Archive of Our Own

Frank Langdon had always been a pet names kind of guy. He’s pretty sure he got it from his mom. She was always calling him little terms of endearments, even into his adulthood – sweetie, pumpkin, monkey. It was a little embarrassing, sometimes, but for the most part, he liked it. 

He didn’t realize he had picked up the habit himself until Abby called him out on it about six months or so into dating. 

“Frank, when was the last time you called me by my actual name?” She giggled to him one evening when they were laying around in his shitty college apartment, flipping through flashcards before finals.

“Hm?” He asked, looking up at her.

“I’m just saying, I don’t think I’ve heard the word Abby come out of your mouth in maybe three months.”

“Oh.” He said, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “I can stop, sorry.”

“No, it’s fine.” She shrugged. “I mean, it probably drives our friends crazy. But I don’t mind it.”

And that was enough permission for him. 

Once the kids came, and he unlocked some sort of new, never-before-seen depth of sentimentality in his chest, it really only got worse. He walked around most days feeling like a mush of emotion, looking forward to the moment he got home when he could kiss Tanner on the top of his head and ask him how pre-school was. The pet names were basically involuntary, by that point.

He was careful about it at work, obviously. There were occasional slip-ups, mostly when people brought their kids into the ER, and a “this’ll just be a pinch, honey” escaped his lips before he could stop it. He would hide his cringe down at the needle as he said it, pretending not to notice the looks that their moms would shoot him from beside the bed – confusion, or, just as frequently, interest. Frank always made sure to fidget with the ring on his left hand conspicuously for a little while after he got those looks.

But for the most part, he kept things very professional. 

Which is why this shit with Mel was so distressing.

It started on her first day, honestly, when Robby was introducing the new residents and interns, and she cut him off with a wide smile, letting the whole team know, “Everyone calls me Mel. I’m so happy to be here!”

Alright then, Mel. Frank thought, biting back a smile.

It was rare for doctors to do first names in the hospital, even rarer for them to do nicknames. Robby was an exception, but it was still his last name, and even he wanted to go by Doctor Robby most of the time – which was fair, he had earned it. But Mel didn’t want to be Doctor King, or King or even Doctor Mel. She just wanted to be Mel. And who was Frank to say no to that?

And so what if there was a sort of nice, warm feeling in his chest when she smiled at him, or when he comforted her, or when she trailed him around the ER like a lost puppy? That was normal; that was friendly. He just really liked the training part of being a senior resident, and she was just a very good trainee.

And then Frank’s whole life fell apart, and for ten months he had bigger problems than dwelling on the over-eager way he had latched on to the newest resident after only a few hours of knowing her.

By the time he came back to the Pitt, he was sober, divorced, and sufficiently humbled. And also probably just a little bit lonely. 

Abby had kicked him out shortly after he got out of rehab, telling him to take the dog with him, and so now Frank and a golden doodle lived in what could only be described as a sad, divorced dad apartment. He still saw his kids, thank god, but it was mostly on weekends, and never for as long as he’d like. The friendships that he had made had all mostly unraveled as a result of his very public fall from grace, save for Cassie, who he had never really been close with but who had been a surprisingly steady source of advice throughout the whole thing.

When he was finally cleared to come back to work in July, it had felt like he was releasing an exhale from his chest that he had been holding in since September. 

He hadn’t even really been expecting her to still be there – he had assumed she would have moved on to a new hospital, a new rotation by that point. But when the rest of his colleagues had stared at him apprehensively, she had bounded up to him with a giant, dazzling smile on her face, exclaiming, “Doctor Langdon!”  

Her obvious excitement at his return made him feel, for once, like maybe he was not the world’s biggest fuck-up. And so because it felt nice, and Frank had so few things left in his life that made him feel nice, he let himself have it. He let himself pick back up where they left off, teasing her with inside jokes, looking after her after a patient pushed her, pretending like it didn’t make his heart clench in his chest when she reassured him in a small voice, “you never let me down.”

Things sort of just took off from there. 

She allowed him to fold her under his wing as easily as she had the last time they had worked together, despite the fact that he was currently persona-non-grata and Robby had shoved him off onto the baby work. As he slowly rebuilt his professional reputation over the course of the next few months, she became a steady constant for him.

They worked together well, and they had more in common than someone may have guessed, just by looking at the two of them. They chatted between rounds, he joked with her at the lockers, and they comforted one another in easy, solemn silence outside the stairwells after a particularly bad case.

They were friends.

And yeah, maybe the ring on his finger sort of burned when he looked at her sometimes, even though it was just for show, now – just so that no one asked him any difficult questions he wasn’t quite ready to deal with yet. But it only did that because he felt bad lying to her, pretending like he still went home to his wife and kids at night instead of to a dark, two bedroom apartment with carpet stains and plants he couldn’t keep alive.

He just hadn’t really had the right moment alone with her to tell her, yet. The longer he waited, the weirder it got, he knew that. 

But how was he supposed to say “Oh hey, yeah, by the way, I’ve actually been divorced this whole time” and not make her totally uncomfortable?

It was just easier to let her keep thinking he was still married to Abby. Safer. 

It raised less eyebrows about the nature of their friendship when the ring stayed on while he was at work, the weight on his finger reminding him not to say or do anything stupid.

It also made it a little less creepy when the pet names started slipping out.

The first time it happened it was an honest-to-goodness mistake. He had taken a break in the stairwell during a particularly grueling shift, stepping away to call Tanner and hear his excited little voice tell him about the trash truck workers coming out to give him a high five that morning. He had just hung up that call and was scrolling through his phone, savoring every precious second of his break when she snuck up behind him.

“Hey,” She said, unexpectedly close behind his head.

Frank jumped up about three feet in the air, his phone clattering on the ground as he grabbed for his chest dramatically. 

“Jesus, Melly!”

She blinked at him owlishly from behind her big glasses, her mouth popping open as she backed up a step. “Sorry–sorry,” She muttered, bending down to reach for his phone at the same time he did, their heads bumping together comically and their fingers brushing against each other.

She snatched her hand back as she stood, cradling it against her chest and pressing her back up against the door, putting a wide berth between them. “That’s my bad, I’m sorry,” She repeated, stammering nervously. “I was just coming to check if you were okay, but, I should have–”

“No,” He cut her off, giving her a breathy chuckle as he tucked his phone in his pocket. “You’re fine, Mel. You just caught me off guard.”

She nodded at him, still looking wide-eyed and unsure of herself, and he gave her a small, reassuring smile. “I’m all good. Thanks for checking up on me. Ready to get back out there?”

“Yeah,” She agreed, stepping back up away from the door and pulling it open, leading them both back into the comforting chaos of the emergency department. It wasn’t until hours later, when he was packing up his stuff and getting ready to leave that he replayed the moment in his head and realized what he’d called her. 

Frank shoved his head into his locker and squeezed his eyes shut to endure the sudden wave of mortification. He vowed to not let it happen again.

He was really on top of it, for a while. She still almost only ever Doctor Langdon’d him, which helped him keep his head in the game, made it easier to remember that they were professionals who worked together. 

But it was after work, on one of the rare nights when both Mel and Frank caved into peer pressure and joined their colleagues out for post-shift drinks, that Frank got a little sloppy.

It was towards the end of the night, and though Frank didn’t drink anymore, something about being in a different setting, wearing his civilian clothes, and seeing the way his coworkers’ shoulders dropped an inch after the first or second beer had him feeling looser, a little more at ease.

“What’re ya looking at, Mel?” He asked her as he slid into the booth across from her, squishing Whittaker in as he took a sip of his fresh Diet Coke. She was squinting down at her phone, her face scrunched up like she was focusing hard.

She looked up at him only briefly before focusing back down on it, scrolling through whatever was on there with a frown. 

“Oh, just the bus schedule. There’s something weird going on with it, a bunch of the normal routes are missing.”

He tilted his head at her. “Why do you care about the bus schedule?”

It was Samira that answered, knocking her shoulder into Mel’s playfully as she did. “Mel takes the bus to work! You didn’t know that?”

“No,” Frank said, still watching Mel. “I didn’t know that. Why do you do that?”

“She’s trying to offset the carbon emissions from the twenty cigarettes you smoke a day on break, Langdon.” Garcia jeered, walking back over to the table with a full, sloshing beer.

Mel looked up from her phone then, giving everyone a weak smile as she shut the screen. “It’s a nice night out. I’ll probably just walk tonight.”

Alarm bells immediately sounded off in Frank’s mind. Like hell you will.

“I’ll drive you.” The offer was out of his mouth before he could even consider it, and he leaned down to take a sip of Diet Coke when everyone turned to look at him, playing it casual.

“Oh,” Mel started, blinking very rapidly at him. “I couldn’t ask you to do that. I live all the way over in Bellevue, so –”

“It’s on the way.” He answered quickly, not even lying to her. 

“I thought you lived in Fox Chapel?” Garcia asked, making him immediately regret ever sharing anything about his personal life with her.

“I moved.” Frank said simply, in a way that invited no further discussion on the topic. It was also, technically, the truth.

“Okay,” she agreed, visibly anxious with all of the attention on her. “Thanks, Doctor Langdon.”

He smiled at her, and the conversation moved on, and Frank patted himself on the back for appearing so normal about it all.

Predictably, she tried to fight him on it again once they were alone, when Samira stepped away to go to the bathroom and the rest of their crew was at the bar, closing out their tabs. 

“I found a different bus route that will take me back.” She said, fiddling with the straw in her water.

