Work Text:
"Mel, wake up."
"Mel...baby..."
Mel woke up with a start when she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. As she flinched away the hand disappeared immediately, guilt washing over her just as quickly. Groggily, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and stumbled into the bathroom. She didn't bother to turn the light on; the sickly blue glow from the nightlight plugged in by the mirror told her everything she needed to know as she leaned against the bathroom counter and took stock of her appearance. She was dressed only in her underwear and a Pittsburgh Penguins t-shirt that was so long on her that it more than made up for the lack of appropriate pants. There was a thin sheen of sweat on her skin and when she looked into the mirror she cringed; her face was puffy and tear streaked, clearly the reason why she had been woken up. She had been crying in her sleep again. Mel sighed, exhausted, as she splashed some water on her face and opened the bathroom door. From the lack of light she knew it had to still be the middle of the night, so she walked the familiar path back to bed and crawled in, facing away from the other body occupying it.
"Do you wanna talk about it?" She heard softly from behind her, voice low and rough with sleep.
Mel shivered and shook her head, not sure if it was visible in the darkness of the bedroom, but she was still feeling fragile and didn't trust her own voice not to betray her and start back up the flow of tears.
"Can I...?"
Mel nodded this time, and she felt a pair of muscled arms wrap around her from behind, pulling her in close. She let loose a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding and drifted back to sleep, clinging to the strong arms that held her.
When Mel awoke again, it was to the sun streaming through the bedroom window and the smell of coffee drifting in through the partially open bedroom door. She got out of bed and wandered down the stairs, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she followed the scent of coffee into the kitchen. As she padded into the room on bare, quiet feet, she saw Frank Langdon standing with his back to her, shirtless and leaning against the kitchen island as he drank deeply from a cup of coffee.
It had been happening more often lately; the two of them waking up in each other's beds. It wasn't like that though, as much as their coworkers would assume it was if they knew, which is exactly why they didn't. It wasn't like that, but it was like something. Frank was wildly good looking and so incredibly kind, and Mel was neither blind nor stupid enough not to be attracted to that, but surely he didn't feel that way about her. Yes, there were many mornings when they woke up in each other’s arms after having fallen asleep on opposite sides of the bed after a late night watching movies or playing board games, but everyone craved human touch sometimes. Yes, Mel had added him on as an authorized person to pick up and drop off Becca from the center she stayed at shortly after they visited on Halloween, but that was just practical. And sure, they were almost always together when their days off lined up, from their budding Saturday pizza night tradition with Becca, to their Sunday morning farmers market outings and trips to the park with Tanner and Penny, to movie and game nights throughout the week, and sometimes simply sitting around making dinner and enjoying each other’s company, but that was only since Frank had heard Mel’s concerns about needing to find who she was again with more time on her hands and wanting to help her figure that out, just like she had helped him find his place again after rehab. She could see how from the outside looking in it could seem like more, but their friendship was too precious to risk for the nameless thing that encroached on it, so they didn't talk about it. Mel was too guarded for that anyway, and at this point she wasn't sure how not to be.
Mel could tell Frank hadn’t heard her coming from the way he still stood facing away from her, eyes closed and head tilting as he listened to the music playing through his AirPods. She decided to try her luck, creeping closer to hear what he was listening to. Frank had such an eclectic taste in music that it could be literally anything, though Mel noticed that around her it was usually something a little softer than the chaotic playlists he had for when he was running or driving to work.
We'll do it all, everything, on our own
We don't need anything or anyone
Mel recoiled slightly, taking a step back to compose herself. It was a good song, she was still just feeling a little too emotionally raw to hear it this morning. After a few deep breaths she walked over to him, hopping up to sit on the kitchen counter that was now behind her. Frank noticed her then in his periphery and smiled indulgently, taking out his AirPods and setting them on the counter before moving to stand between her knees and resting his head on her chest, her heartbeat replacing the music in his ears. Her arms came around him instinctively, the fingers of one hand playing across his vertebrae like the keys on an instrument and her other hand carding through his hair. Mel had never been much for casual physical touch, her body tensing when someone with minimal sense of personal space approached her, but with Frank it was different. From the beginning he had sought comfort from her in a tactile way – tentatively at first, aware that it was not something she allowed from just anybody – and it surprised her how much she immediately welcomed it when it was him. She was as soothed by the deep pressure therapy of his body engulfing hers like a man-sized weighted blanket as he was, though she had never expressly admitted it.
Frank hummed against her chest then, content with the ministrations of her hands against his back. He tilted his head to look up at her with adoring blue eyes, his expression open and relaxed.
“Good morning,” he murmured. “How are you feeling?”
“Good, I’m good,” she answered with a small smile. It was a lie, but one that came easy, even with him. She felt a twinge of guilt at that, but it was instinctive for Mel to shield those around her from her problems and emotions at this point in her life, and it didn’t take a doctor to figure out why. She was used to being the problem solver, both personally and professionally. Every day she gave out well-meaning lectures on caregiver burnout and emotional regulation to family members who were at their wits end in the ED with their loved ones, reminding them how if they didn’t find a way to take a break their body and brain would force them to take one eventually with no mind for if it was an opportune time. She never quite figured out how to take her own advice though.
Frank, to his credit, didn’t look like he entirely believed her but chose to let it go in favor of pressing a warm mug of coffee into Mel’s hands, a concoction with the perfect coffee to creamer ratio for her preferences, and topped with whipped cream. Mel had never been much for caffeine, but switching back and forth between night and day shift lately had her relying on it more than usual. Frank watched her take the first sip, a smear of whipped cream left behind on the tip of her nose which she promptly licked off, a move which caused him to let out a small, strangled sound as he gripped the counter behind him. The smile Mel gave him this time was amused and sincere as she hopped off the counter to head back upstairs and shower so they could start their day.
They didn’t have much planned, on account of Mel having to head into work for night shift later on, just a trip to Trader Joe’s for a few ingredients for the dinner they wanted to make later that week, and some snacks for when the kids came over. “Domestic”, McKay had called them once when she caught Frank looking a little too invested in the grocery list Mel was writing on a scrap of paper in between patients, pointing out things on the list she could check off since he had picked them up already without mentioning it because he knew they were out, and reminding her of things to add that Becca and the kids had been asking for last time they were over.
