baby, you’re asking me to choose between your brain and your body.” 

Mel tilts her head. “The perk of getting to be in a relationship with me is that you’re never going to stop getting either.” 

Then, because Melissa King was put on this earth for the specific purpose of saving lives and torturing Frank Langdon, she reaches down to the hem of her dress and pulls it off in one smooth move. His one year sobriety chip hangs around her neck just like it had when she first showed it to him five months ago. 

His brain goes static for a few moments. Langdon couldn’t tell you for how long. 

“You weren’t wearing a bra? All night you were sitting next to me and you weren’t wearing a bra?” 

Mel grins at him and he almost drops to his knees. “I was wearing a bolero, nobody was going to notice.” The you didn’t goes unspoken but it rings in Langdon’s ears anyway. 

“You let me know what you decide, I’ll be in the bedroom,” she says before turning around and oh that’s worse. 

“For the record,” Langdon tries to defend himself as he stumbles past her bedroom door a good ten seconds after she does. “This isn’t me choosing your body over your brain. It’s just that you told me where the journal was so I can go look for it later on my own whereas I’ve been waiting for this moment for a year, however much I tried to deny it.”

Mel hums and tugs him down on her bed. “C'est la vie. Smart of you, wise choice.”

“I love you so much,” he trails kisses down her stomach as he goes, trying to etch his love for her into her skin so she’ll carry it around forever. So she’ll never have to doubt it. So he won't let himself forget.

She moans into him and bucks her hips against where his thigh is pressed in between hers for a few moments before reaching a hand down to tug at his hair, to use the leverage to push down further. 

“Please,” she moans. “Please.”

He’d follow her anywhere. Frank Langdon goes where Melissa King wants him to go. If that’s between her thighs, well. 

He doesn’t have any complaints. 

“Langdon,” Mel whispers a few hours later. “We should probably shower before we fall asleep.” 

His girl always has the best ideas. Langdon knows this, somewhere in his mind he’s still too hazy to access right now. 

“Mel,” he laughs into her hair, eyes still closed. “I was inside you five minutes ago. You should probably call me Frank from now on.”

“Okay. Then you should probably call me Melissa.” 

That makes him crack one eye open and look down at her face, head resting right over his heartbeat. “But everyone calls you Mel?” 

“Yeah,” she grins up at him. “But you’re not everyone, Frank Langdon. It doesn't sound that bad, coming from you.”

And ain't that the best thing anyone’s said to him in years?

She wrinkles her nose suddenly. "Maybe not at work though. I don't think I need Samira to make fun of me for how much I love you even more." 

He's intrigued immediately. "She's been doing that?"

"Oh yeah. One night I spent twenty minutes telling her I was about to pass out in Central Twelve because you'd been working on a patient but still took the time to answer my questions despite being obviously preoccupied. She's made fun of my 'competency kink' ever since then." 

Silence settles as Langdon tries to hide his grin into her hair. Mel breaks it eventually to groan into his skin. "I didn't mean to say that out loud." 

"You don't say," he drawls. "I like it." 

She looks up at him. "You don't think it's weird that your colleague will know I like it when you do your job in front of her? Dr. Abbot probably also knows, he's made some remarks but nothing conclusive." 

"Well I don't love that," he pauses for a second. "You know what, we'll pick this back up later when you're not naked in the same bed as me. Come on sweetheart, let me show you how good I can be at making you come." 

He waits for her to nod before flipping them over and taking both of her hands in one of his, pushing them against her headboard. "Keep them up there baby, you won't need them for a while." 

She moans her compliance and he lets them go, trusts her to listen to him. Trusts her to trust him. God, he can't believe he's allowed this now. 

"Feel free to ask questions," he smirks into the skin above her belly button. "I can do multiple things at once. As you know." 

He bites her lightly and she almost passes out underneath him, breath stuttering in shaky gasps and Langdon feels almost drunk on power. When she comes he can't look away from the look on her face as she shakes apart underneath him. He has to achieve levels of self-restraint he's never managed before to not fall asleep right there on her thigh and instead dragging her into a shower, even as she's almost too shaky to stand and begging him just to let her go to sleep. 

But she had wanted a shower earlier, so Langdon was going to make sure she got one. Hey, maybe Frank Langdon isn't that selfish after all.  

Much later, when they’ve showered and changed the sheets and pulled Mel’s blackout curtains closed so the sun won't interrupt them later, he lies awake as Mel sleeps with her back to him, head pillowed on his bicep. 

Leaning down to brush his nose against her still slightly damp hair that smells of vanilla and home, Langdon inhales properly for what feels like the first time since he was sent to rehab. 

Mel, right before

“You’re all good to go for tomorrow, right?"

“Yes, Langdon,” Becca says. “Everything’s packed. Mel made sure of it.” 

“Okay okay, let’s let her sleep for a little bit longer. She had a pretty tough day at work today.”

“That sucks. I’ll try and cheer her up tomorrow with my dance!” 

Someone, Frank probably, combs a hand through her hair. “She’s going to love it, I’m going to film the whole thing so we can watch it whenever we want.” 

There’s quiet for a moment, or maybe it’s just Mel zoning in and out of sleep. 

“I like you, Frank Langdon. I think you’re a really good boyfriend to my sister." 

Someone kisses Mel's forehead then. “Yeah,” she hears. “I really hope I am.” 

Then quieter, sometime later, 

“Long day today sweetheart, I'm just leaving for work," Langdon presses a kiss to her hairline above her right eye, the pressure enough to rouse her slightly. "I’ll meet you at Becca’s recital later, okay? I’m sorry I can’t drive you there. I love you.” 

“It’s okay, I love you too,” she mumbles. Or at least she hopes she does, but sleep comes back for her and she can't be sure that she actually said the words out loud.

It's fine. I'll just tell him later anyway.

Chapter Text

Langdon, 2:50 PM

There are moments in life, Langdon knows, when something happens that you are fully aware will shape your future irrevocably. Moments where you’ll be in them and realise that nothing will ever be the same again. Moments where the world will stop spinning for just a second, just long enough for all noise to disappear and leave you with vertigo, head spinning. Where you’ll feel your knees almost buckle under you as you adapt to new circumstances. 

Moments, where everything you thought you knew about your life changes in an instant. 

Sometimes it’s for the worse. For Frank Langdon, it’s when he’s told his back will never stop flaring up. It’s the first time he’s about to prescribe benzodiazepines to a patient but thinks do they really need all of them? It’s when he sees Dr. Santos talking to Robby across the ER floor. It’s when he comes home to an empty apartment, three hundred and sixty seven days clean, and realises he can never, under any circumstance, let Melissa King know he’s in love with her.

Sometimes it’s for the better. For Frank Langdon, it’s when his children are born and he realises all the years he’s ever lived pales in comparison to being their dad. It’s when he gets into med school. It’s his and Abby’s wedding day. It’s Melissa King asking for assistance with a head lac and he knows his career will be okay. That he wouldn’t have to pack everything up and flee the state to get away from Robby’s scrutiny and surveillance. 

It’s seeing Melissa King sitting on his countertop in nothing but one of his shirts, a thunderstorm dying down outside, and telling him she loves him. That he was free to love her too. 

Sometimes these moments sneak up on you, and sometimes you have the time to prepare for them. His children, his wedding, med school, he’d been allowed to prepare. It didn’t make those moments any less earth-shattering, but at least he’d been able to see the vertigo coming. 

But never in his life would he ever have been able to properly prepare for Melissa King. 

She’d walked into his life on arguably his worst day and lit the first match that was going to lead him out of the well he was about to be thrown down. She was right there when he eventually climbed out of it and helped him adjust back to the light. To life. She was there, arms open, when he almost fell back in. He’d been fighting a losing battle since day one not to fall in love with her. 

It figures that he’s not given any notice, any time to prepare, for the moment she might to be taken from him either. 

Mel’s ignoring me, Frank thinks as he sinks into a seat in the lobby of Becca’s center, watching as the last of the guests are walking into the makeshift auditorium to take their seats. Langdon probably should too, but he’s too busy debating if he should try to call her again or if it will just make things worse. 

It’s not necessarily the first time she ignores him. Sometimes Mel gets overstimulated and has to shut everything out for a while to ground herself back to reality, to reorient her center of gravity. Langdon will sit with her a few feet away in silence for however long it takes until she comes back to him, careful not to disturb her but making sure she’s safe until she opens her eyes back up. Sometimes he’ll dim the lights if they’re too bright or he’ll close the window if the city’s being too loud outside. 

If he thinks too hard about what all of it means for too long, the level of trust she puts in him to allow her to be there for her, his heart will staccato in his chest before trying to find its way back to steady rhythm. It took them so long to get here that sometimes Langdon will wake up next to her and have to trace his hand through her hair as she sleeps just to make sure she’s real. That she’s actually there with him. 

He tries again, promising himself it’s the last. Becca will be looking for him in the audience right before the lights go up. Langdon had talked to her ten minutes ago and warned her that Mel might be late, that something had come up, but she’ll be here as soon as she can. 

“It’s okay,” Becca had said. “You’re here, and you’ll film it, all of it, right? If she misses the beginning we can just show her the video later.”

He’s sent to voicemail. That’s nine times now. God, he wishes he just knew where she was. 

She’d been here, is the thing. When he got here forty minutes ago the receptionist- lovely woman named Laila, if a bit nosy when it came to his and Mel’s relationship- had told him Mel had left. She said she needed to get something, Laila had said. She said she’ll hurry back. 

So where the hell is she? 

His phone buzzes in his hand and he whips his face down to stare at it. He almost answers automatically, a Mel sweetheart, tell me where you are I’ll come pick you up having been ready on his tongue ever since he first tried calling her when he left the Pitt. 

It’s not Mel.

Incoming Call: Robby - DO NOT ANSWER

Yeah, no. Langdon declines it immediately and pretends he doesn't feel the twinge in his heart at all. Robby hasn’t reached out to him personally since Langdon came back. All communication between them has been either in person during shifts or through scheduling or HR so he doesn’t really know why Robby would break protocol out of the blue but he also doesn’t really care. 

Picking up can’t mean anything good, so why would he? 

But then Robby tries for a second time almost immediately after. Langdon sends that one to voicemail too, but it takes him a second longer. 

The third time is the one that really makes him pause. Abby has the kids out of state this weekend so if it had anything to do with any of them, it wouldn’t be Robby calling. Langdon starts running worst case scenarios in his head for what could possibly be the reason for this break in meticulously crafted tradition. Another MCI, murmurs of a new pandemic outbreak, somebody’s planted benzos in his locker and now he’s going to jail? 

Either way, it can wait for a little longer. Surely Robby will get the hint and leave him be. 

His phone buzzes in his hand for a fourth time. He glances at the time at the top of his screen, ten minutes until showtime. If Robby keeps pestering him it’s going to mess with the recording Langdon’s promised Becca. 

Fucking hell, fine.

“I’m off shift, Robby. Whatever you need from me, it can wait until I’m on the clock. You only own me on company time.”

Robby has the absolute audacity to sigh in response. “That’s not- look, Langdon. There’s been an accident.” 

Who fucking cares? 

“I can’t come in. Becca has a recital today and I’m waiting on Mel to show up, which is why I didn’t pick up, by the way. Now if that’s all,” Langdon trails off, sounding agitated even to his own ears but not trying too hard to prevent it. He keeps pulling the phone away from his ear to check Mel’s not trying to call him at the same time but so far, no dice. 

He debates hanging up when Robby doesn’t immediately reply. Langdon hears him shuffle a bit on the other end of the line and he’s about to press the end call button when Robby finally says “Mel’s here, Langdon. She’s at the PTMC.” 

Tension bleeds out of him in waves as his shoulders drop. He’s not entirely happy about it but at least he knows where she is now. Knows why she hasn’t been answering his calls. See if Langdon defends her when Abbot accuses her of being just as much of a workaholic as he is next time. 

(“Well, I’d never leave Frank naked in bed to go work a shift during a thunderstorm for one,” Mel had said the first time it happened. Langdon had spilled his club soda all over himself and Samira’s laugh had rung out throughout the entire bar as Dr. Abbot had conceded. For now, he’d said.)

Langdon laughs a little breathlessly. “Put her on the phone then. God, you’re a bastard, you know that Robby? Why’d you drag her there for? It’s her day off. Tell her I'll come pick her up.” 

He can probably ask one of the staff to record for him and have Mel back here in twenty minutes tops. They’d only be ten minutes late, but he thinks Becca would be happier with that in the long run. If Langdon doesn’t pick her up she’s going to miss the whole thing. 

He’s already running the route and probability of traffic in his head by the time his world stops spinning on its own axis. 

“Langdon, listen to me. Mel’s here because she was in a car accident.”

There are moments in life, Langdon knows, when something happens that you are fully aware will shape your future irrevocably. Moments where you’ll be in them and realise that nothing will ever be the same again. Moments where the world will stop spinning for just a second, just long enough for all noise to disappear and leave you with vertigo, head spinning. Where you’ll feel your knees almost buckle under you as you adapt to new circumstances. 

Moments, like hearing that the love of your life has been through the same thing that killed her father. 

There’s a part of him that wants to give in to the pain that spreads through him in an instant. That wants to fall to his knees and let gravity be the only thing keeping him tethered here. His head spins, spins, spins for a second as Robby’s words hit him like a knife, lodging itself deep in his chest. 

Reality rushes back in a second later. 

His eyes shift to the clock on the wall hanging above the door to where Becca’s waiting on them. Becca, who also lost her dad to a car accident. Becca, who has no idea Mel has been through one too. Becca, beautiful, kind, gentle Becca who means more to Mel than anyone else ever has. Becca, Becca, Becca. God, what is he supposed to do here? 

He knows what he’s supposed to do. He’s supposed to run to Mel. He’s supposed to burst through the doors of the Pitt in around ten minutes and be held back by however many of his colleagues it takes for him to not run straight up to the OR to see the damage for himself. He’s supposed to scream, to cry, to wait for excruciatingly long hours in a waiting room until a surgeon, probably Garcia, comes to tell him news that will either ruin or heal him. He’s seen it all before, countless times, spouses crashing into the Pitt after their loved ones have been through their doors just before. Langdon knows the script. 

But he’s not allowed to do that. 

(Months ago, just after they’d finally gotten together, Mel and him had just finished working on a woman who was crushed in a building collapse after a fire and sent her up to surgery when her husband crashed his way through reception somehow. He’d made it halfway to the nurses’ desk before security were able to stop him. Mel and him had been alone in the break room watching it all go down from inside, voices outside blurred but the anger and desperation on the man’s face was palpable. 

“You’re not allowed to do that,” Mel said. 

“What, get into a fight with security? Wasn’t planning on it sweetheart.” 

“No, I mean, if something happened to me. I know in that scenario you’d likely be in the ambulance with me anyway, but if you weren’t, I don't know,” she’d paused. “I’d want you to go to Becca first.”

Langdon had paused for a second. “But if Becca was safe and you weren’t?” 

“Even then, I’d want you to make sure first. Make absolutely sure. Then you can come to me.” 

“I can do that, if you promise I’m allowed to stay for as long as I want once I get to you.” 

Mel had smiled brilliantly for a second before stepping away from him completely, walking backwards towards the door and grabbing the handle behind her back. “You’re allowed to stay for as long as you want with me. Forever, preferably.”) 

So he knows exactly what Mel wants him to do here. Knows what he will do, even as his heart is protesting wildly against his ribs. Knows he’s going to have to break it, just a little bit, all by himself. 

But Frank Langdon is also an ER doctor. He’s worked too many shifts where he’d had to triage too many patients to count. When he’s had to determine who has the best chances of survival without letting emotion affect his decision-making. He’s trained in crisis management, in making life-and-death decisions without hesitation. He knows exactly which questions to ask, and he knows what answers this one will likely yield. 

Car accident, Robby had said. Here’s what Langdon hears. 

Mel wouldn’t have been driving, her own car is in the shop and Langdon had taken his to work. That means no seatbelt or air bag to lessen the impact. If the car was big enough it could’ve sent her flying which means they could be dealing with fall injuries as well. How conscious had she been at the site? What organs are damaged? How overworked is her heart as it's being overloaded due to blood loss? 

He doesn’t know why he asks, it won't do him any good until he gets there. She’s likely already in surgery if Robby’s only now calling him. Still, he has to know.

“What are her injuries?”

When he sits down in one of the plastic chairs lined up opposite the makeshift stage where Becca’s about to go on any second now five minutes after he and Robby hung up he’s shaking so hard he has to ask a woman next to him if she can record the performance for him. His voice comes out shaky, eyes probably rimmed red, and she takes a long look before taking his phone from him with a nod. 

She doesn’t say anything else and the room goes dark right as she presses the record button. 

Langdon sits there for the next hour torturing himself by going over Mel’s case in his head. Pulmonary contusion, subdural hematoma, likely pneumothorax. GCS around 8. Impalement of a foreign object likely compromising her liver and causing internal bleeding. Defensive abrasions along her forearm. Significant blood loss. No time for a CT. Risk of aspiration. 

He turns the details over in his head over and over again but he can’t focus on them long enough before he starts picturing Mel lying there, blood probably streaking her hair and struggling to breathe instead. His hands shake in his lap with the need to do something and not being able to. 

Had she been scared? Had she wanted him there? Had she known what was going on or had the pain been too much? It’s killing him that he doesn’t know.