“It’s fine, Mel. I really don’t mind.” His heart was thudding strangely, and he sort of wanted to reach over the table and grab her by the shoulders and shake her a little bit and demand she let him take care of her.

“No, really! I calculated the distance from my normal stop, and even with the transfers it would only add twelve additional minutes, including the walk, which is probably less time than it would add for you to go out of your way to drop me off, so I was thinking–”

“Mel, honey.” Frank had to get her to stop. He had to get her to stop talking and just agree to go with him, because there was no reasonable way to explain to her that he needed to drive her home tonight, needed to feel like he’d done something useful, needed to feel like he’d taken care of her.

It was the nuclear option, but it had the intended effect, and he watched her mouth snap shut and a little flush creep up her neck.

“You’ve had two drinks, you’ve just come off a ten hour shift, and it’s almost eleven o’clock at night. You’re gonna let me drive you home, okay?”

She nodded at him, her mouth shut tight, and Frank gave her another smile, really hoping he hadn’t freaked her out too bad.

“Good,” he said. “Great. Ready whenever you are.”

The drive home was comfortable, friendly, and she really did live close to his new place. Plus, it made something settle in his stomach to watch her punch a pin code into the front door of her apartment complex and slip behind it, giving him one last final wave before she did.

The next morning, at work, he greeted her by the lockers with a smile and a good morning, and she returned it with a bright beam of her own, and he thought thank god. 

He hadn’t fucked anything up yet.

“By the way,” He began casually, lingering at his locker as he fiddled with the contents inside as if he had an excuse to still be there. “I seriously do live close by. If you ever need another ride, just let me know. I’d be happy to scoop you on my way in, or take you home, or whatever.”

He watched her brow pull in at the same time a small, hesitant smile grew over her face. “That’s… that’s nice, Doctor Langdon, thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Frank’s responding smile felt just a little bit tight, a little bit nervous. “Yeah, no problem. Do you want to give me your phone?”

“Huh?”

“So I can, uh,” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “So I can put my number in there. And you can, you know, text me.” He was infinitely grateful that there was no one else around to witness this interaction, the tense way that he was rocking a little bit on his feet, the strange tone in his voice.

“Oh, right.” She answered, digging around in her backpack and pulling the phone out, unlocking it and handing it to him. Frank opened up a new text thread, typing in his number and sending it a message that said “Mel King” before handing it back to her, feeling his own phone buzz once in his pocket.

“Cool,” He said, pretending to feel normal things about it. “Anytime you want, Mel, I mean it. It’s not an issue.”

And she smiled, and nodded, and he thought they understood each other.

But then she never texted him. 

She wasn’t avoiding him, she wasn’t acting off around him, she just wasn’t taking him up on his offer, and it was making him feel kind of jittery and uncomfortable. Every morning he would wake up and reach for his phone on the bedside table and scroll down in his texts to double-check that he hadn’t missed one from her. 

Every time he did, it was still just those two messages staring back at him, the ones he had both sent himself.

Mel King 

Frank Langdon :)

So, yeah, he was being a little bit weird about it. But he was keeping it to himself, at least. He wasn’t pressuring her, he wasn’t overstepping any professional boundaries, he wasn’t texting her “Hey, good morning, how are you, can I grab you a coffee on the way in?” the way he really, really wanted to.

That was, until he was driving home in the pouring rain one evening and he did a double-take when he saw her standing out in front of the bus stop without a raincoat, without an umbrella, her shoulders curled in and her arms wrapped around herself tightly as she shivered in her scrubs.

The immediate U-turn he did to get over to her was highly illegal and had more than one car honking at him as he waved them off. He pulled up directly in front of the bus stop and put his hazards on, leaning across the passenger seat to throw the door open and glare at her — a sopping, sad little mess blinking back at him through heavy, rain-soaked lashes.

“Get in.” He ordered, tone gruff and belying some of the frustration he’d been working so hard to hide.

“Doctor Langdon?” Her voice was half-drowned out by the hard splattering of raindrops against his windshield and the pavement, but he could see the way her mouth made the shape of his name. “What are you–”

A car honked behind him, cutting her off, and Frank thought about unbuckling his seat belt and going out there to pick her up and put her in the seat himself.

“Baby, please just get in the fucking car.” He begged shamelessly. “I’m gonna get a ticket if you make me sit in this bus lane for much longer, so can we just argue about it on the drive home instead of right here?”

She gaped at him for a second, and then another horn sounded and it had her scrambling forward, dripping rain onto his leather seats as she shoved her backpack down at her feet and pulled the passenger side door closed behind her.

“Thank you,” Frank breathed as he eased up off the brakes, carefully merging them back out into traffic. 

They were both quiet for a few moments, and the air in the car seemed heavy, tense. He knew why.

He hadn’t meant for it to slip out, but he had been stressed, and frustrated that she refused to call him, that she would rather stand outside in the pouring rain than ask him for a favor that he had already offered her. It was sort of like his kids, he reasoned, like when Tanner or Penny picked at his last nerve and he had to go into dad mode to shut them down.

(It was nothing like his fucking kids. Nothing at all.)

He had just taken a deep breath, psyching himself up for a big, earnest apology when he heard her voice, small and shaky from the passenger seat. 

“I’m sorry.”

He glanced over to see her wringing her hands, staring down at her feet and looking like a kicked dog. 

“What?” He asked, immediately concerned. “Mel, what’s wrong?”

“I–I just…” She trailed off, voice warbly, obviously struggling. “I didn’t want to be a burden to anyone.”

He could cry, really, at how woeful she sounded. 

“Mel,” He breathed out, gripping the steering wheel tighter, biting his tongue to stop the endless stream of baby, honey, Melly that so desperately wanted to pour out of him.

“You are not a burden to me.”

There was an audible sniffle next to him, and Frank decided that it was time to be really, very clear with her. She always did best with the least amount of subtext.

“Mel, I want to drive you into work in the mornings when we have the same shift. And take you home in the evenings. Not just when it’s raining out, or when the bus is late. It makes me really happy to know I’m taking care of you. Plus, I like the idea of spending time with you on the way into work, or decompressing together on the drive home. You’re my best friend at the hospital, and you’re not a burden to me.” He almost tacked a honey on at the end there, but managed to hold it off just barely.

Another sniffle, but when he glanced over at her this time she was giving him a small, watery smile. 

“Okay.” She said, reaching up to wipe her eyes with the backs of her hand, and he wondered how much of the wetness on her cheeks was rain and how much of it was tears. “Thank you, Doctor Langdon.”

He huffed out an incredulous laugh at hearing his formal, professional title whispered back at him after that confession. 

“One more thing,” he added, holding in a smirk as he stopped at a red light. “I’m really gonna need you to start calling me Frank.”

She giggled at that, and though it was still a somewhat wobbly sound, it made him feel invincible, like he could punch through a wall or something. Especially when her laugh was followed by a warm, happy, “Okay, Frank,” that sent a pleasing zip down his spine.

It was all really normal, really average friend stuff. 

The thing that he had not considered when he began carpooling with Mel to work was just how much additional time they’d really be spending together, and what that would start to do to his psyche.

It was about a fifteen to twenty minute drive from her apartment to the hospital, and in the grand scheme of things that hadn’t seemed like much to Frank, at the time. They regularly spent twelve hour long shifts together, practically glued to one another’s side. What was another thirty to forty minutes a day, in the face of that?

Turned out, a lot.

Because the half an hour they spent in his car every day was not like the twelve they spent in the Pitt. Not at all. 

For starters, it was just the two of them. 

That wasn’t an entirely unusual thing for them; they spent lots of time alone together at work, on their breaks, chatting on the stairwell or out in the ambulance bay. But even then, there was an undercurrent of knowledge that they weren’t really alone, that at any minute Robby might come looking for them, or Dana might pop outside for a cigarette, and they’d have company again.

In his car, there was none of that. It was just Mel and Frank, Frank and Mel. 

The way her walls came down the second the passenger side door shut behind her when they left work each day was truly a marvel and privilege to watch. He got to see a side of Mel that he had only glimpsed at, before. 

Playful, sweet, caring, vulnerable. 

They talked about his kids, and her sister, and she coo’d over pictures of his dog, and she teased him about spilling a whole bag of saline on the ER floor. He was very, very happy with their arrangement, but he was also very, very fucked. 

Because the other person whose guard was down, was Frank.

It made sense. He picked her up early in the morning, usually before his first Red Bull, and he dropped her off late in the evening, with a dull buzzing in his brain that often accompanied a long day at work. 

And when Frank wasn’t on his guard, Frank was calling Mel pet names.

She was polite enough to ignore it, most of the time — the occasional “g’morning, hon” that snuck out of his mouth at seven a.m. or the “tired, Melly?” that escaped him when she yawned in the evening. 

She still blushed redder than a tomato any time a “baby” got free, though, so he tried his best to curtail those. At the end of the day, though, Frank was ultimately still an indulgent, self-serving asshole, so he didn’t cut it out entirely. 

(At the end of a particularly long day, when they had both just worked a double, and Frank looked over to see her eyes glazed over, staring out his car window: “you doing okay over there, baby?” Just so he could watch the way she immediately fell back into her body, the way it made her shift uncomfortably in her seat, made her look over at him and bite her lip nervously as she nodded. Yeah. Frank was an asshole.)

Most of the time, he still tried to be good. He kept it to a minimum as much as possible, he had yet to slip up in front of a patient, or any of their colleagues, and he had not appeared to have said or done anything that scared her off too badly. If anything, they had gotten closer.

