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i love you (it's ruining my life), chapter two

title: i love you (it's ruining my life) fandom: the pitt pairing: frank langdon x mel king rating: m summary: abby stays. frank isn't sure that's a good thing.

chapter one: prologue

author's note: part two of three! hope to have the final chapter up by the end of the week :)

two graves, one gun

how much sad did you think i had did you think i had in me? oh, the tragedy

- so long, london, taylor swift

He tries to avoid Mel after he apologizes to her. He knows she doesn’t mean to, but she’s making him uncomfortable.

It’s no fault of her own. In fact, her enthusiastic greeting this morning had been the highlight of his day for awhile. The thought that someone was excited to have him back here, rather than conflicted and awkwardly uneasy, had been a little thrilling. He honestly thought she wouldn’t remember him, considering they’d only known each other for one shift. Less than that, even, if one factors in the few hours he was banished from the ED that day. And even if she did remember him, she surely wouldn’t want to be around him, or admire him, or want to learn from him. Not after what he did.

He isn’t afraid to admit that he thought about her during his absence. When he first went to rehab, she actually was one of the people he thought about the most. Her warm, eager smile, her concern and care for her patients. Her perfect crike, her enthusiasm over road rash, of all things. Her neat braid, her blue glasses, her striped socks that matched her purple shirt.

The way she’d looked at him, with shining, soft, awed chocolate brown eyes. No one had looked at him quite like that – with unbridled, unabashed interest – in a long time. If he was being honest with himself (he wasn’t, usually, but he’d been trying to get better at that), it had made something in his chest tighten, in a way it hadn’t since he first caught Abby’s gaze from across the room his second year of undergrad, in the middle of a gen ed macroeconomics lecture.

In fact, when he started spending the vast majority of his days alone with his thoughts because he didn’t have anything better to fucking do, and meditated more on that first day with her, a part of him considered that it might’ve been a good thing he hadn’t been able to spend more time with her. That Mel King might be dangerous.

But then, almost as quickly as the thought would come, he’d pushed it away. Because it was ridiculous. He barely knew the woman. And she wasn’t his type, anyway. Abby was his type, he reminded himself – tall, green eyed, tan skinned. Biting humor and quick wit. Almost obnoxiously beautiful.

So he let himself think about Mel. He let himself miss Mel, and didn’t overcomplicate it. For the first week or so, he even let himself imagine (hope?) that he’d leave rehab and check his phone and find notifications from her. Or that one of the nurses would knock on the door to his room, tell him he had an unexpected visitor, and when he walked down to the family room, there she would be, hands clasped together tensely in front of her, but a gentle smile on her face.

Somehow, he knew there wouldn’t be pity in her gaze.

But, of course, that didn’t happen. She’d only known him for one fucking shift. There was just Abby, and his mom, once, when she flew up to help Abby for a week. And that was enough. That was fucking enough, he told himself over and over again.

Still, he checked his phone after he was discharged. Looked for a message that said, Hi, it’s Mel! Just making sure you’re doing ok :)

There wasn’t, of course. (There were no notifications from anyone, but he filed that away in a deep corner of his brain as something he couldn’t fucking deal right now.) He never even gave her his phone number, so how would she have contacted him in the first place? You’re such a fucking idiot, he told himself.

It was still hard to swallow his disappointment.

During his second stint in rehab, when he was a little more confident that being clean was actually going to stick this time, his counselor asked him who he wanted to apologize to when he left the center.

Abby, of course, he’d said. He’d write Tanner and Penny letters for when they were older. Robby. Dana. Fucking Santos.

And Mel.

“Who’s Mel?” the counselor had asked. “You’ve never mentioned them before.”

He’d never mentioned her, of course, because he was trying to be honest about everything he said these days. And whenever he tried to say her name out loud, his heart started to beat a little differently, in a rhythm that sounded suspiciously like dangerous, dangerous, dangerous.

(Again, it was fucking ridiculous. It didn’t make any sense, and he was half in denial that it was even happening at all. And the last thing he wanted to do was fucking talk about it.)

So, he said simply, “A colleague from the hospital.”

He didn’t even call her a friend. He couldn’t – they weren’t friends.

“You have a lot of colleagues from the hospital,” the counselor said. Searched. “Why do you want to apologize to them, specifically?”

And his heart beat. Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous.

“I was kind of,” he begins, stumbling over his words a bit. “She was – I was – we kind of had this mentor, mentee thing going on.”

He chewed on his bottom lip. Shame – a feeling he’d come to know intimately, like the back of his hand – curled in his chest. The feeling was sharper in that moment than he’d thought it would be.

“I feel like I abandoned her,” he breathed.

He didn’t think he meant to say that – it just kind of tumbled out of his mouth. His therapist hummed – he felt like he was nude and being dissected under a microscope – but didn’t pry further. Thank fucking God.

Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous.

His explanation for avoiding Mel that morning is two-fold. The first reason – the reason that’s easier to stomach – is that she keeps looking at him like he’s still something special, something good, even after he admits to her that he’s a fucking drug addict. Her soft you never let me down is still echoing in his brain, and not necessarily in a good way.

Because he did, he did, he did. How could she not see that? Why didn’t she see that? He wanted to shake her, almost. I’m a such a fuck-up, Mel, he’d tell her, imploring her to understand. I’m such a piece of shit.

The second reason, he doesn’t really want to think about it at all. He doesn’t even want to acknowledge it, really. He’d thought this wouldn’t be a problem anymore. That the sheen of Mel King would’ve worn off, somehow. Because she’s not his type and they’re not even friends and Jesus Christ, Abby stayed.

But he can still feel the imprint of her fingers on his bicep as she grabbed his arm in greeting, the softness on her braided blonde hair under her fingertips as he examined her head. You never let me down. And, fuck, this might actually be fucking dangerous.

So, he avoids her. He avoids her eyes when he hands his triage patients off to her, and ignores the disappointment that flashes across her face every time he does. It makes him feel small, anyway. It makes him feel like a fucking coward. So it’s better to not think about it.

But then, he tries to force an apology on Robby on the fucking helipad – he’s such an idiot – and the whole fucking day falls apart. And when he retreats to the break room and sinks down to the floor with pain in his back and fucking tears in his eyes, it’s her voice that he hears a few minutes later, softer than he’s ever heard it.

“Dr. Langdon?”

He can’t bring himself to look up at her. He kind of hopes she’ll just go away. But, of course, she doesn’t. Instead, because she’s Mel and she genuinely cares, she sits down next to him.

He can feel the heat of her body radiating towards him. He can hear her even breaths.

Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous.

And then, before he can stop himself, he’s spilling his guts.

“I tried apologizing to Robby,” he spits. Not at her, of course – again, he’s not mad at her, and he’s only avoiding her because he can’t fucking stand himself and, for some reason, she can.

Instead, he’s stuck in some limbo between hating Robby because he’s being a fucking asshole and twistedly loving him because finally, finally, someone is confirming that he’s a fucking drug addict who stole from patients and broke his Hippocratic Oath and doesn’t deserve a second chance in anything, really, but especially not in a fucking hospital.

“I assume it didn’t go well,” she says gently.

He laughs once.

“No, it didn’t go well,” he confirms bitterly. “God, Mel. I don’t think – I don’t think I belong here anymore.”

He rubs a hand over his face, inadvertently spreading the dampness from his eyes down his cheeks.

“I think this was a mistake,” he mutters, almost under his breath, but he knows she can still hear him. “I don’t think I ever should’ve come back here. Jesus Christ, what was I thinking, coming back here?”

He waits for her to offer something comforting, something kind. But she stays quiet, like she knows there’s more he has to say.

So he keeps going.

“I lied to you before, Mel.”

“Oh?” she breathes.

“Yeah,” he says, laughing again. “Oh. I’m not just a fucking addict. I was diverting drugs. I was stealing meds from the hospital. I was writing fake prescriptions and taking them for myself. And sometimes…”

He trails off. He’s only ever said the next part in rehab. He’s never even told Abby.

But he tells Mel.

“I was using intravenously, too. I would dilute Ativan and then reseal the vials. I could’ve gotten someone killed, Mel. Hell, maybe I did. I don’t fucking know.”

He can stop the tears from falling from his eyes, now. He’s sitting on the breakroom floor, crying and confessing all his sins to a woman he barely knows, and this is such a fucking shitshow. He should just leave now. Hell, maybe he’ll steal some fucking Librium for old time’s sake and go overdose in the parking garage.

“I lied when I said it didn’t affect my work, too” he tells her, voice shaking. “I used here all the time. Fuck, I even used around my kids, Mel. I…”

He trails off. He honestly thought she’d have gotten up and left by now. Or called Robby, or the fucking police, or something. But she’s just sitting there, quiet as a mouse, with those same even breaths. And he can’t take it.

“You going to say something? Got any thoughts rolling around in that brain of yours?” he asks her. His tone isn’t cruel, exactly, but it’s also not kind. It’s sharp and bitter and harsh like sandpaper.

Still, she doesn’t speak. He looks at her, finally, because he can’t stop himself. Because some sick part of himself wants to see her misplaced faith in him crumble, so he has another reason to hate himself.

She’s staring at him. Her eyes are harder than before, but they’re not angry, or even disappointed. All he sees there is sincere concern. He wants to shake her again, almost reaches out to actually do it, but then it hits him, like a tractor trailer.

There’s no pity in her gaze.

It kind of takes his breath away. He almost doesn’t hear her next statement.

“What do you want me to think, Dr. Langdon? What do you want me to say?”

He blinks hard, squeezing more tears from his eyes.

“Dr. Langdon?” she questions.

He blinks again, tries to focus on her face. He finds that her expression is expectant. She is waiting for him to answer. She wants to know what he has to say – what he actually has to say, instead of the platitudes and vague allusions he’s been handing out to the rest of his coworkers, along with his parents and even Abby.

She wants him to be honest. It should feel like he’s in his therapist’s cold, sterile office, but instead, he’s on the breakroom floor in the middle of the Pitt with Mel, and she’s about to take a scalpel to his chest.

“I want you to see me, Mel,” he tells her, his voice coming out strangled and desperate. “I want you to really see me for me, instead of whatever you built up in your head over the past year based on a few fucking hours.”

“So you want me to tell you you’re a fuck up,” she says. She states it, plainly, and he waits for the pity. He searches for it.

But it doesn’t come. He can hardly breathe, but somehow, he doesn’t feel like he’s suffocating.

“You want me to tell you that you don’t deserve to be here,” she continues. “You want me to tell you you’re a terrible doctor, and a terrible father, and a terrible person, and that you don’t deserve a second chance. You want me to say that you should leave and never come back. Right, Dr. Langdon?”

He can only stare at her, and he realizes suddenly that Santos isn’t the only person here that can see right through him. Mel can, too.

She turns her head away from him and looks towards the closed door. It’s a miracle no one has walked in here yet and interrupted them.

“Well, I’m not going to say any of that. I want to be honest with you, too, Dr. Langdon. So, I’m not going to tell you those things, because I don’t believe any of them are true.”

“You don’t know me,” he manages to croak out. His voice cracks. “You hardly know anything about me.”

“I know you’re a drug addict,” she tells him, and the words – the matter-of-fact way she says them – would knock him off his feet if he were standing up. She says them like they don’t define everything he’s ever done in his entire fucking life. He can’t fathom it. It doesn’t compute in his brain. “I know you made bad choices and were irresponsible and probably a little arrogant, too. I know you lied to a lot of people. Including me.”

Then why don’t you hate me, he wants to scream at her. Why are you here? What the fuck are you doing, Mel?