“Frank, the kids don’t even eat fruit snacks” Mel had chided when he picked up a pen and scribbled the item sideways on the list.
“No but I eat fruit snacks.” Frank had replied with his big blue eyes set to puppy dog mode.
“Ah yes, the lunch of champions, fruit snacks and a Redbull.” Mel had retorted with no real bite behind it, glancing sidelong at the can sitting in front of him on the desk.
“Are you sure you two aren’t dating? Secretly married?” McKay had guessed jokingly.
Mel failed to see how either of those would be a bad thing or particularly funny, but maybe it wasn’t supposed to be and this was just another joke she was on the outside of. She liked their life, each of them picking up any slack left behind by how busy they each were.
“Nope, none of the above,” Frank had said easily, saving Mel from the almost certainly awkward way she would have responded if she had been left to her confusion.
“Are you sure? You two are just so…domestic.” McKay had said, gesturing at the grocery list.
“Is domestic…bad?” Mel responded, curious to see if there was an angle to this she hadn’t been considering.
McKay’s eyes had just crinkled fondly. “Domestic suits you” she answered, patting the desk as she walked away to tend to an anxious patient with gallbladder issues.
Fruit snacks. Frank had underlined, raising his eyebrows at her as he went off to find a patient of his own to take on.
Mel had just shrugged, folding the grocery list and sticking it in her scrub pocket. She did indeed remember to pick up fruit snacks on the way home that day.
Mel remembered the exchange fondly as she showered quickly, leaving her hair loose to air dry and throwing on light wash jeans and a teal t-shirt before coming back downstairs where Frank was already ready and waiting. He had transferred her coffee to one of the many travel mugs they owned between the two of them that seemed blended between both of their apartments at this point, and gestured to the doorway.
“Your chariot awaits” he said jokingly, since by chariot he meant his blue SUV with the car seats in the back and the graham cracker crumbs wedged between the seats, along with a various array of stray Barbie dolls and soccer balls and general kid detritus. Mel and Frank were thankfully both very tidy people inside the home, but the car was another story. Where she kept her ancient Jeep clean and empty of anything but the essentials (an extra sweatshirt, jumper cables, a first aid kit, a towel, and leash from all the times she had come across stray dogs running in the road), Frank was content to let his car descend into chaos. It had grown on Mel though, admittedly. She thought it was a good metaphor for the way the inside of his brain must look like, from the way he was always jumping from one thought to the next.
Mel listened to Frank talk animatedly about his latest hyperfixation as he drove. Something about the aerodynamics of skipping rocks and maybe Tanner and Becca would want to try it with him the next time they all went to the park? Mel smiled at him indulgently; of course Tanner and Becca would skip rocks with him, they would do anything he asked. The two of them looked at Frank like he hung the moon and the stars. Becca adored having an adult other than Mel in her life who was so obviously invested in finding ways to spend meaningful time with her, and Tanner was a little boy so of course he idolized his father. Frank didn’t take that admiration for granted though and it warmed Mel’s heart to see, just as it healed a piece of her she often didn’t realize needed the healing when Penny chose to stay back and snuggle in her lap instead of joining them on whatever quest they came up with, content to suck her thumb and wind her fingers through Mel’s hair as they watched.
When they pulled up to the Trader Joe’s, Frank jogged around to open Mel’s door and she could feel herself blushing. She still wasn’t used to being taken care of even in these random little ways that seemed second nature for Frank when it came to her. She was always torn between the slight uncomfortability of accepting something she didn’t feel like she deserved after a lifetime of going without, and the thrill of having it anyway. She grabbed a cart, content to push it around and gather the items on the list while Frank flitted around in her orbit tossing other things in the cart as he came across them. Mel liked Trader Joe’s because their products didn’t have red dye 40 and therefore didn’t set off the neurodivergence of anyone in the household, and the store was smaller and consequently less overwhelming than other grocery stores. Frank liked it because there was always some fun new snack or flavor of an item to try, and he was easily influenced.
Mel grabbed a carton of eggs, opening it and checking for any cracks before setting it gently in the cart. Frank liked making himself scrambled eggs and bacon on mornings when he got up early enough to go for a run before work. Mel herself usually just nibbled on the bacon and a piece of toast. Thwack. A box of PB&J Oat Bites landed next to the eggs. Okay, reasonable, that did actually sound like a good quick breakfast to grab when they were running late to work. Mel let it go without comment.
Next she selected a package of fresh asparagus, digging around to find the ones with the thinnest stems since they were usually the most tender and didn’t run the risk of that awful woody texture. Mel reached for a bag of baby potatoes too, thinking that tomorrow she’d make those crispy parmesan roasted potatoes Frank always gave such high praise for. Thwackthwackthwackthwackthwack. Five Sour Apple Cherry Fruit Leathers landed chaotically on top of the rest of the groceries in the cart. “One for each of us to try!” Frank insisted at Mel’s raised eyebrow. A smile teased at the edge of her lips, endeared despite herself by his enthusiasm.
Making her way over to the meat section, Mel picked out two steaks for them to make for dinner with the asparagus and potatoes the following night when they both had off. She and Frank both liked their steaks cooked medium rare, so she gave attention to making sure the two she chose had the same thickness to make the timing as convenient as possible. She also grabbed a pack of bacon to go with the aforementioned eggs. Thwack. A frozen bag of Spicy Alfredo Fusilloni Pasta landed in the cart.
