Archive of Our Own

It started on a Friday. Or ended, really.

Any and all semblance of normalcy as Mel knew it, that is. And she wanted to be offended by the method by which it came to its untimely demise, but all she really felt was this ache that spawned in the center of her chest and came to rest in the pit of her stomach when she got the text.

Mel, we have to go on a different day to eat dinner. I’m going to a restaurant with Adam.

She stood in the ambulance bay staring at her phone for two minutes before an ambulance came barrelling in. That’s one thing Mel’s coworkers frequently say they enjoy about working in the ED. The fact that there’s always a matter more significant than their own worries to delve into.

Mel understands that, to some extent, but she’s always found that her thoughts find a way to nestle in with the more pressing ones, anyway. She never gets a break from her own mind.

There’s something therapeutic about having somebody to take care of. A person to call every morning and night, to get dinner with on the weekends and pay the bill, to teach how to read, and write, because the traditional methods didn’t work very well, and learn all the little ins and outs of, and just have in one’s corner, permanently, who’ll always be there, needing more.

Mel doesn’t really know who she is if Becca doesn’t need her anymore.

Or, at least, that part of her has died, and it’s like a limb being cut off. Mel knows it’s for the greater good, that her sister’s growing independence is amazing, and Mel is happy for her, she really is, she just—

She really, really, misses that limb, despite how hard things got at times. She was strong enough to persevere and she wouldn’t have had it any other way. The good always outweighed the bad.

Really, at times, it was the only purpose she had in her life.

Langdon told Mel, once, that wanting to control somebody else’s life to that extent was unhealthy and unrealistic. Mel agreed. Control is fickle, even more fickle when she’s holding it over somebody else.

But selfishly, Mel likes control, and it really doesn’t have anything to do with Becca. It’s about picking her battles. If she can choose which direction it takes, she throws herself into it. And when things fly into disarray, things that she specifically had a handle on before, that chaos is suffocating.

Adam is chaos. Becca is chaos. Everything Mel knows, now, is chaos, and it’s not the good kind, not the emergency kind, not the ‘act now, think later,’ kind that saves lives, it’s the sharp, stifling, kind.

So she tries to twist it into a positive. Focus a little more on herself. Goes out alone on weekends, wanders around museums after work, grabs lunch at restaurants she’s never been to, but all it does is shine a spotlight on how lonely she really is, and when the weeks start dwindling further and further into little to no contact, really, that must be where the problem is birthed.

A common factor in the formation of restrictive eating disorders is feeling a lack of control.

Mel’s known this since she was thirteen, knew it even better when she got her degree, puts it into consideration anytime the illness could play a part in a patient’s condition. Knowldge is power, or whatever, and Mel’s job is very important, so much so that she likes meal prepping, and she likes perusing menu’s at restaurants like it's a bible, and she knows that the way she fuels herself is pivotal to taking care of her patients.

So she tries a little harder. It’s just smaller portions. It’s just got less calories. It’s just healthier, it is. It’s just skipping breakfast. And lunch. And dinner. And the high is a buzz she’s terrified of chasing.

She starts chasing.

She tells herself she’s being healthier, since her and Becca stopped hanging out as much. She saves money by not going to restaurants, anyway, and if she’s started fitting into the scrubs she wore in her freshman year of college again, well, that’s just an added bonus, proof of her health.

And after July, Mel and Becca didn’t get dinner next Friday, or the Friday after, or on any of the other weekdays when Mel messaged Becca and asked about her availability. Becca told Mel off about that, too, about her neediness: I’m sorry for not making time for you, but I also need to focus on myself. It’s hard for me to forgive you for what happened at the hospital in July. I’m scared you’re going to get mad if you meet Adam.

I won’t get mad. I’m really happy for you, Mel had texted back. Becca, I am so sorry about what happened.

I know you are, Becca replied, and added nothing further, and it felt like a gut-punch in itself.