“I also know, though,” she begins, “that you’re clean now. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be here – they wouldn’t let you be here. So that means you fought every day to not use. That you’re still fighting every day to not use. And I think that’s something worthy of being admired.”

You never let me down, she’d said.

“I’ve…been around a good number of drug addicts, Dr. Langdon. I worked at the VA before this, remember? Drug addicts aren’t bad people. They’re usually just desperate. They usually can’t find any other way out. That doesn’t make them bad.”

You never let me down.

“Maybe you don’t believe that yet,” she says, finally looking back at him. No pity. No fucking pity. “Maybe you’ll never believe that. But I do. And nothing you do or say is going to change that.”

Again, if he wasn’t already on the floor, her words would put him there. She gazes at him for a moment more, and then sighs, glancing up at the clock on the wall.

“We should get back out there. We’ve been in here for awhile. They probably need us. Both of us.”

She moves to get up, but stops herself, looking over at him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t reach out while you we’re gone,” she tells him hesitantly, almost sounding regretful. “I wanted to. I actually thought about it all the time. I even asked Dana for your phone number at one point. But she wouldn’t give it to me, since we didn’t really know each other. And…I didn’t fight her. I was already questioning if it would be appropriate anyway.”

She reaches out, places a hand on his forearm tentatively.

“I know I said I didn’t listen to the rumors. And I didn’t, truly. But I obviously knew there was something going on. And I was worried that you might’ve felt alone. I know that must sound silly, since you have your wife and kids, and your other family, too – “

“It’s not silly,” he murmurs, his voice gravely from not speaking for a while. He places his free hand over hers. “It doesn’t sound silly.”

She presses her lips together for a moment.

“I hope you didn’t feel alone,” she says. “I really hope you didn’t feel alone, Dr. Langdon.”

“Call me Frank,” he tells her.

The woman just read him to filth, inspected his brain with a fine-toothed comb. The least he can do is give her permission to call him by his first name.

“I did…feel alone,” he admits, and she frowns. “I felt really alone for most of the time, honestly.”

“Well, I hope you don’t feel that way anymore,” she says. “Or at least won’t feel that way going forward. I’m really hoping we can be friends, Frank.”

Frank. It sends a chill down his spine.

Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous.

“I hope so, too, Mel.”

Their hands are still clasped together on his arm. He wants to twine their fingers together. He wants it more than he wants most things in his life right now, if he’s being honest. He doesn’t know how he can want something so small so damn much.

But before he can even think of acting on the urge, the door to the break room swings open harshly, making them both jump away from each other. He recognizes the person standing in the doorway from his many meetings with HR. He’s holding a piss cup.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he mutters.

“Dr. Langdon,” the man says. “I have –“

“I know, I know,” he tells him, but he’s still looking at Mel, and he’s actually fucking smiling – a real smile, too. Not one of the polite ones he sends Abby every time she asks him if he’s okay.

“Well, Dr. King, it looks like it’s time for our first random drug test of the day.”

She’s biting her bottom lip, and he can tell she’s trying to hold back a grin as well. It makes him smile wider. She’s turned his whole day around in a matter of minutes.

He stands up slowly, trying not to wince at the pain in his back, and then reaches out to pull her up. She murmurs a quiet thank you, and watches as he walks over to retrieve the cup.

“Do you need any instr – “

“No, Doug,” he says, rolling his eyes. “I don’t need you to tell me how to pee in a cup. I’ve done it fifty billion times by now.”

She follows him as he exits the room, but they go in different directions once they’re in the hall – her back towards the floor and him in the direction of the employee bathroom.

“See you out there,” she calls over her shoulder at him, and then she’s off, braid swinging slightly as she walks.

He watches her, and his heart beats.

Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous.

* * *

He really shouldn’t stay for fireworks and burgers in the park after shift. Abby was already annoyed at him for going in unexpectedly on a holiday. (He didn’t really mind this. She was always so fucking nice to him about everything, that her being upset is kind of refreshing.) Plus, no one even formally invited him; he only knows about it because of the hand-drawn sign he noticed pinned to the bulletin board in the break room during one of at least seven escapes there throughout the day.

On top of that, the shift had already run over on account of them having to go analog. So, he should go home. He plans on going home. But then, as he closes his locker, Mel sidles up to him. She’s going, she tells him – Becca is staying over at the center tonight, so she’s going. Which is a big deal, she says with a smile, because she hardly ever feels up to socializing after work. This is the first time she’s gone out with them, in fact, since Santos’ impromptu birthday party at the dive bar down the street from the hospital three months ago.

She’s nearly bouncing with excitement when she asks, gently and hopefully, “Are you coming?”

And, well, how the fuck is he supposed to say no to that?

“I’ll come,” he says, and she beams.

Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous.

“I can’t stay very long,” he warns, almost as an afterthought. “Abby and I always watch The Patriot after we put the kids to bed on the Fourth of July. She loves that movie. I think mostly because she thinks Heath Ledger is hot in it.”

He almost feels obligated to mention his family to her. To mention Abby. Almost as a warning, or maybe as a reminder. He has a fucking wife at home. A wife who’d stayed.

The reminder is for him, of course. Not for Mel. He’s positive that she’s not having a meltdown every time the two of them look at each other. Probably because she’s a normal, sane person. Not a fucking reckless, fickle idiot like he is, who might possibly (possibly) have a whole-ass crush on a girl he’s barely known for 24 hours.

“You don’t seem very excited about that,” she notes.

He makes himself roll his eyes playfully.

“Yeah, well. Even the best movies get boring if you watch them too many times.”

He leaves out that he thinks part of it might be that it’s Abby. That maybe he wouldn’t mind so much if he was watching it with…someone else. No one in particular, of course.

“Consider yourself lucky that you only watch it once a year,” she says with a grin. “Becca makes me watch Elf almost every Friday.”

And he takes that bit of information, files it away in his brain in a new folder he’s entitled Things I Know About Mel King. Then, he walks with her to the park, sits next to her on a bench, listens to her talk animatedly to Samira about the latest episode of The Great British Bake Off, and tries to keep the smile off his face.

Donnie comes over after a few minutes and tries to hand him a beer.

“Oh, uh,” he starts awkwardly. “I don’t really…drink anymore. Trying to stay away from all vices, and shit like that.”

Suddenly, he feels Mel pat his knee. Her hand is only there for a moment, and his eyes dart towards her. She’s still deep in conversation with Mohan, and he would write it off as him imagining things, but he can still feel the touch against him – even though it lasted for about half a second – like her palm had branded him through the fabric of his jeans. Jesus Christ.

Donnie, oblivious to his inner crisis, keeps holding out the drink.

“It’s non-alcoholic. We always keep some stocked for Javadi since she’s not 21 yet.”

“Oh,” he says, slowly reaching out and taking the can. “Thanks, then.”

“Of course,” Donnie says, grinning at him and clapping his shoulder. “We missed you, man. It was great having you back today.”

He watches Donnie walk back over to Jesse. He still doesn’t think they missed him – after all, no one reached out to him for a whole ten fucking months. No one bothered to check that he’d made it through rehab instead of fucking killing himself, or something. They couldn’t have missed him that much. In fact, in his car on the way to work that morning, he’d decided that he was going to set strict boundaries with people at the hospital now.

Before PittFest, he considered nearly everyone in ED his friend. After all, he saw them almost every fucking day. They knew things about his life, and he knew things about theirs. They teased and joked and laughed. They were a sort of a little family, trauma bonded through the absolutely insane and tragic situations they faced day in and day out.

But then, it had been radio silence for ten months, and he’d learned the difference between a coworker and a friend the hard way.

So he told him he wouldn’t delude himself into thinking he was friends with anyone in the Pitt this time. What if he had to leave again – fuck, what if he fucking relapsed – and no one reached out again? He doesn’t think he would handle that crushing disappointment for a second time very well.

So he’d resolved to not let himself feel too close to them this time. Then, of course, Mel barreled her way back into his life and threw that plan to shit. He doesn’t mind making space for Mel, though. Not when he knows she means it when she says she wants to be his friend – he doesn’t think she has it in her to be anything but honest.

He’s not sure if he can let himself make space for Donnie. He’ll have to think about it more.

“So, you don’t drink anymore.”

Her voice pulls him from his thoughts, and he looks at her, finds that Samira has gone over to sit next to Abbot. (Those two needed to stop being so obvious, by the way, if they wanted to keep fooling anyone. He’s been back for a day and can already tell that they’re fucking. Or that they really want to fuck, at least.)

“Yeah,” he tells her, pulling the tab on the can. It opens with a soft fizzle. “It’s not like I drank very much before, though. That was never really my…problem.”

He winces, but she just smiles gently, patting his knee again. He takes a sip of the beer, hoping that the can will hide the way his lips quirk at the gesture.

Silence falls over them. He itches to fill it, not because it’s uncomfortable – it’s not uncomfortable, somehow, even though he usually can’t just be quiet even with Abby anymore – but because his brain now fills even a second of silence with thoughts about what a terrible, terrible person he is. He was alone with those thoughts for ten months. He’s not going to put up with that anymore, especially when Mel is at his side.

“So, you watch The Great British Bake Off.”

Her eyes light up, and he holds his can in front of his lips again. She starts in then, somehow talking to him even more animatedly than she had with Samira. She tells him her favorite contestants from last season, the dishes she would make if she ever was on the show, the new techniques she’s learned that she wants to try out at home, how much she despises Paul Hollywood, and about a thousand other things.

She only stops when they hear the boom of the first firework. She jumps.

“Oh, they’re starting!” she exclaims softly, and quickly starts digging through her messenger bag until she pulls out a pair of earplugs, placing them in her ears.

He grins, makes himself take another sip of beer to hide it.

“They started, Frank,” she tells him, nudging his shoulder with hers and pointing up at the sky.

It’s only then that he realizes he’s fucking staring at her instead of the fireworks. Christ, he feels like he’s in a goddamn romcom. Or maybe Twilight – that was the one with the love triangle, right?

He makes himself look up into the sky, but he can’t help but steal glances at her every few seconds, her face turned upwards in wonder, like she’s never seen a firework before. It’s fucking adorable.

And when the show ends, and everyone starts meandering out of the park, he offers to drive her home.

* * *

Abby is asleep on the couch when he finally makes it back to the house. He frowns and checks the time on his phone. Fucking hell, it’s already 11:30.

He shakes her, and she opens her eyes slowly, her brow furrowing when she looks up at him.

“What time is it?” she mumbles.

“It’s late,” he admits. “Sorry. Shift ran over. And then I gave someone a ride home.”

“Who?”

“Oh, um,” he begins, reaching his hand up to scratch at the back of his neck.

He shouldn’t fucking lie to her. He’s not allowed to lie anymore.

“One of the nurses. His name is Donnie. You might’ve met him before at Abbot’s summer barbeque thing. I can’t remember, honestly. But, yeah. His car is in the shop.”

She hums.

“I think I might remember him. How did it go?”

“Alright,” he tells her, shrugging. “Robby fucking hates my guts. But that’s to be expected, maybe.”

She frowns.

“It’s still shitty of him. Everyone else was nice, though? How was Santos?”

He shuffles back and forth on his feet. Sometimes, he forgets that she actually listens when he talks.

“Yeah, everyone was fine. Santos was…okay, I guess. She suffered through my apology without gagging, so. That’s something.”

She nods, and then sighs.

“Sorry I was so pissy this morning when you got called in,” she says, and he feels like he’s going to be sick suddenly. He hates when people apologize to him now, especially her. She’s already gone above and beyond. She already stayed. She doesn’t owe him anything else. “It’s just…I’ve gotten used to having you home. The kids have, too. It’s going to take some time to adjust to it again, I think.”