Becca’s on stage with her group now, Langdon can see her in front of him. Her smile is radiant as she stumbles a little on a twirl but corrects herself just in time so she doesn’t fall. She’s wearing a blue dress that Mel helped her pick out a few weeks ago and her hair is done in two braids, just the way Mel does them for her. Had Mel done them today before she left? Is it her hands that had locked them in place with two hair ties?

It’s the juxtaposition of it all that kills him in the end. One King sister full of life in front of him while the other is fighting for hers in an OR. 

Becca’s in the last group to perform so she bounds up to him almost as soon as the lights turn back on. The woman next to him gives him his phone back without a word and leaves just as Becca comes back to sit in the one to the left of him. It takes everything in him to school his features into a smile he only reserves for Becca. 

“Frank! Did you see me? What did you think?” 

“You were amazing, Becs. I got all of it on film.” 

“I thought I was going to fall but I didn’t! Did you notice?” 

“No, you did? I couldn’t tell.” 

“Yeah! It’s good that you didn’t. Our dance teacher said nobody did but I wanted to make sure and I knew you would never lie to me. Hey, where’s Mel?” 

Jesus. 

“She, um-” think think think. “She got stuck at the hospital for a bit. I’m going to go see how it’s going, I’m going to go help right away, but I knew she would’ve wanted me to stay to watch your performance before I left. Is that okay?” 

Becca looks at him hesitantly. “She got stuck at work? But she wasn’t working today?” 

He’s going to hell. Or maybe he’s already there. “I know, but something happened when she was out to get something and she had to get an ambulance back. She wouldn’t have done it if she had a choice, Becs.” 

Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask Becca. Please don’t ask if she’s okay. 

“Okay, I believe you. You said you were going to the hospital too?” 

“Do you want me to stay for a bit? I don’t want you to feel like I’m leaving you alone when your friends have their family here.” He looks over to where a group of people are getting cinnamon buns from a table to the side of the stage. Homebaked, Langdon would bet. 

Becca shakes her head. “No, you go. I know Mel and you have very important jobs.” 

Langdon pauses, careful. “You’re very important to us too Becca.”

“I know I am,” she smiles assuringly. “But you and Mel save lives. I don’t want you to be here if it means someone else gets hurt.”

He leans up to hold her cheek in his palm, movements slow so she has plenty of warning to move away if she wants to. She remains still as Langdon touches her slightly. 

“It might be a long night. Are you okay with staying overnight if it gets late?” 

“Sure,” Becca nods. “Felicity is staying because her parents are out of town so we can hang out. She’s staying the whole weekend.” 

It’s a damn shame, Langdon has found himself thinking on multiple occasions, that the world doesn’t understand how ridiculously smart Becca King can be. 

“I’ll let you know, okay? I’ll text you so keep your phone on you, promise?” 

“I promise Frank,” she grins before standing up and out of his reach. “Go. Tell Mel I love her.” 

Langdon doesn’t get to reply before she’s already turned around to run up to Felicity. He feels like his strings have been cut once she’s not looking at him anymore and he’s stumbling out of the room before he even registered the decision. 

“Laila, listen,” Langdon says as he sees her on his way out. “I don’t have time for details but Mel’s been in an accident, I need to go. Can Becca stay overnight? Might be more than just tonight but I don’t know yet.”

She freezes for a moment but recovers quickly because Langdon doesn’t have any time to waste. “Of course, anything. Just call the on call number whenever you get the chance and we’ll sort out any details. Don’t worry about it, we’ll make room.” 

“Great,” he says as he shoves off the counter. “Thank you Laila.” 

He’s out the door three seconds later. 

It’s Dr. Abbot that sees him first. 

“Dr. Langdon,” he says as Langdon is running up towards the ambulance bay. “Take a breather.” 

Langdon ignores him until Dr. Abbot moves to physically block the entrance. When he tries to sidestep, Abbot counters. “I need to go in there, Abbot. I need to talk to Robby.” 

“Talk to me first. Don’t go in there guns blazing.” 

Then, kinder, 

“Nobody in there knows about you. They’re beginning to suspect, but nobody knows, alright? I wasn’t in the room but I’ve been briefed. Samira had one of the nurses page me in. If you want to hear this from someone who knows who it is you’re really asking about, ask me. ”

He stops trying to push past Abbot to lean against the brick. “Samira was in there with her? Can I talk to her?” 

“She’s with Mel in the OR, Garcia is letting her observe. Now come on,” he tilts his head to the left. “Too many eyes here. Everyone’s waiting for you, and they’re all on edge. Let’s take five minutes, over there.” 

He lets Abbot walk them around the corner out of sight and towards a bench halfway hidden in some bushes. Langdon had kissed Mel there on a break a few days ago and been properly reprimanded for five minutes because oh my god Frank anyone could see before she’d kissed him back right before she left. When Abbot sits down on it now, it feels significantly less like a nice memory and more of an echo of all he has to lose. 

“Do you want me to sugarcoat this for you, or do you want me to lay it out in medical terms? No wrong answer, it just depends on how you want to hear it.” Abbot says. Langdon can feel his eyes locked onto the side of Langdon’s, but Langdon keeps staring straight ahead. 

“Medical. From the start.” 

Abbot doesn’t miss a beat. 

“Female patient came in following a car versus ped incident. Significant blood loss on the scene and GCS around 8 recorded en route. Significant chest trauma and multiple rib fractures on her right side and a piece of metal lodged in her side, over her hepatic and potentially causing internal bleeding. Head laceration along her hairline from impact and defensive abrasions along her right arm. Pupils unresponsive to light.” 

Abbot goes quiet for a second and Langdon can feel one of his hands coming up to rest on Langdon’s shoulder, a silent question. Langdon shakes his head and Abbot sighs.

“Emergency treatment on arrival took place in Trauma Two. Dr. Mohan identified the possibility of a subdural hematoma. Dr. Santos kept compression on her stomach and minimized blood loss. Dr. McKay concluded in consultation with Dr. Garcia that a pneumothorax was likely the cause behind the patient’s decreased breathing on the way up to the OR. Patient kept going in and out of consciousness until she had to be sedated and intubated when her trachea became too compromised. No CT due to the risk of aspiration.”

Abbot goes quiet again. 

“The surgery?” Langdon asks after a beat. 

“They had to go in blind. Garcia told Robby she wasn’t very worried about her liver, it’s her lung and brain that are the priority. It’s been almost two hours, still no official word on how it’s going.” 

Langdon picks up on that and looks over. “And unofficial word?”

Abbot sighs before reaching into his pocket to get his phone out and unlocking it, handing it to Langdon wordlessly. 

It’s open on Abbot and Samira’s text conversation. 

(2:45 PM) Mira 

Jack, you need to come in. Now. Mel’s been in an accident, I’m going up to observe 

It’s bad 

I’m going to leave to check my phone every ten minutes or so

(2:48 PM) You 

Status? 

(2:55 PM) Mira 

They just started. Chest, stomach and head trauma, chest and stomach priority. We had to intubate in the ER

Walsh has been called in 

(2:57 PM) You 

Shit 

Prognosis? 

(3:06 PM) Mira 

Nobody is saying anything 

Will let you know 

Has anyone called Langdon?

(3:08 PM) You 

Just talked to Dana, Robby has. 

He’s listed as her NOK apparently. Don’t know if Langdon knows that. 

He’s with Becca, couldn’t leave right away. 

(3:21 PM) Mira 

Mel would kill him if he did

She asked us not to call him on the table Jack 

It’s the last thing she said

(3:25 PM) You

They’ve cleaned out Trauma Two

Will debrief with Robby, let me know if there are updates 

(3:45 PM) You 

Langdon is expected to show up in 20. Is there anything to tell him? 

(3:55 PM) Mira 

Sorry for late reply

Pneumothorax confirmed. Walsh is opting for an open thoracotomy over VATS 

Vascular injury to the liver, Garcia wants to use sutures. Doesn’t think a graft is necessary

Remind Langdon that that is good news when he starts catastrophizing over the thoracotomy

(3:56 PM) You 

The acute SDH? 

(4:03 PM) Mira 

 Looking like a craniotomy. ICP holding steady though

Tell Langdon Garcia told me Mel’s out of immediate danger 

Please Jack, go wait for him. He doesn’t know what he’s walking into

(4:05 PM) You 

On it

How are you doing?

(4:05 PM) Mira 

I’m trying to hold it together for Mel’s sake 

(4:05 PM) You 

Langdon’s going to want to know

Do we know how it happened?

(4:06 PM) Mira

EMTs said she pushed a five year old girl out of the way and got struck instead. She was adamant it wasn’t the driver’s fault though, even as she was fading in and out. Freak accident. 

(4:07 PM) You 

Anything else?

(4:09 PM) Mira 

Tell him to text me when he’s done in the Pitt

I’ll come meet him outside of the surgical wing

(4:10 PM) You 

He’s pulling up

He’ll come find you

“Oh my god,” Langdon breathes. “Oh my god.” 

The fresh air does nothing to calm him down. Walsh, Garcia and whoever else are inside in a sterile OR cutting into his girl and there’s nothing he can do to stop them. They’re trying to save her life, Langdon knows this rationally. There’s just not much of that going around right now.

He doesn’t want to stop them, except that he kind of does. 

He wants them to leave her beautiful brain alone, the one that had looked at him one day and decided he was worth the effort. He wants them to keep their hands off of her lungs, the same lungs that had breathed life back into Langdon in his living room months ago. He wants them to stop digging around in her stomach, the same one he’d cried into when he’d been on the brink of devastation and she’d dragged him off the ledge. He wants them to stop touching her because she doesn’t like it when people touch her.

He wants all of this to stop. 

He wants her here. He wants the kisses he’s dedicated months to kissing into her skin to stay intact instead of broken apart by metal and blood and pain. He wants to go home and leave this horrible place behind and never go back. He wants to wake up from all of this and find her next to him in bed, asleep against his arm and cheek resting along his clavicle. He wants more baked goods in the fridge. He wants to go back to this morning when he hadn’t woken her up properly because he was already running late and, instead, pull her out of sleep to kiss her, to tell her he loved her and make sure she heard it. 

Frank Langdon is no stranger to wanting, especially not when it comes to Melissa King. He’d spent so much time denying it to himself, but Mel had forced it out of him anyway. It feels cruel now, to have it wrenched away. 

“This is exactly what Samira meant when she told you not to catastrophize,” Abbot’s voice breaks through the fog. “She’s not dead Langdon. Have more faith in her than that.” 

“It’s not her I don’t have faith in,” he says but offers nothing else. 

She deserves more than you can offer her. This time, Mel’s not here to tell him he’s wrong. 

He wishes he could relish a little bit more in the feeling of vindication. 

“That’s what you’re behaving like,” Abbot says suddenly. “Because she has an awful lot of faith in you. The least you can do right now is try and honor that until she can come back to do it herself.” 

Langdon feels like he’s been shot. 

“I think you forget how much I know Mel, Dr. Langdon. How much I know about what she thinks about you in particular. How many discussions I’ve had to take part in where Mel’s been bemoaning your entire existence only for Samira to agree and then have you be almost viciously defended again by Mel. Focus, soldier. This is a crisis, and you’re allowed to spiral a little. I pulled you aside to get this out of your system, but now you need to pull yourself together again. Mel’s fighting for her life in there, stand beside her instead of counting her out of the fight right away.”

Langdon stares. 

“Robby’s waiting for you. Let him give you the debrief unless you want him to know we did this. I suggest you inform him that you intend to invoke your right to FMLA. You don’t have that yet of course, but I don’t think he’ll deny it to you. I’ll have your back if he tries. And then, when that’s done, I suggest you go find Samira. She was there, she can give you more info on how hard Mel is fighting to get herself back to you. When you do, try not to look like you're looking right now. Samira’s going to be beating herself up plenty without thinking she’s completely ruined your life too.” 

Abbot leaves with another word and Langdon’s left sitting there speechless for a few moments. It’s not until he’s out of sight that Langdon realises he was being given an order and rushes to follow. 

The eyes are on him as soon as he steps past the ambulance doors and into the quiet. Santos sees him first and blanches from where she’s sitting outside of psych. He can tell the second Whitaker notices his presence by the way he freezes five feet in front of him, and the atmosphere goes tense as he rounds Central Six and comes into view of the nurses’ desk. 

It’s Dana’s eyes he meets first though. 

“Dr. Langdon,” she smiles, pained but warm. “Hello.” 

It takes everything in him not to break again. 

“Dana,” he says instead as he tilts his head down to avoid looking at her any longer. “Could you tell Dr. Robby I’m here, please.” 

She nods before walking away and Langdon sags against the counter, holding himself up on his forearms. Just this morning he’d been flitting all over this floor with energy and excitement and now he’s back, the focus of everyone’s attention in a way he hasn’t been since his first day back. 

Since Mel was the only one not to care, really. Except she’s not around the corner to whisk him away for a simple head lac now. 

Fuck. 

“Langdon,” Robby says from somewhere next to him. “Office?” 

There’s something in his voice that hasn’t been there since before PittFest. Langdon registers this somewhere in the back of his mind but he can’t spare any of the energy he has to start analysing it right now. Instead he nods and follows Robby into the office and relishes in the reprieve it gives him away from the rest of the floor. 

Robby runs the whole procedure through just as Abbot had but this time Langdon’s prepared. He asks questions he already knows the answers to so as to not give anything away, but they still land like punches every time. Confirmation upon confirmation that this is very real and something he was going to have to deal with. 

He does so well, actually, that when Robby’s done and Langdon’s gotten his approval to go find Samira for more information, he actually looks shocked when Langdon turns back to him, door slightly open to make sure someone overhears him, and says “I’m also going to have to apply for family medical leave. HR knows where to find me, please send them my way.” 

He doesn’t wait for a reply before rushing over to the staircase and walking up them two steps at a time. He tells himself it’s to avoid all of the people looking at him as if he’s going to break into the medicine dispenser for drugs much harder than benzos, but it’s really just to avoid having to walk past Trauma Two at all. 

There’s this maybe twenty feet wide space between the ORs and the rest of the surgical wing that acts sort of like a floodgate for surgeons. Langdon has a friend from med school who told him once that for her, patients don’t die on the table. They die the second she steps through that floodgate and out of the surgical wing leaving them behind. As long as she stays behind those doors her patients’ families believe their loved one is still alive. As soon as she leaves, the proverbial floodgates of grief that she’s going to leave them with open. 

That’s heavy shit man, Langdon had told her, and I work in EM.

That’s where he finds Samira after having spent thirty minutes on the roof just trying to get his lungs to work with him and not against him. Nobody really warns you that if your girlfriend uses the concept of box breathing to explain how much she loves and knows you, it’s going to be a really bad method to try and use to calm yourself down after said girlfriend has to have three major surgeries performed on her all at once.

Samira’s sitting on the floor with her knees pressed to her chest and head resting atop of them. She’s wearing a clean trauma gown, thank god, and no gloves when he comes to a stop right in front of her, their feet almost touching. 

“I leave for three hours and everything goes to shit,” he says and Samira startles a laugh. “It’s a good thing I’ll probably be stuck here for a while then.” 

“You’re really trying for a joke right now?” 

He shrugs and slinks down next to her, knees and shoulders knocking together. “I have to, strict orders from your attending. Besides, Mel fell in love with me for my jokes. I have to keep the facade up for her sake or she’ll leave me.”

Samira snorts. “Mel fell in love with you because you took one look at her and saw she was worth the effort. It just took you an awfully long time to realise she thought you were worth the effort too. Don’t think your charming personality had much to do with it.”

“Harsh, Mohan. But fair.”

“How much do you know?” she asks. 

“Abbot and Robby gave me the medical rundown,” he trails off. “I’d like you to give me the non-medical one, if you’re ready.” 

“It’s going to be ugly,” Samira warns. “It’s going to be really ugly.” 

He hopes Samira doesn’t notice his breath hitch and his hand still on his thigh. “Nothing about Mel King can ever be ugly to me.” 

“Here,” she reaches out her hand and places it palm up on his knee. “Hold onto this. Squeeze if you want me to stop.” 

Langdon takes it and nods. 

“She came in unresponsive at first but came to a couple of times while we worked on her. It was bloody, but most of it came from one source. A metal shard was lodged in the right side of her abdomen, a piece of fender that broke off during the impact. Santos used so much perihepatic packing Dana told me she had to restock completely after Mel was brought up here. Garcia told me it could’ve been much worse, the shard avoided causing major damage.” 

“Was she in pain?” 

“Yes,” Samira says and Langdon exhales loudly into the brief silence. “Her head was causing her the most problems initially. I was the one working on it and noticed her pupils weren’t reacting properly. Robby noticed when she said the overhead light wasn’t that bad.” Langdon bristles. “Yeah, that’s what he thought too. There’s a head laceration along her hairline that looks worse than it is, which is really the same story as the SDH. Neuro was waiting for her up here when we got here and her ICP has stabilised since.”

“So her lungs are the worst of it?” 

“Yes. A few of her ribs fractured and one punctured her right one. The other one’s bruised but otherwise unharmed, it just had to overcompensate and it exacerbated the symptoms. She kept telling herself, I don’t think she even realised she was saying it out loud, but she kept going ‘inhale, exhale,’ over and over again. Whispers really, and I think only I heard because I was the one working so close to her face but-.” 

Langdon squeezes her hand suddenly and Samira pauses for a few seconds. Exhale, hold, inhale. 