Their text chain was more than two messages long now, for example. Mostly it was just “hey, I’m outside” or “running a few mins late”, or other logistical things like that. But there was also the occasional picture of his kids or the dog thrown in there, sent to her on his day off to make her smile, or a text thread of her trying to convince him to watch a new reality tv show so he could explain it to her. (“It’s so confusing, Frank. Everyone’s always mad at each other but they never really say why?”)

So they were close now. Which is why it wasn’t weird at all, really, to be concerned when she didn’t answer his call one morning, and kept him waiting outside in front of her apartment for a minute or two longer than she normally did. Mel was punctual. Very punctual.

And it was also why Frank had no problem unbuckling his seatbelt when he saw someone headed for the apartment complex door. Flashing the same charming smile that he had once used to swipe pills, Frank slipped up behind them, calling out for them to hold the door for him.

He knew which apartment was Mel’s — he had helped her carry some stuff up, one time, when she had gotten a couple of packages delivered for Becca’s birthday.

Not weird at all for him to be knocking on her door at seven-thirty in the morning, calling out, “Hey Mel? You in there?”

When she yanked the door open about a minute later and he saw her standing inside, hair unbraided and frazzled, wearing a tank top and sweatpants, still rubbing sleep out of her eyes, he didn’t second-guess himself once before stepping into her apartment and closing the door behind him. 

“Well, good morning, sleepyhead.” He said, trying and failing to hide his obvious delight at the situation. “Running a bit behind today, are we?”

“I’m so sorry, Frank.” She said, sounding truly devastated. “I don’t know what happened. I thought I plugged my phone in last night, but I guess I didn’t, and it ran out of battery, so my alarm didn’t go off, and I didn’t get any of your texts, and I’m going to be so late—”

“Hey, Mel, Mel.” Frank walked forward, gripping onto her by the shoulders and giving her a reassuring squeeze. “It’s fine. Everything’s going to be fine. I’ll text Shen and let him know we’re going to be a few minutes late. I’m sure one of the night shift crew will cover for us. Just go shower, get ready, take your time.”

She shook her head rapidly at this, looking anxious. “No, you should go. I’ll take the bus this morning. I don’t want to make you late too; you’ll get in trouble.”

He couldn’t help but smile at that. “Melly, I was stealing benzos from patients for months. Of all the transgressions I’ve committed against this hospital, I highly doubt that being twenty minutes late to work is going to be the thing that does me in.”

She nodded at him, then, eyes wide and trustful, and goddamn if Frank didn’t want to just lean down and press a quick kiss onto her lips. He had to let her go, release her shoulders and give her a smile to resist the impulse.

“I’ll be so quick.” She promised him before spinning away, racing off down the hallway and disappearing behind a door. Frank flopped down on her couch, shooting off a text to Shen and receiving an immediate thumbs up emoji back, trying his best to ignore the strange sensation in the pit of his stomach that reared up a little stronger at the sound of a shower turning on.

True to her word, Mel was in and out of the bathroom in practically five minutes flat, her scrubs on, her hair braided behind her back but still wet, her glasses slightly askew on her face. “Okay, I’m ready!”

Frank sat up from where he had been laying back against her couch. “Already? We have time, Shen responded –”

“No, c’mon, let’s go!” Her voice was dangerously close to a whine as she grabbed his hand and tugged, pulling him towards the door, clearly in a rush. Frank let himself be dragged, feeling a bit giddy about it, trying to remember if she had ever initiated touch like this with him before. 

She dropped his hand once they were out of her apartment, fumbling around with her keys and the lock, and Frank waited patiently to see if she would pick it back up again, if he would perhaps be granted the distinct pleasure of holding Mel King’s hand all the way out to the parking lot.

She did not, though, hiking her backpack up her shoulders and speed-walking down the hallway towards the exit as soon as her door was locked. Frank sort of just stood there stupidly for a few seconds, not following behind her, his hand still tingling.

She glanced back at him, noticing he hadn’t trailed behind her. “Well? Are you coming?”

And Frank blamed the lack of caffeine in his brain for his next move.

Raising his hand back up between them, palm flipped up as if to show how empty it was, Frank pouted at her. (Grown men, doctors, should not pout, but Frank does a bunch of shit he should not be doing, so.) “You’re not gonna take me with you, sweetheart?”

It was worth it just to see the way a pretty blush spread out across her cheeks, the way she huffed and stomped back over to him, clearly a little annoyed, the way she actually rolled her eyes at him as she took his hand again and began to lead him down the hallway. Frank had never been more pleased with himself in his life.

They held hands the whole way down to his car (and it was most definitely holding hands, because he kept pace with her and tangled their fingers together), dropping it only when they reached the passenger side door and she climbed in. 

“If you drive fast, we might still be on time.” She told him as he buckled in his seat, chewing on her lip.

He hummed at her, adjusting his rearview mirror and putting the car into reverse, stretching his arm along the back of her headrest to look over his shoulder as he backed out of his spot. “Hm, how about I drive safe and then we’ll be fine no matter what?”

He heard her release a puff of air through her nose, like she still wanted to argue with him, but they spent almost half of every shift dealing with car crash victims so he wasn’t planning to compromise on that one any time soon. 

When he pulled up to a stoplight, he saw her release an enormous yawn, one that had her scrunching her whole face up like it had made its way up her entire body through her toes and out her mouth, and he chuckled lightly at her. 

“Still tired?”

“Yeah,” She blinked a few times, clearing her eyes out. “I’ll be okay. I normally have time to make coffee in the morning, but –”

“Here.” He said, grabbing the unopened can of Red Bull out of the cupholder and handing it to her. 

“Oh,” She said, looking down at the can but not taking it. “No, Frank, I couldn’t. That’s yours, you need it.” The light turned green and he focused back on the road, driving with one hand.

“Mel, c’mon.” He twiddled the can at her a little bit more, trying to convince her. “You know I’ve got like a whole case of these stashed away in my locker, I’ll just have one of those when I get in. You need this one more than me, clearly.”

“Okay,” She breathed out at him, taking the drink. He heard the crack and hiss of aluminum and carbonation as she opened it, and he snuck a quick glance in time to see her leaning down to sniff it.

“It smells sweet.” She told him, sounding surprised.

He laughed at the road in front of him. “Yeah, of course. What did you expect it to smell like? Spicy?”

“No, I–I’m not sure.” He could see her inspecting the label – holding it up in front of her and spinning it around, reading the ingredients listed out in fine print at the bottom. 

“You’ve never had one before?” He was turning into the hospital parking lot, now, stopping at the gate and pulling out his badge out to scan it at the entrance.

She shook her head. “I don’t try new foods very often.”

“Well, don’t worry about it if you don’t like it. They cost, like, a dollar, so.” He pulled into a parking space marked DOCTOR, putting his car in park and looking over at her just in time to see her take a small, hesitant sip of the drink.

He could tell the second that the syrupy, bubbly beverage hit her tongue, because her eyes squinted up behind her glasses, her nose scrunched together in that woodland-creature-turned-human-girl way that he adored, and she immediately pulled the can back, swallowing and coughing.

Frank had to hide his grin behind his palm.

“Good?” He asked, knowing full well that she hated it by the look on her face.

And Mel, ever sweet, ever eager to please, turned to him, gave him the most unconvincing smile he’d ever seen, and squeaked out, “Great!”

Frank threw his head back and laughed. “Oh my god, Mel.” He wheezed. “Your face.”

She stared down at the can determinedly, bracing herself and raising it to her mouth like she was about to take another sip just to prove something to him, but Frank grabbed her hand before it reached her mouth a second time. “Stop, stop, honey. It’s fine, you don’t have to like it, you won’t hurt my feelings.”

He was really on one this morning with the names, he knew that, but he couldn’t help it. He just felt so goddamn happy that they kept dripping out of him like a leaky faucet. 

“I don’t like being wasteful.” Mel said in a small voice, looking down at his hand wrapped around her smaller one. 

“It won’t go to waste,” He promised, meeting her eyes as she looked up at him. “I’ll drink it.”

It was innocent. It was so innocent, telling her he’d drink his own Red Bull after she took a singular, tiny swig of it. How many times had he shared drinks before with his friends, with his kids, with their other coworkers, even? 

Like when he was horribly dehydrated during a stressful shift and didn’t have time to grab his own waterbottle, so Perlah handed him hers. Like letting Garcia try whatever fruity cocktail he had ordered himself at the bar before he got sober, just to watch her pretend to hate it. Like a million little moments that he let happen and never thought about again.

But Frank wasn’t laughing anymore, and neither was Mel.

“But… I already put my mouth on it?” She told him in that same voice, quiet but a bit breathier around the edges.

“Yeah,” he agreed, embarrassed by how wrecked he sounded as he plucked the can out of her hand and brought it to his lips. “I don’t mind, baby.”

And if someone told him three years ago that the hottest moment of his life was going to take place at eight a.m. in the hospital parking lot where he worked, with all parties fully clothed and not touching, while he says or does nothing other than take a sip of a fucking Red Bull, he would not have believed them.

But then again, there he was, holding her eye contact as he took a long pull of the drink, watching the way her lids drooped, her pupils dilated, her gaze dropped to his Adam’s apple as he swallowed. He lowered the can from his mouth and her eyes traveled back up to his lips, and he wanted to show off for her a little, so he wet them – slowly – peeking his tongue out and dragging his teeth along his lower lip as it slid back out, tasting the energy drink on it.