“Frank!” Mel laughed, unable to help herself. “What even is this?” He just shrugged faux casually and Mel picked up the bag. “Giant fusilli pasta with a creamy gochujang sauce…Frank you don’t even like spicy food!” She exclaimed, but she knew even as she said it that that wasn’t the point. The point had been to make Mel laugh, and as usual Frank had strategically succeeded. Since the first shift they worked together on the day of the Pittfest shooting, Frank had always seemed to have a sixth sense dedicated entirely to when Mel was in an off mood and how exactly best to fix it. That day it was some time alone with a patient’s emotional support dog followed by a motivational speech and picking 1000 pieces of gravel out of a wound. Today it was the most revolting combination of pasta flavors either of them could have concocted. “STEMI with me, Mel”, “This is a tough place for sensitive people, but we need them badly”, “How are you feeling?”, “Do you want to talk about it?”, “One for each of us to try!”. They were all starting to sound more and more like “I love you”. Mel had her walls up too high yet to hear the actual words or believe they could be true from a man as good as Frank and he seemed to know it so instead, until something pushed them past the threshold, she got weird noodles and flavored fruit strips and coffee with whipped cream on top in the mornings and words that danced on the edge of something more. Privately she thought the reverse was true too; Frank had come a long way with his sense of self worth since rehab and no longer seemed to be hanging quite so desperately on every scrap of approval he could scrounge up from those around him and Mel was endlessly proud of him for that, but she knew he still struggled sometimes to feel worthy of something that burrowed as deep into the wounded parts of his soul as the word love. She saw it in the momentary confusion when he realized the mundane tasks he had never expressly said he hated completing – folding laundry, going to the pharmacy, mopping the floors – seemed to magically turn up finished before he could get to them. She saw it in the way she caught him staring at her in open mouthed wonder when he stopped running around at the park with Tanner and Becca long enough to notice Penny curled up trustingly in Mel’s lap as Mel pointed out the baby ducklings in the pond. She saw it in the surprise that still flitted across his face when he opened his lunch box in the break room to see that Mel had snuck something more nutritious than fruit snacks and a Red Bull in there along with a note saying she believed in him or some similar sentiment. Mel wasn’t the only one still not quite pushed over the edge into being able to accept the worthiness of giving or receiving the love they each were finding increasingly creative ways of doling out. She looked at him then, beaming at her reaction to the pasta, looking for all the world like momentarily breaking Mel out of the cloud that had hung over her lately was the best prize he could be given. “Thank you, Frank.” Mel said sincerely, still holding the noodles and hoping her thanks reached far deeper than that. When he smiled back at her, she knew he understood.
“Always”, he responded simply.
The rest of their grocery shopping trip was uneventful, and when they got home they unpacked everything and made a quick lunch out of some leftover veggies and chicken from the other night before Mel went upstairs to take a nap before work. She knew Frank would probably go for a run or something else that got him out of the house so he wouldn’t wake her while she slept. Indeed, Mel heard the front door close before she drifted off to sleep and she smiled at the predictability and consideration of it all.
She woke up a few hours later in time to get dressed for work and throw her hair in its usual braid. As she walked down the stairs to grab her lunch and tell Frank she’d see him after work, she heard her sister’s voice intermingling with his over the sound of running water. Mel rounded the corner and saw the ipad propped up on the kitchen counter, Becca’s face on the screen as she showed Frank a Lego project she had been working on while he did the dishes from earlier.
“Hey Becca” Mel said, coming up behind Frank so Becca could see her as she grabbed her lunch out of the fridge.
“Hey Sleeping Beauty” Becca teased. Frank must have told her Mel had been asleep.
“That’s Rapunzel to you” Mel responded, tossing her braid over her shoulder and earning a laugh from Becca.
“Have a good night at work!” she said as Mel walked towards the front door.
“Have a good shift, I’ll see you in the morning” Frank called out simultaneously from where he was standing in the kitchen doing the dishes, smiling at her as she headed for the door. She saw Becca wave to her on the ipad screen and Mel waved back to both of them. It was a nice feeling, Mel thought, to know this is what she was coming home to. “And hey…Mel?” She turned back to Frank from where she already had the doorknob in hand. “Be safe, okay?”
Mel smiled back. “I’ll do my best” she said simply as she closed the door behind her.
“I’ll do my best” was safer than “I love you”, which is what was always on the tip of her tongue these days instead when she shut the door to leave for work. It pressed up against her lips when he saw the way he looked at her. She found herself bursting with it when he did any one of the many thoughtful things that seemed second nature for him these days; making her coffee just how she liked it, always doing the dishes since it was her least favorite chore, picking up food from her favorite restaurant whenever she’d had a long day. But Mel kept the sentiment trapped under her tongue. It was easier to let things go on this way than to rock the boat and risk it all.
I don't quite know
How to say
How I feel
Those three words
Are said too much
They're not enough
Mel tried her best to push her feelings down as she drove and steel herself for the grating environment of emergency medicine. Not that Mel didn’t love it, she did. The constant chaos created a type of white noise behind her as she worked methodically through her patients. It was just that some days it took a little more effort than others to switch into that mindset of being ready for a barrage of the worst that the greater Pittsburgh area had to offer. Today was one of those days. She didn’t like keeping things from Frank and she rarely did it intentionally, but sometimes she still just didn’t know how to let him fully into her world when she was struggling, and today she was. It was a habit, for Mel, more than it was an intentional choice to keep herself at arms length on some things still, even from him. Delving into her past, into the things that broke her and shaped her, was always tricky for Mel. She always left the conversation feeling wrung out and uncomfortable, and she usually regretted it with most people. It was easier to just let the past be the past. That’s what she told herself anyway, as she pushed through the ambulance doors to start her shift. She shook off her heavy thoughts and flung herself into the fray, shoving her backpack in her locker and jumping in to help calm and examine an elderly man who had been found wandering quite a ways from his memory care facility, cold, confused and mysteriously bloody. Dispatch called in shortly after his arrival, having worked their magic and found where he came from, which enabled them to get a name and access to his medical record.
Mel clicked into his chart. Luckily he had been a patient there before, and fairly recently, so what they had was likely up to date. “Edgar Zwicky, 83 year old male with a known history of dementia, takes warfarin and allopurinol daily.”
“That explains how bloody he is from what appears to be very minor injuries.” Dr. Ellis said in response. “Edgar, we’re gonna get you fixed up and back home, okay?” she said in a slightly louder voice for his benefit.
Edgar smiled dazedly in response.
“I got this Mel, should be a quick one, how about you go see what else we got?” Dr. Ellis said, addressing Mel again.
She nodded in response and began the soothingly monotonous task of whittling down the number of patients that got brought back from triage. A kid with a pneumatic cough. An unhoused woman with a rash. A man who had gotten hurt at his factory job and needed his hand x-rayed and workers compensation paperwork filled out.