“You good?” she asks when he eases his grip again. 

“Never better,” he cringes. “Please continue.”

“She worried about Becca, told us not to call you,” he bristles but doesn’t squeeze. “She must’ve forgotten she added you to her chart. Did you know about that, by the way? She didn’t tell me.” 

He nods, swallows, and turns to look at Samira then. Considers how much he can trust her with the details of his recovery before he notices the tear tracks on her cheek. She turns to look at him, a fragile smile in place. 

“We added each other after I almost relapsed. More symbolic than anything else, it’s not like I was getting high on amphetamines, but Mel said it would assure her if she was mine, just in case. I told her I’d do it if I got to be hers.”

She recovers quickly, Langdon barely even notices. “See that’s the kind of thing you did that made it very obvious you were into her. Forget the blatant staring and the constant sleepovers, I don’t even know what to call that level of pseudo-dating.”

Langdon snorts. “Yeah well I had very noble intentions with that. I know you and Mel think I was being stupid, but it’s not like I was doing it for the hell of it.”

It’s Samira’s turn to squeeze his hand. “I don’t think you were being stupid, and neither does Mel.” Langdon shoots her a look. “Well, not anymore. She just wishes you had been kinder to yourself.”

“Well I’m working on it, so she better stick around to see all her hard work pay off.”

Samira looks at him. “It’s your hard work Langdon. It’s very important to Mel that you take credit for it.” 

“You’ve talked about it?”

She hums. “Mostly in the beginning, in your first few months back. She was very angry with Santos for a while for being so insensitive about the whole thing. Asked me for advice on how to confront her about it and everything. Said she didn’t like confronting people.” 

His heart breaks a little in his chest at that. He doesn’t know what to say.

“Did she say anything else? When she got here, I mean.” 

Samira watches him for a long time before moving to turn so she’s facing him head on and moves for him to do the same, knees knocking together in a new way. He can’t avoid her eyes this way, but he suspects that’s the point. 

“There are two things I have to tell you that I worry will hit a bit too close to home for you, so I need you to promise you won’t freak out on me. I’m not sure Mel would want you to know them, for that exact reason. Please don’t freak out and think the worst. You’re going to read too much into it and panic.” 

He pauses. “You’re scaring me Mohan.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” she frowns. “It’s just that going against Mel’s wishes isn’t something I like to do so I’m feeling very conflicted right now. I need you to not make me regret telling you. I know Dana has probably updated her chart already and I don’t want you to find out through that.”

He knocks his knee against her. “Tell me Samira. I won’t freak out. I won’t read too much into it.”

She looks at him again in apparent consideration before sighing, shoulders dropping. “When she came in, she wasn’t wearing your sobriety chip.” 

Oh, that’s- “I’m not freaking out,” he says, voice breaking slightly. 

“She sustained extensive chest trauma. It’s not out of the ordinary that jewelry would’ve broken or fallen off during impact. It’s not some great sign from the universe that your addiction is the cause for this, Langdon.” 

There’s a low buzz in his ears as his eyes shift away from Samira to one of the info placards on the opposite wall. “I know,” he says after a beat. He tries to reorient himself by tracking the frame with his eyes without much success. “It’s just, it feels like a sign.” 

“Well it’s not, and you know that. You’re not a superstitious person, I don’t know why you keep believing in signs only when they can affect you negatively. You’re a doctor, be pragmatic with me for now. You can have a breakdown when Mel’s out of surgery if you want, if she’s the one telling you you’re overthinking you’ll probably just fall more in love with her.”

That stutters a laugh out of him. 

“Now stay with me for this last one, okay? I don’t know how you’re going to react so I need to let you know beforehand that whatever reaction you have is okay, I just need you to not run. Just stay with me here.” 

“It gets worse?” he says, tone unsteady. 

Samira hums and reaches for his wrist so she can rest two fingers over his pulse. “That depends on your perspective. Personally I think it’s a very normal thing for Mel to ask for given the circumstances, but I don’t know what you’ll take from it.” 

“And measuring my pulse is going to help how?” 

Samira doesn’t respond immediately, she just keeps her fingers steady for a couple of seconds to track his baseline. 

“The EMTs,” she begins. “When they came in. They told us Mel told a pre-med student on the scene to make sure we didn’t give her any benzodiazepines.” 

There are moments in life where the world will stop spinning for just a second, just long enough for all noise to disappear and leave you with vertigo, head spinning. 

Moments, like when your girlfriend’s best friend tells you your girlfriend used the last of her consistent air supply to ensure alterations were made to her medical treatment to account for your addiction recovery. 

He’s falling, falling, falling suddenly. Does Mel not trust him around her with this? 

Sharp pain flares in his wrist and when he looks down Samira’s pressing her nails hard into it, crescent moons left in their place when she eases the grip. He looks back up at her in shock. 

“It’s not about trust at all, Langdon. You know that. Mel trusts you more than anyone else, she trusts you with Becca. I can’t say for sure what it’s about because Mel hasn’t talked to me about it before, but god Langdon, you have to know it can’t be about trust. Wait for her to wake up and ask.”

He presses his lips into a thin line “What else can it be though?” 

Samira tilts her head and looks for something in his eyes that Langdon can’t figure out. Then, she exhales loudly and moves back to lean back against the wall again. “Did she tell you anything about the night of the thunderstorm? The night before you guys first got together?” 

He considers for a moment. “Not really. I know she needed you for moral support, she told me you were very supportive of her complaints, which, thank you by the way.” 

Samira smiles and waves a hand out towards him dismissively. “Thank me later. What I wanted to say was, she told me off when I suggested I’d bring wine over. I don’t remember exactly what she said but she was very clear she thought I was an idiot for even suggesting it.”

“Where are you going with this, Samira?”

“God, Langdon, do you even go to your NA meetings?” Langdon frowns, slightly offended. “The first thing they say to spouses of addicts is that it’s important to minimize risks in your everyday environment to help recovery. Mel obviously can’t do that at work, so she does the best she can to remove any triggers for you away from work. That’s not distrust, she’s acting as if she’s your wife. God, I can’t believe I’m the one who had to spell this out for you.”

Your wife. Your wife your wife your wife. 

“What?” he squawks. 

“If it’s any consolation I don’t think Mel’s aware of what she's doing. It’s just so natural for her, and it’s not the only thing she’s been doing. So no, I don’t think it’s a trust issue.” 

“What else has she been doing?” 

Samira looks at him a little bit funny. “Uh, like, she’s been with you every step of the way, right? From day one? Like, literally day one? And she basically helped you create this whole support system around you at work by not allowing anyone to talk badly while you were gone, did you know that? Not to mention she created space for you in her and Becca's life so that you wouldn't feel lonely or sad on the weeks you didn't have your kids. Pretty textbook stuff.” 

Oh my god. 

“Okay,” he says. “I cannot talk about this any longer. I feel like my heart is beating out of my chest.”

“Hey, speaking of, do you want something positive to take as a sign instead?” 

He nods. “Yes, if I keep thinking of your voice calling Mel my wife for a second longer I think I’m going to start crying, but like in a good way? Which would be a nice change of pace to be honest but I’m not sure I want to do it in front of you. No offense.” 

“God, you two deserve each other.” 

“Samira,” he urges. “What’s the positive sign?”

“She’s told you about her dad, right?”

Langdon frowns. “That’s what you want to talk about?”

“I’m sure you’ve already made the connection. You probably ran it as soon as Robby called you.” 

“Well,” he nods. Touché. “It’s hard not to draw parallels.” 

“You shouldn’t though. Mel’s father’s heart gave up. In there,” she points her thumb towards the OR. “In there, her heart is the only organ in her chest that didn’t give out while they worked to stabilize her. She never crashed, not once. Her heart’s holding steady, even as everything around it failed. If you want a sign from the universe so badly about your role in Mel’s life, focus on that.” 

Langdon’s never been as thankful for Samira Mohan in his life as he is in that moment, sitting shoulder to shoulder with him and being his rock. When he’d walked back into the Pitt what must be hours ago now, he’d felt lost and alone and scrutinised without Mel there to anchor him. He realises way too belatedly that it must have been fucking scary for her too when Mel had been wheeled in. 

“Do you want to talk about it? About how you felt when Mel came in?” 

“One day I will,” she almost whispers and she sounds tired suddenly. “But for now I just need Jack. I’m probably going to break down as soon as we come home, whenever that will be. As soon as she’s out of surgery, probably. Maybe after she’s been wheeled to the ICU. I felt like I was running on fumes until you showed up.” 

“Well, one day when you do, call.”

He reaches for her hand slowly, leaning his own palm up on his knee, the one closest to her. She looks at him tiredly before slipping her hand back into his. 

“She’s going to make it through this Langdon, I know it. She didn’t fight for you that long just to call it quits now.”

“Yeah,” he whispers. “I really hope you’re right.” 

They’re in bed the first time they really talk about it. Not like that. It’s maybe a month after Highland Park and Mel’s insisted he stay over at her and Becca’s this weekend before going back home on Sunday when Tanner and Isabel are coming home. 

“There’s something bothering me,” she whispers into the space between them. They’re laying as close as Langdon will allow them, Mel suspects. There are still walls put up, but they’ve started to fracture slightly. She doesn’t even know if it’s just because he’s mentally drained or if he’s going to start letting her back in now. She desperately hopes it’s the latter. 

“What?” he asks, eyes closed. 

“What you said when I said you weren't strong for coming to me, before Highland. How your first instinct was to refute it or minimise the effort it took for you to not swallow the pills even when you knew nobody would’ve seen.” 

Langdon opens his eyes to squint at her and something in them looks guarded. Not exactly surprising but she hates it nonetheless. 

“It’s embarrassing,” he says. “It’s embarrassing that pills can have such an effect on me. There are millions of people suffering with chronic pain just like I am and the absolute majority of them don’t have to drive to their friends’ house in the middle of the night because of it.” 

“Langdon,” she scolds him, reaching up to cradle his jaw to force him to look her in the eye. “There are also plenty of people suffering with chronic pain who would’ve just swallowed the pills and dealt with the consequences afterwards. Do you know rare it is that you’ve been able to stay clean for a whole year on your first try? I’ve read this NIH study that said the median for permanent recovery is at least two attempts, the mean over five.”

His eyes widened. “You’ve read a study?”

“Of course. I read it a while after you came back to know what signs to look out for and see if I could prevent any of them. I don’t know why you don’t want to believe me when I say you were strong when you came to me. You could’ve not done it and relapsed which wouldn’t have been out of the ordinary at all, but you didn’t. The point is that you’re an outlier according to the statistics, Langdon. Rehab gave you a push, yes, but ever since then it’s you who have woken up every day and, even the ones where your back has flared up, decided your kids and your job are more important.”

Decided that I’m more important, she doesn’t say. The moment is too fragile and she doesn’t want to assume, but god she hopes. Her heart feels like it’s about to burst with it. 

One day though. One day when he’s put himself back together and has regained some of his self-confidence that she’s spent the last year desperately hoping for. When there’s some steady ground under them, Mel is going to allow herself to believe it and act on it. 

“You’re remarkable Melissa King, you know that?” His voice comes out a little strangled and she starts rubbing circles into his jaw as it flexes underneath her fingers. 

“I’ve been told, once or twice. Mostly by you.” she grins and leans forward to kiss his hair, Langdon sighing into her touch. 

His eyes are closed when Mel places her head on her pillows again. “Well I had to be right about something.” 

“Go to sleep Langdon. I’ll tell you all about the things you’ve ever been right about in the morning over breakfast.” 

He hums. “Becca wants blueberry pancakes, right? Do you have blueberries or do I need to run out in the morning to get some?”

“We have blueberries,” she says instead of thinking about it for too long. 

She can’t stop herself from thinking about it in the end, even if it’s after he’s managed to fall asleep. The wrinkles on his forehead disappear in sleep and Mel always feels so incredibly privileged that she gets to see him like this. 

Domestic, domestic, domestic. 

Mel’s surgery takes a total of nine hours, finishing around midnight. Garcia’s so mentally exhausted by the time she’s chucking nylon gloves in the biohazard bin that she has to lean on the sink to steady herself for a bit before she can go back and face the music of the Pitt. Night shift will have questions and she guesses some day shifters will have stayed behind too. 

At least Mel’s stable and alive. Returning to the Pitt would’ve been a substantially worse experience if she hadn’t been.

As she pushes through the door she spots Dr. Langdon and Dr. Mohan sitting up against the wall on the far left, Langdon’s head on Mohan’s shoulder. The position can’t be comfortable either so they must've really been exhausted. 

She hates the fact that she has to wake them up. 

“Hey,” she says as she shakes Mohan’s shoulder. The movement rouses both of them slowly. “Wake up sunshines.” 

Langdon squints against the harsh light for a moment before they widen and he scrambles to his feet, pulling Mohan up with him even on shaky legs. 

“Garcia? What happened?” 

“How is she?”

She sighs. “They’ve taken her to the ICU. Let’s go grab coffee, I’ll give you the rundown.”

“Medically induced coma?” Langdon asks, voice strangled and fiddling with a loose sticker on his coffee cup.. “For how long?” 

“A few days initially and then we’ll evaluate if she needs longer. We don’t want to risk long term neurological damage and she can’t really breathe on her own yet. She’s being kept on a ventilator for now and we’re going to monitor her ICP continuously. It’s better for her if her body can focus on repairing itself in peace without the added pressure on having to be conscious. Really, I don’t know why I’m even explaining this to you,” she says, not unkindly but Langdon flinches all the same. Samira reaches for his hand instinctively and Garcia looks at him sympathetically. “I’m sorry, I just meant that you two are already aware of the benefits, that’s all. Walsh and I are going to come by check in on her everyday.” 

He wants to ask if she’ll be okay. He wants Garcia to reassure him, to promise him Mel’s going to wake up and be the exact same Mel who fell asleep on her couch yesterday while Langdon combed through her hair. He wants her to promise him this will all just be a horrible nightmare and in a few days Mel will smile at him and his world will start spinning again. 

But he can’t ask for any of that because he knows Garcia can’t make any promises and it would just break his heart further to hear the placating denial. 

“She’s in room 514, I can take you there on my way out down to the Pitt. You know it’s only one of you though.” 

Samira laughs. “Yeah, I’m not going to fight him for that. He’d kill me before Mel ever could.”

Langdon would’ve said it nicer, but. 

“Can we go right now?” 

“Sure,” Garcia says before standing up. “Who am I to stand in the way of true love any longer.” 

He pauses. “I never told you we’re together.” 

She gives him a long look, and yeah maybe that’s fair. 

“You really don’t want to get into this right now with me, ER Ken. Let’s go see ER Barbie.” 

He splutters as he rushes to stand, only pausing to look down at Samira. “Are you going to be okay?” 

“Yeah,” she smiles tiredly and squeezes his hand one last time. “I’ll go find Jack, he’s on shift. Go, I’ll come by tomorrow.” 

Langdon presses a kiss to the crown of her head lightly. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough for today.” 

She smirks up at him. “I know Mel’s been trying to get you to join us for pilates for months now. It’s good for managing back pain, you know. Come with us and we’ll call it even.”

“Ugh,” he groans. “I really wish you hadn’t said that in front of Garcia.” 

“Chop chop, pilates boy, we’ve got your girlfriend to see.”

He shoots Samira a look before stumbling after Garcia out of the cafeteria.

“Before we get in there, you need to prepare yourself for what she’s going to look like.” 

“As long as she’s breathing I’ll be fine.”

“You say that now, but it looks bad Langdon. She had a craniotomy and isn't breathing on her own. Her entire left side is littered with bruises and small cuts. Her arm’s bandaged up. It’s going to look scary for you even if you’ve seen hundreds of patients like this before, because this isn’t a patient to you. Just remember that both Walsh and I are very optimistic about a full recovery. You don’t need to do anything for her right now other than be there, we’ll handle the rest.” 

“Open the door Garcia.” 

When Garcia finally leaves him alone with Mel, it takes him less than five seconds to start breaking down completely. Which is better than he’d expected, to be honest. 

Garcia had been right, it does look bad. It looks fucking horrible, Langdon’s never seen anything like it. The ventilator is so loud as it stands in the corner that for a brief second he can’t hear his own thoughts. There's a bandage wrapped around Mel’s head from where they’d dug into her brain, jesus. 

The harsh hospital lighting is doing no favours to Mel’s complexion either. If Langdon would try hard enough he could almost pretend Mel is just sleeping despite the bandages and the ventilator and the intubation tubes down her throat helping her breath, the lines inserted all along her arms. Her hair’s unbraided and he feels the hair tie around his wrist tight around it as he’s overwhelmed by a need to braid it for her as he sees it splayed all over the pillows. The nurses must have washed it earlier because Samira had told him it had been streaked with her blood when she came in. 

But despite all of it, her chest still rises and falls in sync with the machine, and she’s never looked more beautiful. 

“Oh, sweetheart,” he stumbles towards her bedside and carefully takes her hand in his. “I’m here, I’m here Mel. I’m sorry it took me so long but I’m here now baby. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere ever again.” 

Everything Garcia had just told him about them being optimistic and expecting a full recovery goes out of the window completely. 

“You can’t leave me Melissa, you’re not allowed, you hear me?” he cries into her arm. “You told me it was okay to want you. You said it was okay for me to be selfish with you, you gave me permission, sweetheart. Don’t do this to me now.”