He heard her breath hitch as he did it, the noise shockingly loud in the silence of his car, and it made his fist clench around the can a bit, enough to dent the aluminum slightly. 

They were silent after that, breathing and staring at one another in the suddenly small, suddenly cramped space of his car. Frank felt out of breath, like he was on the verge of doing something completely insane.

“Mel,” He began, and his voice was so low, so raspy that it made his cheeks feel warm, and he tried clearing his throat. 

“Mel.” He tried again, better this time, more normal, but she was still staring at him and his face still felt hot. “I really want –”

A rap on his window pane jolted them both out of it, and there was Mohan, peering into the window and smiling at both of them brightly. 

“Morning!” She said cheerily, her voice muffled through the glass, completely oblivious to the wildly charged energy they had accidentally created in the front two seats of his car. “Are you guys comin’ in?”

Frank was completely prepared to wave her off, tell her they’d be right behind her and turn back around to resume whatever interaction had been about to unfold with Mel, but he heard a car door open and when he looked back she had unbuckled and stepped out of his passenger seat, breaking whatever spell had been holding them there. 

He released a deliberately steady breath, pulling his keys out of the ignition before turning back around to Mohan. 

“Yup.” He said, reaching into the back seat to grab his backpack.

Shen did a double-take when he saw the three of them walk in together, giving Frank a clap on the back as he passed.

“Hey, man. Thought you were running late today?”

Frank tried to keep the bitterness out of his face as Mel scurried past him to the lockers, not looking back. 

“Yeah,” he sighed, taking another sip of the Red Bull, staring at the still-damp braid on the back of her head as it disappeared down the corner. “I thought so too.”

And then, because Frank’s day hadn’t already been weird enough, he was walking back out of a patient’s room with Mel, a case where he really had no reason to be supervising other than as an excuse to hover close by, when Dana spotted him from across the ER. Lowering the phone from her ear, she looked at him, and yelled loudly enough for everyone to hear:

“Langdon! Your wife called.”

Who? Frank almost responds, before he remembered the ring that he had never taken off, the divorce that he had never communicated.

Mel, who had finally been warming up to him again after the awkwardness of the morning, darted right off, snapping her gloves off and shoving them in the trash, muttering something about finding Robby. 

Frank bit down on his tongue in his mouth as he watched her run away again, feeling like the world’s biggest dumbass as he walked up to Dana and gave her a pained smile. 

“What’s up, Dana?” He asked calmly, rubbing hand sanitizer into his hands and wishing he could tear the ring off his finger right now and make a huge scene about it.

Dana covered the mouthpiece of the phone as she spoke, quieter this time. “Abby’s bringing the kids by for a little bit. Something about her sister going into labor? Says she’s been calling you and you haven’t picked up.”

This got his full attention. “My kids? Here? She knows I’m at work, right? In an ER? It’s not like I’m screening her calls; I’ve been saving lives over here.”

Dana scoffed, rolling her eyes at his dramatics. “Yeah, you’re a real fuckin’ hero, kid. Relax. It’s slow today, and she told me she has a nanny coming to pick them up in an hour anyway. I’ll put one of the new nurses on babysitting duty in the breakroom, they’ll love it.”

“Yeah,” Frank agreed absentmindedly, running a hand through his hair, suddenly stressed. “Yeah, okay. When did you say they’d be here?”

“Any minute now.” Dana must have picked up on his nervous fidgeting, because she lowered the phone fully from her ear, reaching out to place a hand on his forearm.

“Hey,” She said, using the soothing, motherly voice she reserved for tense moments. “It’s gonna be okay. This ain’t the first time this has happened, and it won’t be the last. We’ll take care of ‘em. Why don’t you head out to reception and wait for them to get here? We don’t need you on anything right now.”

And so Frank found himself standing outside the doors to the waiting room of the ER, bouncing anxiously on his heels and scrolling through all the unread messages on his phone as he waited for his ex-wife to show up with his two children.

“Thank god, Dana got ahold of you.” Was the first thing Abby said to him as she walked up from the parking lot, with Penny propped up against one hip and Tanner trailing behind as she gripped tightly on his little hand. She looked more harried than the last few times he had seen her, with her curly brown hair less polished than usual, wearing a pair of leggings and a ratty old sweatshirt that he recognized.

“Daddy!” Tanner squealed, yanking free from his mother’s grip to run to him.

“Hey, buddy.” He greeted, scooping him up in a big hug.

“Okay Penny, come on. You have to get down now so you can go with Daddy for a little bit.” Abby was saying to the tired lump of toddler in her arms, who simply shook her head and buried her face deeper into her mother’s curls.

“Here, I’ll take her.” Frank offered, setting Tanner down so he could hold his arms out to receive Penny, the little girl wrapping her arms around Frank’s neck tightly as they transferred her.

“Thanks,” Abby said as she was freed of the children, looking relieved.

“Yeah, sure.” Frank was still feeling sort of annoyed about it, and though he knew the adult thing to do would be to shut his mouth and not pick a fight with his ex-wife right outside the door to his work, while their two kids were standing with them, he couldn’t help himself. “Kind of crazy to be dumping them here in the middle of a shift, though, Abby.”

He kept his voice low, at least, low enough that Tanner probably couldn't hear him from where he stood, pressing his face against the glass windows and peering into the waiting room. Abby looked immediately exasperated with him.

“Yeah, that’s my bad, Frank, for not asking my sister to check your work schedule before she decided to have her baby. I’ll do better next time.”

He bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from scowling at her sarcasm. “The ER isn’t exactly a daycare. You don’t know what it gets like in there—”

“Obviously I do,” she hissed. “Which is why I called Dana, who assured me that you guys didn’t have much going on today and that it would be fine. Please give me a little credit.”

He sighed, shifting Penny in his grip, and Abby’s gaze dropped to where he was holding her. And Frank knew right then that if he had just walked away and not started bickering with her, that this never would have happened. But Frank was an asshole, and apparently insisted on learning everything the hard way.

“Is that your fucking wedding ring?” 

“Abby.” He said, looking down at Tanner pointedly, although he seemed distracted, watching all the chaos inside the waiting room. 

“Don’t Abby me right now, Frank. Why the hell are you wearing it?”

She seemed furious at him now, but was still leaning in close to keep her volume down, though anyone who looked outside at them would be able to tell they were arguing just by their faces and body language.

“I just—didn’t feel like talking about it with people here yet, okay?”

“We’ve been separated for over a year and a half! The divorce was finalized eight months ago!” Her volume was rising, and Frank shushed her to try and calm her down, which seemed to only incite her further.

“Take it off.” She demanded looking down at his hand like it had personally wronged her.

“What does it matter if I wear it while I’m here—”

“The kids are here, Frank.” He snapped his mouth shut, his grip on Penny tightening at her pointed tone.

“They—they don’t know what that means—” He argued weakly, already starting to lose his resolve.

“Yes, they do.” She said. “They know because I had to explain to Tanner why Mommy wasn’t wearing hers anymore after he wouldn’t stop asking about it.”

Frank felt a surge of betrayal at this news, but it was mostly overridden by despair. “You… you couldn’t have waited for me to be there for that conversation?”

Abby at least had the decency to look a little apologetic. “You’re not going to be there for every conversation anymore, Frank. Neither will I. That’s sort of the biggest downside to this whole thing.”

He swallowed a lump in his throat as he looked down at Tanner’s fluffy head of brown hair, his tiny hands pressed up against the glass window. 

“Right.” He said, feeling awful and sick as Abby stared at him with far more sympathy than he probably deserved. He cleared his throat to rid it of any croakiness, and then quickly, unceremoniously, reached up and slid the ring off his finger, dropping it into the pocket of his scrubs.

“There. All done. Let me know how your sister does, okay?”

Abby uncrossed her arms, stepping back with a sigh. “Yeah… I will. Keep your phone on you, alright? I gave the nanny Dana’s number too, just in case, but she’ll call you first.” 

Frank let her drop a quick kiss on both the kid’s foreheads and bid them a goodbye before she left. Grabbing Tanner by the hand, he steered them through the maze of people in the waiting room, up to the glass-paneled reception desk. 

“Hey, Lupe.” He leaned into the glass, watching the way the battle-hardened nurse’s eyes softened as she took in the children in his arms. “I need to take these two back to the breakroom for a bit. Is it all clear back there? Nothing they shouldn’t see?” 

“Give me one sec.” Frank had learned long ago that it was important to check first, before sending families back out through the Pitt and on their way. You never knew when there’d be blood and guts, or a wailing family member, or full-frontal nudity.

“You’re all good, doc.” She told him as she returned. “And I’m gonna be back there to meet them on my next break!” She called after him as he let them through the double doors into the ER.

He felt completely exposed, the discarded wedding ring burning a hole through his scrub pocket, and he was so certain everyone would notice it immediately and call him out on it, but the kids were a compelling distraction. They were intercepted three different times on the way to the break room, first by Perlah and Donnie, then by Dana, then by McKay.

Dana, saint that she was, had already prepped the room for them with juice boxes and toys from the family room by the time they got to it, and one of the younger nurses was already sitting there waiting for them to arrive. He took a few minutes to get them settled in before he heard his name being called by Robby, and then he told the nurse to come find him or Dana if they needed anything, anything at all, before ducking out to rejoin the fray.

The hour flew by after that, because they had a construction worker come in with a pretty gnarly electrocution injury, and by the time Frank’s leaving the trauma bay and pulling off his gloves, he was just in time to feel his phone buzzing in his pocket.

“Hello?” He answered, pressing his hand against his other ear to drown out the latent noise of the ER.

