Chapter Text
around 11:00 AM July 4, 2026
Mel finished putting in Ms. Ronson’s request for a Black woman to be her therapist. It had been such a relief when she stopped Mel from leaving the room.
Mel didn’t often have cases where she felt like there had been a difference in outcome because she was the doctor on the case. She didn’t need it, really; the important thing in emergency medicine was helping the patient, not getting the credit for it. It wasn’t that she wanted credit from others, either. There was just a little part of her that felt proud that Ms. Ronson would get the help that she needed because Mel King had been her doctor and insisted on including bulimia in the differential. It was a nice feeling.
She looked up as two new traumas were brought in, although she didn’t recognize one of the EMT teams. That was odd, because it had been a while since there had been a face she didn’t recognize. She stood as Dr. McKay took the first of the two traumas and joined the congregation of people around the other gurney. Oh. That’s why she didn’t recognize the EMTs.
Mel hurried over and started checking under the man’s–-Mr. Varney, Robby had said–-bandages. Yikes. “Can we get the cuffs off once he settles?”
She was a bit taken aback at the gruff (and frankly, condescending) response from the guard. She knew what the orange jumpsuit meant, of course, but the gashes in Mr. Varney’s wrists were nearly to the bone, and they wouldn’t be able to treat him properly with the cuffs in the way.
At Dana’s instruction, the EMTs began rolling the gurney towards Trauma 2.
When Dr. Al Hashimi bowed out of the room, Mel was focused on setting up for the serratus anterior block. It didn’t keep her from following the conversation, for which she found herself grateful when Whitaker mentioned overstepping with Frank.
Her “Oh?” of interest almost certainly came too fast, and she couldn’t really read Whitaker’s expression when he glanced back at her before continuing. She also couldn’t tell if either Whitaker or Samira knew–-or assumed-–that Frank had been stealing from the hospital. Mel thought it was likely the assumption she would have made, had he only told her that his addiction was to benzos without identifying where his supply came from.
Either way, she made a mental note to check in on him when she next saw him. Whether or not Whitaker had intended the extra dimension to the insult, Frank had probably taken it hard-–especially if he was still thinking that he let people down.
Mel wasn’t able to pull Frank aside until after Louie’s brief memorial, and when she did finally find him, she became concerned.
It looked at first like he was trailing Donnie towards the Hub, but as Mel got closer, Donnie and the new nurse Emma turned and followed Dana towards Central, while Frank continued in the direction of the trauma rooms.
She walked a little faster. Between the look on his face and his path towards the PDS…Mel wasn’t worried, exactly. She trusted Frank, and she knew he would not be back at work, let alone back early, if he thought it was at all possible for him to relapse. But she also knew their jobs were hard, especially for sensitive people.
To her relief, as she started to catch up to him, it became clear he was just heading to the lockers.
When Mel turned the corner, only about thirty seconds after Frank had, he was already sitting on the floor, leaning against one of the lockers with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. She moved closer, watching as he inhaled slowly, paused, then exhaled slowly. Was he…box breathing?
“Frank?” she said worriedly, coming to a stop a couple of feet away. For a second, it seemed like he wasn’t going to acknowledge her; then he took another deep breath in and sat upright, looking at her and resting his head against the wall. He smiled at her, not insincerely, but his eyes were red.
“Hey, uh,” he paused, clearing his throat once, then twice. “Hey. Are you okay?”
“Is this Whitaker’s fault?” she asked, ignoring the question-–he was obviously not okay, and it’s absurd that he thought Mel would look past that.
Frank looked startled for a moment. “What did Whitaker do?”
“Oh, good,” she said, relieved, then explained, “He said he overstepped, earlier, and I–-well, I wasn’t able to find you until now, but I wanted to check on you.”
He laughed, once, and a little bitterly. “Ah. His making sure the junkie couldn’t get near a Librium prescription. Right. No, although that was shitty.”
“Please don’t call yourself that,” she said quietly, before making up her mind and sitting down to Frank’s right, leaning into the locker next to him.
He looked at the ceiling, rather than at her. “I’m thinking about paying for Louie’s funeral.”
“Oh,” Mel said again. She frowned. “Did you talk to Abby?”
He laughed again, this time entirely bitterly. “That’s what Dana said, too. To be honest with you, sweetheart, I don’t think Abby’s too worried about my finances anymore.”
She frowned harder, confused, once again not allowing herself to think about how it felt when he called her sweetheart. “Why wouldn’t she be? They’re her finances, too.”