She remains silent, hand limp, and he knew she would but his heart still fractures in his chest. 

“I’ll do whatever you want, baby, whatever you want. I’ll go to pilates and I’ll watch Elf with you and Becca for the rest of my life. I’ll drive you around every single day and you’ll never have to cook again. We’ll move in together, I don’t care where as long as it has four bedrooms and space for all of your baking supplies. I’ll let you pick the curtains and the bedsheets and I’ll give you all the closet space you need. I’ll refuse Samira when she tries to tell me all the blackmail material she has on you even though I’m dying to know every single thing you’ve ever said about me. I’ll tell Robby we need to be on the same shifts until we retire. Whatever you want sweetheart, all you need to do is wake up.” 

Langdon runs his thumb over the veins of Mel’s wrist just to feel her pulse underneath her skin, her heartbeat strong and steady despite everything. 

“I’m not afraid to be selfish with you Mel, not anymore. You said that it was okay to be, that you wanted me to be, so I’m not above begging you to stay. I’ll beg for the rest of my life. I’m sorry I wasted so much of our time, baby, but I’m going to be selfish and ask for more. Decades. Eons. I’ll find you in the next life but you’re not allowed to leave now because it will mean we’ll be out of sync, sweetheart. You’ll be decades older than me by the time I’ll find you again, and then I’ll really have an age gap thing,” he laughs through his tears and thinks Mel would’ve laughed at that. 

“You can’t leave because I’ll be forced to leave the state to get away from the memories of you, and I don’t ever want to forget how it feels to love you. I don’t want to forget the precise color of your eyes or the way your hair catches in the sunlight. How you looked, standing in my home in nothing but my shirt and telling me you wanted me to love you, as if I hadn’t ever since you first held my hand. You’re everything, Mel. You have to stay.”

Fuck, he thinks hysterically as he leans his head down on Mel’s thigh. She’s not allowed to do this to him ever again. 

“You’re so selfless Mel, god. Throwing yourself in front of a speeding car like it was nothing. I can’t even be mad at you for it, which feels so much worse. I wish I could tell you you were being stupid, but I don’t think you’ve ever been stupid a day in your life. You’re so smart, baby, sometimes I look at you and wonder how you ever felt out of place. You’re so perfect for me, you’re everything I could ever ask for. You make me want to be a better person for you everyday.” 

He stands up then to lean over him, kissing the non-injured skin on her right cheek, right underneath the bandages. “You told me you were going to see me on the other side when I was ready to let go of my past. Don’t become my past, sweetheart. I’m begging you.” 

Langdon keeps talking to her for the next hour, maybe even longer. He only stops when one of the ICU night nurses comes in to give him a protein bar and a glass of water, courtesy of Abbot she tells him. He only thanks her before he goes back to telling Mel about whatever comes to mind. He tells her about his favorite procedures he’s done with her, his favorite ones from the years before he knew her. He tells her about Becca’s dance performance and Tanner’s first birthday party that ended in total disaster and Isabel’s where he and Abby were so scared something would go wrong they planned it down to every minute detail. He tells her about the relief he’d felt when Mel asked him to delete that paramedic’s phone number, so full of emotion he had to escape before she realised how gone he actually was for her already. 

“You remember box breathing Mel,” he whispers against the crown of her head sometime later. “You told me to flip it on its head, exhale before you inhale, let go before you can move on? You’re not allowed to let go, sweetheart, you hear me? You need to come back to me or I’ll hold my breath again for the rest of my life. One day someday soon, I’m going to need you to inhale, sweetheart.” 

When he eventually falls asleep, it’s bent over her hospital bed and lulled to sleep by the sound of her heartbeat coming from her heartbeat monitor, her hand still in his.

He dreams of her. Of course he does.

The next few days pass in a blur of people visiting Mel as he sits by her bedside. Some are nurses that he only knows in passing, but most of them are people from the Pitt. Dana gives him a Red Bull every time she stops by, Santos spends fifteen full minutes just straight sobbing and Langdon has to step out to stop himself from joining her, and Abbot stops by every night to remind him to not give up on himself or her. 

There’s Whitaker, and Collins, and McKay. There’s Princess and Perlah, and Walsh and Garcia who keep checking in when they can. Langdon calls Becca the next day and tells her a very boiled-down version of what happens so that she can digest it easier and asks her if she wants to come see Mel, which she of course does. Samira stays with Mel as Langdon leaves to go pick her up, Becca silent the whole time. When they get to the hospital she asks Langdon to be alone with Mel for a bit and he leaves, standing outside of room 514 until Becca’s ready to come out. 

It’s heartbreaking to watch them, but that’s a feeling he’s become painfully familiar with at this point. 

When she comes back out, she just looks at Langdon’s shoes for a long moment before she says, quietly, “can you drive me back now?” 

He does, and she doesn’t speak another word the whole car ride back either.

“She’s going to be okay Becs, I know it,” he says right before she’s about to walk back into the center and hopes Mel’s not about to make him a liar. 

Becca nods once, twice before taking a step closer to him. It’s not a hug, but it feels like one nonetheless. 

“You’re still a good boyfriend to Mel, Frank Langdon.” 

Then she steps back and walks into the center, alone, and Langdon feels something heal inside him. 

He still sits in the parking lot of the Pitt and cries for ten minutes before he feels ready to walk back in, but that’s still progress. 

Samira starts coming up to hang out with him for a few hours after her shifts, even though Langdon’s not sure he’s the greatest company. When Abby brings the kids to visit on day two, once Langdon has learned how to mask the devastation on his face a little better, he becomes eternally grateful as he sits with Tanner and Isabel as Samira explains to them what’s going on, what happened and how hard Mel’s fighting to wake up so she can see them again. Tanner asks why Mel hasn’t woken up yet and Langdon has to dig his fingernails into his thigh to stop himself from crying in front of his children who look terrified enough already. Isabel ties one of her woven bracelets around Mel’s wrist silently, clumsily as five year old hands tend to be, and he nearly collapses then and there. 

Abby comes in a bit later and asks Tanner and Isabel to go hang out with “Dr. Mohan, the nice lady from earlier. She’s going to buy you candy if you’re nice to her,” and both of them go up to hug him before following the promise of candy right out the door. Langdon hugs them back with one arm, his other still holding onto Mel’s still hand. 

“I’m just so tired Abs,” he says as soon as the door closes. “It’s like whenever my life stabilises, the universe throws a wrench at me and the whole world aligns to knock me back down.” 

Abby sits down on the opposite side of Mel and looks at him. “She’s still here, Frank. She’s lying right in front of you, heart beating and lungs breathing. Dr. Mohan told me they’re seeing signs her lungs are healing. Her brain function looks in line with the best case scenario too. Your world hasn’t destabilised yet, so don’t destabilize it yourself.” 

He looks at Mel. “Yeah, I know.”

“Dr. Mohan also told me she asked the paramedics not to give her any benzodiazepines.” 

Now, Langdon regrets his addiction to benzos for a lot of reasons, but the biggest one is starting to become having to hear about them all the damn time.

“That’s patient information I’m not sure she should have shared with you. I didn’t ask her to do that.” 

Abby smiles. “She apologised immediately, I think she's so exhausted she can't think straight, don't blame her. And I didn’t think you did. She also told me Mel’s forbidden alcohol in your house.”

“I have no idea why she felt the need to say that to you either,” he frowns, slightly irritated now. 

“She said it rather pointedly,” Abby shrugs apologetically. “I didn’t take offense, don’t worry. I was just surprised. You never told me alcohol was off the table that last summer, I had wine almost every night after the kids went to bed.”

“It wasn’t that big of an issue for me, truthfully, and I didn’t want to inconvenience you any more than I already had. The rehab, the divorce, I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t want to limit what you could do around me any more than I already had.” 

She smiles at him then, but it looks sad. “I hate that you felt the need to endanger yourself to protect me. I feel like you always did that in our marriage, putting me above your own health without me knowing.” 

He tilts his head slightly, confused. “What do you mean?”

“Frank,”she starts. “We both know you got addicted to benzos because you didn’t want to tell me your back started hurting again.” 

He freezes. “My addiction isn’t your fault.” 

“I didn’t say it was my fault, I’m saying you have this tendency to think you’re a burden to the people you love so you mask it with sarcasm, arrogance and false bravado and you refuse to ask for help because you don’t want people to worry about you. You did it with me and the drugs, and you did it in the beginning with Mel, don’t think I couldn’t tell.”

He stares at her in shock then, feeling sort of suspended in time. Abby doesn’t stop. 

“She loves you like it’s breathing Frank, she has since long before you two actually got together. It's second nature to her. I know Dr. Mohan has already told you this, but we both think you could benefit from having it repeated until you actually internalise it.” 

“I do believe it,” he says quietly then and looks down at where their fingers are interlaced. “I love her like it’s breathing too. Nothing has ever felt like this before.” 

It takes him a moment too long to realise what he’s just said. His head shoots up to stare at his ex-wife in panic, apologies already forming on his tongue. 

Abby just shakes her head minutely. “I know it hasn’t, don’t apologise. I am very happy you found someone who doesn’t have to try to love you. You deserve it Frank, so much.” 

His shoulders sag in relief. “I still should’ve treated you better.” 

“Maybe, yeah. But I think I could’ve treated you better too. I wouldn’t trade what we have today for more years stuck in a marriage that wasn’t working even before you went to rehab. Our kids will grow up in two happy homes instead of one dysfunctional one. I couldn’t be more grateful to you for that, and I couldn’t be more grateful to Mel for helping make that happen.” 

He feels a two-year old wound heal somewhere in his heart as she leans over Mel to take Langdon’s free hand in hers. “You’re a great ex-wife to have, you know that Abs?” 

“And you’re a great ex-husband, Frank. I don’t regret marrying you at all, even if this is where we’ve ended up,” she cringes. “Well, it would’ve been great if we weren’t doing this over Mel’s unconscious body though.” 

Langdon laughs for the first time in days and rubs his thumb in circles over the back of Mel’s hand. “Agreed.” 

Silence settles between them for a while until he looks over to see Abby gnawing at her lip suddenly, eyes locking on his in concentration. “What?” 

“Okay,” she says. “Promise me you won’t get mad at either of us.” 

He narrows his eyes at her. “Either of you?” 

“Mel called me after Isabel’s birthday party.” 

He squeezes Mel’s hand on reflex as he whips his head to look at her. Worry lines smoothened out, hair now braided in an extremely loose braid that one of the nurses had to assure Langdon five times wouldn’t hurt her. The abrasions on her arm have started to heal, something Langdon had seen when he redressed it this morning, waving Perlah away when she’d volunteered to do it before her shift started. 

Not quite a thousand pieces sweetheart, he’d whispered into her forehead once he was done. Not up to your standards. 

He looks at her now, and wonders what else she’s done for him that he has no idea about. 

To Abby, all he can manage is “oh.”

“She spent the first three minutes or so informing me that being around benzos in a controlled environment is very different than hours away without a consistent support network around you. Honestly, I felt a bit scolded until she spent the next however many minutes apologizing for being rude. She remained firm though, said she didn’t care what I did as long as I made sure it wouldn’t happen again.” 

God. 

He reaches up to run his hand over her braid, soft strands against his fingertips. When had she even done that? Before or after Highland Park? Before or after he gave her his fucking sobriety chip? 

He desperately needs her to wake up so he can ask.

Langdon doesn’t look away from her when he eventually finds the energy to say “god, I love her so much Abs.” 

“You’ve said,” smile evident even if he can’t see it. “I’m going to relieve Dr. Mohan of her babysitting duties and take the kids home, visiting hours are almost over I think. Text me if you need anything Frank, I mean it.” 

“I will,” he says. “Thank you for taking care of everything while this is going on.” 

“That’s what co parents do,” she says and Langdon turns to look at her for a last time. She’s grinning at him. “You and Mel would do the same for me.” 

It takes him ten minutes after she’s left for Langdon to realise she referred to Mel as her co parent and he has to hide his disbelief into Mel’s hand. 

Abby has sent her to voicemail three times by the time Mel’s starting to get really frustrated. Granted it’s the middle of the night on a Sunday and she probably has Do Not Disturb turned on, but that still means she’s declined Mel twice by choice. 

And yes, Mel is aware she could’ve waited to do this until the sun has risen, but she left Langdon in her bed before that thought came to her and now she’s standing in her kitchen barefoot and oh my fucking god Abby Langdon, pick up!

She does, on the fifth try. 

“Mel?” she says. “Why are you calling me at two am on a Sunday?” 

“Are you aware that drug addicts should be kept away from the substance they’ve abused in the past to minimise the risk of relapse, Abby?”

There’s silence on the other end before Abby answers, sounding a little less groggy. “Did you call me in the middle of the night to lecture me on my ex-husband’s drug addiction?” 

“Yes,” she doesn’t hesitate. “I am. I feel like I have to, since your uncle gave him benzos at Isabel’s birthday party and he showed up on my doorstep a few hours ago looking like he’d been through hell. Are you aware that he’s built an entire support network here and at work and being around the pills at work is therefore significantly more manageable than hours away at his ex-wife’s family house?” 

“Cameron gave him benzos?” she whispers into the mic, sounding like she wants to shout but can't given the time. Good, at least she’s taking it seriously. 

“If that’s your uncle’s name, yes. Apparently he had some extra on him and offered them to Langdon when he saw his back twinge. That’s wildly unacceptable, Abby. Why did he even have drugs with him at a child’s birthday party whose father is a drug addict? Does your family hate Langdon that much?” 

“No,” Abby says. “But my family doesn’t really know he has a drug addiction in the first place." 

Mel considers this for a second. “Why? Are you ashamed of him, Abby?"

Abby sighs on the other line. “You know I’m not, quite the opposite, but my family is, well. Let’s call them very family oriented. If my parents knew about it, they would’ve pushed for full custody. I didn’t want them to do that to Frank, so I didn’t tell them.” 

Oh. Well, Mel feels a bit stupid now. 

It’s here she realises that she’s woken Abby up in the middle of the night to accuse her of being insensitive to Langdon’s recovery (false, she realises now) and questioning her parenting skills (way out of line, she also recognises now). 

Her heart sinks. Oh, that's not good.

“I’m sorry Abby, I shouldn’t have called you in the middle of the night. I was out of line, please forgive me.” 

“Don’t apologise, Mel. I’m glad you called. I would’ve wanted to know.” 

“Oh my god,” she whispers. “Please don’t tell Langdon I called you.”

“Why? He wouldn’t be mad, Mel. I don’t think there’s anything you can really do that he wouldn’t forgive.”

Mel’s not so sure, given the distance he’s spent so long creating between them. The last thing she wants is for him to realise it has been for the best and make it permanent. 

“Just, please Abby. I’ll tell him to call you in the next few days and tell you himself, just don’t tell him I already did.” 

Abby hums on the other end. “I still don’t think he’d be mad, but okay. I promise.” 

Her shoulders sag in relief. “Thank you Abby.”

Then, because she can't just let it go," You still need to do something about your uncle though. I don’t care what you do, but you need to make sure he never does it again. Langdon managed to keep himself together this time, but that’s no guarantee he will in the future.” 

"Yeah, I know," Abby sighs. "I'll take care of it Mel. I promise you that too."

“Okay. I’ll let you go back to sleep now, I just needed to know it would be taken care of.” 

“It will be. Try and get some sleep too, Mel. This can’t have been easy for you either.” 

She thinks of his vacant eyes and tense shoulders from earlier. She thinks of his cold hands and quiet sobs into her abdomen. She thinks of how much she loves him and how much she thinks he loves her and thinks he’s so easy to love I don’t know how you ever found it a challenge.

That would be incredibly rude to say though and she’s already been rude enough to Abby Langdon tonight, so she just says goodnight again before they hang up. 

She tiptoes back towards her bedroom, finds Langdon still asleep, and crawls back to him before tucking herself into his side. He shifts in his sleep to throw one arm over her and she smiles into his chest until sleep eventually comes for her. 

If this is all she ever gets with Langdon, she'll be happy. She's just kind of getting feeling he wants more too, and she wants that more than anything.

On day three, one of the nurses comes in to tell him there’s a girl in the lobby asking to see Mel outside of visiting hours that Samira has told them she doesn’t recognise. When he frowns and asks what her name is, it’s not one he’s ever heard Mel mention. 

Still. Langdon’s curious. 

When he walks into the ICU’s waiting room, there’s only one girl in there so it’s not really hard to guess who’s here for her. He takes a moment to study her, sitting in one of the plastic chairs and fidgeting with her hands in her lap. She looks nervous, he realises. 

“Hey,” he says and her head snaps up. “Are you Mouna?” 

The girl stands up abruptly and almost falls over before Langdon reaches out to steady her. 

“Uhm, yeah,” she says after finding her footing. “I’m sorry to come by so late, I’ve been debating if it’s my place to come here or not but then my friend told me I should because she would’ve wanted it back but then I had an exam yesterday to cram for but then I also have one next week so I’ve been in the university library all day and by then I realised it was already late and I had my friend drive me here but I still got here late but now I’m here and-” 

“Mouna,” Langdon cuts her off. “You’re rambling.”

“I’m sorry,” she looks down at her feet suddenly, anxiety coming off of her in waves. 

Langdon’s not a monster. “Let’s sit down, alright?” 

Mouna nods and slumps back down as Langdon takes a seat next to her, unsure. 