Her statement knocks him back a little. Mostly because being home constantly has been driving him mildly insane. Piece of shit, his mind chants. Fuck up, fuck up, fuck up.

“Especially sending you back to that place,” she continues. “I’m just…worried.”

She doesn’t say it outright, but he can read between the lines. She’s worried that he’ll relapse and start diverting medications again. That he won’t be strong enough to resist.

Maybe it’s a valid concern, but it makes him feel like he’s about three inches tall.

“It’ll all work out, Abs,” he says lamely. “Do you want me to dig through our DVDs and find the movie?”

She motions to the coffee table, and he sees the case is already there.

“It’s fine. I think I’m too tired to watch it now, anyway. The kids had too many Funfetti cookies and ran around like maniacs all day. Maybe tomorrow night.”

He nods as she rises off the couch, stretching when she stands.

“Bed?” she asks.

“Sure.”

They creep quietly up the stairs, and he takes a moment to peek into both Tanner’s room and Penny’s room before entering the bedroom and closing the door behind him. They get ready for bed, and he crawls under the covers just a few minutes after Abby. They both lay on their backs, staring up at the ceiling. When he came home after his first stay in rehab, he’d started sleeping on his side, curled away from her. He only managed to kick that habit a few months ago. It’s returned with a vengeance tonight, but he fights back the urge to turn away. He doesn’t even flinch when Abby reaches down to grab his hand and lace their fingers together.

Instead, he closes his eyes, and falls asleep more quickly than he has in a very long time.

And he dreams of braided blonde hair and striped socks and clear brown eyes. He dreams of The Great British Bake Off and earplugs and fireworks.

He dreams of Mel.

* * *

He doesn’t see Mel again for eight days. Dana promises to call him if there’s another call off between the Fourth and his official return-to-work date, but his phone doesn’t ring. So he sits at home, and it’s somehow even more unbearable than it had been even a week ago.

It’s not the kids. He swears it’s not the kids. In fact, when he’s sitting in the living room watching Ms. Rachel with Penny and doing a 25-piece puzzle with Tanner while Abby makes breakfast, he actually doesn’t feel bad at all. He wonders, idly, if the doctor thing doesn’t work out, if maybe he could make it as a stay-at-home dad. Abby talks about using her degree in some capacity every once in awhile.

(But he immediately feels guilty even thinking about just staying home with Tanner and Penny all day by himself. He used when he was with them, for Christ’s sake. He hasn’t earned the right to care for them alone yet, at least in his mind. He might never earn that right back.)

Penny asks to switch to Peppa Pig at the exact moment Tanner excitedly shows him the last missing corner piece that he’d been searching for. And for a moment, he’s pretty close to happy.

No, it’s not the kids. It’s Abby.

He knows the exact moment she reenters the room, just because he can feel her gaze boring into the back of his head. She walks around the couch, puts a bowl on the coffee table for Penny that contains dry Cheerios and half a banana, and gives Tanner the Langdon version of a homemade Egg McMuffin. She hands both kids a glass of milk, too – Penny’s in a pink Ariel sippy cup, Tanner’s in what he’s taken to calling his “big boy cup” (a normal glass with a picture of Batman on it and a blue bendy straw).

He glances up at her, and she’s smiling down at the three of them fondly, at Penny on his lap and Tanner at his side.

“You’re a good dad, Frank,” she murmurs.

He swallows, but he can’t find it in himself to respond.

He just…doesn’t believe it’s true, and she’s always saying shit like that. You’re a good man, Frank. You’re so brave, Frank. You’re working so hard.

Being with Abby is like living in a constant state of cognitive dissonance. She says one thing – says it in a way that makes it obvious she believes it – and his brain tells him something so completely opposite. He’s a rope, being pulled on both ends in totally different directions.

He feels, most of the time, that he’s going to snap. He knows that someday, he’s going to snap. He’s terrified of what snapping will entail. Probably a relapse. Maybe he’ll finally off himself. He doesn’t fucking know. His whole life is a mystery to him, at this point. Nothing feels real. Sometimes, he has to snap the hair tie he keeps around his wrist now so many times in a row that there’s a red welt on the inside of his wrist when he takes it off to shower.

He tells his therapist this later that day, at his weekly appointment. He’s going to have start taking these over Zoom in the on-call room during his lunch break when he starts back to work full time.

“The hair tie had been an effective grounding technique for you in the past,” she tells him, peering at him over the rim of her reading glasses. “But it shouldn’t turn into a self-harming behavior. If it does, we’ll have to find something else to use.”

“I’m not self-harming,” he tells her with a roll of his eyes. “Jesus Christ.”

“Snapping a hair tie on your wrist until it causes injury is indeed a form of self-harm, Frank. I know you’re a doctor, but I’m one, too. And I’m much more well-versed in this area than you are.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that. He looks down, twists his foot into the carpet, fights the urge to snap his hair tie because apparently that’s self-harm now. What the fuck ever.

“I’m a little concerned,” the therapist begins, “that you say you’ve been struggling so much with disassociation. That seemed to get better for awhile when you finished rehab.”

“That’s because it was rehab,” he tells her through clenched teeth. “Everything seems attainable when you’re in fucking rehab. Rehab isn’t fucking real. And once you leave, and the actual world hits you, suddenly you can’t do fucking anything again.”

“So, is there anything that ever feels real to you?” she asks.

“It’s not that nothing feels real,” he mutters. “God, you’re not going to diagnose me with psychosis, or schizophrenia or something like that, are you?”

“No, Frank, I don’t think you’re in the middle of a psychotic episode. Based on what we’ve discussed before, I just think your guilt makes it hard for you to connect to anything in your life. It’s a defense mechanism. If it’s not real, it’s not necessary that you feel it.”

He doesn’t say anything. She’s probably right. He hates being seen.

“You told me that there are some things that feel real, though. Do you mind telling me what those things are?”

He exhales slowly.

“When I’m with my kids. Penny was sitting in my lap this morning, and the…weight of her felt real, I guess? And I was doing a puzzle with Tanner – this cheap cardboard thing – and once of the pieces almost gave me a papercut, and…it felt real.”

She looks at him, but doesn’t say anything, and his stomach drops.

“Fuck, you’re not going to say that’s another self-harm thing, are you? I swear it was an accident.”

“No, I wasn’t going to say that,” she tells him, smiling wryly. “But…did you ever read The Awakening in school?”

“I’ve never even fucking heard of that,” he answers.

“It’s a book about a woman feels trapped and lost as a spouse and parent. A lot like you do, I think. And at one point in the book, she says that she would give her life for her children, but she won’t give herself.”

“Well, that’s really fucking awful of her,” he mutters.

“Is it?”

He stares at her incredulously.

“Yeah, it is,” he hisses. “It’s fucking awful.”

His therapist shrugs.

“I think it’s more nuanced than fucking awful. Do you remember what they always used to say in rehab – what they say during NA meetings? You can’t just get clean for other people, Frank. It will never stick that way. You have to get clean for yourself, first and foremost.”

He chews on his bottom lip, starts to fiddle with his sobriety bracelet. Again, he figures that’s better than snapping his hair tie in front of her.

“So, outside of your kids, is there anything that feels real?”

And he thinks of her immediately. He thinks of Mel. Of her soft hair under his fingertips. Her small hand on his knee. Her favorite SZA song playing through his car speakers as he drove her home after fireworks.

He probably shouldn’t say anything about it. He should probably keep Mel to himself; he wants to keep Mel to himself. He squirms in his seat.

“I went back to work on the Fourth of July,” he says instead. “There was a call off, so Dana asked me to come in.”

He doesn’t say anything more than that, even though he can tell the therapist is waiting for him to continue.

“Did work feel real?” she asks, finally.

He bites the inside of his cheek briefly, stares down at the floor and tries to find impossible patterns in the plain beige carpet.

“I mean,” he starts, “Robby still fucking hates me. He told me as much. That felt pretty fucking real.”

“That’s all?” she questions.

You never let me down.

“I don’t…there were a few other things, I guess. I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to talk about them right now.”

“That’s okay,” she assures him. “Our time is up, anyway.”

She pulls out a form from PTMC from her briefcase, signs it quickly and hands it to him so he can turn it in on Monday as proof he’s still going to therapy. He stands, thanks the therapist and then starts towards the door.

“Frank,” she says, and he turns towards her slowly. “Remember to think about what you want. Not just what Abby wants, or the kids want. What do you see for yourself, outside of being a husband and father? Outside of being a doctor, too. What do you want for you?”

He gulps, nods.

“I’ll…think about it,” he says slowly.

“Good,” she says, smiling brightly. “See you over the computer next Thursday at noon. I hope work goes well.”

* * *

He thinks of Mel on the drive home. He thinks about Abby, too, which he knows is risky. The last thing he needs is to start comparing them. Jesus Christ.

He thinks of how annoyed he was at Abby this morning, when she told him he was a good dad. When she said he was brave. That he was working hard.

And then he thinks about Mel. Mel, on the floor of the break room, telling him how she recognizes he’s fighting every day. How he’s not a bad person.

The sentiments are very similar. Why did one make him feel like he was fucking suffocating, then, while the other made him feel like he was being baptized by fire?

He sees Mel’s eyes in his mind – clear and brown and wide and concerned. But no pity to be found. And then he pictures Abby’s face, one that seems perpetually marked by it every time she looks at him. Like he’s pathetic and soaked to the bone and in need of someone to take care of him.

Is it really the pity? Is that the only difference? Maybe he just needs Mel to give Abby a lesson or two on how to communicate with him. But then he thinks about Mel and Abby meeting, and almost breaks out into a cold sweat.

Maybe the difference is the framing. When he’s with Abby, he feels like a problem that needs fixing. A problem that only Abby can fix. That’s why she stayed, isn’t it? So they could get through it together. So she could fix him.

In the break room, Mel had looked at him like he had to fix himself. Like she believed that he could fix himself.

It’s been a…long time since he’s felt like someone believes in him.

Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous.

He’s known her for two days, he reminds himself. For two fucking days. By this time next week, she could be getting on his last fucking nerve. He could hate her by then.

This is fucking ridiculous, he thinks. You’re being absolutely fucking ridiculous. He can’t do this – Abby fucking stayed, goddamn it.

So he pushes Mel from his mind when he pulls into his driveway, makes a mental note to shred the Things I Know About Mel King folder in his brain when he gets the chance.

He spends the rest of the day with his family. His family, who is still here. Who didn’t fucking run away. He can’t give himself for his children? He can’t get clean for his wife? Bull fucking shit.

They make spaghetti together for dinner. They play Hungry Hungry Hippos afterwards, until the kids get tired of it. Then, they curl up in the living room and watch Moana. Penny sits in his lap on the couch and Tanner is on the floor by his feet. Abby leans into his side. He presses a kiss into her hair, and she smiles.

After they put the kids to bed, they go into their bedroom. He lets Abby give him a handjob, and then he fingers her until she comes. It’s their first sexual encounter since before rehab.

His therapist thinks he can’t live for his wife and kids? He’ll fucking show her, he thinks, as he closes his eyes and falls asleep.

(He dreams of Mel.)

* * *

He gets to the Pitt early on Monday, hoping that it will help him avoid Mel.

He keeps dreaming of her. No matter how hard he tries not to, how much he wraps himself up in Abby, she’s always there in the peripheries of his mind, it seems. And it’s almost every night, now, that flashes of her visit him after he goes to sleep.

So, he’s hoping to stay away her for the most part today. Even if it weren’t for the whole Abby thing, he thinks he would feel awkward around her anyway. How is he supposed to feel normal about a coworker he’s been dreaming about repeatedly for the past week, especially since he’s only known her for two goddamn days?