Frank still wouldn’t look at her. “No, I mean…Mel, she’s less than an inch away from filing for divorce. And I don’t even know if I give a fuck, other than how it’ll affect Tanner and Penny.”
Mel’s stomach jumped before she made the conscious decision to have feelings about it later, probably when she processed sweetheart; right now, her friend was upset. She didn’t know what to say, though.
She decided to start with pointing out the obvious. “It…seems like you give-–like you care. I don’t think you’d be reacting this strongly if you didn’t.”
“I’m not crying over my crumbling marriage, Mel.” The sharpness in his tone had never been directed at her before, and she couldn't stop the brief flinch. He somehow registered this without being able to see her, and sighed. “Fuck. I’m sorry. It’s…most of it is Louie, but it’s Robby, too. I just–-didn’t want to lie to you, when you mentioned Abby.”
She added that to the things she had consciously decided to have feelings about later. “I…appreciate that. And I’m so sorry about Louie, Frank. How long did you know him?” Mel hesitated for a moment, before taking his hand, which was still resting on his knee.
Frank shifted his gaze to where she held his hand, silent for a long moment, before saying, “He was a regular long before I started my residency. I’ve technically only known him for about five years, but he was such a PTMC institution…it just feels like longer. Felt, I guess. He asked about them this morning, you know.”
“Them?”
“Tanner. Penny. Did you know he had a wife? She was pregnant, and she died. I never even knew. He knew my kids’ names, Mel, how did I not know about her?”
Mel was at a loss. “I think…he probably wasn’t in a place where he could talk about her, or maybe even think about her. If he drank so much to get away from memories of her…it makes sense to me that he wouldn’t want to tell anyone. It’s not…bad, or a judgment of you that you didn’t know. Did anyone?”
Frank looked at the ceiling again. “Just Robby, and it sounded like either he or Adamson knew Louie before she died.”
She nodded slowly. “Well, that’s probably what it was, then.” She hesitated a moment, then said carefully, “You said Louie and Robby. What did Robby do?”
When Frank laughed this time, he just sounded tired. “I had…a cellulitis patient this morning. One of the first people I treated when he sent me out to triage. She had no prior hospitalizations, no prior surgeries, no steroid use…just no reason whatsoever to do a more intensive workup. I gave her a Keflex prescription and marked the boundaries of her rash and told her to come back if it spread. It was on the dorsum of her foot, that was all. And of course, she didn’t come back when it started spreading, she waited until her lunch break. Last time I was in there, it was almost to her knee. Robby thinks its nec fasc.”
“Oh, jeez.”
“Yeah. Robby has made it…very clear…that he thinks that it’s my fault, that I missed something.”
Mel sat up straight abruptly, feeling heated. “That’s ridiculous. It sounds like you got all the information and made the diagnosis that was possible at the time. It’s not your fault she waited to come back until it…” She didn’t want to say ‘until it was too late,’ but it was clear Frank heard it before she could come up with an alternative. He started to pull away, which is what made her register that she was still holding on to his hand. She kept herself from clinging to it only with difficulty.
To her relief, he was just moving to stand up; he needed both hands to brace against the wall because of his back. Mel got up as well, watching him closely for any sign of pain or discomfort, but he was either not experiencing any or hiding it very, very well. The latter seemed more likely, especially when he turned around and started to crouch again.
She frowned. “What are you doing?”
Frank started fiddling with the locker he had been leaning against. “New R4 year, new locker assignment.”
Mel’s anger at Robby, which had been dying down, roared back into life with a vengeance. “Are you kidding? With your back?” She was aware her voice was louder than was advisable, but…ooh, she was furious. It clearly startled Frank, who had stopped messing with the door of his locker to look up at her in concern.
She reached for his arm and pulled at him to stand up, then marched him over to her locker, which was on the top row, thank you very much. “The code is 1517. What’s the code to the one on the bottom?”
“2244…” he said slowly, as if concerned Mel would bite him if he drew her attention. She put that idea in with the things she had consciously decided to have feelings about later, crouching and putting the code in. “Mel, what are you doing?”
“Open it,” she insisted. “1517.” Frank finally did as she said, and she immediately began passing him his things. “Please hand me my bag.”
He caught on, then. “Mel–-no, listen, it’s fine. Really.”
Mel ignored him, rising to get her bag herself.
“Mel.” Frank grabbed the strap of her bag before she could return to her new locker with it. “It’s okay.”
“I’m glad you think so, because it’s yours now,” she said, deliberately misunderstanding him.