Around 2am as she was exiting the break room after eating a protein bar and some baby carrots, Mel was cajoled by Dr. Abbot into helping with a 3 year old girl who needed stitches because she had busted her chin open on her dad’s headboard jumping on the bed.
“Just…come in there and talk to them. The parents are divorced and can’t get along and I hate getting in between this shit but they’re too busy arguing for me to even get in there and stitch her up. I’ll be in there all night, but you’re basically the people-whisperer, this is gonna go way quicker for you than me.” he reasoned, and Mel agreed to it, if only because she knew he was right. Dr. Abbot was good at many things, but handling emotionally charged situations delicately was not always one of them.
As they approached the room, Mel heard what Dr. Abbot was talking about.
“Why was she even awake, it’s two in the morning!” a shrill female voice said.
“I don’t know, she woke up and came in by me, I thought if she got some energy out maybe she’d fall back asleep!” an exasperated male voice answered.
“Got some energy out in your bed??” the female voice yelled.
“Jesus Christ Suzanna what do you even mean by that, you cannot possibly–”
“Hey!” Dr. Abbot snapped, stepping into the room, and Mel quickly moved into the silence that his command had created in a way that her own voice was never quite as efficient at, opening up the chart and addressing the parents.
“Mr. and Ms. Alvarez. I know it’s scary when your child is hurt, and I know it’s easy to jump to conclusions when you’re scared, especially when trust has been broken in other ways between the two of you. But I need you both to step back for a second and think.” she paused meaningfully. “Do either of you truly believe that the other one would ever intentionally put Josie in harm’s way?”
There was a beat of chagrined silence before Mel was met with matching mumbles of “Well...no”.
“Excellent. That’s what I thought. And you should both be proud of that; not all kids are lucky enough to have two parents who care this much. So let’s put the rest aside and get her stitched up so she can go home and get some sleep, okay? I think everyone could use that.”
Both parents looked at their daughter as she let out a well timed yawn. They nodded in Mel’s direction, looking properly mollified.
Dr. Abbot looked impressed, and Mel decided not to tell him she had really just recycled a speech she had given Frank and Abby when she got sick of them arguing in front of Tanner after the first time he had fallen off the monkey bars at the park and needed stitches after their divorce.
Instead she just got to work, quickly stitching up what was actually a pretty small laceration and sending them on their way with discharge paperwork for the parents, and some stickers for Josie.
“Good job Dr. King. I can always count on you to settle down the more emotional cases.” Dr. Abbot praised her, exiting the room as she did and snapping off his gloves.
Mel basked in the praise as she always did, thanking him as she moved towards the hub to see what was still waiting. She was feeling pretty good about herself by that point in the shift, proud even, that she had pushed through and had a relatively normal day despite her own inner turmoil. They still had to make it through the influx of post-bar close drunks showing up with their vomiting and fights and the occasional drunk driver, but Mel was optimistic that it wouldn’t be too terrible on a Tuesday.
Later she’d decide it was the optimism that jinxed her.
“Trauma Red incoming, two minutes out, all available hands to Trauma Two.” Lena’s voice crackled out of the overhead speaker. Normally Mel would rush right over but she was already standing in front of the charge desk anyway, so she took a minute to investigate as she got gowned and gloved.
“What is it?” She asked when Lena hung up the phone.
Lena didn’t even look up from where she had immediately started filling out the red trauma response sheet to manually log which departments had been paged, who had responded to said pages, and what their ETA would be. “42 year old male, self inflicted gunshot wound to the head, doesn’t really sound like EMS knew what the fuck to do with it but his daughter found him and she’s hysterical so they’re transporting.”
Mel felt sick. Her face was hot. Her hands were cold. She wondered vaguely if she was actually about to pass out.
“Well that’s fucking awful” she heard from behind her, and for once thank God for Trinity Santos and her knack for popping up everywhere, because her eavesdropping presence over Mel’s shoulder snapped her out of it enough to be useful again, reaching over and tying Santos’ gown where she had been struggling to reach. Neither of them said anything else as they left Lena to her ringing phones and turned to enter the eerily empty trauma room ahead of the imminent arrival of their patient.
Moments later she heard sirens that cut off abruptly as the ambulance pulled into the bay. Almost immediately the rattling of the gurney followed, narrated by the paramedics starting to give report before they had even fully entered the room.
“...entrance wound at the right temple, exit at the back of the head on the left side, agonal respirations started as we arrived, GCS of four.”
Dr. Abbot and Dr. Shen assisted the paramedics in transferring the patient to the bed. His mouth hung open and a horrible rattling sound emanated from it. Dr. Shen immediately began CPR and Dr. Santos moved in to bag the patient while Dr. Abbot prepared the supplies necessary to intubate.
Agonal respirations are often mistaken for snoring and are taken as a good sign by family members that a patient is breathing effectively, when in reality it is a dying reflex and is the body’s final attempt at getting oxygen to the brain when death is imminent. Mel thought to herself, self-soothing by way of clinical facts.
“...his teenage daughter heard the shot and called 9-1-1…9mm handgun found next to the body…” the paramedics continued giving their report to whoever was still listening, and Mel absorbed only pieces of it.
Dr. Walsh breezed into the room then and everyone made room for her to consult on what, if anything, could happen that would do more than prolong what seemed inevitable.
She bent over to look at the exit wound on the man’s skull. “I see grey matter. Why did you even bother paging me? Let neuro know his isn’t surgical. There’s nothing I can do. Dr. Shen, you can stop; even if you got his heart pumping his brain isn’t coming back from this.” she said definitively, standing back up just as a teenage girl in sweatpants and a bloodstained tank top burst through the doors, police officers on her heels.
“Nothing you can do?! What do you mean there’s nothing you can do?!” she screamed desperately, eyes wild as the attention of everyone in the room snapped to her. Mel wanted to come up with something to say, something to soften the blow, but she was rooted to the spot, meaningless platitudes stuck in her throat. “Aren’t you all supposed to be doctors?! What am I supposed to tell my sister?! She doesn't even know this happened. She doesn’t know…” the girl trailed off, gasping for air, and a female officer came around in front of her to block her view of the man laying on the table, guiding her out of the room with hands gentle but firm on her arms. Mel could hear snippets of what the officer was saying as she wrestled her out the door and away from them all.