“Hi, Mr. Langdon? This is Amy. I’m here to pick up Tanner and Penny?”

“Yes,” he confirmed, feeling relief sink in as he began walking towards the break room. “Yes, I’ll be right out with them, Amy. Just give me a minute or two.”

The door to the break room was propped open slightly, and he could hear muffled voices coming from inside. He smiled as he recognized Tanner’s bright, bubbly giggle, followed by Penny’s smaller, rarer one. But as he got closer, he caught a glimpse through the crack in the door, and it wasn’t one of Dana’s nurses that sat in there with them, making them laugh and squeal. It was Mel.

His foot halted mid-stride as he took in the sight of them, Mel sitting on the floor with her legs stretched out, Tanner sitting next to her mimicking her position and gazing up at her with wide, awe-filled eyes. And his shy, sweet Penny–standing behind her, fiddling with Mel’s hair, which had been released from its braid and was hanging long and wavy down her back, Penny’s little clumsy toddler fingers running through it and no doubt creating snags. Their backs were to the door, so they couldn’t see him standing there, staring at them, frozen in place.

“Do you know my Daddy?” Tanner asked, knocking his shoes together as Penny hummed behind Mel’s head, flipping strands of hair together.

“Yes, I know your Daddy very well. He’s my best friend. Well, other than my sister Becca. She’s my first best friend, so I guess that makes him second best.”

Tanner nodded at this very sagely. “Penny is my best friend, too.”

“That’s good!” Mel said, smiling down at him. “Sisters make great best friends, I think.”

“What kinds of things do you and Daddy do together?” Tanner continued the inquisition, blinking up at her.

“Well, we work together. And he shows me how to do a lot of things, like how to be a better doctor. He’s a very good teacher.” Tanner nods in voracious agreement; Frank watches Penny tug sort of sharply on a strand of Mel’s hair and he sees her hand twitch in her lap, but she doesn’t reach up to correct her, just continues her conversation with Tanner.

“And he drives me places. To my house and to work. Which is very nice of him. And we talk about things on the phone sometimes, like our favorite tv shows or what we like to do on our days off.”

“Do you ever go to the park?” Tanner asks curiously.

“Um, no. We haven’t been to the park.”

He smiles at her brightly, like he’s so excited to have discovered a new activity for her. “You should come to the park with us. We have a dog, did you know that?”

“Yes, I did know that —”

“Hey Dad, is it pickup time?” Dana’s hand clapped against his back, jolting him from whatever trance had been keeping him rooted in place, peeping shamelessly into the break room, eavesdropping on his own children.

“Yeah,” Frank cleared his throat; it felt thick with emotion. “Yeah, I, uh—”

“Aw, would ya look at that.” Dana coo’d at Mel with the kids inside, squeezing him on the shoulder. “She’d make a good babysitter, yeah? Bit of an oddball, but she’s got a big heart. Kids like that sort of thing. They can tell, I think.”

Frank just hummed in response to this, because the only things he could think of to say ranged from “yeah, she’s perfect” to “yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m in love with her, actually” and none of that felt appropriate to tell a coworker who still thought he had a wife.

“I’d better go in there and grab them.”

Dana gave him a final goodbye pat on the shoulders. “I’ll make sure people keep things PG out here till they’re through.”

Steeling himself, Frank pushed open the door to the breakroom fully, rubbing his thumb over the blank skin of his ring finger as he did, feeling the noticeable absence of metal there.

“Hey guys,” He announced himself as he walked in, watching the way all three of their heads snapped back around to look at him. “Tanner, Penny, you ready to get going? Miss Amy’s here to take you back home.”

“Daddy!” Tanner immediately scrambled to his feet, running over to latch onto his hip. Penny however, appeared to be in one of her tough toddler moods, and only shot him a quick glance over her shoulder before turning back around, continuing to busy herself in Mel’s hair.

“Penny,” he said. “Doctor Mel has to go now, she has to get back to work. Tell her thank you and goodbye, okay?”

Penny huffed in response to this, ignoring him and combing her fingers roughly through Mel’s hair like she was one of her dolls. Frank cringed at the same time Mel did, watching Penny’s fingers get caught around a knot that she had no doubt created herself.

“Penny,” Frank was firmer with her this time, about to use his “I am trying to discipline you” voice, but Mel stopped him.

“It’s okay,” She said, smiling up at Frank and then back around at the little girl who had been terrorizing her scalp for god knows how long. “I can walk with you guys out front, if that would be okay, Penny?”

Frank watched the back of his daughter’s head nod in agreement, and then Mel pushed herself up off the floor, holding a hand out for Penny that got grabbed immediately. 

Frank felt lightheaded, like he was half in a dream as the four of them crossed through the ER, with Mel holding his daughter’s hand and Tanner still chattering up at her happily, like they had known each other for months or years and not thirty minutes. Both of the kids were blessedly compliant during the handoff to the babysitter, letting him buckle them both into the carseats without argument.

“Is she Elsa?” Penny whispered to him as he gave her seatbelt a tug, making sure it was on tight.

“Huh?” Frank asked, tracing her gaze over his shoulder to where she was still looking at Mel, giving her a small goodbye wave from the sidewalk. “Oh, no Penny. That’s Doctor Mel, Daddy’s friend.”

Penny shook her head at this, unwilling to accept this news. “No. That’s Elsa. She has Elsa hair.”

Frank just laughed, able to tell by her informative tone that his daughter was not taking alternative theories at this time. “Alright, maybe you’re right, honey. Be good for Miss Amy, okay? Daddy or Mommy will be by to pick you up later.”

With a final kiss on both of their heads, Frank stepped back onto the sidewalk next to Mel, watching the vehicle pull out onto the street.

“They’re really good kids.” Mel told him, watching him watch the car turn the corner and disappear from sight.

“Yeah,” Frank agreed, finally turning to look at her, to take in her wavy, loose hair and wide, earnest eyes. “My daughter thinks you’re a Disney princess, you know.” 

I think she might be onto something. He wanted to add, but did not.

“Really?” Mel asked, a wide smile growing across her face. “Which one?”

“Elsa from Frozen.”

Mel nodded, as if this was sensible. “It’s the braid, probably.”

Frank gave her a crooked half-smile. “Think it might just be the whole general vibe, honestly.”

He could tell this comment had confused her by the nose wrinkle and blink he got in response, but Frank just shook his head fondly at her, turning her by the shoulders and steering her back towards the front doors to the waiting room. “C’mon, princess. Let’s get back out there and finish this shift.”

“Oh,” Mel said. “I’m not sure about that one, Frank.”

Frank’s responding laugh was one of pure delight.

After months and months of continuing to wear his ring at the hospital post-divorce, Frank was so certain that the second he took it off every single one of his coworkers would ask about it. Walking in every day with a bare ring finger felt like sending out a homing beacon, alerting everyone in his vicinity that something was amiss, announcing, “Hey! This guy’s marriage failed!”

But it takes two consecutive weeks before anyone says anything, and when it happens it’s so awkward and anti-climactic that he feels like such an idiot for putting it off for so long.

It’s Mohan that notices, after they had just finished putting a chest tube in a patient and had them wheeled off to surgery, and they’re both breathing hard and sweating and peeling off their blood-splattered paper scrubs.

“Oh, no, Langdon!” She exclaimed as she pulled off her goggles, looking horrified. Frank’s attention snapped to her, heart racing again as he immediately assumed they had forgotten something vital, bracing himself to go chase after the gurney and get the patient back in the trauma bay.

“Your ring!” 

Frank felt a combination of both relief and dread wash over him as she pointed down at his left hand, which immediately flexed under the attention. 

“You must have accidentally tugged it off when you took off your gloves, or something.” Mohan fretted. “Hold on, I’ll help you look through the biohazard–”

“No, it’s fine, I, uh…” He cut her off, trying to decide how he wanted to say it. He could feel Princess staring at the back of his head as he began to stammer, and even Robby appeared to perk up by the hand sanitizer station.

“I don’t wear it anymore.”

There was a long beat of awkward silence after that, with Mohan staring at him, processing. 

“Oh.” She said eventually, weakly, looking away from him. “That’s good, then. That – that you didn’t lose it, I mean, not that–”

“Yeah, got it.” Frank could feel his face heating up in embarrassment, and even through Mohan’s darker complexion he thought he could see a slight discoloration there.

“Alright, guys.” Robby’s gruff, authoritative voice saved them from their joint humiliation. “Let’s get back out there. Plenty more patients to save.”

And that was that. 

He knew that with Princess there, the news about his divorce would likely become hospital-wide knowledge before lunch, and so he prepared himself to answer prodding questions and weather some judgemental, curious glances. But nothing ever came of it. 

None of his colleagues treated him any differently, no one pestered him for sordid details, and even Santos and Garcia had the tact to not make any cracks about it, at least in his presence. This was all really best-case-scenario stuff for Frank, except for one small thing. 

Mel didn’t seem to even notice.

Or if she did notice, she didn’t say anything to him about it, which was somehow even worse. Frank knew he was being a bit of a coward about the whole thing, that if he just sacked up and initiated the conversation himself it would all be over, but he was incapable of not second-guessing himself every time the moment seemed to present itself to him.

As it was, he tried to be as obvious as possible every time they were alone together. He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel loudly in the mornings, he reached up across his body with his left hand any time he needed to adjust the mirror, he took every spare opportunity to pass her scalpels or trauma shears, hoping at some point he’d watch her look down and do a double-take. 