It will be better for both of them if he keeps his distance. And he’s just about to put his backpack in his locker when his plan goes to shit.

“Dr. Langdon!”

He closes his eyes when he hears the smile in her voice. Her voice sounds just like it did on the Fourth, when she saw him for the first time. Like seeing him had just turned her entire day around.

“Or, Frank, I mean,” she says, correcting herself. “Sorry, it might take me a while to get used to that.”

“It’s okay, Mel,” he says quietly, looking down at his phone and glancing quickly at the time.

6:13

“When did you come in?” he murmurs, almost to himself. But she hears him and answers.

“Oh, around 5:30. That’s when I usually get here if Becca spends the night at the center.”

“Jesus, Mel,” he says, and he smiles despite himself. “That’s fucking early.”

He finally lets himself glance at her. She shrugs, a grin still on her face.

“Yeah, but it gives me time to ease into work and catch up on anything I need to settle from the day before. Like charting.”

“You get behind on charting often?”

Somehow, he can’t imagine it.

“No,” she admits, smiling sheepishly. “I guess I just tend to be an early bird.”

Early bird. The corners of his lips turn up. He adds that and doesn’t fall behind on charting to his Things I Know About Mel King folder. He was supposed to shred that last night. Damn it.

“Shen’s about to start rounds,” she tells him. “Want to join?”

“Already?” he asks, brows furrowing. “Is anyone else even here yet?”

“No, but he does them just with me when I come in this early. So I don’t have to wait around and do nothing, I think.”

His stomach twists in a way he doesn’t understand. He almost feels…jealous? That Shen gets to spend one-on-one time with her most mornings.

“Sure, I’ll join,” he says – he’s not going to let her spend more time alone with Shen.

Christ, this is bad. He might be screwed. He might not be able to fight this.

“Awesome!” she says. “We’re going to start in like, five minutes.”

“Great. I have to put my scrubs on first anyway –“

He pauses when he sees his good friend Doug walk around the corner, piss cup once again in hand. He rolls his eyes, crosses his arms across his chest, mutters under his breath, “and take my first random drug test of the day, too, apparently.”

She presses her lips together, and then hesitates, like she’s considering something. A moment later, she takes a step towards him, reaches out and places her hand on his forearm gently, just like she did in the break room last week. He instantly feels more settled. Maybe he should start using Mel touching him as his new grounding technique. He’s sure his therapist would have a field day with that one.

“We’ll wait for you,” she says gently. “Take your time.”

One corner of his mouth turns up.

“Thanks, Mel,” he murmurs.

And he means it, with all the fucking sincerity in the world. She’s the only one here who’s actively trying to make this easier for him. If it weren’t for her, he might’ve went up to the roof when shift ended on the Fourth and beat both Robby and Abbot to jumping off.

He walks into the north corridor seven minutes later, still tying his scrub pants. He pretends not to notice the way Mel’s eyes dart down to his hands and then back up again immediately, a soft red flush appearing on her skin a moment later. Because thinking about her doing that might cause him to start blushing too, and that wouldn’t be a good sign for either of them.

“You’re late, Dr. Langdon,” Shen tells him, a smirk on his face.

“Sorry,” he says sharply, “I had someone watching me piss in a cup. I’ll try to be quicker next time.”

“You better,” Shen answers.

“Fuck you, too, John,” he shoots back, but there’s a smile trying to creep onto his face.

Since he and Shen work opposite shifts most of the time, he hadn’t really expected him to be the attending to reach out to him while he was gone. He doesn’t feel betrayed by Shen, so it’s easier to stomach being around him. Plus, he’s never really minded the bastard, even before rehab. He liked Shen’s sense of humor, and on the rare occasion they had worked night shift together before everything happened, he always brought him a large black cold brew from Dunkin’ because it was, in his words, better for him than drinking five Red Bulls per shift. (Of course, he always ended up drinking the five Red Bulls anyway, in addition to the coffee – it was night shift, after all. What else was he supposed to fucking do?)

So, yeah, he mostly thinks Shen is a good guy. Shit, maybe he should be pushing Mel in his direction. Maybe that would save everyone a lot of fucking heartbreak.

But then, he glances at Mel out of the corner of his eye, and sees she’s also trying to bite back a smile at their exchange, which makes the apples of her cheeks more prominent, still a little red from when she watched him tie the waistband on his fucking pants. And the thought of her being with anyone else almost makes him physically ache.

“Dr. Whitaker has joined us, too, by the way,” Shen tells him, motioning to the body on the other side of Mel. Shit, he honestly hadn’t noticed the kids was even there.

“Dr. Whitaker,” he says, over Mel’s head.

The younger doctor nods at him stiffly, staring between him and Shen with wide eyes, as if he’s trying to figure out their dynamic and failing miserably. Whitaker doesn’t strike him as someone who understands social situations very well. Probably because he grew up on a farm isolated from most people. Whatever. As long as he doesn’t start rumors that aren’t even true, he doesn’t have a problem with kid. In fact, he kind of feels bad for him. It had been obvious in the first few hours of that first shift back that Whitaker was Robby’s new golden child. And he, of all people, knows how precarious that situation can be. Like you’re constantly in a pressure cooker chock-full of responsibility and expectations. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and all that shit.

“Well, it looks like we’re ready, so I’ll start,” Shen says, the voice pulling him out of his thoughts. They walk around the corner to the first patient room. Shen motions with his nearly empty iced coffee.

“Patient is Sarah Reed, 42. Hand and arm lacs and head injury from tripping and falling through her glass patio table while trying to herd her cat inside. No LOC, but will need a number of sutures.”

Mel stays close by his side. He can feel the heat of her body radiating out towards his, like electricity moving over skin in pinpricks.

* * *

It’s impossible to stay away from Mel, he decides midway through Wednesday’s shift.

It took them about three hours for them to fall back into the same effortless pattern of working together that had cropped up on that first day almost a year ago. Him coming back, the two of them being colleagues for more than one fucking shift, just made that rhythm come back tenfold.

They revolved around each other, like a moon orbiting a planet. Even when they weren’t actively together, he could still feel her, across the room or around the corner, like she was creating tides in his own personal ocean. They asked each other questions, ran through differential diagnoses together, checked in with each other. At least he had an excuse – she was the only doctor in this whole department that he trusted at this point, besides maybe Cassie and Samira. She didn’t really have a good reason, though, at least in his opinion. She just liked him more than anyone else, which showed some poor decision-making on her part. Lucky for him (depending on how you looked at it), surely a bad thing for her.

So they work together on almost everything. At least every chance they get. They’re fortunate that Robby is temporarily gone, because he would surely get on his case about it. Accuse him of playing favorites. (He is playing favorites, sure. But that’s not the fucking point.) Dr. Al-Hashimi seems to like him for some reason he still can’t quite figure out, and even commented that he and Mel work well together. So it didn’t seem like she was too concerned about it, thank fucking God.

It’s just – it’s easy. All of it – being with her – is so fucking easy. And it’s been ages since anything in his life has felt easy.

It’s been even longer since he’s allowed himself to want something as much as he wants whatever this is with Mel. For ten fucking months, he’s been fighting against his every urge and latent desire – for the drugs, for relief from Abby, for fucking ending it all. He doesn’t want to do it anymore. Not with Mel, at least.

He wants her soft smiles and low voice and careful touches. He wants her care and concern and her attention. He wants to know her favorite color and her favorite books and how she takes her coffee and if she knows how to swim and what flavor ice cream she likes best. He wants to fill up the Things I Know About Mel King folder in his brain until he has to make another one to fit even more facts about her, and another and another after that. He wants to have to carve out space in his brain for an entire filing cabinet.

He wants so acutely that he feels a desperate tugging in his chest every time he looks at her. Like he’s a magnet being drawn to metal. Like they were made from the same star, or something else fucking cheesy and poetic.

He feels it now, frozen in the middle of handing his patient her discharge papers because he can’t stop staring at Mel across the department, standing at a computer and charting. She’s wearing a purple shirt under her scrubs – the same shirt she’d been wearing the first day they met – and it’s been driving him fucking crazy all day.

His patient clears her throat. It makes him jump slightly.

“Oh, uh,” he stammers lamely.

He’s being so obvious that the patient actually asks him, “Is that your girlfriend?”

He chokes on his own spit, has an embarrassing coughing fit, and then stares at the woman in front of him, eyes wide and, he’s sure, a little insane.

“We’re just friends,” he says, the pitch of his voice higher than it usually is. “I’m, uh, married.”

He says it almost more to himself than the patient, as if the logical part of his brain is putting in one last ditch effort to get him to screw his head on straight. He lifts up his left hand slightly, motioning to his ring, which has felt like it weighs ten tons recently.

The woman stares at him with raised eyebrows. Fuck, is he really being that fucking obvious? Whatever. He’s officially given this patient too much information about his life anyway.

“But, yeah,” he mutters. “Come back if the swelling gets any worse, or you develop a fever or chills.”

The patient can barely thank him before he’s out of the room, walking over to her with purpose. She looks up when he’s a few feet away, like she can sense him coming – again, magnets and shit – and smiles, one of the real, beautiful ones that lights up her entire face, that he only ever sees pointed in his direction.

“Frank!” she says. “What’s –“

He doesn’t even let her finish.

“I want to start driving you home,” he says, resting his arms on the desk in front of them and leaning in closer to her.

Her brow furrows. Fuck, she’s so fucking adorable.

“Like, tonight?” she asks, and he smirks.

“Tonight would be great,” he tells her, “but also, like, other nights, too. Whenever we work the same shifts. I could pick you up, too, if you wanted.”

She doesn’t answer, just blinks at him over and over. His face starts to heat up. Shit, maybe he read this whole situation wrong. Maybe he’s making her uncomfortable now, and she won’t want to be around him anymore. Shit. Fuck.

So he starts babbling away, like he always does when he’s nervous.

“I mean, only if you want to. I don’t want to, like, pressure you, or anything. It’s just that you told me you don’t really like the bus, and I know you don’t have a car. Plus, it’s July outside, which means it’s two hundred degrees with one thousand percent humidity every day. Walking must be fucking miserable right now. So I just thought –“

She stops him with a gentle hand against his elbow. His heartbeat slows down immediately. Fuck, he is going to have to start taking her with him everywhere he goes. For grounding, obviously. And absolutely no other reason.

“I’d love it if you drove me, home, Frank,” she says softly. “I don’t have to pick up Becca tonight, so that should work great.”

“Perfect,” he says, and he can’t help the wide grin that blooms on his face. He feels like he just asked the prettiest and most popular girl in school to the prom, and she’d told him yes.

Absolutely fucking perfect.

The ED gets busy after lunch, and the rest of the day flies by. He and Mel get to do a STEMI together. He thinks he’s going to start noting their door-to-balloon times, create a Mel and Frank STEMI record book that tracks their fastest procedures. He smiles, thinking of it. Yeah, he’s definitely going to do that.

He’s dog-tired standing by the lockers at the end of the day, and it feels like someone’s stabbing him in his lower back with a knife. Santos comes around the corner, and frowns when she sees him. His eyes dart down to his phone. He opens the first app he sees on the screen and ends up scrolling through The Weather Channel’s 14-day forecast to look busy.

It’s not that things between him and Santos are bad, per se. As he’d told Abby, she’d let him apologize to her without being mean about it. Things are just…uncomfortable. Bleh, if you will. They definitely aren’t friends yet. Maybe they’ll never be friends. And they sort of make an effort to ignore each other whenever possible.

Which is why it surprises him when she speaks.

“Hey, asshole.”