“You did everything you could…we’ll find a way to tell your sister…nothing you could have done differently…”
Mel thought this must be what Hell was like.
“Well, you heard Dr. Walsh. Time of death, 3:43am.” Dr. Abbot said solemnly, beginning to unhook the wires connected to the man’s chest and turn off the telltale flatline droning of the monitor. Just like that it was over before it could start. They all began exiting the room in various states of shock at the sudden turn their otherwise calm Tuesday night had taken. Even Santos didn’t have a witty quip or snide remark to break the tension as she exited the room, nudging Mel along to do the same.
Mel looked desperately at Trinity as she stripped off her gown and gloves, ripping them from her skin as though they were burning her and stuffing them haphazardly in the bin outside Trauma 2. The numbness of the situation was fading now that they were out of the room, and it was replaced by a tidal wave of emotion that Mel could feel herself being swept away in. “I can’t…” She started, searching Trinity’s face for something she herself couldn’t name. Trinity seemed to recognize it though, a shadow of it in her own eyes as she nodded to Mel, her lips closed in a thin line and looking as serious as Mel had ever seen her.
“Go, I’ll cover for you.” She said decisively.
Mel didn’t have it in her to ask if she was sure, she simply sprinted away, pushing through the bathroom door and sinking to her knees as she vomited what little she had managed to eat during the shift into the toilet. Her hands shook as she emptied her stomach, sweating and anxious. It was all just too much.
Once she was certain she was done heaving up bile, Mel wandered meekly into the on-call room, where she sat on the bed staring numbly at the lock screen on her phone. It was a picture of her, Frank, Becca, Tanner, and Penny when they went to the zoo recently. Penny was in Mel’s arms clinging to her like a koala, her thumb in her mouth and her fine hair up in two pigtails that Mel had teased it into that morning, while Tanner stood in front of them with his hands out like claws, roaring like the tiger he had gotten his face painted as. Becca stood smiling brightly on one side of Mel holding a stuffed platypus (“did you know they sweat milk and have venomous claws?” she had asked them very seriously), and Frank was on the other side of Mel with one arm around her, looking as content and settled as she had ever seen him. After an indeterminate amount of time, Mel snapped out of her dissociative stare and thumbed shakily into her recent contacts. She hit ‘call’ next to Frank’s name before she could let herself overthink it and reason her way out of it.
“Mel?” Frank answered the phone within the first few rings sounding sleepy and confused, which was fair considering it was four in the morning. With a rush of fondness Mel realized that the fact that he answered at all must mean he had her contact info saved in a way that would cause it to break through his Do Not Disturb settings he switched on at night. Of course he did.
“I—” Mel found that she couldn’t get out more than that, and suddenly she was terrified that Frank would think it was a pocket dial and hang up.
He didn’t though. Of course he didn’t.
“Mel, honey, hey, are you okay? Are you hurt?” He very suddenly sounded completely awake, his voice both probing and soothing. It was the voice he used when Tanner fell off his bike and cried big alligator tears as he came running up the driveway needing to be held and for Frank to reassure him it was just a scraped knee, nothing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle band-aid couldn’t fix.
“I—no—I’m” she managed, her breaths coming shallow and shaky as a whine escaped her. She was hanging on by one frayed thread at this point. This is what she got for not following her own advice. For lying. For keeping the few people she loved at arms length. This was her prize.
“Deep breath baby, I’m on my way.” Frank said decisively, and she could tell that he was, the jingling of car keys and the slamming of a door in the background showing that he meant it.
Ten minutes. It took ten minutes to get from Frank’s apartment to the hospital. Mel knew the route as well as she knew the one it took to get to her own front door. Ten minutes. Probably less with how rattled he seemed on the phone. Mel felt immediately guilty, but it was overshadowed by how desperately grateful she was for any minute shaved off the time it would take him to get to her.
The door to the darkened on-call room opened then just a crack and Mel could see Trinity poke her head in to check on her. When she heard Frank’s voice on the other end of the phone where Mel had put the call on speaker she nodded and clicked the door quietly shut again.
“You still with me?” He said gently.
“Mmhmm” Mel answered weakly, hot tears starting to roll down her face.
“Good, you’re doing so good, I’m almost there” Frank soothed. He kept up the string of praise and reassurances Mel wasn’t sure she deserved until she could hear him put the car in park. “I’m right outside honey, I’m coming in to get you now.”
Mel wasn’t sure if he ended the call or if she did, but minutes later he was walking in the door, tamping down his nervous energy for her sake and looking relieved enough that she sported no visible injuries that he seemed like he might pass out. As he sank to his knees in front of her though, the relief was replaced with a fresh wave of worry at the despondent look on her tear-stained face. He brought his hands up to cradle her face and visibly resisted voicing his questions, saving them for later and instead pulling her to him and rocking her gently.
“Let’s go home” he whispered into her hair.
----
Almost as soon as he got her into the car she was out cold, mouth hanging open as her head lolled against the window. Frank tried to get it out of Santos what had happened — he figured she must know since she seemed to have been waiting for him when he got there and led him straight to Mel — but she genuinely didn’t seem to have a clue, and he believed her. There was still some tension between the two of them on a good day, but there was no trace of that tonight, bar for maybe a sidelong glance or two that was more her sizing up his ability to care for Mel than anything else, and he respected her for that. She told him that they had lost a patient, but the loss itself didn’t seem to be what got to Mel. After all, it wasn’t uncommon for them to lose someone in the ED. No, Santos said that something had been wrong with Mel from the moment the page came over the intercom and Lena told them what was coming, and things had been too chaotic for her to ask Mel what exactly about it was making her look like she wanted to crawl out of her skin until it was all over with and Mel couldn’t seem to get away fast enough. She had covered her patients until she could step away and let Dr. Abbot know that Mel needed to go home, and by the time she checked in on her she had already been on the phone with Frank. He thanked Santos for her efforts and promised to check in later, shutting the car door softly as he started it up and drove them home.