Frank felt like he was wearing a neon sign on his forehead that screamed ASK ME ABOUT MY DIVORCE, blinking brightly at her, begging for her attention. 

But she never took the bait, and so he came to the unfortunate conclusion that he had misread the situation rather egregiously, and resigned himself to simply pining after her for however long it would take for the all-consuming, ever-growing ache in his chest to go away. And of course, he couldn’t stand to ignore her, or avoid her, or do absolutely anything that might hurt her feelings, so he was forced to just suffer through it.

It felt fair, anyway, after everything he had put everyone else in his life through. For him to have karmic punishment come in the form of a joy-filled, kindness-radiating, never-done-anything-bad-before-in-her-life kind of woman that he kept losing sleep over.

He had been ringless at work for about a month and a half and had already pretty much settled into the acceptance phase of his journey with regards to the Mel situation when he got a call on his cell at eleven o’clock at night, with the screen flashing the name Mel King across the front.

He picked up before the second ring, unlocking the screen and raising the phone to his ear. “Mel? Everything okay?”

She never called him this late. She rarely called him at all, really, but never this late.

“Yeah,” her voice sounded a little off, but it was reassuring to hear it regardless. “Yeah, sorry for–I know you’re probably with your kids. I just–you left your badge here. On the kitchen counter. And I know you’re working a shift tomorrow, so I thought you might need it.”

Frank had gone up to her apartment after he dropped her off today to grab a package that he had had delivered there. Frank’s new place didn’t have a mailroom the way Mel’s did, and packages that sat out for too long in front of his door had a habit of disappearing. When Frank had complained about the porch pirates in his building, Mel had happily offered to let him ship stuff to her.

Frank ordered almost everything on Amazon now because it gave him an excuse to come up to Mel’s apartment after work each day under the pretense of grabbing his packages. And so what if he almost always lingered for another thirty or forty minutes afterwards, chatting with Becca, stretching out along her couch, helping her do the dishes from the night before? He wasn’t hurting anyone but himself, he reasoned.

“Ah, shit.” Frank said, feeling secretly pleased with this new turn of events. Abby had the kids tonight, so there was nothing stopping him from driving over to her place right now. He should have thought to start forgetting stuff at her place weeks ago. “You’re right, I do need that. I’ll be there in a few.”

“You could just come get it in the morning, if you’d rather?” She offered, voice high and tinny through the phone.

Frank frowned, already pulling on his shoes. “Melly, tomorrow’s your day off. I’m not gonna make you wake up early to let me in. It’s fine, I’ll just swing by quick and grab it.”

“Okay. Alright. Just text me when you’re here and I can run it down.”

“Sure.” Frank agreed, knowing full well that he wouldn’t be doing that. She had given him the entrance code to her apartment complex after the late-to-work fiasco of a few weeks ago, and Frank had used it liberally since then. 

Which is probably why she didn’t look terribly shocked when she answered the door about ten minutes later, informing him with a stern, furrowed brow, “I told you to text me.”

He gave her a deeply innocent look as he stepped past her into her apartment. “Yeah, but I figured you’d already be comfortable up here. Didn’t want you to ruin that on my account.”

The light subterfuge had already paid off, because he was being treated to the sight of Mel in her pajamas, with her hair down, which was a rare delicacy for him. 

“Whachya been up to tonight?” He knew that Becca wasn’t here tonight, that it was one of her nights at the facility, and he found himself deeply interested in learning whatever it was Mel spent her time doing when she was alone.

Mel hugged her arms around herself as she turned her back to him to walk into the kitchen. It was a move he had seen frequently enough to recognize it as self-soothing, which usually also meant anxiety. “Nothing, really. Stress cleaning, I guess?”

Frank frowned, following behind her into the kitchen. “Has something been stressing you out, baby?”

He watched her shoulders lift up at the question as she stood at the counter, still not looking at him. Frank stepped in closer, giving her a grounding sort of touch that he knew she was typically comfortable with – a soft hand at her upper back, rubbing small circles with his palm. It didn’t seem to help as much as it normally did, the tension not leaving her body.

“Hey,” He said, keeping his voice low as he leaned forward against the counter to try and get a look at her face. “What’s wrong?”

She was covering her eyes with both hands, hiding from him like she only did when she was feeling her most overwhelmed, and Frank’s mind was racing with worst-case-scenarios. 

Becca was sick. Mel was sick. Mel was moving away. Mel was sick and Becca was sick and they were both moving away.

Instead of answering him, instead of putting his mind at ease, she dropped one hand to the counter, fumbling blindly for his forgotten work badge. When her fingers made contact, she pushed it to his chest, mumbling a “here,” that got muffled behind her palm.

Frank grabbed it from her, feeling stunned, but when she tried to pull her hand away, back to her face, he didn’t let go, holding it against his chest, right above his heart. 

“Mel,” He tried again, grabbing her other hand and pulling it off of her eyes so he could see her, finding her face wet with tears. “You’re scaring me. Can you please just tell me what’s going on?”

He placed the second hand against his chest, angling her so she was facing him directly instead of the counter. She still seemed incapable of looking at him, so he released her fingers and cradled her face instead, tilting it up until she made eye contact with him, finally. 

“Fuck.” He breathed when he saw her red-rimmed, tear-filled eyes, wiping away the wetness on her cheeks with his thumbs. “Why are you crying, love?”

This seemed to be the wrong question, because she closed her eyes again and a fresh tear leaked out, collecting under the pad of his thumb. He wanted nothing more than to lean forward and collect the moisture under his lips, kiss it away.

“Frank,” she whispered, her fingers clutching against his chest as the metal clip from his badge dug a bit deeper into his skin. 

“I think I need you to start calling me Doctor King.”

It was so not what he was expecting her to say that it took him almost a full ten seconds to even process it. Once he did, the rejection was like a punch to the gut. It actually felt physically painful, the intensity of it, and it made him drop his hands from her face and pull back a step, his badge clattering on the tile floor as her hands fell from his chest.

“Oh.” He said, the word coming out strangled. 

Mel looked beyond devastated as she watched him, wrapping her arms around herself again like she wanted to curl up and disappear. 

“I’m just getting really confused.” Her voice sounded so broken that even through the excruciating haze of her spurning, he felt the need to comfort her. 

“No, it’s okay.” He assured her, backing up another step to put more distance between them. “I – I’ve been pretty unprofessional. I mean, you didn’t even want me here tonight, so–”

Mel made a noise at that, like a cut-off sort of moan. “No, Frank. No. That’s not what I’m saying, it’s not you, it’s–”

“Me?” Frank finished for her, shooting her a bitter, self-hating smile. “It’s fine, M–Doctor King. You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

“You have a wife and kids, Frank!” It was the closest he had ever heard her come to yelling. Her volume was pitched up and she spoke with urgency, but her tone wasn’t one of anger. It was anguish. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair that I have to spend all day thinking about you when I can’t have you. It’s not fair of you to make me feel like you might want it, too. I just – I just need this to hurt less.”

She spun back around from him, walking towards the sink and taking shallow, rapid breaths as she dropped her hands to the edge of the granite, pressing her fingertips tightly into the stone and bowing her head down. 

Frank felt like his mind was moving through mud as he made sense of her admission. The pain in his chest did not ease as he watched her, shaking as if on the precipice of a breakdown. Recklessly, he crept closer, not stopping until her back was to his chest. 

When he reached out his left hand to drop it down on top of hers, he felt her tremor under him. 

“Mel.” He said, ducking his head down to rest his lips against her hair, not quite a kiss. He pulled her hand up off of the countertop, moved it so it was right under her nose. Waited a beat until he knew she had opened her eyes, had seen his hand in hers.

“Melissa, I don’t have a fucking wife.” He told her, rubbing his empty ring finger back and forth over her hand, listening to her quiet gasp. “I’m yours.”

She turned around to face him again, and he braced both hands against the countertop behind her, boxing her in. “I don’t understand,” She breathed, eyes wide and desperately hopeful as she looked up at him.

“Sorry,” He answered, their faces so close that he was practically inhaling her exhales. “Let me explain it to you, then.”

They both sighed when their mouths finally met, the sensation of it so immediately revelatory that he wondered how the hell he had possibly gone his whole life without experiencing it before. He knew they both had a lot more talking to do — explanations, apologies, expectations. But he figured that could wait until after he had learned what the shape of her mouth felt like under his tongue, what sort of noises she made when he let the barest hint of teeth brush against her bottom lip, how tightly her hands gripped his waist when he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her flush against his chest.

She pulled away before he could coax her lips open with his tongue, and Frank made a pathetic, whining noise as he chased her with his mouth, running his nose and lips over the curve of her jaw as she panted, catching her breath.

“Frank,” she said breathlessly, bringing one hand up to the back of his head as he mouthed at her jaw. “Is—is this okay?”

He laughed deliriously into her skin. “Isn’t that my line?”

She tugged him back, pulling on his hair gently until he reluctantly removed his lips from her and looked into her eyes. “It’s just–you’re sure you want this?”

“God, Mel. I’ve never wanted anything more.”

Her responding smile was still too hesitant around the edges for his liking, still holding something back, unwilling to accept that he had truly reciprocated her feelings. Frank dropped his forehead to hers, and her eyes fluttered shut for a moment.

“I’m in love with you.” He confessed quietly as he brushed their noses together.

Her eyes shot open at that, and she pulled back to study his face carefully. Frank nodded at the unspoken question in her eyes. 

“Yeah,” he confirmed for her. “That’s what’s going on for me, so.”