“Are you Mel’s boyfriend?” she asks eventually and looks at him. She’s clearly wary of something but Langdon can’t fathom a reason why. 

He nods. “Yeah, she’s the love of my life. Why?” 

“Oh, that’s good, so you know about her,” Mouna hesitates. “Her illness ?” 

His stomach drops. “Her illness?” 

“Yeah, like, you know?” 

What kind of illness does Mel have that this twenty-something college student knows about but he doesn’t? He’s spent so much time in the last couple of days looking at her chart he’s been going insane from it and he can’t remember anything else besides the trauma diagnosis. 

“I’m sorry, can I ask who you are?” 

Mouna flushes but looks up at him. “Oh! Yes of course, I don’t know if anyone told you but I was there when she was hit?”

Oh. Oh fuck. 

Langdon looks at Mouna, really looks at her, and realises she might be the reason Mel’s even still alive. She looks really young, Langdon wouldn’t have guessed she was old enough to be a university student if she hadn’t mentioned it. She runs a hand up her forearm and Langdon realises he’s gone quiet. 

“Oh. I’m sorry you had to see that,” he says on an exhale. “That must’ve been shocking.”

“No, no, or I mean well yes! Yeah it was bad, of course, but I’m pre-med at U of Pitt so I tried to stop the bleeding as best I could while we waited for the ambulance to arrive. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more, my hands were shaking but I don’t think she noticed because she kept telling me I was doing great the entire time as she was blacking in and out,” Mouna pauses to cringe here, possibly because she’s noticed how Langdon has gone shock still right next to her. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, it’s fine,” he croaks out. It’s so not fine. The knowledge that Mel had been trying to reassure this girl as she was actively bleeding out does something to his heart that he can’t put a name on. “I’ve seen her injuries, I know that must’ve been scary.”

“It wasn’t great, no. She asked me to check her breathing because she couldn’t focus long enough to do it herself, she must’ve known how bad it was though, to even ask you know? I didn’t want to tell her what I thought about what I heard, but that’s when she told me she was an ER doctor and that she already knew, and I felt horrible.” 

“Don’t,” he whispers then, afraid his voice wouldn’t hold up if he tried to say it louder. “Mel, she would’ve wanted to know what was happening to her. She’s very pragmatic, it probably comforted her a lot to get as much information as possible.” 

Mouna exhales loudly, shoulders sagging in relief. “Oh thank god. I’ve been worried I had stressed her out more and I know that’s obviously bad for patients suffering major trauma.” 

“Did she say anything else?” 

“Uhm,” she hesitates, finally looking up at him. “I don’t want to expose something she hasn’t told you.” 

He reaches forward to take her hand in his to stop her fidgeting and she lets him. “Mouna, there’s nothing about Mel that I don’t know. There’s a misunderstanding here somewhere, but I can’t correct it until I know what it is.” 

Then, unbidden but extremely helpful, he can hear Samira’s voice from a couple of days ago. They told us Mel told a pre-med student on the scene to make sure we didn’t give her any benzodiazepines.

Oh. Oh no. “Mouna, is this about the benzodiazepines?”

Her hands stop moving in his completely. “So you do know about her addiction?” 

And then, because Langdon’s running on barely any sleep and Red Bulls and protein bars, he throws his head back against the wall and starts laughing breathlessly for a few seconds. Mouna looks at him like he’s gone insane and he might as well have. 

“Mouna, it’s me who’s the addict in our relationship. Is that why you came by, you were worried she’d still gotten benzos somehow and you wanted to warn us?” 

Her eyes are wide as she stares at him for a long time before she lets go of his hand to reach into the pocket of her jacket.

“No, I trust doctors, obviously, I want to be one one day. I just wanted to give her this back, but I guess it’s yours, then.” 

She pulls out his sobriety chip from a year ago and puts it directly into his palm before he’s able to register the action. He doesn’t realise what she’s done until the weight of it starts burning into his skin. 

“I found it on the road after the paramedics left and didn’t want it to get swept away in the aftermath, so. I’ve been holding onto it since because I didn’t know who knew and I didn’t want to be the one to tell anyone, but then my friend convinced me I should because it wasn’t right for me to keep it, that’s a deeply personal thing-” she pauses. “That was a stupid thing to say. Obviously you know that already.” 

“It’s okay,” he whispers, still staring down at it as if it'll disappear if he blinks. “Thank you for bringing it back to me.” 

“I’m really glad I did,” she smiles and her anxiety is gone. She’s transferred it to Langdon maybe, but he can deal with it. “I’m gonna go, I don’t want to keep you, just. I really hope she wakes up soon. She was really nice to me, I don’t know if I could’ve kept my cool like that.” 

“That’s Mel,” he smiles shakily at her. “Extraordinary even in horrible and terrifying circumstances.” 

He cries with his head leaning on Mel’s thigh for thirty minutes after he comes back to her room that night, so choked up with emotion and anxiety and love that he can’t even get any words out. He wants to tell her he loves her, that he’ll take care of her for the rest of his life if she’d let him. He wants to make her laugh and make her pout and make her flush in excitement over cool medical procedures for as long as they’re doctors, and then he wants to keep buying her medical journals so she can tell him all of the new discoveries. Langdon wants to tell her all of this, but the words won't come. 

He falls asleep still leaning against Mel and dreams of her instead, making cakes with Isabel in his kitchen and playing goalkeeper for hours in Highland because Tanner keeps wanting to practise his shots and she won’t let Langdon do it because don’t be stupid, Frank. 

But she’s just out of reach every time he goes to reach for her, and isn’t that the fucking kicker? 

Robby stops by on day five, and they don’t say much. He gives him a bunch of paperwork, some of it already filled out but mostly not, and tells him HR is going to approve his request for family medical leave, he just needs to confirm his and Mel’s relationship and then apply for it. 

“I pressed them on it,” Robby said. “I know paperwork isn’t top priority for you right now and there’s things Mel needs to fill out too but I just wanted to tell you once I got it sorted. We’ll have to wait for her to wake up and figure out recovery time, but they’ll accommodate.” 

“Thank you,” he says from Mel’s bedside. “And thank you for not making a thing out of it. Mel wanted to go to you with it, I’m the one who wanted to stay in our bubble for a little longer.” 

“I want you to be happy, Langdon. I’ve always wanted you to be happy.” Robby says all the way from the door. The big distance between them a pretty good representation of their recent dynamic, he thinks. 

“Yeah,” he exhales. When Robby nods and turns to leave he adds “I don’t want to be mad at you anymore. I don’t know where we go from here, but I don’t think I’ve been mad at you for at least a while now.” 

He sees Robby freeze even from the other side of the room.

“Okay,” Robby says after a minute. “I’d like that.” 

Langdon nods and smiles at him, a tiny one, and Robby leaves with a nod five seconds later.

“We really should tell HR,” Mel gasps. “I’m a senior resident now, it’s not-” another gasp. Fuck, he’s so good at that. “It’s not like it’s unheard of.”

Langdon groans into her neck where he’s been nipping at her skin for the last five minutes. Which is the problem, she thinks. “Mel, sweetheart, I’m going to need you to stop talking about HR right now.” 

She lets him continue for a little while as she tries to stop thinking about it. Really, she wants to ignore it, especially when his tongue starts doing that thing which makes her feel like she’s going to explode. 

It’s just that it’s been gnawing on her for weeks. 

“It’s just, I don’t want to hide you.” 

His hand stills between her legs suddenly, and oh fuck. She’d been building up to that for a while. He was right actually, this was a bad idea. 

He leans back up to look at her and she misses his breath along her pulse too.“I don’t feel like you’re hiding me Mel. I feel like I want to enjoy this, us, a bit more before letting everyone at work gossip about it. We can discuss this later, I’ll make you a pros and cons list even, but can I give you a couple more orgasms first maybe?”

Okay, actually. Maybe it wasn’t a bad idea. A pros and cons list, jesus. 

“Yeah, that sounds smart.” she whispers and he leans down to kiss her immediately. She can practically taste him smirking against her lips before he leans back just an inch to ghost kisses up to her ear. 

“Yeah sweetheart, I know. You like that about me, remember?”

Mel nearly comes on the spot.

“Today?” 

“Yes,” Garcia’s saying but she sounds like she’s far away suddenly. “Her ICP is back to normal and her lungs look like they’ll be able to handle oxygen intake on their own, the pulmonary contusion is fully healed. We’ll start weaning her off the anesthetic in a few hours.” 

“How many days will it take until she wakes up?” Samira asks. 

“We’ll have to do it in doses, so we’re expecting it to take two or three days until she’s fully brought out of it. You already know the drill. EEG’s every other hour, independent reactions to stimuli et cetera. Everything goes to plan and we’ll extubate her before Friday is over.” 

“Friday.” he squeezes Mel’s hand, rests his fingertips over her steady pulse. 

“Friday,” Garcia reaffirms. “Just in time for the weekend, in case you have any date plans.”

He hears Samira laugh next to him as he stands up to press a kiss into Mel’s skin. He’s been doing it a lot this past week, trying to replace all the kisses the accident stole from them. 

“Oh yeah,” he says. “It’s going to be so hot. I’m taking her out for chocolate jelly and unlimited juice boxes.” 

“Always knew you’d be a cheap date.” 

He turns around to smirk at her. “I’m a taken man Yolanda, you should probably stop thinking about what going on dates with me would be like.” 

Garcia groans. “You know what? I think I’m actually the one who needs her to wake up the most. Having to interact with you this much is exhausting.” 

“Then what do you think having to watch you interact is like?” 

They both turn to Samira in tandem, so synchronised she laughs and Langdon feels lighter than he has in days. 

When Mel decides to ruin his life by not waking up by the end of Friday, Langdon doesn’t panic. He thinks he has a very normal reaction to it actually. 

Abbot disagrees with him, naturally. Langdon will have to ask Mel what she thinks when he goes back up to her in a few hours. He’ll take her silence as agreement, he's already decided.

“I’m not letting you work on patients when you’ve been living in this hospital for the past week and sleeping in a shitty hospital bed.” 

“Oh, and you’re the poster boy for getting a full night’s sleep before every shift, are you Jack?” 

They’re in the office, the only reason he lets the name slip. 

“You need a distraction, I get that. I’m just not sure this is the way to go, Frank.”

Yeah, the first name was maybe a miscalculation, he's realising. 

“Put me on chairs. Let me work on the most boring cases. Just let me focus on anything else that’s not why Mel’s not waking up when she already should’ve.”

“It might just be an extra day Langdon, there’s no reason to catastrophize already.” 

He throws one hand up in the air. “If you don’t want me to catastrophize you’d let me work. Even if just for a few hours.” 

Abbot pauses, tilts his head and squints a little. “Are you sure you’re clear-headed enough?” 

“Yes! Samira wouldn’t have suggested I come down here if she didn’t think I was.” 

That makes Abbot pause for a second. “Samira was the one who suggested you come down here?” 

Oh. Langdon grins. Bingo. 

They look at each other for a long moment before Abbot gives in. “Fine, but you’re working chairs only. If you feel even the slightest bit off you come to me.” 

“Deal,” Langdon says and shakes his hand for good measure which gets him a tired smile for his troubles before he’s rushing out of the door and practically jogs over to the board to find the most exciting-while-also-boring case he can get his hands on. 

He’s worked on two sprains and a ten-year old with a pretty bad case of the flu when everything goes to shit. 

A man comes in with severe chest and back pain who finds it a little bit hard to breathe without making it worse. Langdon’s just about to go get whoever he can find because, really, this case hits a little bit close to home, when the man collapses in front of him. When Langdon checks his heartbeat it’s way too quick for Langdon to get anyone else as he realises oh shit, he’s having an thoracic aortic aneurysm. 

Before he knows it he's in Trauma One with Santos intubating their patient as Langdon grabs a scalpel before making a large incision into his chest wall to access the pericardial sac, and everything kind of spirals from there. There's IVs being inserted and blood drawn and he loses himself to the routine he's been missing for the last week. This, this is what Frank Langdon is good at. This, he can control. 

Walsh comes in five minutes after they cut into the patient but Langdon doesn’t register it right away. It’s not until she steps up next to him shoulder-to-shoulder and tells him to step away that he even notices she’s there. 

“I’ve got this Dr. Langdon, step out of the room.” 

He doesn't even look at her. “Tell Dr. Abbot I can handle it.”

“Dr. Langdon,” and oh. He doesn’t love the tone. “I need you to step out. You made a deal.” 

Okay, how does she even fucking know about that? 

But then he does look up and sees Abbot watching him through the glass wall and there's something in his eyes that makes Langdon hand Walsh the catheter tube. “You need to keep draining his fluids, I wasn’t done yet.” 

“Well it’s a good thing I’m a trauma surgeon then, isn't it?” She says, not unkindly but he feels it biting all the same 

“Fine,” he says and steps out of the room, throwing his bloody trauma gown in the biohazard bin. Abbot comes up to him right away. 

“You didn’t have to pull me off the case, I was handling it.” 

Abbot places a hand on his shoulder then and Langdon tenses slightly. This is the sort of friendly gesture they don’t usually do while at work since no one knows their girlfriends are best friends. Or well, people know Mel and Samira are tight, they just don’t know Abbot and him have been forced into a friendship because of it. 

“I’m sure you were, but you’re needed elsewhere.” 

He frowns. “If you’ve pulled me off of a trauma case to go back to chairs I’ll do something so drastic-” 

“Langdon.” Abbot cuts him off, and now he's smiling. “Mel’s awake.”

Now, there are moments in life when something happens that you are fully aware will shape your future irrevocably. Moments where the world will stop spinning for just a second, just long enough for all noise to disappear and leave you with vertigo, head spinning. Where you’ll feel your knees almost buckle under you as you adapt to new circumstances. 

Moments, like hearing that the love of your life hasn’t actually left you behind in this fucked up world of theirs. 

Langdon’s running towards the staircase before his brain has even registered him moving at all. 

The door to room 514 is wide open when he makes it back up to the ICU two minutes later. He can see the flurry of movement as nurses go in and out and Langdon has to actually push past one of them as he stumbles into the room, ground feeling unsteady underneath his feet. 

She’s been extubated already, is the first thing he thinks when he sees her sitting up slightly, Samira grinning right next to her before she clocks Langdon and stands up to leave, grinning. The next is if she doesn’t look at me right now I’m going to die. 

And because Melissa King probably knows him better than he does she looks up at him standing shock still in the doorway and smiles as she reaches a hand out towards him, beckoning him over. 

“Hi,” she says, voice horribly raw from the endotracheal tube that's been down her throat for over a week. Langdon doesn’t think she’s ever sounded better. 

He doesn’t even have time to think before he stumbles over to her bed and sits down in the chair Samira’s just left. He takes her hand in his and pulls it up his mouth and just looks at her for a minute. For way too long really, but she doesn’t say anything until he lets out a shaky exhale and she pulls her hand of his own to run her fingers to his hair. It’s probably streaked with sweat and grease but he doesn’t care, and Mel doesn’t seem to either. 

“You’re here,” she whispers softly. 

There are tears threatening to spill over. “Where else would I be?” 

“Nowhere else,” she smiles. “I always want you right here. I’m never going to leave you,” she whispers and moves her hand down to cradle his jaw. The tubes connected to her creak slightly as she moves, plastic not used to movement yet, but he can barely hear it. Can’t focus on anything that isn’t Mel’s hand touching him with intent again. “I was never going to in the first place.” 

The dam breaks, and he spends the next fifteen minutes sobbing into her shoulder as Mel strokes his hair through his wracking sobs.

When he finally feels stable again, Mel reaches for his hand as he sits back down “I was so scared, sweetheart. That was the worst call I’ve ever gotten.” 

She frowns slightly. “Did they call you right away? I asked Samira to wait until after Becca’s recital was over.” 

 He interlaces their fingers and gives her what he’s sure is a pretty weak smile. “I’m your emergency contact Mel, they had to call.” 

Her eyes widened. “I forgot about that, oh my god.” Her hand tenses against him. “Becca?” 

“She’s okay,” he squeezes. “She’s been by a few times. We’ll see if we can get her to come by tomorrow, I don’t know how many visitors they’re going to allow you.” 

“Garcia threatened not to allow you by the way, said she’d seen enough of you moping over me this last week.” 

That startles a laugh out of him. “Maybe Garcia’s the reason our patient satisfaction scores have been so bad for years. You should give her a zero by the way.” 

“Nah,” she says and oh she’s smiling again. It’s a weak thing but Langdon will take it. “She seems to have been a good doctor to me, what with the triple trauma surgery and all. I’d tip her a lot if she really was a hostess at Applebee’s.”

His eyes widened. “You remember that?” 

She laughs and oh. He loves her so much. “It was a very memorable day, and my brain’s hardwired to remember pretty much everything you say.” 

Langdon closes his eyes and groans loudly, if only to make Mel laugh again. It works for a little while and he almost thinks he’s gotten away with it when she presses her fingers into his cheek to get him to look at her again. 

“Frank, it’s okay,” she starts. “Samira closed the door and they don’t have to run more tests on me for at least a couple of hours. There’s nobody here to put on a brave face for anymore.” 

He tenses. “Mel?” 

“I can see the bags under your eyes, Frank. This week can’t have been easy and I appreciate you trying to pretend you’re fine, but we both know you’re not. You can ask, I know you want to.” 

“Ask?” 

She sighs. “I know they told you about it, Samira said you freaked out a little. Ask me about it, honey.” 