His head snaps up to find her staring at him. He doesn’t think she means anything by calling him asshole. He thinks that kind of stuff just kind of comes out of her; everyone has their Santos nickname, after all. His must be asshole, and he grimaces. Surely she could’ve come up with something more creative than that.

“Trinity,” he says lowly. Polite and professional – that is always his aim when interacting with her now. “Can I help you with something?”

“Yeah,” she tells him. “Scoot over. You’re leaning on my locker.”

“Oh, sorry,” he says, but he moves too fast and his back seizes up a little. “Ow, fuck.”

“What?”

“It’s just my back,” he mutters, looking down at his phone again, awkward silence overtaking them. Because the back led to the painkillers, which led to the benzos, which led to Santos blowing up his entire life.

He clears his throat, and then, he hears her open her locker and shuffle around inside. A few moments later, she puts on her backpack.

“Are you…waiting for something?” she asks slowly.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” he says, glancing up to find her staring at him curiously. “I’m waiting for –“

“Frank!” Mel exclaims, as she hurries around the corner to the lockers. “Sorry, Abbot pulled me at the last second to ask me question. I just need to get my stuff and we can go.”

He smiles.

“Don’t worry about,” he assures her. “I don’t have anywhere to be.”

Which is a lie, actually. Kind of. He should be on his way home to his wife. Who stayed with him through everything. Fucking hell.

He is going home, he tells himself. He’s just taking a ten-minute detour to drive a friend home first. No big deal. Maybe he’ll even tell Abby the truth this time when he gets there.

I dropped a friend off, he rehearses in his mind. Her name is Mel. I’ve been lying in bed next to you and dreaming about her almost every night for the past two weeks.

Fuck. Never mind.

“Wait, did you two come in together?” Santos asks, suddenly sounded interested in this conversation. A little too interested for his liking.

He frowns, while Mel answers her.

“No. He just offered to drive me home since it’s so hot outside. So I didn’t have to walk.”

“Wait, you walk to work?”

“I don’t live very far away,” she says dismissively, as she secures her messenger bag over her shoulder. “I normally like walking. Frank just offered today, and it sounded nice.”

It somehow annoys him that Santos doesn’t realize she walks or uses public transportation to get to work. He’d found that out literally his first shift back. They’ve been working together for ten months – shouldn’t she know little stuff like this about Mel by now?

“You know, Melanoma,” Santos starts, and his eyes almost rolls into the back of his head at Melanoma – it’s a fucking stupid nickname, “if you ever need a ride, I can give you one. I also have a car.”

“I’ve got it, Trinity,” he says, walking around her so he can stand next to Mel. He refuses to let Trinity Santos of all people steal this from him. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Don’t you need to get home to your family?” Santos asks, and he bristles. He wants so badly to snap, to tell her it’s none of your fucking business, leave us alone.

But then, almost as if she can read his mind, Mel grabs his elbow again. He takes a deep breath.

Polite and professional. Polite and professional. He can fucking do this.

“It’s literally on my way home,” he says, pretty coolly, if he does say so himself. “It takes about thirty seconds. I’ve got it.”

“Plus, Trinity,” Mel cuts in, “I don’t even have your phone number.”

Santos’ mouth falls open at that, and he smirks.

“See you later,” he says quickly, trying to get them out of there before this conversation lingered any longer, but he winces as he turns, hissing through his teeth.

“Are you okay?” Mel asks quickly, reaching her hands out, not knowing where to touch.

“Yeah,” he assures her, trying to smile. “It’s just my back.”

“Oh,” she breathes, and reaches behind him to press her palm to the small of his back, rubbing gentle circles over his t-shirt. “Does that feel better?”

“Yes,” he tells her. “Thanks, Mel.”

She’s not anywhere near the pain in his back, but her touch is steady and warm, and it distracts from any ache in his muscles.

“We better get going,” she says then, ushering him towards the door, her palm still pressed against him. “See you tomorrow, Trinity!”

He can feel Santos’ eyes studying them until the doors shut behind them.

* * *

“Mel,” he says quietly, when they’re about four minutes from her apartment.

She lifts her head from where it’s resting against the passenger side window. She’d put on Joni Mitchell when they’d gotten in the car. (He’d teased her about how it was quite the departure from SZA and Megan Thee Stallion, and she’d smirked and told him, very seriously, “I contain multitudes, Frank.”

“I bet you do,” he answered, leaving out the part about how he wanted to learn each and every one of them.)

He’d thought the music might’ve lulled her to sleep – again, it had been a long day – but she acknowledges him with a soft hum when he says her name.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Always,” she tells him.

He glances at her when they stop at a red light. She’s smiling softly at him.

“Now, don’t take this wrong,” he cautions, swallowing once. “I don’t mean it a mean way. I’m just…genuinely wondering.”

“O…kay,” she says hesitantly, the word coming out sounding like a question.

“It’s nothing bad,” he assures her. “It’s just…do you have any friends at the hospital? I mean, real friends. Not coworkers you hang out with once every few months.”

The light turns green, so he has to take his eyes off her to focus on the road. She doesn’t answer right away. All I Want plays softly in the background.

After about a minute of silence, he can’t help but look over at her again. He finds that there’s a prominent frown on her face now, and he immediately feels like shit.

“Sorry,” he apologizes. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that. I’m an asshole. You don’t have to answer. It’s not any of my business, anyway.”

She’s still quiet – usually, she shows him mercy and cuts off his rambling when he gets this way, but she doesn’t this time. He tries to ignore the way his palms begin to sweat against the leather of the steering wheel.

When they pull into the parking lot behind her building, he puts the car in park, turns in his seat to face her the best he can in the crowded space. He’s about to open his mouth to apologize again, but before he can, she finally speaks.

“I…it doesn’t bother me that I don’t. I mean, I have Becca a lot, so it’s not like I can just go hang out with them all the time.”

“Yeah, I understand that,” he tells her gently. “I have two kids, after all. I guess I mean more while you’re at the hospital. They just…don’t seem to know much about you. I mean, Santos didn’t even know you walk to work. And you don’t have her number. I mean, I get that – I don’t think I’d want her to have my number either.”

She doesn’t laugh at his joke. She clams up again, and his heart sinks.

“Mel,” he breathes.

“It’s not their fault,” she says finally. “Like I said, I am busy most of the time. And…I know I’m kind of awkward and quiet, and I don’t always understand their jokes, let alone make any good ones of my own. And my life isn’t very exciting, I guess. It’s not like I have a bunch of stories to tell them to keep them interested.”

Anger flares up inside him. He was going to kill each and every one of his coworkers when he got to the hospital tomorrow morning.

“I know I’m not the easiest person to be friends with,” she murmurs, her hands twisting into tight fists.

“Fucking bullshit,” he tells her earnestly. “You’re…”

He trails off. There’s a million ways he wants to finish that sentence. Amazing, incredible, beautiful, perfect. He feels like the embodiment of that Lady Gaga picture he sees floating around the internet sometimes.

“You’re the best, Mel,” he decides on finally. “You’re so easy to like.”

“That’s sweet, Frank,” she says, trying to smile, “but I’m pretty sure you’re the only one who feels that way.”

“Well, that just means the rest of them are fucking idiots. I already knew that, though.”

She doesn’t answer him. He reaches over and takes her hand, uncurls her fingers.

“I mean it, Mel,” he says, bending down in his seat slightly to find her eyes. “I’ve only known you for five days, and you’re already one of my favorite people on Earth. If they don’t see how amazing you are, that’s on them. Not you.”

Her eyes suddenly get glassy. Fuck.

“No,” he tells her, squeezing her hand. “Don’t cry. Please don’t fucking cry. Did I say something wrong?”

She shakes her head.

“Then what’s wrong?”

“Nothing at all,” she says, her voice wobbly. “That’s the point. You’re…you’re so nice, Frank. I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop, I guess. Like it always does.”

“That’s not going to happen, sweetheart. I promise.”

“What if you leave again?” she asks. “What if you have to leave again?”

His heart shatters into one billion pieces.

“Even that first day,” she continues, a tear falling from the corner of her right eye, “you were the only one who listened. The only one who stayed whenever I cleared out a room. And then you were just…gone. You didn’t even say goodbye.”

He feels like a literal piece of shit. He thinks tears are starting to gather in his eyes, too.

“I’m so sorry, Mel,” he tells her. “Fuck, Mel, I’m so fucking sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize. I’m not saying this to make you feel bad.”

“Yes, I do, Mel,” he says. “I’m such a fuck up, and I let you down because of it. Even if you don’t think I did, for some reason I can’t figure out, that doesn’t make it not true.”

“I missed you a lot, Frank,” she breathes. “I…really wish I would have pushed Dana harder for your number.”

“I’m here now,” he says. “I’m not fucking leaving again, I swear.”

He really shouldn’t promise her that, not when he can’t be sure it’s true. Hell, he could relapse in three days or some shit like that. Everything in his life is so precarious right now.

“Well, how about you give me your number this time, just in case.”

She takes her phone out of her pocket, unlocks it and hands it to him, a slight smile on her face now. He punches in his number quickly, and gives it back to her.

“Text me about tomorrow morning,” he tells her, “and about literally anything else, too, if you want. I mean it, Mel. Really, I do.”

She nods, and then wipes at her eyes. He frowns.

“I’m really sorry I made you cry, Mel.”

“No, it’s okay,” she says immediately. “I told you, I basically cry whenever I experience any heightened emotion. And this was a happy cry. I’m happy you’re back, Frank. I’m happy you’re here. With me.”

He reaches out and takes her hand again, lacing their fingers together, because he can’t help himself. He really wants to reach over the center console and give her a hug, even though it would be clunky and probably a little uncomfortable due to the odd angle. He almost does, but before he can lean in, she lets go of his hand and picks her bag up off the floor, opening the car door.

“I’ll definitely text you about tomorrow,” she says. “Thanks again, Frank.”

“Don’t mention it, Mel. I’m happy to do it.”

She smiles at him one more time, and then gets out, leaning down so that she can look at him under the doorframe.

“Goodnight, Frank.”

He doesn’t answer her right away. The yellow light of a nearby streetlight is illuminating her face and her braid, which is messy now, after a long day at work. Her glasses have fallen down her nose slightly since she’s leaning over, and, fuck, she looks so fucking beautiful.

He’s so distracted that he can’t even properly wish her goodnight before she’s smiling and closing the door.

He doesn’t pull away until she walks into her building and disappears up the stairs. Then, he murmurs a quiet “Goodnight, Mel,” into the still air, and puts the car in drive.

* * *

He checks his phone when he pulls into his driveway, and sees two new text notification from an unfamiliar number. He swipes down, and smiles.

412-987-2284

Mel’s phone number :)

You can pick me up tomorrow, as long as it’s not too much trouble for you.

He types back.

no trouble at all. i’ll pick you up around 6:20? or do you want to get there early again?

He goes to get out of the car, but his phone chimes immediately.

6:20 is perfect!

Since I don’t need to catch up on charting or anything :)

He chuckles to himself. Why does she think she’s not funny? She’s so fucking funny.

great, see you then.

goodnight mel. i forgot to tell you before you left.

She reacts to his message with a pink heart. It makes his heart skip a beat. Jesus, he’s in trouble.

When he gets in the house, Abby is sitting on the couch with a glass of wine while the kids color at the coffee table. When Tanner and Penny hear his footsteps, they get up and run over to him, grabbing onto his legs with a chorus of Daddy! and You’re home! and We missed you lots and lots!

“Hey, guys! I missed you too!” he tells them, bending down and ignoring his back to embrace Penny and ruffle Tanner’s hair.

Abby has made her way over to them when he stands back up, and she smiles at him, leans in and places a chaste kiss on his lips.

“We already ate,” she tells him. “You’re a little later than I thought you would be.”