She was the one to close the distance between them, that time, falling against his lips with a renewed fervor and intensity, clutching at his shirt, his hair, his biceps, whatever she could grab. 

He laughed at her enthusiasm, unable to stop himself, the elation simply pouring out of him. 

“Me too.” She gasped into his mouth. “It’s what’s been going on for me too.”

“Fuck.” He said, still almost laughing as he moved his head down to suck at the skin on her neck. “I’m gonna need to hear you say that properly later, love.”

He heard her suck in another breath at this, the hand running through his hair stalling slightly.

“Frank?”

“Hm?” He hummed at her as he pressed his mouth to her pulse, feeling the way it thrummed rapidly under his lips and tongue.

“Would you–would you call me…” she sounded nervous, trailing off, and Frank pulled back to look at her.

“Call you what, Mel?” He asked, rubbing his hands up and down her arms soothingly. 

She was blushing, suddenly, and he could tell she was struggling to say whatever was on her mind. He pressed a small kiss along the top of her cheek, just under her eye. 

“What is it? You can tell me. It’s just us.”

This seemed to release some of her tension, and she leaned into him more, tangling her fingers at the hem of his shirt and tugging again. “Can you call me what you called me before?” 

He smiled at her. “Of course, love.”

He went to go in for another kiss, but she stopped him, drawing back. “Not that one. The other one.”

Frank’s brows pulled in, thinking, trying to remember which of the myriad of different endearments that ran on a constant loop in his head he had actually verbalized to her lately. 

“Baby?”

He could tell that he nailed it by the way her lids dropped, her eyes glazed over, her fingers pressed against his stomach through his shirt. 

“Yeah?” He asked, holding onto her as she swayed. “Is that the one, baby?”

She let out a little whimper, her fingers slipping down into the waistband of his jeans so she could pull his hips closer. 

Jesus fucking Christ.

Frank thought he might die, looking at her. Her pupils were blown and her mouth was parted and she was looking at him like he had just been fucking her into a mattress and calling her a dirty little slut, or something — not like he had just called her the same benign little pet name he’d been using for months on end, in his car, at post-shift happy hours, at their fucking work.

This girl was fucking made for him.

“I’m going to take you to your bedroom, now.” He informed her. “Any objections?”

She shook her head rapidly at him, already grabbing him by the hand and beginning to pull him out of the kitchen, down the hall where he knew the bedrooms were. “Or you can take me, that works too.” 

She practically shoved him in, making sure to shut the door behind her despite the fact that they were the only people in the apartment. Frank pushed her up against it, desperate to get his mouth back on her, sliding his hands under the thin cotton of her tanktop before tugging it off over her head.

“You’ll tell me if I do anything you don’t like.” He told her as his fingers skimmed the bottoms of her breasts. “Or if you want me to stop.”

“Don’t stop.” She insisted, as if he had been threatening to.

He took this as permission to bow his head down, to press his lips against her breast and take a nipple into his mouth, flattening his tongue against the hardened tip of it as she moaned out his name. The sound of that drove him a little wild, and his hips canted forward, pressing the hard line of his cock against her lower stomach, seeking friction.

He pulled back when he felt her begin to fumble at the button on his jeans, dragging her away from the door and steering her towards the bed until both of them fell onto it in a tangle of limbs and heavy breaths.

Mel, who had only been wearing pajamas, was already far more undressed than him, so he aided her in her quest to disrobe him by knocking off his shoes and pulling his shirt over his head while she focused on unzipping his pants, pushing them off his hips.

He hissed as she got a hand around his cock, her fingers almost unbearably warm and tight even through the fabric of his boxers, and he wriggled his pants the rest of the way off his legs as she squeezed at him experimentally.

“Fuck, baby.” He groaned into her neck, unable to stop himself from thrusting into her palm.

He didn’t miss the way that her thighs clenched together at the name, her fingers tightening around him slightly.

“Tell me how to make you come.” He dragged his fingers down the bare skin of her chest, her stomach, stopping at the waistband of her sweatpants, tracing the line there. 

He made her look at him, then. Cupped a hand behind her neck and squeezed lightly to get her attention up to his face. He propped himself up on his elbow, resting on his side so he could get a good look at her, squirming and wriggling and grabbing for his cock.

“Tell me what you like, please, Mel.”

She pulled her lip between her teeth and he waited patiently, his fingers still teasing at her waistband but going no further. 

“Your–your fingers, please.” She said very politely, and Frank rewarded her with a small kiss on the temple as he moved his hand down into her sweatpants.

“You can have my fingers, baby. Thank you for being so sweet about it.”

She whined loudly at him as he felt her through her underwear – light, teasing touches only, hearing her get worked up, feeling how damp she already was through the fabric.

“Now what, hm?” He asked, watching her eyes flutter rapidly at him. “Are you gonna show me what to do next?”

She was blushing so fiercely that the color was making its way down her chest, and she released his cock to rest her hand over his through the fabric of her sweatpants, pressing down on his fingers and maneuvering them until he was on her clit. Frank thanked god, secretly, for the fact that she was no longer touching him, because he knew that if he had been forced to endure this next part with her hand still wrapped around him, he would have most likely spilled into his boxers.

As it was, he was already throbbing as she began to guide his fingers into small circles over her clit, using his limp hand to get herself off. 

“Oh my god, Mel.” He said, voice guttural, no longer able to play it cool. “Is this how you look when you touch yourself, honey?”

She whimpered, her eyes pinching shut at the question, and Frank squeezed the back of her neck again with his fingers. “Open your eyes for me.”

She complied immediately, her mouth popping open as she pressed his fingers down a bit harder. 

“Is this going to be enough for you?” He watched her carefully, memorizing the way she looked with her pupils wide, her focus locked on him. “Is this how you want to come or do you want a little more?”

She gasped as he twitched his fingers independently of her, keeping with the pace that she had set for him. “More.” She told him, floating her hand up to tug at his hair now that he was no longer seeking her guidance. “More, please, Frank.”

He hummed in acknowledgement, lowering his forehead down to rest it on hers as he dragged his hand up and slid it into her underwear, groaning softly as he felt how wet and warm and soft she was. 

“Is this for me, baby?” He asked as he coated two fingers with her wetness before bringing them back up, resuming his attention on her clit. 

Mel made a noise at him, a whimpering helpless one, and it was Frank who had to shut his eyes this time as his hips moved, in serious danger of coming untouched.

“I’ve got you.” He whispered as he leaned down to kiss her, releasing a little bit of the intensity of their eye contact. “You’re mine, Mel, I’ve got you. Let go.”

He felt her thighs clench around his hand, her body tensing up underneath him, and he quickly slid one finger into her just in time to feel her body spasm and tighten around it, squeezing and gripping him as she rode out her orgasm. 

Frank’s hips rolled against her side as he kissed her through it, eating up her noises of pleasure as he rubbed the tense muscles in the back of her neck, massaging them lightly with his thumb. He waited to take his finger out until the last of her shudders stopped, pulling his head back and bringing his hand up, pausing until she opened her eyes so he could make sure she watched him suck his finger clean.

“Oh.” She said thinly, already sounding half-spent. “Condom, Frank. Condom now, please.”

He grinned down at her, taking a guess and leaning over the bed to open up the drawer on her nightstand, finding a few loose condoms stashed in there. He sat up enough to pull off his boxers, his cock pressing up against his stomach as he rolled the condom down onto it.

He settled back down over her after she finished shedding her sweatpants, hovering his bodyweight above her on the bed and giving her a few soft kisses along the tops of her cheeks. 

“I need you.” She muttered, growing impatient with him. “I need you, I need you.”

“I’m right here.” He reassured, reaching down to position his cock, dragging it through her wetness a few times before lining it up at her entrance. 

He began to press into her slowly, giving her time to adjust to it, gritting his teeth as he fought the urge to sink into her in one forceful thrust. Mel resisted his careful pace, throwing her head back as she tugged at his hips, trying to urge him into her faster.

“Hold on,” He warned her, his hips stuttering as she writhed beneath him. “I’m trying not to hurt you, sweetheart.”

“You won’t.” She promised him, lifting her hips so he sank deeper, making his eyes roll back a bit. “You won’t. You don’t have to be gentle with me.”

“Jesus fuck.” Frank groaned loudly into her neck, falling to his forearms as he brought his hips down flush with hers. She practically sobbed up at him as he began to thrust into her, babbling yes and please and harder and even a fucking thank you that made Frank feel like he was actually going to perish.

“You like it kinda rough, huh baby? You want me to fuck you nice and hard? You want me to make sure you feel it tomorrow? What a fucking good girl you are for telling me that.”

He had no idea what he was even saying to her anymore. He was just letting whatever wild shit spill out of his mouth as he felt his orgasm approach with a speed and urgency that would have made him mortified, had it not been for the rising tenor of Mel’s noises leading him believe she might not be far behind him. He lifted his head up to look at her, trying to watch for it on her face, see how much longer he’d have to hold off.

She was crying a little, a single tear leaking out of the corner of one of her eyes. Frank felt a bit sick for how his hips slammed slightly harder at the sight, how his orgasm crept closer. He buried a hand into the roots of her hair, close to the scalp, pulling her head to the side so he could lick the tear off her cheek, a vulgar imitation of what he had wanted to do earlier, in the kitchen, when the tears had meant something different.

“Frank,” Mel keened, arching up under him. “Please, please, please.”

Frank let go of her hair to wet his fingers in his mouth, dropping them back down to her clit. 