“I didn’t freak out, ” he frowns. “It just confused me. Why would you ask for that? It wouldn’t have hurt you at all."

Mel throws him a look then, one she usually reserves for him when she thinks he’s being obtuse on purpose. “Why did I tell the EMTs not to give me medication that my boyfriend who I basically live with and to which there are easy alternatives for? Oh I don’t know, maybe it’s because you have an on-the-record addiction to benzodiazepines, Frank.” 

“I never asked you to do that though.” 

She presses her fingernails in a little deeper and Langdon lets her ground him.“You didn’t have to ask. You’re a doctor, you know this is what’s recommended for family members of addicts of any kind. It had nothing to do with trust, which is what I know you’ve been convincing yourself it was about for the whole week while I wasn’t able to correct you so I’m correcting it now. I trust you with my life, honey.”

Then, 

“I’d give you a chance to prove it, but you’ll have to wait at least ten years or so. I don’t want a repeat of this any time soon, I'm exhausted.” 

When he glares at her she smiles and says “that was a joke.” 

He clenches her hand then, pulling it away from his cheek to press kisses against her knuckles to try and stop himself from crying again. “That wasn’t funny sweetheart, not even remotely.” 

“Well, I guess I’m lucky you love me anyway.” 

He sags against her again. “God, yeah. So much. I've missed you so much.” 

She smiles at him, earnesty replacing the teasing lilt in his voice. "I know it's only felt like less than an hour for me, but I missed you too. Tell me how your week's been. Any interesting cases?" 

"Sweetheart, it's not like I've been here working."

"Oh? Where were you then, when I woke up? Samira said-" 

"Well it was Samira's idea so I don't care what she said. I've been here every single day, ask the nurses. I know all of their names now, and-" 

"Frank," Mel says, mirth evident by the way her eyes are shining. "I was just joking. Samira felt really bad about it actually." 

He huffs, just a little, but stops talking when she starts stroking her hand over his jaw again. When she asks him to keep talking just so she can feel it flex in her hands he has to shove his grin so far down his throat he can feel it in his stomach. 

Langdon tells her about the nurses, and how Samira's managed to weasel her way into getting him to agree to joining them for pilates one day when Me's fully healed, which is really nice actually because maybe enough time will pass and Samira will forget it. He tells her about Becca's visits and Isabel's bracelet and the fact that, despite the fact that he hasn't actually told anyone, he's definitely blown their cover. She chuckles lightly and that and she sounds so out of it he looks up at her in concern before she just waves her hand in dismissal. 

"I'm just going to fall back asleep now, my brain's getting drowsy again. You and I both know this is perfectly normal, so don't go thinking something stupid while I'm out this time." 

He exhales and kisses her palm. "Okay, sweetheart. I promise. I'll stay right here the entire time." 

The next few days pass in a blur of people visiting Mel. 

In the beginning they’ll only allow Jack, which Langdon’s sure has something to do with the ICU nurses being slightly intimidated by him judging by how they all stand up straighter when he walks through the doors. Langdon makes a note to ask him about it later, there has to be a story there. 

Once Mel’s gone through more tests and Garcia’s satisfied with her progression, more people start trickling in. Santos swings by and cries for ten minutes straight which like, Langdon could definitely relate but it still made him a little uncomfortable so he left the room pretty quickly. Princess and Perlah join Dana, then Whitaker, even McKay stops by to tell Mel to never do that again, which Langdon appreciates. 

By the time Mel gets discharged three weeks later, Langdon feels like the entire PTMC has been by to wish her a fast recovery. 

“Come on Dr. King, let's get you into the car.”

Mel frowns but leans her head against Langdon’s chest anyway. “My legs weren’t injured, you know. There’s no need for you to carry me to the car. There wasn’t even a need for the wheelchair but at least that I knew was hospital policy. Somehow I don’t think the same applies here.” 

“Last time you walked anywhere that wasn’t hospital ground we spent the next month at work. I’m not going to be taking any risks in the near future.” 

Under her breath he’s pretty sure he hears her grumble something along the lines of at least you actually got to work and he smiles into her hair as he starts walking.

It takes her ten seconds to pout and look up at him. “I still maintain that you don’t need to do this. The car’s like 150 feet away.” 

He adjusts his grip. “Exactly, only 150 feet. I’ll be fine, sweetheart.” 

“But I just think-” she starts again and oh my god. 

He drops her a little, just far enough for her stomach to swoop and have her tightening her arms around his neck harshly in response. When he laughs, she glares at him.

“It’s time to let someone else take care of you, Melissa King. Let me take care of you, sweetheart.” 

“Are you asking or telling me?” 

“Asking,” he smiles down at her. “I know better than to force Melissa King to do anything she doesn’t want to do, but I’m asking you to let me. You’ve spent so much time taking care of other people, you’ve spent so much taking care of me. Let me repay you.” 

Mel’s glare lessens but she’s still frowning. “I like taking care of you, you’re not a burden Frank. I thought we were over that.” 

“We are,” he assures her. “But I like taking care of you too. Really, you’re doing me a favour.” 

She takes a moment to really look at him, eyes narrowing in consideration as if she’s trying to figure out if he’s lying. He holds steady. 

“Alright,” she says after a moment. “Carry me to your car, Frank Langdon.” 

He grins. “Thank you sweetheart, hold on tight.” 

It’s not until they’re buckled and Frank’s pulling out of the parking lot that she turns to him with a big grin and says “so when you say take care of me, how long am I going to have to wait for you to go down on me?”

"Jesus, Mel,” he splutters. “Why would you ask that while I’m driving?” 

“Well, I’d like to know so I can adjust my expectations.”

He turns to look at her. “Garcia said no strenuous activities for at least eight weeks, and she said it in a way that made me think she would like us to wait longer if possible. You’re a doctor, you know what that means. We’ll put it under review when the time’s up.” 

She looks at him dejected then. “Eight weeks is a really long time, Frank.”

“Oh trust me sweetheart,” he grabs her hand and lifts it to his lips. “I know.” 

They decide to move into Mel’s house for the time being to make it easier on Becca, and she’s surprisingly okay with Langdon occupying her space every time she’s home. It bodes really well for the future and he almost cries into Mel’s chest when he tells her about a few nights in. 

Unfortunately it means Tanner and Isabel can’t spend their normal weeks with their dad, which Mel feels spectacularly bad about until they come around the first time and they spend thirty minutes assuring her it’s okay, that they’re happy to lend their dad to her as long as she’s okay. Surprisingly articulate of them, Langdon thinks, but then again Abby Langdon is their mother. 

Samira and Abbot come over every Tuesday to keep up the tradition. Mel had frowned at him when he’d first suggested that maybe she should wait at least a week or two to get used to being home again before putting herself up for hours of socialising to which Mel had thrown a pillow at him and said something to the effect of “I’m not going to let a little surgery stop a longstanding tradition, Frank. ”

He wanted to object and say there was nothing little about it but he refrained, if only to not decrease the amount of pillows she’d be lying back on. 

Mel and Samira spent a whole hour the first night in her bedroom after forbidding Langdon or Abbot to follow them. It was surprisingly nice to talk to Abbot, which really was a new development in their relationship after half a year of trying to figure out how to navigate it. When Mel and Samira came back, both of their eyes were red-rimmed and a bit glassy but Mel just held up a hand to stop him when he’d tried to ask about it. 

Mel spent the rest of the night grilling Samira and Abbot on the most interesting cases at the Pitt lately. Apparently there had been an MCI a couple of weeks ago that had the hospital scrambling for doctors and Abbot had to calm Robby down after Gloria asked him to call Langdon and see if he could come in for a couple of hours to help out. Apparently Robby had gone on a tangent about laws and the ‘respect for our doctors’ and moral principles, which made Langdon feel an emotion he hadn’t felt in years. Maybe there was hope for them yet. Still, when Mel dug her fingers into his arm as if to say ‘I told you so’ he steadily ignored it. 

After that he wouldn't have a clue what they said, Langdon zoned out after five minutes and spent the rest of the evening just looking at Mel, letting the weight of her on his chest ground him. He focused on the way her chest rose and fell for so long he started counting her heart rhythm without even noticing. 

One night a week or so later she looks away from one of her new medical journals as he’s making the three of them dinner and decides to nearly give him a heart attack. 

“I think it was quite beneficial really, being a patient for once. Makes me really understand what it’s like, scared and bleeding in Trauma Two. It might help me with patients in the future.” 

His head whips away from the vegetables he’s been preparing to instead stare at her for a beat before walking over and leaning down on his knees to be eye level with her on the couch. “Yeah, well. I think we should consider class dismissed on that.” 

“You’re really hot when you act like you’re teaching me things you know. Made our first year really challenging for me.” 

He coughs and leans into her shoulder to stop himself from doing something stupid, like propose marriage. “Jesus, sweetheart.” 

“Four more weeks,” she murmurs and begins to run her fingers through his hair a little before gripping it and using it to pull him up and kiss him breathless. They don’t eat dinner until an hour later. 

Later, once Becca’s gone to play Sims and Langdon’s helped Mel shower and change her dressings he turns to her to lie on his side and looks at her for a moment. Her eyes are closed but he can tell she’s not asleep by her breath patterns, which Langdon doesn’t even know when he became so attuned to but he is. He strokes her cheek to get her to look at him, skin soft in his hands. 

“What did it feel like, laying there in Trauma Two? What was going through your head?”

She squints at him a little, considering for a second if he really wants to hear it probably. He does, he feels like he needs to. 

“Like I was being pulled underwater. Especially when I actually lost consciousness and had to be intubated. It was disorienting from the start, of course. I started going in and out in the ambulance on the way in and I couldn’t really tell what was going on in the beginning. There was pain obviously, but I only registered it when Santos, McKay or Samira really pressed on the injuries. I didn’t panic until I realised I couldn’t keep a thought in my head for longer than a second.” 

“We can stop if you want, you don’t have to answer me,” he says once her breathing gets a little quicker. Marginally, but still.

“It’s fine,” she whispers. “I want to tell you.” 

He breathes and leans up to press a kiss to her forehead and she’s smiling once he leans back next to her again. 

“It was hard, because my brain’s the best thing I have and it was shutting down on me. It was only a while later, I don’t know how much time passed, when I guess my adrenaline kicked in for the last time and I remembered you and Becca. That I asked Samira and Robby not to call you right away.” 

“Which was a bad move, for the record. I hate that you prioritized me and Becca over yourself in that situation.” 

“You say that, but I know you’d do the same for us or the kids honey.”

Well. Still. 

“This next bit’s a bit sad Frank, are you sure you want to know? 

He nods against the pillows and rubs his thumb over her cheekbone. “Anything you’re willing to say, yes.” 

“Well, as soon as I said your name it made me think about you. It was the first real thought I could hang onto for longer than a few seconds. Maybe it was because both my hearing and vision were starting to go and my brain didn’t have to keep up with them, I don’t know. All I knew was that I wanted you there. I wanted your hands, your eyes, your voice to be the one working on me. There’s no one in the Pitt that I trust more than you, so. I wished you were there.” 

“I wish I was too, Mel,” he murmurs and he’s sure he looks devastated by the way Mel looks at him then. 

“Don’t. I changed my mind right after.”

Frowning, his thumb stops its circular pattern. “Why?” 

“I didn’t want you to see me like that. Didn’t want you to have my blood all over your hands, to have to intubate me when my lungs finally gave up. I didn’t want to have to see the look on your face if you had to watch me go down.” 

He leans up on one elbow so he can look at her properly and tilts her head to follow his. She has the audacity to smile up at him. “I still wish I was there for you.” 

“Well. I did tell you I was going to be selfish for the both of us. I really meant that.”

She doesn’t say anything else before she threads her fingers through his hair to tug him down to kiss her and his mind blanks, breath hitching as soon as she runs a hand underneath his shirt and up his back. Her skin is warm warm warm and it takes everything in him to not fall into her. 

“Four more weeks,” she whispers against his lips when she eventually pulls away. “Four more weeks and we’ll ask Garcia.” 

Langdon groans and falls into her neck to mouth kisses against her throat for a bit. “I don’t know who’s more upset about Garcia being in charge of our sex life, me or her.” 

“I kind of think she’s enjoying it,” laugh turning into a gasp when Langdon bites down. “Torturing you, that is.” 

“Mel,” he says. “Let’s not talk about our most annoying coworkers right now.” 

“Why? It’s not like we’re going to have sex.” 

He groans loudly and lifts himself off of her, throwing himself back down on the bed next to her as she giggles wildly. 

“Four weeks, King. You won't know what hit you.” 

It’s not the next afternoon after Becca’s gone back to the center for a movie night with her friends that something from the night before registers in Langdon’s mind. He looks over at where Mel is laying on the other end of the couch reading, something about the effects policy change will have on healthcare workers she’d said, and calls her name a few times until she actually looks away to glance at him. 

“What, Frank?” 

“Sorry, it's just. You said yesterday that you felt like you were being pulled underwater. What did waking up feel like?” 

She tilts her head a bit. “Well, I was a bit more lucid that time so I guess it just felt like inhaling really quickly. The endotracheal tube felt bad, obviously, but breathing felt so good I barely registered it. If you want a consistent metaphor, I guess I could say it felt like coming back up to break the surface.” 

“Well, Melissa King,” he reaches for her hand and squeezes three times in quick succession. “I’m really fucking grateful you managed to swim back up. I would’ve had to jump in after you otherwise.”

She pulls his hand up to kiss his knuckles and his ribs bruise bruise bruise again. These days they do so often he’s adapted, it’s become second nature, but sometimes she still manages to make it impossible to ignore. 

“You know I don’t like lying, and I promised you I was always going to see you on the other side, Frank Langdon. I was always going to come back to you.” 

Yeah, he thinks hysterically. Falling in love with her is one of the best things I’ve ever done.

Chapter Text

“Jack?” Mel says as soon as she opens her front door in the middle of the night, home alone now that Langdon’s had to go back to work two months before she’s scheduled to return herself, only to see Dr. Abbot standing there in the dark with one arm leaning against the door frame. “Why are you at my door? Has something happened?” 

It’s raining outside, something Mel had noticed from the light smattering against her windows as her and Becca were watching TV earlier. Even if she hadn’t, there are droplets running down Abbot’s jacket and his hair is sticking to his forehead in a way it very rarely does.

Abbot drags a hand over his face, looking ragged. “Can I come in?” 

She steps inside to let him in wordlessly, watching as he takes his boots off before heading off into the kitchen and dropping down onto one of her barstools. It’s a thing they do, a nod to her and Becca’s Scandinavian ancestry, the take-your-shoes-off-before-you-get-into-the-house thing. It helps with Becca’s sensory issues too, so double-win really. 

Anyway. 

“Do you want something to drink? I was about to go to bed so I can only drink water but I can make you coffee if you want.” 

He nods. “Coffee would be great, thanks. I’m heading to the Pitt after this to help fill in for Shen because he needs to leave early so I can use the extra caffeine.” 

She puts a pod in the espresso machine and lets the whirring sound make noise in the background before pulling out some leftover apple pie from this weekend from the fridge and setting it in front of Abbot with a spoon. “Get some sugar too.” 

“You know I’ll never say no to your baking, Mel. Cheap shot.” 

So, whatever’s brought him here isn’t life or death then. Thank God. 

“I know, that’s why I always offer it to you. Everyone needs more sugar in their lives, the Mel King philosophy.” 

Abbot smiles. “You’re a doctor King, you should know better.” 

She shrugs and puts the now ready cup of espresso in front of him. “My boyfriend downs Red Bulls on shift like it’s his job, guess we’re made for each other.” 

“Yeah,” Abbot says and looks down into his cup. “Hey, why do you like baking so much?” 

Mel tilts her head slightly, looking at him for a second now that he can’t see her. Surely he’s not here to ask her about baking? But okay, she’ll play ball. “Cooking is all about feeling, you can’t do much wrong when you’re cooking. It’s instinct, which is why Frank’s so good at it. Baking, however, is science. You add too much of any ingredient and you throw off the entire recipe. I’m good at that part,” she says and leans down onto her forearms across the counter. “But I don’t think you came here in the middle of the night to ask why I like to bake.” 

He huffs. “Yeah, you’re right, it’s-” he pauses, looks up at her, looks at the cabinets behind her. “You know how Langdon’s been back to work for a month now?”

“It’s been hard to miss, yes. If he hadn’t been, all those odd hours he’s been leaving at would’ve had me believe he was keeping a second girlfriend or something.” 

“Ha,” he laughs wildly for a second. “Not something I think you’ll ever have to worry about.” 

She grins. It’s nice, knowing Langdon loves her just as much as she loves him. That he never gives her a reason to doubt it. She’s never had that with anyone before, that level of trust. It’s nice knowing people can see it. 

“So, have you come here to gossip about my boyfriend? This is usually what Samira and I do, you know? Gossip about both of you, I mean.” 

He takes a sip. The coffee must be scalding still but he doesn’t give any reaction to it if so. “Samira couldn’t be here I’m afraid, I’m here to talk about both of them.” 

Now, some women might be wary if their coworker came over in the middle of the night to discuss their partners in secret. Fortunately for Melissa King, she's well aware that Frank Langdon is obsessed with her.

“Oh my God, are they having an affair together? Jack, what should we do,” she mock whispers. “I’ll go get a shovel. You’ll have to do the killing but I can dig.” 