Mel was still dead to the world when they pulled up to Frank’s apartment — he thought about taking her to her own but his was closer and what was the difference at this point, really? — and he took a moment just to look at her. The hollowed out circles under her eyes, the exhaustion etched in every crease on her face, the half undone braid. He’d noticed the downtrend in her normally bubbly personality over the past week or so, the slouched way she had begun holding herself when she thought he wasn’t watching, but every time he asked her about it she insisted she was fine, which left very little for him to do aside from hold her when she woke up at night crying and try to show her in every way he could that he was there whenever she was finally ready to come to him with whatever it was. Now, he supposed, was that time. There was a brief moment where he was hit with a jolt of fear that he somehow was the cause of her decline — maybe his addiction was too much for her after all even though he was over a year clean now, maybe this life they had been creating wasn’t what she wanted for herself, maybe she was working up to telling him that she didn’t want him in the way he so obviously wanted her — but he quickly tamped it down and walked around the car to open her door.
“Baby, we’re home, can you walk inside for me?” he cajoled softly, not wanting to startle her awake.
She blinked up at him, seeming confused as to how they had gotten there, but once she recalibrated herself she unbuckled and followed him inside. She toed off her shoes at the door and walked directly into the master bedroom with its en-suite bathroom and began changing out of her scrubs. She left them in a trail behind her as she entered the bathroom, which was odd all on its own. Mel was almost religiously a “laundry goes in the hamper” person. Frank hesitated at the edge of the bedroom door, not sure which side of it he belonged on. There was no protocol for this, no precedent. This was uncharted territory. Did she need his help? Did she want it? She looked back at where he stood in the doorway and he followed her into the bedroom as though tethered by her gaze. He couldn’t quite see her anymore from where he stood as she had entered the bathroom, but he heard the water turn on as she stepped into the shower. Frank sat down on the bed, wanting to stay close in case she needed anything but not intrude if she needed a moment. Anyway, what was he going to do, wash her hair? Actually, who was he kidding, he would absolutely wash her hair if she asked him to. He would do just about anything for the woman who had so thoroughly made herself at home in his heart. He cared so deeply for her and it killed him to watch her weigh out the amounts that she allowed herself to rely on himself or anyone else for that matter. He knew there was a story there, something more than habit behind her independence, but he never pushed. She meant too much to him to risk chasing her further back inside of herself by prying. Frank knew she would open up when she was ready, and he saw her getting closer and closer each day. He noticed the increase in comfort she sought from him, the everyday ways she allowed herself to rely on him showing up for her whether it was allowing him to be on the list at Becca’s center or asking him to pick up groceries on his way home instead of insisting on doing it herself. He tried valiantly to stay nonchalant as her “see you later”s and “thank you”s became thinly veiled resistance against saying something more.
Frank heard the shower turn off and got up from the bed then, unable to stay still. He tossed her scrubs in the hamper before opening his own dresser drawer to take out one of his softest t-shirts, and opened one of the drawers belonging to Mel and grabbed out a pair of her underwear. He set both on the bathroom counter before drawing a heart in the condensation on the mirror and laying back down on the bed, propping himself up against the headboard. He had already thrown on pajama pants and a t-shirt when he had left to go get her, so he was comfortable as he settled in and dimmed the lights.
Mel came out of the bathroom in the t-shirt he had laid out for her, and Frank waited for her to choose if she wanted to curl up on her own side of the bed or seek him out when she joined him. He never wanted to push her into accepting physical touch when she was feeling vulnerable, despite the fact that they had reached a point that they touched frequently and casually now under normal circumstances, an honor that was not lost on Frank and one he considered with pride; Mel didn’t let just anybody into her space like that.
She got in on her own side of the bed at first, but immediately crawled over to him and wordlessly nudged his ankles apart so he would widen the space between his legs to accommodate her, laying herself down on top of him so her head was tucked just under his chin and they lay chest to chest. He had fallen asleep on her just like this countless times, usually as they watched a movie on the couch, but it was a rare treat when she did it to him, becoming his own living, breathing weighted blanket. He tossed a blanket over them – just a light one so she wouldn’t get too warm – and smiled despite himself, bending his neck to kiss the top of her head, breathing in her floral shampoo. He could feel it as she used the rise and fall of his chest to regulate her breathing and he concentrated on keeping his own respirations steady for her to emulate even as his heart was beating out of his chest. In. Hold. Out. Hold. He wanted her to let him in so badly. He could feel that they were on the edge of a precipice, and there was little else in Frank Langdon’s life he had ever wanted as badly as he wanted for the scales to finally tip in favor of Melissa King fully opening her heart and her trust to him.
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me
And just forget the world?
In. Hold. Out. Hold. He lay there breathing deeply, waiting her out with every ounce of patience he possessed, until finally she spoke, though the words weren’t entirely what he expected.
“Have you read The Body Keeps The Score?” Mel asked him hesitantly, as though she had been questioning where to start.
“Yeah, that was one of the books you brought me in rehab, wasn’t it?” he answered, hoping she was pleased that he remembered.
“Yes.” He could feel the small smile quirk her lips where the side of her face was pressed against his neck, and it felt like he had won the lottery. “I never quite believed in all that; the body keeping the score. I know there’s…a science behind your body holding onto things, but it was all too abstract to believe until I realized that’s exactly what was happening to me.”
Frank had to make a conscious effort to keep his breathing even in case Mel was still regulating herself off of it. He absolutely refused to let her down even in this. In. Hold. Out. Hold.
“Every year around this time, I feel myself start to get dragged under. I convince myself it’s just work stress, or seasonal depression, or maybe that I’m putting too much pressure on myself to be there for Becca. Eventually I gave in and just started taking this week, especially today, off from work and as many other responsibilities as I can, so that I can just get through it and go back to normal.”
The practicality with which she described dealing with whatever she was leading up to telling him was gut wrenching to listen to. Sometimes the easy camaraderie they had always had together – and increasingly with some coworkers they each now considered friends – made it easy for Frank to forget that Mel’s default in life was having absolutely no one to turn to.
“It’s my own fault really, it’s just easier not to let people see me struggle when there hasn’t always been people around who care. I’m trying to be different. I want to be different. Last year I just dropped off the face of the earth for a week and took some PTO and no one noticed anyway, so it worked.” She shrugged halfheartedly.
Frank felt like he had been stabbed. He was one of the people who hadn’t noticed. He did the math in his head. He had been out of residential treatment at this time last year, living in this very apartment, and was too wrapped up in what he had going on to notice the person who already meant so much to him withdrawing so she could suffer without inconveniencing anyone. His breath stuttered in his chest.