“I had to give Donnie a ride home again,” he says, almost disturbed by how easy it is to lie to her about this. “His car is still in the shop. I’m going to have to leave a little early tomorrow and pick him up, too.”

“Who’s Donnie?” Penny asks.

“One of Daddy’s friends from work,” he tells her, but a lump forms in his stomach this time, because now, he’s lying to his daughter. Fuck. “He’s really nice.”

“Not nice enough to contact you when you were gone for ten months,” Abby mutters under her breath.

“He didn’t have my phone number,” he answers immediately, defensively. Like she’s personally slandering Mel, even though Abby doesn’t know she exists.

Abby hums, taking a sip of her wine.

“Well, your dinner is in the oven.”

He nods stiffly.

“Thanks, Abs.”

A few hours later, after the kids are asleep and they’ve watched the next episode in their rewatch of The West Wing, they head to their bedroom. He crawls under the covers and lays on his back. Dread gathers in the pit of his stomach when Abby gets in and immediately snakes her hand up his arm, rolling towards him slightly so she can press slow, open-mouthed kisses to his shoulder.

“Abby,” he breathes. “Abby, I’m really tired. It was a long day.”

Since their trip to third base last week, Abby has tried to get them to go all the way a handful of times. He’s resisted so far, even when he had decided he was going to forget his thing with Mel even existed, before he returned to work. The first few times, he actually was tired, either from chasing Tanner and Penny around for 12 hours straight, or from the emotional rollercoaster he helplessly put himself through over and over again every fucking day.

Abby stops her kisses on his skin, but doesn’t roll away from him.

“I didn’t have to wake you up even once during the episode.”

Shit, he thinks.

“I…know. That’s why I’m so fucking tired now. I made myself stay awake.”

He turns his head towards her, tries to make himself smile. She just stares at him, and he sighs.

“Sorry, Abby.”

“It’s…okay,” she says quietly. “I understand.”

She rolls back to her side of the bed. They both gaze up at the ceiling.

“Do you think we should start making a schedule?” she asks.

His stomach drops.

“It’s just, in the book I’m reading,” she tells him, and he lets himself roll his eyes since they’re in the dark and Abby won’t see.

He’s trying to be supportive of her interests, her coping methods, but she keeps reading these marriage advice books that are 98% bullshit, based on what she’s told him about it so far. He even tried to read one of them a couple months back to make her happy – to prove he was trying, damn it – but he couldn’t stomach it for more than two chapters. Abby had been pissed at him, more pissed than he’d seen her in a while.

“In the book I’m reading, they really emphasize the importance of…getting back on track physically to heal a relationship.”

“And getting back on track suddenly includes a sex schedule?”

“Well, spontaneity is obviously not getting us anywhere,” she mutters frustratedly. “I thought after the other night, we were on our way, but since then, you’ve been so…distant.”

He chews on his bottom lip.

“You said,” she whispers, “that you wouldn’t let work take over your life again. You promised it would be different this time.”

“Christ, Abby. It’s only been three days.”

“I know, Frank,” she says. “And you’re already exhausted all the time? You’re already getting home late?”

“I told you, I was dropping off a friend,” he tells her, clenching his fists at his sides.

“Okay, and I get that. It’s fine. I’m just scared that you’re going to get so wrapped up in everything again and all the progress we’ve made is going to go to shit.”

“What?” he says, barking out a single, bitter laugh. “You think I’m going to step foot in a hospital and automatically start using again?”

“Damn it, Frank, that’s not what I mean,” she groans. “You know that’s not what I mean. Stop twisting the shit out of everything I’m saying.”

He doesn’t say anything, and she sighs.

“Our marriage wasn’t perfect before you went to rehab. I know you know that. And I’ve been trying to figure out if it was because of the drugs, or because we just…were falling out of love. But then, when you were home afterwards, I felt like things were getting better a little bit.”

His mouth falls open in shock. She thought things between them were better? While he felt like he was under the surface of the ocean most of the time, breathing in saltwater? Jesus Christ.

(How did this happen? How is this happening? How the fuck did we get here?)

“God, Abby,” he huffs out, rubbing a hand down his face. “What do you want me to do? Do you want me to finger you? Get over here, then.”

“Fuck off, Frank,” she scoffs. “No, I don’t want you to fucking finger me. Especially not now.”

“Then what do you want, Abby?” he questions, throwing the comforter from his body and sitting up, dropping his head into his hands. “Do you want me to stop being a doctor? Just stay home with you and the kids all day? I can’t do that. You know I can’t fucking do that.”

“Why not?”

He lifts his head, turns towards her and stares in disbelief.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

She doesn’t do anything except look back at him expectantly.

“What the,” he beings, exhaling loudly. “Fine. What the fuck ever. First, we need the fucking money. We’re not going to leech off your trust fund and your parents for the rest of our lives. It’s been helpful in a pinch, but I refuse to do that forever.”

“I could find a job,” she interjects. “I do have a degree, you know. From fucking Duke. And I could probably arrange a work-from-home thing since it would be Marketing. I could at least do hybrid.”

“So, that’s it, then,” he spits. “You want me to quit being a doctor and become a stay-at-home dad.”

“You make it sound like that would be such a bad thing,” she mutters harshly. “Getting to spend all day with your children.”

“Now you’re fucking twisting what I’m saying, Abby.”

She doesn’t answer right away. He swings his legs over the side of the bed, sitting on the edge, his fingers digging into the mattress. When she finds her voice again, it comes out soft and wobbly.

“I’m just worried about you, Frank. I worry about you constantly. It’s exhausting. And right now, I’m worried that being a doctor just isn’t good for you, in the long run.”

He sighs, dropping his head back into his hands for a moment before standing and grabbing a clean t-shirt from the dresser.

“What are you doing, Frank?”

“I can’t do this anymore, Abby,” he says. “Not tonight.”

He actually is tired, now – it wouldn’t be just an excuse anymore if she still wanted to try something. He pulls the shirt over his head, and then goes back over to the bed and grabs his pillow.

“Oh, so you’re going to go sleep on the couch? Real mature, Frank.”

He doesn’t answer her; he doesn’t have the energy. He just walks out of the room, closing the door behind him softly and then leaning against it, closing his eyes.

He should be happy, really. Finally, Abby wasn’t fucking coddling him. Instead, she was upset with him. That should make him feel better. He always thought that would be better than the constant walking on eggshells.

Instead, he just feels like utter shit. He inhales and exhales slowly, and then pushes off the door and walks downstairs. He groans as he curls up on the couch, feeling the twinge of pain in his back. Sleeping down here is going to mess him up physically. But he can’t spend another second in that bedroom. Not right now.

Whatever. He’ll just pop four ibuprofen in the morning. It probably won’t do anything to the pain, but maybe it will have some sort of placebo effect on him.

He pulls out his phone and scrolls through his news app for a few minutes. And then, because he’s a stupid fucking idiot, he taps on his texting app, opens his conversation with Mel. He glances at her pink heart reaction, and can’t help the way his lips turn up.

He almost texts her, but when he glances up at the time, he sees it’s almost midnight. She’s probably already asleep, and the last thing he wants to do is wake her. Plus, what would he even say?

u up?

can’t wait to see you in the morning.

hey, my wife and i just had a fight and the first thing i wanted to do when i walked out of the room was talk to you.

Three bad options. He huffs out a breath, and then, in a move he doesn’t really expect, googles that book his therapist mentioned. The Awakening. He clicks on its Goodreads page, scrolling through reviews and quotes. He finds the one he thinks the therapist was referencing. He studies it, reads it to himself four times.

“I would give up the unessential; I would give up my money, I would give up my life for my children; but I wouldn't give myself. I can't make it more clear; it's only something I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me.”

He frowns, and then turns off his phone screen, tossing it on the floor before he closes his eyes.

* * *

He tries to creep into their ensuite bathroom the next morning without waking Abby, but of course that doesn’t work. He looks up from brushing his teeth to find her leaning against the doorframe, still in her pajamas, her arms crossed tightly across her chest.

“I’m sorry about last night,” she tells him after a few moments. “I don’t know what got into me.”

He spits his toothpaste into the sink.

“You don’t have to apologize, Abby. You’re allowed to get mad at me.”

“I wasn’t mad at you, though,” she says with a sigh as he rinses his mouth. “I’m just…really frustrated, I think. And really afraid.”

He turns the water off, looks at her.

“What are you afraid of?” he asks.

“That I’ll lose you,” she admits, dropping her head into her hands. “I already almost lost you once.”

“I’m not going to use again, Abby. I swear.”

She looks down at the floor, twists her foot on the tile.

“That’s not the only way you can lose someone, Frank.”

His breath catches, and he looks over her. She can’t know anything, can she? There’s not even anything to fucking know at this point.

“Don’t worry about that, Abby,” he says finally, exhaling slowly. “It’s not going to happen.”

She nods at the ground, and then he maneuvers around her to leave the bathroom.

Abby watches him as he gets dressed and combs his hair. When he’s ready to walk out of the bedroom, he turns to her.

“I know it’s scary, Abs, but you can’t just…trap me in the house for the rest of my life,” he tells her. “I can’t just hide away from everything because I fucked up a few times. I’ve got to start living life again.”

“I know,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing to me, Abby. You also don’t have to be so fucking nice to me all the time. I’m not going to break if you get mad or frustrated.”

“Okay,” she murmurs. “I’m – okay.”

He walks over to her, presses a stiff kiss to the crown of her head.

“I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

She nods again but doesn’t say anything. He sighs, and then leaves the bedroom.

When he gets into his car, he texts her.

leaving now. might end up being a few minutes early haha. couldn’t sleep last night.

don’t mind waiting.

She answers almost immediately, just like she did yesterday evening.

I’m running a few minutes ahead, too! Will be ready when you arrive.

“Of course you are,” he murmurs to himself, smiling to himself. “You’re an early bird.”

He lets out a slow breath, and then connects his phone to his car, tapping on Mel’s address and putting on Joni Mitchell.

* * *

He’s just discharged his patient and is finishing up charting when the closed curtain around him is flung open by none other than Trinity fucking Santos.

He jumps nearly a foot in the air.

“What the fuck?!”

“Did you and Mel come in together today?”

He peers at her, weighing his response options. One of them is, again, It’s none of your fucking business. Leave us alone. It’s on the tip of his tongue, but in the interest of being polite and professional (and honest), he measuredly says, “Yes, we did. Didn’t you notice that it’s, like, a billion degrees outside again today?”

She narrows his eyes at him, and he shuffles nervously. He can’t help it, and he idly wonders if Santos’ ability to see right through him is going to come back and majorly bite him in the ass for the second time in his life.

“And you’re just driving her to work out of kindness of your goddamn heart?”

“We’re friends, Trinity.”

“You’ve known her for six days, Langdon.”

“And I already know her better than you do, apparently,” he says, staring at Santos, daring her to challenge his statement.

She just rolls her eyes.

“Look, I don’t have a problem with you being friends with her,” she tells him. “Melancholia wandered around like a lost puppy while you were gone. Now that you’re back, she’s obsessed with you again, for some reason. Whatever.”

“Okay. Then why are you cornering me?”

“I just want to make sure the two of you aren’t getting too obsessed with each other,” she says pointedly. “If you get what I’m saying.”

He makes himself roll his eyes, but then looks down at the computer, pretending to read over the patient’s chart.

“I’ve known her for six days, Trinity.”

“Exactly what I’m saying, Langdon,” Santos tells him. “And in any case, Mel deserves better than an asshole, arrogant ex-junkie. Especially one who is married with two kids.”

“Don’t worry,” he mumbles. “That’s one thing we both agree on.”