“Mel, look at me.” He demanded, waiting for her eyes to focus on him, hazy and blissed-out. “It’s time to tell me properly, now.”

He watched her realize what he meant, watched her eyes roll back as he continued thrusting, continued touching, continued to drag another orgasm out of her. “Mel, please. I need to hear you say it.”

His hips snapped to hers, and she gasped roughly. 

“Oh my god,” She said on a singular inhale, scratching her fingers down his back as the force of her orgasm hit her. “I love you, Frank, I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Frank came like that, his vision whiting out as he bowed his head down and listened to her repeatedly sob her devotion into his ear. He pressed her down into the mattress as she shook beneath him, the intensity of his release prolonged by the clenching waves of pleasure that seemed to course through her endlessly.

They were both panting as they began to come down from it, Frank’s senses returning to him one by one as he made sure not to crush her underneath of him, pressing one final, firm kiss onto her lips before he rolled off. 

The room was silent other than the sounds of their breathing, both beginning to slow. 

“Love you too, Melly.” He said groggily up to her ceiling, hoping to make her laugh.

He heard a giggle and turned his head to the side to look at her, grinning at his success.

He always thought she was very pretty, but he felt briefly stunned by how truly beautiful she looked right then, with her cheeks flushed and her lips kiss-swollen and her eyes bright and smiling at him.

“I can’t believe that just actually happened.” He admitted, reaching a hand up and tucking her hair behind her ear.

“Me neither.” She said, closing her eyes as he petted her gently.

“I can’t believe how much you like it when I call you baby.” He teased, giving one of her strands a light tug. The giggle she gave at this was softer, and he could hear the exhaustion in it. Frank couldn’t quite relate, felt like he was riding a high that could have kept him up for four more hours and several more rounds, but he knew that it was late, and he had a shift to wake up for in the morning.

“Come on,” he said, sitting up and lifting her up with him. “Let’s get you ready for bed.”

“You’ll stay?” She confirmed, sounding anxious as she let herself be guided off the bed.

“‘Course, honey. I’ll stay as long as you want me.”

She kissed him softly, sweetly before she disappeared down the hall to the bathroom. When she came back she was wearing a new set of pajamas, her hair seemed brushed, her face a bit damp like she had washed it. She crawled under the covers, turning off her lamp and burrowing up next to him. 

Frank wrapped an arm around her, closing his eyes and dropping one last kiss on the top of her head, feeling the exhaustion finally hit him.

The last thing he heard before sleep finally took him was her voice, small and quiet in the dark room, whispering to him, “Goodnight, Frankie.”

In the world’s most hilarious turn of events, Frank was not the one to eventually get them in trouble for the names at work. 

It happened at the end of a particularly long and arduous shift, with most of the team milling about in an empty trauma bay having just stabilized and sent off a stabbing victim for surgery. They were all exhausted and chatting sort of mindlessly as they cleaned up around them, waiting for the final five minutes of their shift to end and the night shift crew to arrive and relieve them.

It was bad luck, really, that Mel picked the exact moment that the conversation lulled to look over at him, bleary eyed, and say, “Frankie honey, can you pass me those charts?”

The way it drained all of the oxygen out of the room, the way every head snapped to her, the way the silence was so immediate and total that you could hear a pin drop… Frank held his breath as he watched Mel’s eyes widen, watched as she realized what she just said. 

“I… I mean… D-Doctor Langdon?” 

The eyes all slid over to him. Frank grabbed the clipboard off the cart without even looking down at it, stretching his arm out to hand it to her. Her face was bright red. He thinks his probably was too.

“Here you go, Doctor King.”

She snatched it from him, clutching it to her chest and ducking her head down to hide her face. Frank looked around the room at his colleagues, all still staring at them silently, wearing expressions that ranged from shock (Mohan, Whittaker) to amusement (Javadi, McKay) to devious delight (Santos, Princess) to just regular old bone-dead exhaustion (Robby, obviously). 

“Goooodd evening party people! The nocturnal creatures have arrived to—” Shen cut off as he barged into the room, finding it silent and tense. “Oh shit, did someone just die in here? That’s my bad, you guys.”

Naturally, it was Santos who spoke up first.

“Sooo are we gonna talk about that, or…?” She asked the room, giving a slightly mean-spirited giggle. Frank could just about rip her throat out when he sees the way Mel’s shoulders curl in a little more at the sound.

Thankfully, Robby intervened so he didn’t have to. “Yes.” He said, jolting out of his stupor and pulling off his gloves. “We will talk about it. In the morning.” The “we” was accompanied by a gesture between Frank, Mel and himself only. “The rest of you will clock out and go home.”

Nobody moved for a second, and Robby raised his eyebrows at them. “Now.”

Everyone scrambled to comply, filing out of the trauma bay in a mass of tittering whispers. Frank cornered Robby as the room cleared out, casting a worried glance back at Mel who hadn’t moved yet. 

“Robby, dude. It’s not what it looks like–”

“Oh, Jesus.” Robby sighed wearily. “How many times are you going to give me that line, Frank?”

Frank felt a little bit offended by that. “Okay, harsh? This is hardly–”

Robby held up a hand, backing out of the trauma bay doors. “I said in the morning, Doctor Langdon. Right now, I’m off the clock.”

The doors swung shut behind him, leaving just him, Mel, and Shen alone in the room. 

“What did you do this time, Langdon?” Shen asked, taking a loud slurp from his coffee. 

Frank waved him off. “Would you just… give us a minute?”

Shen shrugged, like he couldn’t care less, and walked back out of the room. Frank approached Mel cautiously, nervous about the fact that she hadn’t moved yet, that she was still just rooted into place, staring at her feet and hugging the patient’s charts against her chest.

“Mel?” He asked, putting his hands on her arms. She seemed to un-tense a little at his touch, and Frank took a second to pry the charts away from her, setting them back down on the rolling cart. “Mel, sweetheart, would you look at me?”

When Mel looked up at him, her eyes were anxious and sparkling with unshed tears. “I’m sorry, Frank.” She whispered. “I didn’t mean to get us in trouble.”

Frank would have laughed if he wasn’t so worried about her. “I really think you’re overestimating how much they’re going to care about us dating. We’ll probably have to meet with HR tomorrow and file some paperwork, but other than enduring some nosey gossip over the next few days, I highly doubt there will be any sort of actual ramifications."

She sniveled. “Yeah?” 

He smiled at her, leaning down to give her a quick peck. “Yeah, love. I promise. Now c’mon, let’s go pick your sister up and get home.”

Later that night, he was stretched out across Mel’s couch with Elf playing on a low volume in the background when he got a text from Robby.

“Your meeting with HR is scheduled at 8 tomorrow morning. Should I be forwarding you the workplace relationship form, or the workplace harassment form?” 

Frank’s thumbs practically flew over the screen as he typed in his response. “We’re dating.”

“Glad to hear it. That’s a lot less paperwork for me.”

The meeting with HR in the morning was bearable, albeit a bit awkward. Gloria attends, which he knows is somewhat distressing for Mel, but he assures her that it likely has more to do with his notorious reputation around the hospital than it does with the actual incident. They hand in their workplace relationship forms, receive a brief lecture about professionalism, and are sent on their way.

That night, as they were laying in bed together, Frank made Mel a promise.

“Listen,” He said, carding his fingers through her hair as her head rested on his chest. “It’s gonna be hard for me to not dote on you all the time, but I’ve been thinking about it. I have an idea.”

She lifted her head gently to look at him. 

“They said it was fine for us to do first names, right?” He continued. “So I was thinking that when we’re at work, I can be Frank, and you can be Mel, but if it ever gets hard…” He ducked his head down, kissing the tip of her nose. “I’ll call you Doctor King.”

Mel released a happy hum at this. “And I’ll call you Doctor Langdon?” 

“Exactly right, sweetheart. So smart.” He squeezed her tightly around the waist until she let out a squeaking giggle. 

So that was their compromise. Most of the time, at work, they were Frank and Mel. 

But occasionally, maybe a few times a week, he was Doctor Langdon; she was Doctor King.

(“Those are some beautiful stitches you’ve got there, Doctor King.”)

(“Oh, was that you that refilled my water bottle? Thank you, Doctor Langdon.”)

(“How are you feeling? Why don’t you go take five, Doctor King. There’s lunch in the breakroom.”)

“Jesus Christ.” Trinity snapped at them one day after Frank was soothing her in the post-adrenaline haze of her first successful pericardiocentesis. (“You did amazing, Doctor King. It was like you had done it a hundred times.”)

“You know we all fucking know exactly what you guys are doing.” Santos complained at the two of them as she pulled off her gloves and threw them in the biohazard bin. “I think at this point, we’d all just rather hear boo-boo bear, or whatever the hell it is that you call each other when you’re alone.”

Giving them one final eye roll, she pushed out of the doors, leaving them alone and smiling awkwardly at one another, caught. 

“Oops.” Frank said, not feeling particularly remorseful. “We can stop, if you want. It was fun while it lasted.”

Mel shook her head, giving him a wry smile. “I think… I think I actually don’t care what Santos thinks of us. I don’t want to stop. I like it.”

“Oh my god,” Frank replied, glancing at the door quickly before swooping down and giving her a brief but firm kiss on the mouth. “Am I a bad influence on you, Doctor King?”

Mel giggled at him, heading for the doors as he followed dutifully behind her. “Come on,” She urged as she stopped to grab a bit of hand sanitizer. “Let’s get back out there… boo-boo bear.”

Frank thinks they probably heard his laugh all the way up in the OR.