“Hey, stop that. You were going through enough. I wasn’t going to add to that.” Mel said, reading the thoughts in his head through the changes in his breath.
“Mel no. I– I never wanted you to feel like you had to hide from me. I would have wanted to be there for you. I want to be there for you. So badly. I had no idea and I should have. I–”
She cut him off with a finger to his lips, head propped up on his chest now to see his face. “Shhh…just listen.” Once she seemed sure he would stop talking she took her finger from his lips and stroked her hand gently along his jawline before laying back down.
“I thought this year would be different. You make me brave, Frank. You make you feel like I can do things I never would have thought I could do otherwise. And I think I would have made it. I really think so. But then today happened.”
In. Hold. Out. Hold. Frank breathed, willing her to continue.
“Have I ever told you about my parents?” Mel asked then. It felt not so much like a change of subject as it was a connecting of dots, they just didn’t make a picture yet.
“Just that they’re…not around,” Frank said softly, carefully.
Mel sighed. “My mom was…wonderful. Lovely. Vibrant. A little much, perhaps not the best at understanding Becca and I, but endlessly well meaning. She made us matching dresses and always wrote ‘Happy Birthday’ on the bathroom mirror with lipstick for our birthday and made dinner for us every night I can remember…until she got sick.” Mel swallowed heavily.
In. Hold. Out. Hold. Frank kept his breathing steady as his heart ached for the story that was unfolding, the dots making a clearer and clearer picture. He ran his hand steadily up and down her back where she laid on his chest, weak dawn light just starting to filter in through the bedroom curtains.
“I was sixteen when she came home and told me that there was a mass on her brain. There was…” Mel cleared her throat, her voice coming out stilted then, practiced. “There was nothing the doctors could do. It was inoperable, and they only agreed to chemo to give her time to say goodbye. Without it she would have passed away within weeks. With it, she got three months.”
In. Hold. Out. Hold. His hand flexed as he continued rubbing up and down her back, pulling her closer instinctively. She nuzzled her face into his neck in response, taking a minute to breathe. In. Hold. Out. Hold.
“In those three months while our dad yelled at doctors and made sure her financial affairs were in order and locked himself in the basement to drink his own pain away, I made sure life changed as little as possible for Becca. I took her to and from school and any activity that made her smile, and while she was at those activities I stayed home and fed and changed our shell of a mother as she rapidly declined. There was no room at the hospice facility so they brought a hospital bed into the spare bedroom and that’s where she lived. She couldn’t walk, she couldn’t talk, even her water had to be thickened or she would choke. I tried to shield Becca from it and our dad couldn’t stomach it, so I did everything for her. And then one morning I woke up and she didn’t. I called the funeral home and I took Becca to school and the world kept spinning for everyone but me. That night was the first night in all of our lives that there wasn’t dinner ready on the table at 5pm. I just couldn’t do it. Becca had a meltdown and our dad was already drunk so when she ran to her room crying – over dinner, not our mom, I hadn’t found a way to tell her about that yet – he slapped me across the face and told me it was all my fault.”
In. Hold. Out. Hold. Frank wanted to break something. Wanted to punch someone. He distantly noticed he was shaking but through sheer force of will managed to hold it together. He pressed his lips to the top of her head and held her close to him but did not make a sound, unwilling to stop her for even a moment now that she was finally telling him all of this. In. Hold. Out. Hold.
“I don’t really remember anything between that day and her funeral. It was all a blur. I just remember picking out church songs and a black dress and too many people crying and hugging me. Everyone told me that they were glad that Becca and I still had our dad and she would always nod enthusiastically because she loved him and he saved the best of himself for her so why wouldn’t she? But he was an alcoholic and a messy one at that, and my life quickly went from taking care of my dying mother to cleaning up after him. Empty bottles and dirty laundry and vomit and the general detritus of addiction.” Mel flinched then at her own words as though Frank would scold her for being insensitive, but he just drifted his hands up to massage a knot in her shoulder that had grown from tension and craned his neck at an odd angle to be able to kiss her forehead. She relaxed back into him then, taking a deep breath before continuing, spurred on by his touch that had remained gentle and constant with her the entire time.
“It sounds horrible to say, but every night I prayed that he would just go away. I was exhausted. I was angry.” she sighed. “So when I came home from school one day shortly after I turned eighteen, on the one year anniversary of our mom’s passing, and found him lying in the basement bleeding from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head from a handgun our mother never liked him having around, I was just…numb. I called 9-1-1. He was still alive so I did my due diligence getting his blood on my hands trying to save a man who was already gone. When the ambulance came they praised me for my efforts and asked me if I wanted to ride to the hospital with the officer who was there with them. I was so used to playing the part of being a good daughter that I said yes. I sat shivering and bloody in the waiting room chair until finally someone came out and told me what I had known for hours. Months, really. He was gone. I changed my clothes and picked Becca up and made sure I had dinner on the table by 5pm. She smiled as she ate it and that was the beginning of me and her. I got us a tiny apartment and took college courses when it worked for her schedule and waited tables while she slept.” Mel sighed deeply, visibly deflating as though the story had taken everything out of her that she could possibly have to offer.
In. Hold. Out. Hold. Frank stilled his hands, not wanting to overstimulate her. Instead he just held her, one hand on her lower back and one between her shoulder blades. He held her and he marveled at the magnificent, beautiful, selfless woman that she was. She had been through so much and was still so unerringly kind, and it made his breath catch in his throat to think that she found him worthy of baring her soul to. In. Hold. Out. Hold.
“So you see.” she began, snapping him out of his thoughts. “Tonight, the twelve year anniversary of when he took his own life and the thirteen year anniversary of my mom’s passing, was not the best night to decide I was brave enough to go into work, just to end up with a male patient whose daughter found him having attempted to take his own life.” She said in a tone that was somehow both matter of fact and deeply, bone weary exhausted.
In. Hold. Out. Hold. Frank tipped his head back, letting tears stream down his own face as his heart split wide open, inviting her to crawl inside of it. “Oh honey…” he breathed. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, if that’s too much.” Mel said in a soft, resigned voice. “I would understand. Everyone else has always said that. That’s why I don’t tell people anymore. They never know what to say so they just say less and less until we’re not talking anymore at all.”