Santos nods.

“Good. I’m still keeping my eye you, though.”

“You always are,” he says under his breath.

As if to make a point, she keeps staring at him. He sighs in exasperation.

“Well, can I get back to work now?”

“Yes, but...be careful, Langdon,” she tells him. And she almost sounds sincere. Like she’s concerned about him, too. Not just Mel.

He must be more tired than he thought.

Trinity leaves after that, but she doesn’t close the curtain behind her. Of course, when he looks up, Mel is walking by. When she sees him, she smiles.

“Oh! I was looking for you.”

He closes out his patient’s chart and logs out of the computer.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Dr. King?” he asks, grinning back at her more tentatively. Santos’ words are still rolling around in his brain.

Be careful, Langdon. Mel deserves better than an asshole, arrogant ex-junkie.

“Do you think we could pick up Becca from the center on our way home? I totally didn’t think about needing to pick her up when I accepted your offer.”

He doesn’t answer right away, and her face falls.

“But it’s totally okay if you don’t want to,” she tells him quickly. “I can definitely still walk. Or take the bus or something.”

The nervous look on her face breaks him from his trance.

“No, Mel, it’s fine,” he assures her, trying to make the corners of his lips turn up more enthusiastically. “We can pick up Becca. I love Becca. You know that.”

He doesn’t know Becca that well – he’s only met her the one time, when she came into the ED and Mel had hand-selected him to treat her, even though she’d just sat with him through his breakroom meltdown – but the parts of her he does know, he loves. She’s funny, bold, honest, and she fiercely loves Mel. What’s not to love?

Mel nods her head, still smiling.

“Yeah, I do know that. Thanks.”

“You don’t have to thank me, Mel,” he reminds her.

“I know that, too,” she promises. “I just like doing it anyway.”

And with that, she turns on her heel and leaves, and he can’t do anything but stare after her helplessly.

He groans lowly, bumps on his head gently with his right fist. Trinity’s right – he has no business doing anything with Mel. The wife issue aside, he is definitely not good enough for Mel. Someone like Mel – someone as lovely and kind and perfect as Mel – deserves so much better than asshole, arrogant, ex-junkie him.

So maybe it’s good Becca will be with them tonight. It saves him from having to be in a cramped car with her alone, the energy between them crackling like Pop Rocks.

It will prevent an asshole, arrogant, married ex-junkie from doing anything he really shouldn’t.

* * *

It takes twelve more shifts with Mel for anything to actually happen.

He holds out for longer than he expects. He credits that, mostly, to Santos’ speech. Her words don’t just haunt him for the rest of that day. They ring over and over again in his mind for the next three weeks, forming his already sharp self-loathing into something even crueler and uglier than he’s used to.

Asshole, arrogant ex-junkie. Except remove the ex, because once a drug addict, always a drug addict. A lying drug addict who should technically be in jail right now, if the world was just and fair to everyone. It wasn’t enough for you to lie about the pills, though, because now you lie to your fucking wife almost every day. The same wife you’re thinking of cheating on. The wife who agreed to stay with you even though you blew up her life, too. The mother of your two perfect children. You want to cheat on her. With a woman you’ve known for less than a month, by the way. A woman who also way too good for you. You’re willing to ruin another life just to get your rocks off. What a pathetic, pathetic excuse of a person you are. Fuck up, fuck up, fuck up, fuck up. You should probably just kill yourself now, you fucking piece of shit. It would save everyone a lot of trouble.

So that’s his headspace. It’s fucking awful, and he is in no way in the proper place mentally to start an affair or make any major decisions about his marriage.

But he’s nothing if not stubborn. And selfish. He’d tried to kick both of those habits in rehab, and had failed spectacularly.

All it takes is one more fight with Abby. She’s babying him again, has been for the past two weeks, ever since their fight the night he dropped Mel off and got her number. He’d explicitly told her to stop being so nice to him, and yet all she did when he was home was follow him around, fretting and wringing her hands together.

It’s when she once again asks him if he is really sure he still wants to be a doctor while she is simultaneously trying to feel him up in bed that he just fucking loses it.

It’s probably more dramatic in his head than it is in real life. He and Abby had never been the type of couple to explode at each other. It was more petty, snide stuff that they would spit at each other until one of them had enough and left the room.

He’s the one who leaves the room, just like he had last time, except this time he pulls on a pair of pants along with a t-shirt before he grabs his pillow and goes downstairs. He walks past the couch, grabs his car keys from the hook by the door and clumsily slips on his Nikes without socks before opening the front door and marching out to his car.

He can tell he won’t be able to stand being in the house anymore, not tonight. He feels like he might suffocate to death if he does. So he gets in his vehicle, puts his pillow down on the headrest and reclines the seat all the way back. His back is going to fucking hate him in the morning, but he truly doesn’t know what else to fucking do.

He picks up his phone and opens his text conversation with Mel without thinking too hard about it. He glances at the time – 11:14. Not quite as late as last time. Plus, she always tells him she doesn’t need much sleep.

Fuck it.

i’m still picking you up tomorrow morning, right?

It’s a dumb question. They have an unspoken arrangement now that he picks her up and takes her home on the shifts they work together unless she specifically states otherwise. And she hadn’t stated otherwise. So, yeah, it’s a dumb question.

But he just wants to hear from her. Maybe she’ll figure out he wants to talk and invite him over. He’ll leave in half a second if she asks.

A minute later, he sees those three little dots moving back and forth in the corner of the screen, signaling she’s typing. He smiled involuntarily.

Yep, as long as that still works for you!

He’s about to text back that it works for him – of course it works for him, it always works for him – when another message from her pops up.

We’ll have to drop Becca off at the center on the way, so remember 6:10 instead of 6:20.

I don’t think you’d forget but. Just in case.

Fuck. He did forget about Becca. And then he immediately feels bad for forgetting about Becca. And he feels even worse for the tick of irritation that makes his jaw flex when he realizes that Becca will be there, too. He loves Becca – he really does.

It’s just…Becca has been with them for the past two pick-ups and drop-offs. Which, under normal circumstances, wouldn’t bother him at all.

Another message pops up from Mel.

I forgot to tell you that Becca and I tried that pizza place you recommended during our last movie night. She loved it. She says it is now her favorite pizza in Pittsburgh!

Just when he thought he couldn’t feel like more like an ass. He sighs.

He just wants some time alone with Mel. Is that so bad? Sure, they had their daily breaks in the ambulance bay, but even then, they weren’t really alone; there were EMTs everywhere. Even when they were in the break room by themselves, anyone could pop in and interrupt them. The hospital was no place to have a serious discussion.

And he’s decided tonight that he wants to have a serious discussion with Mel. (Well, he’s wanted to have a serious discussion with Mel for weeks, but tonight was the straw that broke the camel’s back.) He’s tired of being good. He’s selfish and stubborn and tired of being good. Good isn’t getting him anywhere, anyway. It’s just ruining his marriage and giving him gravely low self-esteem. Fuck being good.

What do you want for you? That’s the stupid question his therapist keeps badgering him with, telling him to think about it very carefully. Well, he’s thought about it. He’s decided.

He wants Mel. The thought of not having her, of being without her, of denying himself over and over and over again, feels like a backpack full of bricks that he has to carry with him while escaping a burning building. He can’t do it anymore.

He’s selfish, stubborn, and tired of being good.

And then, it’s like Mel can feel him spiraling, can read his mind, from miles away.

Becca’s staying over at the center tomorrow night, though, so it will be just us on the way home.

He nods to himself. He can hold off for twenty more hours. He has to.

got it.

did you like the pizza?

He asks because he’s genuinely interested in her answer. He’s been secretly trying to pass some of his therapy shit on to Mel. Especially the stuff about figuring out what someone wants for themselves. Him and Mel were kind of weirdly in a very similar boat.

His phone dings.

I much prefer fresh mushrooms on my pizza, rather than canned, but other than that it was ok.

He smirks.

brutally honest. i like it.

Aren’t I always?

yeah, you usually are.

Okay, it’s late. I’m gonna plug my phone in and go to bed. See you tomorrow morning!

see you. goodnight, mel.

Goodnight :)

He reacts to her message with his own pink heart. Because he can. Because, again, he is so fucking tired of being good.

He puts his phone in a cupholder, tries to curl up on his side in a way that will cause the least pain in his back, and then closes his eyes.

Twenty hours. He can make it 20 more hours.

* * *

It’s a shitty fucking day.

It’s one of those days when every little thing that can go wrong goes wrong. He loses two patients by noon. That isn’t the worst he’s ever had it, but the losses hurt. One is a kid. He has a spontaneous brain aneurysm at football practice, and is DOA. He never even had a fucking chance.

The other one is an unintentional overdose.

He’s worked on a few ODs since coming back from rehab, and he’s been fine on them, even though he feels like everyone tiptoes around him afterwards. Even Mel. It’s unnecessary, and he’s told them that, but he supposes they mean well enough. So it doesn’t bother him too much.

But this one is different.

This one is a guy in his late 20s, with short brown hair and blue eyes and a wife and kid. Got addicted to opioids after blowing out his knee skiing. Narcan does nothing. Nothing they do does anything. And the guy dies on their table, five minutes before his wife gets there. Dr. Al-Hashimi breaks the news to her in the family room, but he can hear her cries through the closed door, which he lingers by, because he hates himself. She keeps asking what she’s supposed to say to her daughter. How she’s supposed to tell her that her dad isn’t coming home.

He walks away after he hears that, bums a cigarette and lighter off of Dana and moseys out to the ambulance bay. He doesn’t make a habit of smoking – Abby hates it, and Mel does too. But he needs something. And he figures this is better that shooting up some Ativan.

He’s just about through with the cigarette when he feels footsteps approach. He sighs. He knew she would find him out here eventually. And he knows he needs her. But he can’t help but tense just a little.

“Don’t say anything about the cigarette,” he pleads, without turning around.

“Wasn’t going to, considering I’m not Mel.”

He turns his head to find Trinity fucking Santos walking towards him.

“Where’s Mel?” he asks, immediately on high alert, his inner crisis momentarily forgotten.

Santos holds up her hands in front of her as she approaches, in a gesture of surrender.

“Whoa there, buddy. She’s fine. I glanced at her before I came out here. She’s in her stairwell having a pretty intense date with her lava lamp. I told Samira to keep an eye on her.”

He hums, frowning. He’s probably not in the right mental state to take care of Mel right now anyway. He throws the butt of his cigarette onto the sidewalk, steps on it with his shoe.

“Make sure you pick that up before we go in,” she tells him, and he rolls his eyes.

“I was going to, don’t worry.”

She sighs, comes up next to him and leans against the brick wall.

“So. What’s going through that giant head of yours, Langdon?”

He licks his lips. He really doesn’t feel like talking about this with Santos. But he’s not sure he would even want to talk about it with Mel.

“What do you think is going through my head, Trinity?”

She doesn’t answer. He should’ve known she wasn’t going to let him get away with that shit.

So, he murmurs, “That could’ve been me.”

“But it wasn’t.”

“It maybe should’ve been me.”

“No, it shouldn’t have been.”

He shakes his head, runs a hand through his hair.

“Sometimes,” he breathes, barely audible over the sounds of the city, “I’m afraid it’s still going to be me.”

“It won’t be,” she tells him, like she believes it.

“How the fuck do you know?”

She shrugs.

“I guess I don’t for sure. Just got a feeling, though.”

“Great,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Glad I have your gut feeling to back me up.”

“Look,” Santos tells him, “you’ve been clean for just about a year, right?”

He laughs once.

“Try six months. I had to go to rehab two fucking times, Trinity.”