“Mel–-”
“We switch or I go have words with Robby,” she said furiously, turning on Frank. “Which is your preference? Because I am not letting you fuck up your back again, Frank. You might feel like you deserve Robby treating you this way, but I happen to disagree.”
He held his hands up in surrender, letting go of her bag as he did. “Okay, okay. Heard.”
Mel turned and knelt quickly, stuffing it into the locker. Frank was watching her cautiously when she stood up.
“What?” she snapped.
He put his hands on her shoulders carefully, before he inhaled and exhaled dramatically.
Mel rolled her eyes, but matched her breathing to his until he seemed to be satisfied that she had calmed down.
He tugged on her braid gently. “I really appreciate it,” he said quietly.
She avoided Robby for as long as she could after that, even though the breathing exercise had actually made a difference, but when she saw Frank helping him wheel a gurney out of the elevator, she followed them to a trauma room immediately.
Mel’s temper flared again as Robby needled Frank, who already seemed shaken. She prompted him a couple of times when he took a moment to answer Robby’s latest question, hoping to remind him that she had his back, but he was still off his game.
Mel started coming up with creative ways to hide Robby’s body. He had clearly done or said something awful to Frank, and if she couldn’t actually make him pay for it, she could fantasize about a world where she did.
Garcia swept into the room and echoed Frank’s opinion that there wasn’t yet a need for a blood transfusion. That seemed to help him focus, whether it was because Garcia, a fellow, agreed with his plan of attack, or because he was used to needing to think fast when she was in the room.
As the patient was carted off to surgery, Frank attempted to say something to Robby, who brushed him off, exiting.
Mel lingered as he tore the neck of his trauma gown, not sure what she could do to help him. He shoved it in the biohazard waste bin before turning towards her.
“I–-thank you.”
“What did he say to you?” She worked to keep her voice from betraying that she was composing a list of possible answers that would cause her to tamper with Robby’s motorcycle.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” he responded, which sort of answered her question, but also didn’t.
“What doesn’t?”
He shook his head. “They reinstated my license because of something he told them. He won’t tell me what. They gave me my job back here because he fought for me. He won’t tell me why. Just now, on the roof, he told me he doesn’t want me here when I tried to apologize. I don’t understand any of it.”
Mel opened her mouth, not sure what she was about to say, and only slightly positive she wouldn’t regret it. “Can I give you a hug?”
Frank looked at her for a moment, then held out his arms. “Get over here, Dr. King.”
She tried to somehow convey through the hug how much her heart was hurting for him, but she didn’t think it was successful.
Of course, of course, of course today of all days was the day that Becca would need to go to the ER. And of course it would be right when they came to get her for the deposition.
Mel turned away from Robby, scanning the room for Frank. Dana watched her look around the room for a moment, then turned, saying loudly, “Ah, just the guy we were looking for.”
Mel made a mental note to get Dana as many flavors of nicotine gum as she wanted, leading Frank to Becca’s room and pulling the curtain open.
“Hi, Becca,” she said, forcing herself to smile without betraying any of her nerves.
“Hi,” Becca responded, studying Frank curiously.
“Um. This is Dr. Langdon,” Mel said, realizing why this was a terrible idea just as Becca said, “Wow. Dr. Langdon, you do have really nice hair.”
Frank grinned, first at Becca, then at Mel. “Oh, I do, do I?”
“No,” Mel said. “It’s too long. And it’s greasy.”
“Mhm, sure. Mel, would you mind turning off the lights on your way out?” He took Becca’s chart.
Her stomach fluttered. “Of course.”
“Hey,” Frank said softly. “She’s in good hands. Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried. Or I’m not worried about you being her doctor.” Mel turned to Becca. “I am worried about you being in pain, though. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Okay!” Becca chirped.
Mel left, flicking the lights off, but didn’t finish closing the door before Becca said knowingly to Frank, “Mel says lots of nice things about you. Including your hair. I’ve never heard her say greasy before. I think once she said dreamy?”
She whipped around, preparing to shoot her best death glare through the window on the door, but Frank was smiling audibly when he said, “Okay,” just before the door shut completely.
Becca raised her eyebrows at Mel smugly. She held up her left hand in response, pointing aggressively at her ring finger, before noticing that Perlah was also watching her with amusement, flushing, and spinning quickly.
She sighed internally as she realized Robby had seen…all of that.
It occurred to her that if Robby pulled her aside to talk about it, she could give him a piece of her mind about how he was treating Frank. She wasn’t sure what look that put on her face–-at least extremely pleased--but Robby looked suddenly alarmed.