“Baby look at me,” he said firmly, watching her consider it and waiting her out. “You could never be too much. Never. You have seen me at my very worst and you have never backed away from that, not once. You looked at me and saw something worthy there when I couldn’t even begin to. Some days I still don’t. But you look at me like you never doubted it. So please Mel, look at me so you can see me look at you that way too.” he pleaded.
Mel slowly tilted her head to face him and adjusted so she could see him clearly. “It’s so easy for me to see the good in you, Frank. To see every beautiful thing that bleeds through the shattered cracks of where you’ve had to reshape your own heart to accommodate a life different than what you imagined. It’s all I see when I look at you. Strength. Resilience. Goodness. Frank, you are so good.” She said, propping her head up on her hands to look him in the eye, tears well and truly streaming down her face now. “I can see all that in you without even trying, but if I don’t know how to see it in myself, how can I expect anyone else to?” She gave him a watery, sad smile. “I love what we have. I love taking the kids to the zoo and going to get pizza together with Becca and watching you make her laugh and finding new things to try just the two of us, just because we can. And I’m so scared to lose it that I won’t even fully let myself have it. I don’t know how to convince myself I deserve it...that I can be wanted in the way I want.”
I need your grace
To remind me
To find my own
“Honey…” Frank began, reaching up to wipe the tears from her cheeks even as fresh ones fell in their place. “You don’t have to feel like you deserve it all the time. I sure as hell don’t. You think it doesn’t amaze me every single day that I wake up to you? That I have the privilege of seeing you give so much of your heart to the kids and to Becca? That I get to go to work and watch you be an absolutely amazing doctor on top of it? I know for a fact that I haven’t done anything to deserve a second of that, but you make me feel like I do. You make me feel like I can do anything.”
She was staring at him openly now, searching his face for any hint at hesitation or a lie and finding none. Of course she didn’t. Frank could talk endlessly about the things he admired about Mel King and had done so many times both in her presence and to others when she wasn’t around, to the point that he knew at least a few of their coworkers were likely sick of hearing him talk. She had heard it all before; blushed with it and preened over it and shrugged it off depending on the day, but he knew that hearing it again now after she had laid bare all the trauma that she was used to hearing was ‘too much’ was like hearing it all again for the first time.
“I know how it feels to be scared of being seen as badly as you know you need to be. It scared the hell out of me that first time you showed up to see me at rehab. I was so exhausted from hiding pieces of myself from everyone and I knew I was in no state to keep doing it, but I was also terrified that you’d see all my feelings and my flaws on display like that and run for the hills. No one would have blamed you for never coming back, but you did.”
“Of course I did, Frank. I’ll always come back to you.” She whispered.
“So then let me come back to you.” He pleaded with her softly, taking her face in his hands and stroking his thumbs along her cheekbones until her eyes fluttered shut. After a long moment she nodded in acceptance, finally seeming to be able to tentatively believe him, all remaining energy draining from her. He let her rest her head back on his chest and she nuzzled into his neck, her breath warm as she drifted off to sleep.
Frank felt a crushing wave of protectiveness wash over him as Mel slept. He wanted to track down every person who had ever made her feel like she was too much or not enough or anything other than absolutely perfect and read them the riot act over it, but at the same time he felt so overwhelmingly grateful that their misjudgment meant she was here now with him. He thought about the ways she made him laugh despite himself, the tender way she interacted with his kids, and the special bond she had with Becca. He thought about her separately from all of those external things too; times when she was simply herself, talking excitedly about a book she read or not-quite-singing along to the words of a song she loved or walking out for breakfast wearing one of his t-shirts, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
In a rush of sadness, he also took the time to process what she had just told him. He pictured a younger version of Mel scrambling to care for her crumbling family. He thought of how she was always the one taking care of everyone else when no one ever took care of her. He never wanted her to feel that way again. Frank let his thoughts wind their way through him, running them over and over in his head until the sun was fully up in the sky and Mel was waking up on his chest. He could feel it when she crossed into consciousness from sleep and realized he was what was underneath her where her pillow should be. He smiled as she looked up at him, her eyes still glazed over with the remnants of sleep.
Frank enjoyed watching her wake up as he always did when he had the privilege of seeing her this way, unguarded and open. He watched as memories came back to her and took turns on her face, orienting her to the here and now. He watched the expressions take turns flitting across her face in a summary of the past twenty-four hours. Exhaustion, anxiety, determination, a haunted thing Frank couldn’t quite name that pained him to see, hurt, sadness, resignation, and finally after what looked like a fair amount of consideration…peace.
“Good morning” Frank said softly, trying to infuse as much love as he could into the statement. Because that’s what it was that he felt for her; love. During the hours she had laid resting on his chest he became brave enough to name it. Frank Langdon didn’t always know a lot of things with confidence these days, but he knew without a shred of doubt that he loved Melissa King. He loved the way she laughed, adoration showing on her face when she found something he said to be genuinely funny. He loved the way she snored a little sometimes when she was sleeping particularly deeply after an exhausting day at work, and the way the knowledge felt like a little secret just for him. He loved watching the unique way she interacted with the world around her with care and intention. He loved the way she wore her heart on her sleeve and trusted him to care for that precious vulnerability she showed him. He loved the faces she made and the passions she held and the attention she gave and the convictions she felt and every other thing about her that he could sit there all day naming until he embarrassed himself with just how much he noticed about her, but most of all he loved that he was the one who got to love her. All of this must have been practically oozing from his pores, written all over his face in some impossibly literal sense because Mel’s eyes crinkled warmly as she studied him.
“I love you too, Frank.” She whispered, amusement written across her face as his own expression broke out in the kind of uncontrollable grin that made his cheeks ache. Mel often lamented her ability to read most people, but she could read him like a book. Frank beamed and Mel’s face lit up as well. No matter what happened next, this changed everything. It changed nothing. It changed life as he knew it, knowing that despite their combined flaws and pasts and struggles, Mel loved him as he loved her.
All that I am, all that I ever was
Is here in your perfect eyes, they're all I can see
I don't know where, confused about how as well
Just know that these things will never change for us at all.