Abbot laughs. “Langdon wouldn’t be able to handle Samira, first of all.”

“I don’t think Samira would be able to handle Frank either, for the record.” 

“Frank,” Abbot mocks. “I’m very grateful you never called him that at work before the accident. Your cover would’ve been blown immediately.” 

“Only when we’re at home I promise,” she crosses her finger over her chest. “Which is where you are, in the middle of the night. Are you going to tell me why yet?” 

He sighs. “Samira and Langdon are having issues at work.” 

Mel stills. “What are they, kindergarteners? What do you mean, issues?”

“For the most part it’s fine, and Samira had gotten over it but then Langdon came back and now it’s like she’s regressing just because she’s no longer the only one having the same issue. It’s not really interfering with their work in a way that affects the patients, but it is making people have to jump through hoops to adapt and it’s becoming unsustainable.” 

Here, Mel pauses. Samira hadn’t told her anything about this in the months since she went back to work, has she kept this from her on purpose? Langdon hadn’t told her about it either and they sleep in the same bed every night Langdon isn’t working the night shift, like tonight. They see each other every day, what has he kept from her? 

“They haven’t told me anything,” she says. “Frank hasn’t mentioned any issues at all.” 

“Yeah,” Abbot cringes slightly. “That’s what I figured. That’s why I came to you tonight, when both him and Samira are at work and we aren’t. I would’ve come to you sooner but I figured both of them would’ve become suspicious if I dragged you aside during girls' nights.” 

“Remind me later that we need to come up with a new name for our double dates, and Samira and I have to go back to having actual girls’ nights on our own. Now, what issues is it exactly that they’ve been having?”  

Abbot pauses, looks at her, groans and runs a hand over his face before taking another sip of espresso as if to buy time. Mel waits for him to speak until he’s ready. 

“They both avoid working in Trauma Two. It’s like they think they’ll catch the plague if they go in there. They both take incoming traumas to Trauma One exclusively and if that one’s occupied they’ll avoid joining the case, they’ll let someone else take it. That was fine when it was only Samira working because she would never be the only attending on shift, but now Langdon’s back which means whatever other attendings are working with them has to pretty much be on standby for Trauma Two. Like I said, it’s not affecting patient care but it is starting to affect everyone else in the Pitt.”

Mel pauses, frowns, tilts her head. “Why don’t they want to work in Trauma Two?” 

Which, to her credit, she realizes is a dumb question the second she's said it.

Abbot throws her a long look. “You almost died in there, King. I think Samira has some PTSD from it, and I think Langdon just can’t stomach the idea of you having been in there in the first place. It was pretty traumatic for everyone involved, but especially for those two.”

“You said Samira had worked through it?” she asks. 

Abbot nods. “We’d been working on it, she was starting to allow herself to get pulled in there if the case wasn’t explicitly a car accident, but then Langdon came back and we all noticed he avoided it like his life depended on it and Samira has started using him as an excuse whenever they’re on shift together now. ‘Oh, Langdon needs me in Trauma One so I’ll just go in there instead’, ‘I should probably keep working the floor with Langdon’, that kind of stuff.” 

“And you think it’s because of me? But I’m fine, they both know I’m fine. Walsh gave me a clean bill of health a month ago, the recovery becomes more and more precautionary every day.” 

“That doesn’t really matter if they’re dealing with something akin to PTSD, you know this after working with veterans. It’s not rational.“ 

Mel slumps against the counter as she groans. “Jack, I never meant for this to interfere with work.” 

Abbot taps her on the shoulder to have her look at him. “It’s not your fault that you got into an accident of that magnitude, and it’s not theirs for having a reaction to it either. We just need to figure out a way for it to stop. Robby has been wanting to say something to them for a while now but he’s not sure Langdon will take it well coming from him and he doesn’t want to call you while you're still recovering for that same reason. So, I thought if it was me coming to you neither of them could get mad.” 

She hums. “You didn’t have a problem coming to me while I’m still recovering? I’m not due back until two months from now, you know that.” 

Abbot grins. “Yeah, but I also know you’re going a bit stir-crazy at home all by yourself when Becca’s not here and Langdon let slip a few nights ago that she’s away on a field trip this weekend, so. I saw an opening.” 

“Resourceful,” she remarks. 

“They couldn’t beat it out of me,” he smiles again. “You don’t have to come. Like I said, neither Langdon or Samira are letting it interfere with patient care.” 

“Yeah, but it’s interfering with all of you,” she stands back up on her feet again. “I can’t have that on my behalf.” 

Abbot stands up suddenly to block her path when she moves to walk around the counter. “Mel,” he says, stern. “I didn’t come here to drag you to the Pitt tonight. You said you were about to go to bed so do that. I just wanted to tell you so we could start workshopping a plan, you don’t have to fix it tonight. Take a day at least, it’s still only Friday.”

She walks around him anyway and heads towards the hallway. “It’s a night shift past 3 am, they shouldn’t have too many patients right now and if you come with me you can cover for them while I deal with this. The sooner we get this over with the better.” 

“Jesus,” Abbot groans. “Okay, but don’t you dare put on your own shoes. Langdon will kill me if you get dizzy and fall because I’m dragging you out of your house because of him.” 

She sighs and pauses by the door to let him catch up with her. “I think it’s funny, the relationship you guys have. It’s like when you’re in the same room you pretend you're not friends but at the same time you look out for each other when the other one’s not there.” 

“We’re working on it,” he says as he drops down on his good knee and laces her shoes. “Do you need to bring anything?” 

“We’re going to the hospital, anything I might need will be there anyway. Now let’s go, you’re driving.” 

“Obviously,” he smiles, almost charmed before opening the door. “It’s raining. Langdon would really kill me if I let you drive.”

“I still think we should’ve parked in the employee parking lot,” Abbot says as he’s pulling up to park by the ambulance bay instead. “It’s not like anyone’s expecting us.”

“Exactly,” Mel responds and pulls on the seatbelt, antsy in a way she’s not typically. “No one’s expecting us. If we go through reception we’re going to get stopped at least ten times before we even make it through to the nurses’ desk and who knows where Frank and Samira even are. The ambulance bay gives us direct access, they’ll see us right as we get to the nurses’ desk. No time to escape.”  

“I don’t think Langdon would ever try to escape you, King,” he pulls the hand brake. “Now let me help you out, hold on.” 

I’m not helpless, she wants to say but doesn’t. She’s almost half a year post-op, she can get out of a car by herself yet Langdon refuses to let her. One time she had tried and he had looked so upset at even the thought of her missing a step and falling and hurting her head she’d felt so bad she could almost feel her heart break in her chest. He’d made sure to tell Samira and Abbot all about it at their next dinner night together and now neither of them will let her either. God knows how they’re going to act when she actually gets to go back to work. Some nights Mel might have to drive herself, the horror. 

She’s half afraid Langdon might have an aneurysm. 

Abbot rounds the hood and helps her out quickly, so that’s nice at least. 

“Okay, no ambulance right now, that’s okay. Maybe we can sneak in,” he says as they’re walking up to the doors. Which obviously is the wrong thing to say. 

“You’ve jinxed us now, Jack,” Mel whispers under her breath as she spots Santos clocking them from where she must be getting some air. Her eyes go wide instantly under the bright ER lights and Mel doesn’t even have time to say hi properly before Santos is running back inside, shouting Langdon’s name. 

Well, damn. 

“You blew our cover,” she frowns at him. “I thought you were supposed to be better trained for this. Covert operations and all of that.”

Abbot snorts and hurries them inside. “Guess I’m out of practice. You’re the one who insisted on the ambulance bay.” 

“You were the one driving! You should’ve ignored me!” 

“What about you insisted did you not understand, King?” Abbot huffs as the doors close behind them and they’re enveloped by the familiar smell of disinfectant and rubber. She hadn’t realised how much she’d missed it until right this moment as she comes into view of the nurses’ desk for the first time in six months. 

You could hear a pin drop in the ensuing silence. 

Now, emergency rooms are not exactly known for being a quiet place. They’re kind of famously known for the opposite actually, so the silence is definitely new. 

“Nice to see you all,” she nods, trying very hard not to cringe under all the attention. This is night shift, so most of these people weren’t even here when she came in after the accident but they’re still staring at her like she’s a novelty. 

This is also why she wanted to do this at night. If she showed up during the day it would’ve been so much worse.

It’s Mateo that recovers first. “Mel,” he breathes. “What are you doing here?” 

Mel doesn’t get to answer because, well. 

“Mel, sweetheart,” Langdon says, stress and concern visible even as he rushes out from where he must’ve been with a patient somewhere in North. His shoulders are tense as he keeps himself from outright sprinting towards her. 

God, Abbot had been right. This wasn’t her best idea. 

He reaches her two seconds later and Mel barely has time to register Samira coming towards her from behind him before Langdon is everywhere. He’s trying to look at her pupils, she realises when his face comes inches away from her own, hands cradling her jaw gently. God, she loves him. “Mel, are you okay? Mohan, page Garcia, tell her it’s urgent.” 

“Don’t page her,” she and Abbot say almost in unison. “Calm down, I’m okay.” Mel adds. 

“I’m paging her Langdon,” Samira says, ignoring both Mel and Abbot. Well. She’ll have to adjust her plan.

Langdon’s hands are shaking slightly as one of them moves to her neck to measure her pulse. Mel hasn’t told him this but he’s started doing it in his sleep too, as if he needs to make sure her heart’s still beating even when he’s asleep. Mel had gone kind of insane when she noticed it the first time, and she doesn’t really know how to bring it up with him in a way that isn’t so, so sad.

“Dr. Mohan,” Abbot says from behind Mel. “She’s fine. She’s not here because something happened.” 

“You brought her in through the ambulance bay, Dr. Abbot,” Samira bites. Oh oh, Mel was never going to hear the end of this now. “Something’s obviously wrong.” 

Langdon's eyes don't stray from hers. “Sweetheart, ignore them, tell me. Where does it hurt?” 

“Nowhere, Langdon. I told you. I’m completely fine.”

“You’re supposed to be asleep,” he says as if he hadn’t heard her. “You’re supposed to be in bed, not here. Is it your head or your lungs?” 

Mel frowns. “My head or my- Langdon. It’s not either, I’m not here because I’m in pain, I just told you that.” 

Langdon starts running one hand up her side then and oh my god they’re in public. Even worse, they’re at work.

“Frank,” she hisses under her breath. That makes him freeze finally. “I’m not hurt. I’m here for other purposes.” 

“What reasons could you possibly have to call Dr. Abbot and have him drive you here if you weren’t in pain?” He looks at her in cautious disbelief.

Mel sighs. “I didn’t call Dr. Abbot, he came to me.” 

Langdon’s scrutinising eyes finally leave hers then, only to look at someone over her shoulder. She doesn’t have to guess who. “You woke Dr. King up in the middle of the night for what reason exactly, Dr. Abbot?” 

“Funny you should ask,” Abbot says and Mel can hear him grinning already. She sighs. “I needed her help with precisely this.” 

Before Langdon can answer, Mel reaches a hand up to his shoulder and squeezes to reorient his attention back to her. “Perlah,” she says. “Are there any incoming traumas?”

“No,” she hears from her left. “Why?” 

“I need to borrow two attendings, I’ll give you Dr. Abbot in return.” 

“Can I run a bet on the reason while you do?” Another voice, Princess, asks. Both of them are on the night shift for some reason apparently.

“Sure,” Mel smiles. “But I think the reason is going to become fairly obvious in a couple of seconds.” To Langdon and Samira she says “follow me, both of you.” 

Then she walks them promptly into Trauma Two. 

To both of their credit they put up a valiant effort in pretending it doesn’t make them uneasy. Langdon only hovers over the proverbial threshold for a second and the only way she can see Samira’s apprehension is by the small cringe she lets slip when Langdon does.

Then Mel jumps up on the table and both of them squawk. She raises an eyebrow. 

See, here’s what they don’t tell you about when eighty percent of your life revolves around you working in an ER. When someone gets injured, it’s very hard to separate work from not-work. Mel gets it, she does. She can’t say for sure how she’d feel if the roles were reversed even if she’d like to think she’d be able to stay rational about the whole thing. 

But this is affecting the entire ER, is the thing. Because of her. She can’t have that. 

“Take a long look,” she says and spreads out her arms from her sides. “Here I am, alive and well. In this room. Everything is okay, I’m fine.” 

“Mel,” Langdon practically chokes out and doesn’t continue. 

Samira frowns. “I didn’t want Jack to tell you about this.” 

“I know, he said. Which, by the way, felt bad. That neither of you wanted to tell me about this yourselves. Did you think I’d be mad? Because I don’t know how I could’ve ever given you that impression.” 

“Are you not mad right now?” Langdon asks then, voice small and oh. 

“I’m not mad at either of you, honey. I’m sad that neither of you came to me with this.” 

Mel knows it’s a low blow as soon as she’s said it but even if she hadn’t the way Langdon tenses is a dead giveaway. 

“It’s not about trust,” both of them say at the same time.  

She smiles and beckons them over, hands opening and closing until both of them take one of her hands. “I know it’s not, I shouldn’t have said that,” she squeezes Langdon’s hand, three times in quick succession. “I know it must be hard for you two to be in here. It’s okay for it to be hard. But, look at me,” she waits for them until they do.

“I’m in here, perfectly fine. You two are the two attendings I trust the most in this entire ER, no matter who's on shift with you, there's no one else I'd want treating our patients who need your help the most. We all need you in here, not just me. There's going to be a patient in here someday who will be more injured than I was, more scared than I was, and I know that's uncomfortable and probably scary and it's okay for you to feel that way for a bit, but," she pauses to squeeze both of their hands, Langdon's three times in quick succession again. I love you. "In two months I’m going to be in here a whole lot more, and I want you two to be able to join me on those cases because the first couple of times are probably going to be terrifying and uncomfortable for me too and I’m going to need you with me in here when they are.”

Samira's the first to speak. "I'll work on it Mel. Both of us. Promise." 

"Good," she smiles. "You can talk to me about it, you know. This didn't just happen to me, I know that. I don't want either of you feeling like you need to keep this sort of thing from me to protect me. I want to protect both of you just as much," she looks over at Langdon, waits until he looks at her instead of the cabinets behind her. "I said I wanted to be your anchor, Frank. Please let me."  

He collapses into her then, a bit awkward with one of Mel's hands locked between their chests and one still holding onto Samira's even when Samira tries to let go, but she doesn't care. She doesn't care at all when Langdon finally relaxes against her. 

“Well,” Garcia says from the doorway suddenly, three heads snapping in her direction. “Look who’s come to visit. You dying on me again, King?” 

Langdon’s jaw flexes at that and oh my god she can’t stay here much longer. “That’s not funny Yolanda,” he says, tone cold. 

“Not this time,” Mel smiles. “But these two are convinced I couldn’t possibly be here for any other reason. I told them not to page you but I suppose you have to check me out now anyway?” 

“Doctor’s orders. Come on, let’s go somewhere with a non-glass door. They’re doing a great job pretending they aren’t watching from out there but I think all of us know they are. Mateo said South Sixteen is free. Is your entourage coming with you?” 

Mel looks at Samira first, tilting her head a little. Samira looks more composed now, which is great because Langdon doesn’t. At least she’s helped the situation a little bit. 

“I’m okay, I’ll see if Dr. Abbot needs any help,” she says before walking over and kissing Mel’s forehead. “We’ll talk about this later.” 

“As soon as Garcia clears me for alcohol consumption we’re going out, old times. Or we'll go up to Lake Erie for a beach day when it gets warmer, just the two of us. It's nicer to have joint emotional breakdowns on a beach, I think.” 

Langdon makes a noise low in his throat but doesn’t say anything. 

“Hopefully soon enough,” Garcia says. “Now shoo, I have to take ER couple out of here. Dr. King’s going to have to take her shirt off and I’m not sure Dr. Langdon would appreciate her having to do that with the entire Pitt watching.” 

It’s kind of funny watching how quickly Langdon snaps out of his own head at that. He wraps an arm around Mel’s back to practically lift her down from the table before Mel’s even able to register that he’s moved. 

“Ew,” Garcia says, grinning. “Let’s take the back exit so the rest of our patients don’t have to see all of that.” 

Langdon doesn’t let go of her hand even as Garcia closes the door behind them once they’ve gotten to Sixteen. She feels thrown back in time for a brief second, walking hand in hand with her first boyfriend through her high school, giddy to have someone who wanted her close all the time. She always feels that way with Langdon, but something about him displaying it so openly in the Pitt does something to her heart. 

They’re going to have to shut this down when Mel comes back, she knows. That doesn’t mean she can’t let herself enjoy it tonight. 

“Any headaches? Trouble breathing? Problem keeping food down?”

“No,” she sighs. “I’m a bit tired, but I’m pretty sure that’s just because I was supposed to be asleep an hour ago.” 

“So it’s not a regular thing?” 

“No,” Mel says, faux exasperated as she looks at Langdon. He at least has the decency to look a bit apologetic. 

“Okay. Let me just check your heart rate and breathing sounds and I’ll let you go. Do you need a new prescription for painkillers?”

She shakes her head. “All good. Just want to go home.” 

And, surprise surprise, nothing’s wrong with her. She would have objected to this whole thing more if it hadn’t been for the relief she’d known she’d see on Langdon’s face when she eventually gets the all clear. 