“I…didn’t know that,” she admits. “But the length doesn’t really matter, I guess. As long as you’re clean, which you are. And you’ve got two kids who are fucking adorable, apparently. You have your wife.”

He laughs again at that.

“Barely,” he says. “That’s on the fucking rocks, for sure.”

“Why?”

He glares at her.

None of your fucking business, he wants to say. He should say that. It’s none of your fucking business.

“Why do you think, Trinity?”

Her eyes widen for just a second, and then she sighs again.

“I told you not to do that.”

“I know you did. Can you not rub my face in it right now? Plus, nothing has even happened yet.”

“But it’s going to?” she asks, in a gentler tone than he thought Trinity possessed.

He shrugs.

“I…don’t know. I mean, I want it to.”

He lets out a shaky breath, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes.

“I really want it to,” he admits softly. Then, he scoffs. “Jesus Christ, I’m such a piece of shit. Standing out here planning my workplace affair with one of my coworker.”

He wipes at his eyes, stares down at the ground.

“Forget it. I won’t do it. You were right, Trinity. She deserves better than an asshole, arrogant ex-junkie.”

She takes a step closer to him.

“That was probably a little harsh of me to say,” she tells him. “Hey, Langdon. Eyes up here. I need to ask you a question.”

He glances up hesitantly. Her face is blurry from the tears that are still in his eyes.

“Do you love her?”

He bites his lip, shakes his head to try to clear out his brain.

“I’ve known her for less than a month,” he says breathlessly.

“That’s not what I asked. I asked you if you love her.”

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know if he can yet. Which maybe is an answer in and of itself.

“Look, Langdon,” she begins. “You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. I can’t tell you not to. Just…be careful.”

“I know,” he says quietly. “God, I know.”

“I just hope, through all your angst – “

“Angst?” he interrupts, almost smiling.

She rolls her eyes.

“Yes, angst. You’ve been very angsty lately. I’ve literally thought about nicknaming you Frangst. But I thought that might be a little too on the nose.”

He snorts.

“When have you ever cared about being too on the nose?”

“Anyways,” she continues, like she didn’t hear him. “What I was going to say, before you rudely cut me off, is that you weren’t that guy. You didn’t die on that table today. You get to go home to your kids tonight, and a wife, even if you’re not her favorite person. And on top of that, you get to go back in there and spend the rest of your shift with Mel.”

Mel. Mel, and her braid and her glasses and her striped socks and her jokes and her heart and her low voice.

Mel. His shoulders straighten just a bit. Santos notices.

“Come on. Let’s get back in there before someone else dies.”

She pushes off the wall.

“Hey, Trinity,” he says, and she turns arounds. “When you turned me in that day – did you do it because you were worried, or just because you were pissed at me?”

She smirks at him.

“A little bit of both, I think,” she tells him, honest to a fault. She clears her throat. “But…I’m glad I did. It all worked out in the end.”

He grimaces.

“I think the working out part remains to be seen,” he counters. “But I’m glad you did, too.”

“You’ve got a lot to live for, Langdon. Don’t let your Frangst get in the way.”

He scrunches his nose in distaste.

“Yeah, let’s forget the word Frangst ever fucking existed, okay?”

“Fine, but just for now,” she warns him. “And just because you’re having a shit day.”

He rolls his eyes.

“Whatever. Let’s just go find Mel.”

He leans down to pick up his cigarette butt and tosses it in the nearest trash can, and then starts to walk with Trinity. Right before they reach the automatic doors, he hears her gasp.

“I just realized something amazing.”

“What?” he asks cautiously.

“The two of you together! Melancholia and Frangst!”

“Oh my God,” he groans. “Trinity, shut the fuck up.”

“It truly is meant to be,” she decides, and he can’t help but smirk.

Maybe he and Mel have at least one person on their side.

* * *

By the time he and Santos get back to the floor, Mel has already returned from her stairwell. He tries to catch her gaze, but she keeps avoiding his eyes. He frowns.

She keeps avoiding him, too. A trauma comes in – just a car accident with some broken bones, thank God – and he overhears Dana ask Mel if she wants to jump on, which she politely declines. He can’t help but think it’s because of him, but then again, maybe he’s just being paranoid. But then, after that, he has a few cases that she wants to pull her into quickly and get her opinion on, but every time, she is nowhere to be found.

He decides that he’s not being paranoid. He’s not used to this; ever since he came back, he and Mel have been inseparable, like two different halves of the same soul. Could she be mad at him? Even the concept makes his stomach twist into tight knots. He knows Santos told him she escaped to her stairwell after the overdose, but if she was still upset about that, surely she would come to him and talk to him about it, wouldn’t she?

He hopes she would. But all he knows for certain right now is that his frown is deepening by the minute, and he’s pretty sure worry lines are beginning to permanently etch into the skin of his forehead.

He puts up with this for almost three hours until he can’t take it anymore. He discharges his latest patient, but before he takes on a new one, he searches for Mel. It doesn’t take him long – magnets and orbiting and all that shit – and he finally spies her in North 15 with a patient, a teenage girl with a nasty infection from a new nose piercing. He watches them interact, sees Mel’s caring smiles, the soft lilt of her voice through the open door. She seems normal enough. Fuck, maybe he is being paranoid.

Or maybe she just has a problem with him. Again, his stomach clenches.

Mel turns and walks out of the room, and when he approaches, she jumps, lets out the most adorable squeak he’s ever heard.

“Oh my God, Frank, you scared me.”

“Sorry!” he exclaims. “Sorry. I was just…looking for you.”

She stares at him for a moment. He swears he sees her eyes start to get glassy before she drops her gaze towards the linoleum floor.

“Well,” she says, “you found me.”

She doesn’t sound too thrilled that he did.

“What’s up?” she asks. “Do you need to go over a differential diagnosis or something?”

“Oh, uh, no,” he stammers. “I just wanted to – are you okay, Mel?”

“I’m fine,” she assures him, too quickly, in his opinion. She lifts her eyes, but she’s looking just a little past him instead of right at him. “Just tired. It’s been a long day.”

It has been a long day. You’re just being paranoid, you fucking idiot, his brain says.

So he forces himself to smile at her.

“Well, I’m about to go check out a projectile vomiting case in 12. Have you ever seen The Exorcist?” he questions idly.

Her brows knit together.

“No.”

“I was just going to make a joke about it but…never mind then. Don’t worry about it.”

He lifts his hand to scratch at the back of his neck and tries not to sigh. Why is this so awkward?

“Do you want to come with?” he asks.

“Oh, I would, uh, love to, but I can’t right now. I have to rush this girl’s Keflex prescription because she still wants to make lacrosse practice this evening.”

He presses his lips together. Somehow, he knew that would be her answer.

“Got it,” he says. “Catch you later, then. I’m still driving you home, right?”

She finally meets his eyes, and smiles slightly.

“Of course.”

He nods, straightens up, his body feeling a little bit lighter.

“Awesome. Sounds good.”

She grins at him one more time, and it seems genuine. It’s genuine, he tells himself. Everything is fucking fine. Then, she turns, and starts off down the hall towards Perlah. He watches her for a moment, and then shakes his head.

“Pull yourself the fuck together, loser,” he mutters to himself.

Then, he’s off towards 12.

And he doesn’t see her again for the rest of the shift.

He’s waiting for her by the lockers at the end of the day, trying to scroll on his phone but not being able to concentrate at all. He feels unsettled. Part of him still thinks she’s going to tell her she wants to walk home. He sighs. He probably shouldn’t have any serious conversations with her tonight. Not when she feels so off. He doesn’t want to freak her out. That’s the absolute last thing he wants to fucking do.

Before he can start spiraling further, she comes around the corner, makes immediate eye contact with him, and smiles. He smiles back, and studies her quickly. She does look tired. Maybe that truly is all that’s going on.

She doesn’t say anything to him as she opens her locker and gathers her things. She turns to him when she’s done.

“Ready?” she asks.

He motions with his right hand.

“After you, sweetheart.”

She smirks, and then starts towards the door, him following behind her.

The car ride back to her place is silent, except for the Fleetwood Mac song softly playing through the sound system. She’d let him pick their music today, which is also odd. So he selected something they both liked, and put the band’s discography on shuffle.

He pulls into the parking lot of her building, shifts the car into park. Her head lifts from the glass of the window, and she looks at him.

“Sorry about today,” she tells him, a slight frown on her face. “I really am tired. It was just…”

“…a fucking long, shitty day,” he finishes.

She smirks, but he swears that he sees her eyes start to shine with tears.

“Yeah. A fucking long, shitty day.”

“Mel,” he murmurs, shutting the car off and then reaching over to take her hand. “Will you tell me what’s going on?”

She exhales slowly, shifting her gaze to look out the window again. It’s starting to drizzle, raindrops falling onto the vehicle in soft plops and pats. Her grip on his hand tightens.

“Mel,” he beckons.

“It’s just,” she whispers. “He was so much like you.”

He lets out a breath and closes his eyes.

“I know it’s stupid,” she continues quickly. “I know it wasn’t you. But…”

“It’s not stupid, Mel,” he tells her, lacing their fingers together. “It’s not stupid at all. I felt the same way.”

“I know. And I couldn’t even help. I was too busy having a meltdown and had to send Trinity out after you.”

“You don’t have to take care of me all the time, sweetheart,” he says gently.

“I know I don’t have to,” she insists. “But I want to. You always take care of me. Relationships should be reciprocal. There should be give and take.”

He doesn’t say anything. He thinks of how he would take it if Abby told him something like that. If she went on about wanting to take care of him. It would probably drive him fucking insane.

But with Mel, he just feels…cherished. Something that hasn’t been present for years with Abby.

“I didn’t really expect it to affect me that much,” she continues. “I mean, it’s upsetting when we lose anyone, of course. But I’ve been getting better at handling it. But then, after he died, I couldn’t stop looking at him. He had the same color hair as you, and suddenly it just…hit me.”

“I’m so fucking sorry, Mel.”

“It’s not you fault,” she tells him vehemently. “It’s not. I’m just not used to caring about anyone that much, outside of Becca. I forgot what it’s like, I guess. Like your heart is beating outside of your chest.”

He stares at her, his heart beginning to race.

Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous.

Her eyes widen suddenly, as if she’s just realized what she’d said. She yanks her hand from his.

“Oh, I am so sorry,” she says, bringing her hands up to cover her face. “That was…totally inappropriate for me to say. I mean, you’re married. And we’ve barely known each other for a month. It’s stupid, and embarrassing. I know that. I’ll get over it, I promise. I promise. God, I’m such an –“

He leans over, pulls her hands from her face, and kisses her.

She’s stiff at first; he’s clearly caught her off guard. But he waits, patiently, just resting his lips against hers. And after a few moments, she melts into him.

So, he kisses her, slowly at first, and then more heated all at once. He runs his tongue along the seam of her mouth, and she opens for him. He licks into her mouth, a low groan forming deep inside him.

He pulls back for a moment, rests his forehead against hers. Her soft, almost panting breaths wash over him.

“I like you, Mel,” he murmurs. “I like you so fucking much.”

“I like you, too,” she whispers. “I really like you. Too much.”

“That’s impossible,” he tells her, and then pulls her back into him, presses his lips to hers.

Her hands come up to fist into his t-shirt. The first moan that he pulls from her throat – high pitched and breathless – goes straight to his dick. He’s already hard in his pants, just from kissing her. Just because it’s Mel. Just because he likes her so, so fucking much.

He sinks his tongue back into her mouth. He feels so alive. Mel is so real under his hands, pliant and responsive and soft and beautiful, and so, so real.

Dangerous. Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous.

He doesn’t care. He doesn’t fucking care. Not anymore.

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