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Ostensibly, Mel knows, this is not the reason Parker offered her phone number. She’d said “for emergencies,” with that charming little half-smile, and Mel dutifully has only used it in the intervening months to tell the attending if she’s running late or needs her attention on something.
But Mel just feels so… lost. Everyone seems to have an opinion on the deposition, whether they’d heard it through the grapevine or are watching her deteriorate in real time, and none of them are what she needs to hear. There’s the ever popular everyone gets sued, which just has Mel feeling like a failure for getting this worked up, alongside Dr. Al-Hashimi’s I’ve never been sued, which is a whole other thing Mel doesn’t even want to dig into. Because it’s like— isn’t Mel a competent doctor? Isn’t she efficient and thoughtful and all the things her old mentor is? How is it, then, that her head is on the chopping block as an R3, when Dr. Al-Hashimi is an attending— a chief attending— who’s never laid so much as a finger out of place?
It all has Mel itching to get out of her own skin. So she reaches out to the one person who she thinks might actually know how she’s feeling, because they’re going through the exact same thing.
Thinking about the deposition, she texts, and then flips her phone over in her lap, so she doesn’t have to see the offending lack of read receipt. Because even though they hadn’t had a chance to talk about it this morning, during hand-offs, Parker had seemed on top of it. Calm, coherent, capable. All those wonderful c-words that Mel can’t even imagine labeling herself as right now. She feels a rush of emotion, frustration at herself boiling over in her chest.
Hot, angry tears prick at the corners of Mel’s eyes, and she’s relieved to still be tucked in the quiet dark of the room Langdon left her in. She swipes the back of her hand across her face, blinks against the blurriness.
Her phone buzzes against her thigh. When Mel peeks at it, Parker has replied, even though nobody would fault her for being asleep right now. Maybe she’s running on the same fumes as Mel.
Me too, the text admits, and Mel feels something unlock in her stomach. Only my second and they always make me crazy.
It’s relief. It’s validation, the way the words resonate in the deepest pockets of Mel’s brain. Parker gets it. Even though they did the right thing, even though they were trying to save that boy’s life, she understands the tension rattling around in Mel’s bones.
People said to focus on the facts of the case, Mel shares, wondering if it’ll help Parker to hear the same way it helped her. And I know we did what we could, but… was it wrong? That boy is dead.
There’s a long, heavy pause as Mel watches the ellipses flicker in and out on her screen.
Yes, he is, Parker replies finally, and Mel can almost hear her saying the words, if she closes her eyes. Can picture her sitting in the witness stand in the courtroom, solemn and appropriately apologetic, as she does. And there’s nothing we can do that can change that. The important thing is that we needed to know if he had ADEM to treat him properly.
Mel sighs. She knows Parker is right— she’s been through this case up and down since the malpractice suit was filed, on her own and with Parker and Shen and even once with Robby, though he’d been a little shifty at the request. Flynn was in critical condition. His head CT had been normal, but the inflammation and possible damage to his brain and spinal cord were still real threats.
And, Parker adds, at Mel’s protracted silence, the father consented. We both spoke with him. Princess agreed there was no reason to believe we were being played.
I don’t like thinking about it that way, Mel admits. That he was tricking us. He just wanted his son to live.
So did we, Parker replies. You didn’t kill that little boy, Mel.
She’s managed to worm her way right into the meat of the problem, Mel thinks with a sad little smile. Parker knows how to read people, knows the things they’re not saying. It’s not about the mark on Mel’s record, though she’s certainly not thrilled about that. It’s about the life. The thirteen-year-old who died on a hospital table, the sister whose brother is no longer at her side.
I wish we’d been able to do more, Mel says, rather than digging into that. It’s not fair.
No, Parker agrees, it isn’t. And if my first suit taught me anything, it’s that it doesn’t get any easier with time. But we show up and we get held accountable, and we do better next time.
Mel chews on her bottom lip, mulls that over in her head. It’s an angle on depositions that she hadn’t considered, one that even Robby with his four priors hadn’t offered when comforting her.
You’re a good doctor, Parker, she texts, practically bleeding sincerity. And a good person.
I try, Parker replies, even when it’s an uphill battle. You’ll be okay, Mel. We’ve got each other’s backs today, alright?
It sounds good. A united front, a woman she trusts at her side and Mel returning the favor. Even if Mel still aches at the thought of the deposition, some of the high-octane nervyness has begun to drain out of her. She wishes, selfishly, that Parker worked the day shift today, that she could step out of this room and see her standing tall in the chaos of the Pitt.
Okay, Mel replies, willing Parker’s stalwart belief in their decision making to rub off through the phone. Thank you.
Parker heart-reacts the message and Mel’s heart warms, swells at the appreciation.
“I can do this,” Mel says, quiet and to herself even in the empty room, “you got this, Mel.” It doesn’t feel true yet, not really, but she’s got time.