“Can I have five minutes alone with Langdon, please? I’ll get out of your hair right away afterwards. I know you have better things to do tonight than checking my heart rate.” 

“Of course I do,” Garcia grins. “But Langdon would kill me if I ignored a page that said SOS MEL.” 

“SOS MEL?” She turns to Langdon. 

“Yes well,” he rubs the back of his neck. “You came in through the ambulance bay in the middle of the night. What was I supposed to think?” 

“Alright, I’m out of here. I assume you’re getting driven back home by someone? Langdon’s on shift for three more hours and I know you’re not missing the on-call room.” 

She shrugs. “I have some fond memories in there,” she pointedly does not look at Langdon. “But no, Dr. Abbot’s driving me back home before coming back to relieve Dr. Shen in an hour.”

“All these private chauffeurs, must be nice,” she grins. “Goodnight, Dr. King.” 

The door barely closes behind her before Mel reaches up to run a hand over Langdon’s jaw. “How are you, honey?” 

“That was scary,” he exhales. “Santos came running and all I could see was you on a stretcher. You bleeding, you seizing, worst case scenario after worst case scenario. You know I didn’t want to go back to work before you did for this exact reason, for something to happen to you and me not being there to help you. To come home only to find out you had a brain bleed in your sleep.” 

She leans forward to kiss his forehead, using one hand around his neck to pull him in. “I’m sorry. Jack tried to convince me to go through reception but I didn’t want to have to talk to so many people before I got to you. I didn’t think of how it would look to you.”  

“It’s okay,” he whispers. “I’m fine, really. Sorry I freaked out.” 

“You don’t have to apologise for freaking out, Frank,” then, to diffuse the tension she adds “you do need to apologise for one thing though.” 

He looks up at her in confusion. “Why?” 

Mel grins and cards a hand through his hair. “You made me go Grey’s Anatomy finally. God, I don’t think I’ve ever caused a scene like that. My first return to the Pitt after being discharged and it was like this. You make me throw out all logic, Frank Langdon,” she tries, she swears she tries, but she lets the smile slip. “Apologise.” 

“I’m sorry,” he smiles back, entirely unapologetic. “Now that the adrenalines wearing off I can say it was kind of hot though.” 

Mel throws her head back and he takes the opportunity to burrow into her neck, pressing a kiss to her pulse. 

“Well, I hope you enjoyed it because it’s never happening again. Savour it while you can.” 

He hums and sends the vibrations down her spine. “It’ll be really hard to go back and finish my shift now that you’ve been here. I don’t think I’ll stop hearing about this for at least a week. Dana’s going to be so angry she missed this.” 

A while later he presses a kiss into the juncture between her neck and her shoulder. "That was quite a speech Mel, haven't had one of those from you for a while."

She laughs, surprised. "Haven't needed to pull one of them out. Somehow I only do it around you too, any guesses as to why?" 

"Because you love me." A year ago, that would have been phrased as a question. Her heart still jumps a little at the fact that it isn't, now.

Mel presses a kiss into his hair and whispers, low and quiet and for not even the walls of the PTMC to hear, "I do."

They stay like that for a few minutes longer, just breathing together. It’s calming in the way he always makes her.

It also makes her adrenaline run out unfortunately. “I need to go home to sleep, I’m going to have to leave you here. Don’t wake me up when you come home.” 

Langdon shakes his head. “I won’t, I promise sweetheart. I’ll sleep on the couch if you want.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snorts. “I want to wake up with you tomorrow morning.” 

“Okay,” he says before finally pulling away from her. “Okay, let's go get Abbot to drive you home. I’ll be there soon.” 

He helps her off the table and back into her shirt by pulling it over her head slowly. “I couldn't have gone through this without you Frank, you know that don't you?” 

He nods and kisses her forehead. “Yeah, I’ve figured that one out by now. I love you too sweetheart.” 

Langdon walks her and Abbot out, pretending it’s to stop everyone from hounding her on her way past the nurses’ station and not because he doesn’t want to release the tight hold on her hand just yet. Mel lets him, she doesn’t mind the pressure either. 

Walking her all the way to Abbot’s car is a bit much, but she doesn’t have the heart to deny him that either. 

“You drive her home safely Abbot, you hear me? I can’t take another heart attack tonight.” 

Abbot snorts from the driver’s seat next to Mel, her door open for Langdon as he leans against the roof. “Who do you think I am?” 

“Just reminding you that I’m trusting you with my life here.” 

His life. Jesus. 

“I’ll be fine. Come home safe, okay?” she says instead of dwelling on that right now. She’ll do it later. 

“How could I not, when you’re there waiting?”

She smiles for a second and Langdon smiles too, moment suspended in air for a little bit until Abbot clears his throat behind her. 

“Okay well, you love each other, great. I have to be back here in an hour so do you mind, Langdon?” 

He leans down to kiss her one last time. “Tomorrow, sweetheart. Drink a glass of water before bed.” 

She buckles her seatbelt. “Sure.” 

With that he closes her door finally and backs away so Abbot can pull out of the parking lot. In the rearview mirror she can see him watching them go before starting to walk back inside. 

“You guys are kind of disgusting, you know that?” 

“Yeah,” she grins. “Yeah. It took us a long time to get here though so I’m going to let him be for a while longer. Don’t worry, when I come back to work we’ll tone it down.” 

“Thank god,” Abbot says in a tone that tells Mel he’s not actually that bothered. “If you keep this up I’m going to get ideas that Samira isn’t going to love.” 

She laughs, and he laughs, and they joke all the way home. He walks her back to her door which she tries to argue against but he insists. He also insists on helping her take her shoes off. 

“I’m the one who dragged you out, let me make sure you get back inside okay. It’s for my own sake, really. Samira will kill me if she finds out I didn’t.” 

She sighs. “Okay, but I draw the line at you tucking me into bed.” 

Abbot laughs. “Yeah, I can live with that. Good night, Dr. King.” 

“Good night, Dr. Abbot. I’d say you’re welcome anytime but let’s try to keep to the hours the sun’s up next time, if only to not stress Langdon and Samira out again.” 

“Smart,” he nods. “I’m afraid I’m going to get berated when I come back to the Pitt now, Samira was already sending me looks for the ten minutes I was filling in for Langdon earlier.” 

“I’m not sure he’ll be kind to you either, but I’ll defend you tomorrow I promise,” she pats him on the shoulder. Then, more sincere, she adds “I’m really glad you came to me, Abbot.”

“Me too,” he replies. “Good night again, I’ll see you next week.” 

“Can’t wait,” she says and closes the door after he’s turned to leave. 

When she’s finally alone again, tiredness finally slams back into her. She stumbles into the kitchen to drink some water before walking to her, their bedroom these days really, and crawling underneath the covers. Within ten seconds of her head hitting the pillow, she’s out cold. 

The first thing she notices when she wakes up the next morning is Langdon’s arm slung around her stomach, chest pressed against her back. The next is that he must’ve pulled her blackout curtains closed when he came home this morning because she can’t remember doing that herself. The third thing she notices is that she’s hungry. Very hungry. 

Langdon’s still asleep when Mel returns with two plates of cut up fruit and places one on his side of the bed before opening the curtains to let the sun in and settling back on her side of the bed. She watches him as she eats, peaceful in a way he never is awake. His hair falls into his eyes slightly when he moves and Mel reaches out to fix it, worried it’s going to wake him up. The sunlight paints him in a golden hue and Mel is careful not to move too much so that he gets to sleep longer. Out of the two of them it's her that can't sleep if it's too bright, Langdon sleeps like the dead anywhere. Him closing the curtains when he came home was for her benefit, she knows.

Domestic, domestic, domestic.

When he reaches towards her again to wrap one of his arms around her legs she cards her fingers through his hair again, revelling in the content sigh she’s rewarded with as he relaxes into her again. 

God, she loves him. 

She hasn’t told him this yet but she and Becca have talked at length about what it would be like to move in with him properly, long term. She’d asked Becca to treat these last few months as a trial run to see if she’d be comfortable with Langdon around in their home every time she stays with Mel overnight, and she had been. The kids are going to start coming over more often on Langdon's days off now that Mel’s pretty much fully recovered and only home from work to make absolutely sure everything's okay and Becca’s agreed to stay over too, on those nights. She’s always gotten along great with Tanner and Isabel in small doses, but Mel knows larger doses can be overstimulating so she hasn’t brought it up to Langdon yet, afraid to get his hopes up only for it to not work out. 

She’s optimistic though. Very optimistic. 

They stay like that for a couple of more hours, Langdon asleep next to her as Mel scrolls through medical articles for treating PTSD on her phone. She’d come across some of it in her time at the VA but it feels different with Langdon. He didn’t actually see her, so his trauma is mostly from the worst-case scenarios he imagined while she was unconscious. She’s never had to treat that before. 

It’s noon when Langdon finally wakes up, slightly disoriented before looking up and squinting until his eyes find hers. “Hey,” he says, and Mel’s knees go a little weak. His voice in the mornings tends to have that effect on her. 

“Good morning,” she smiles. “There’s fruit on your nightstand.” 

“Thank you, sweetheart.” 

She watches him eat almost clinically, tracking every time he swallows with precision. She counts the bites in her head and he definitely notices by the smirk on his face as he slowly comes alive but she doesn’t mind. It’s not like she would ever mind him knowing how attractive she finds him. 

She has something else to deal with first though. 

“Now that you’re done,” she says after he swallows the last bite. “I want us to try something.” 

It’s kind of funny, the way his eyes go glassy immediately. She doesn’t mind knowing how attractive he finds her either. 

When she whips her sleep shirt off, it only gets better. 

He freezes where he’s sitting next to her but his eyes go wide as they roam her chest, fingers twitching at his side. He always does this, waiting for her to give her permission before he touches her. He’ll be all over her in a millisecond as soon as she does but until then he stays put. That’s not something she’d ever asked for before, didn’t know how to without coming across as too complicated or not spontaneous enough but she didn’t even need to ask Langdon for it. He just knew. Right from the first time they did this. 

“What, uhm,” he clears his throat. “What do you want us to try?” 

She grins. “Exposure therapy.” 

He inhales sharply and holds his breath as she scoots down the bed to lie with her head on their pillows again. He’s gone shock still now. “Exposure therapy?” He wheezes. 

“Give me your hand, Frank.” 

It’s shaking slightly when he does. Jesus. 

She brings it up to her forehead, moves it onto the right side of her scalp where her skin had been cut into. It’s still weird to think about sometimes, that some of her colleagues have seen her brain. Not bad weird necessarily, but still weird. 

Mel can tell by the tick in his jaw when his fingers reach scar tissue. 

“Mel, please,” he says but doesn’t continue. Instead he closes his eyes which, well. Mel can’t have that. 

“Open your eyes,” she says and he does immediately, if only to glare at her. She smiles. 

“Feel that?” Mel continues. “What are you thinking when you feel that scar?” 

It takes him a long time to respond, long enough for her to notice his knee twitching slightly where he’s perched over the covers now. 

“I’m reminded of the moment I got the call. I’m reminded of how you almost died and I couldn’t do anything about it,” he says eventually. “I remember sitting there with Mohan and not knowing whether I’d ever see you again.” 

“And here?” She drags his hand down to her chest, over the very visible scar over her right lung. “What are you thinking when you feel this one? When you see this one?” 

His fingers shudder against her skin and it’s only her hand that keeps him in place. His eyes look a little wide still and she can feel his wrist straining against her hand. 

“I keep imagining hands inside your chest, cutting through muscle to get to your lungs,” Langdon whispers, eyes pinpointed towards where their fingers are interlaced over the scar. “I can barely breathe when I see it. It feels like they’re inside my chest sometimes.”

She nods. “Okay. Now this one,” she moves their hands down to her side right over her liver. “What does this do?”

“Mel,” he chokes out. “Why are you doing this?” 

“Trust me on this,” she smiles. “What does this scar do?” 

“I don’t want to do this, sweetheart,” Langdon says a bit brokenly. 

She squeezes his hand against the scar. “I know you don’t, but I think we need to. Just one more. Please, for me?” 

He pauses for a long moment before closing his eyes again. This time Mel lets him. 

“I think about this one whenever I see someone’s fender even a little bit bent when I’m driving. I keep thinking about how you were inches away from critical liver damage, how lucky I was that it wasn’t.” 

God, she wishes they’d done this earlier. She’s been out of the hospital for five months now and he’d kept this from her all this time. She’d seen him flinch sometimes when they were in bed together but this? She’d missed this completely. He’s usually the only one she’s good at reading like this, it unnerves her that she has.

“Do you want to know what I think about when I see them?” she whispers before dragging their hands back up over her chest to rest over her heartbeat. His arm stretches over her until it strains too much and he moves to sit over her instinctively, his thighs bracketing hers. “Do you?” 

“Mel, sweetheart” he says dejectedly. “I don’t want to talk about this at all really.” 

She ignores him and pulls his head down to rest against hers before moving one of her hands into his hair, rubbing circles into the tendons of his neck, into his trapezius muscles, to try and loosen them up as he breathes against her cheek slowly, in and out. 

“Every single scar Frank,” she whispers. “I see every single scar as a reminder of the fact that I still get to be here with you. That you and I got more time. I know they look ugly, but I don’t regret them, not at all. They gave me you back.” 

It’s instant, the way he collapses into her. She doesn’t get to blink before his face is burrowed into her neck, his other hand beginning to run up and down her jaw. He presses kisses to every piece of skin he can find along her jaw and down to her heartbeat before trailing them back up to her again. It’s like his strings have been cut and her heart feels so light all of a sudden. 

“Nothing about you can ever be ugly to me, Melissa King,” he murmurs against her lips “Don’t believe that for one second.” 

She smiles against him. “Good.” 

Then she reaches up both of her arms and drapes them around his neck before using them to push him down and close the few inches between them, and gets her mouth on his. 

Finally. 

She lets the kiss linger for a while, soft and slow as Langdon calms himself down and goes almost languid on top of her. When he drops his weight onto her a minute later she lets the pressure of him, the warmth of him, push her deeper into the mattress as a hand comes up to cradle her jaw, to angle her face better, to kiss her deeper. He groans low in his throat when Mel pulls him impossibly closer and grinds up against him, hooking one of her thighs up over his hips. 

The full body shudder she can feel against her ignites a fire up her entire body and she moans into Langdon’s mouth, getting desperate desperate desperate almost embarrassingly quick if this was anyone besides Frank Langdon. 

“Sweetheart,” he groans. “Please, let me go down on you.” 

“On one condition,” she whispers, knowing full well she’d let him anyway but loving the fact that he’ll never call her bluff. 

“Anything,” he whispers and moves back down her neck. “Anything you want Melissa.” 

Oh, her name sounds so sweet coming out of his mouth. She’s never going to tire of it. 

“I want you to see a psychologist to do a PTSD evaluation,” she says, grinning when he rests his chin just over her breast to look up at her in shock. 

“Are you being serious?” 

“Of course I am,” she looks at him faux seriously for a moment. “You’re clearly responding well to exposure therapy but I think someone else will be better equipped to deal with official treatment. It feels a bit unethical, me administering treatment like this. What with the whole 'you're not allowed to treat family' thing.”

“Fuck,” he groans into her chest. “I cannot believe that you telling me to see a psychologist is hot to me right now. Exposure therapy, jesus.” 

“Is that a yes?” 

Another groan and then he bites her. She bucks into him again on instinct and moans as she feels the vibrations of his laugh against sensitive skin. 

“Fine,” he says. “Now can I go down on you? Or do you need me to call and book an appointment first?” 

“No, that’s fine,” grin turning into a gasp when he immediately starts kissing back down her stomach. 

“You’re so kind, sweetheart. So charitable.” 

He always acts like she’s the one doing him a favour whenever he does this and it’s equal parts endearing and frustrating. Right now though, Mel can barely think straight. 

She moans. “Please, enough talking now.” 

Langdon hums against her and oh. Oh god. 

“Of course, Mel. Whatever you want.” 

Then his mouth is on her and she isn’t able to think of anything at all. 

There’s really only one thing Melissa King and Frank Langdon need you, yes you, to know and it’s this: They’re going to be just fine.

Mel’s first day back after recovery goes significantly better than her first ever one at the Pitt. Notably there hadn’t been a MCI for them to deal with and she felt a lot more confident in her abilities as a doctor than she had back then. Not that she hadn’t felt confident back then, mind you, but these days it’s just more. 

She knows she's going to have to redo her final year as a senior resident, what with having missed over half of it the first time around, but she doesn't mind now that everyone knows about her and Langdon anyway. It's annoying, but it's not like she's the first one to ever do it. She's not even the first one at the PTMC. She's not even the first one in her own bed, their bed, on most nights. Besides, it means Langdon's going to be able to still teach her things, which. Yeah. It's definitely going to be fine. 

Jesus.

Pretty notable is also the fact that, unlike her last first day at the Pitt when Langdon had been busted for stealing medication from patients and sent home to his wife before he checked himself into rehab for months, this time he comes home with Mel and stays. Is always going to stay, even when Mel and Becca's lease is up because they're converting Langdon's guest room into a room for Becca. Is always going to be there when Mel comes home, waiting.

That’s probably the biggest improvement, she thinks. She would’ve taken another MCI even, if she also got Frank Langdon by the end of it. 

(Oh, and one last thing. Don't tell Samira Mohan, but it turns out Melissa King does have a thing for married men after all. Well, when they're married to her anyway.)