Eventually, Becca was going to move on with her life and start a new one. Mel knew this.

She just didn’t realize that new life couldn’t include her.

There’s a twenty-six-year-old college student sitting up in the hospital bed twiddling his thumbs and glancing anywhere but at Mel’s eyes.

She’s not exactly perfect at meeting his own, so they’re at a bit of a standstill, but, as unfortunate as it may be, Mel still has to tell him he has CVID. Or, as Robby very sternly informed her she has to put it, probably has CVID, and he should “follow-up with an immunologist to get the condition formally diagnosed in order to receive treatment.”

It’s fairly clear, in her humble opinion. Or at least, his circumstances don’t point to anything else. If she believes his first-hand accounts, the tests other hospitals have run over the years, and the blood test results he’s been waiting on for four hours, then Mel could plaster a gold star that says ‘CVID’ over his chart and get away with it.

Part of her wonders if he’ll be surprised. It’s his second time getting pneumonia this year, not to mention the ear infection in March, and the sinus infection in January, and the tens of repetitive illnesses that kept him down all throughout his childhood and made him late to his freshman year of college, so— Really, Mel tells herself, this revelation will be more helpful than harmful.

So she rolls the noisy clacking wheels of the stool over to the side of the bed and tells him that he doesn’t just have pneumonia, he’s (probably, most likely, gotta follow up with that immunologist, sir) got a PIDD called CVID, which explains all the ways life’s kicked him at the shins his entire life.

“It’s not curable, but it is treatable,” Mel informs once she’s been able to pry the tablet with his prettied-up, jargon-free, lab results out of his quivering hand. “Treatment is mostly focused on managing your symptoms and preventing illnesses through a process called immunoglobulin replacement therapy. That’ll replace the missing antibodies in your body. Oh, antibodies are these special proteins produced by B-cell lymphocytes in the immune system that your body uses to—”

“I know what… Antibodies are, Dr. King,” he replies quietly. “I’m going to med school.”

“Sorry,” Mel apologizes, and his hands fall to his sides in the hospital bed, grasping the fabric. Mel sets the tablet down on the medical cart beside the curtain and the cold, steel, surface, almost feels closer to heat with how numb her fingertips are getting.

She’s already wearing long-sleeves under her scrub top. The good kind, too, the fleece ones with the sleeves that don’t cuff restrictively at the wrists the way she despises. McKay was kind enough to lend Mel her jacket when she saw Mel shaking like a leaf filling out a chart in central, but Mel couldn’t wave off the chill atop her skin, then, and she certainly can’t warm it off, now.

“According to your chart, you’ve been taking oral antibiotics since you were admitted, right?” Mel asks, and he nods nervously like he knows what she’s about to say. “Okay. Since your oxygen levels are pretty low, and you’re a little dehydrated, I’d like to start an IV just to make sure those antibiotics can really work.” She swallows down the follow-up of in-depth information she usually saves for patients who haven’t sat through Intro to Anatomy & Physiology and Fundamentals of Clinical Medicine in college: Do you know what an IV is? It’s just a tube in your arm that delivers nutrients and medicine to your body to help it fight off this infection.

“I don’t like needles,” he admits. “That’s why I went with the, um, with the pills.”

Mel smiles. Her lips feel tight and dry and she almost swears she tastes iron when her tongue darts out to correct the desert on her skin. She’s got chapstick in her pocket, she reminds herself for later.

“It’ll only hurt for a second,” she assures. “You’ll barely feel it once it’s in.”

A drop of hand sanitizer cools the hot cores of her palms as she finishes rubbing it in and tugs open the medical cart drawer, a pinch of pain firing up her pinky.

When she looks down, the brittle nail has broken, hanging off the edge of her finger. Mel rips it off and pulls out her supplies.

Her mind drifts as she works. Gloves, catheter size, priming, extension, sterility, sterility, sterility, drones the sound of her professor’s voice she can never seem to get out of her head even after all these years. She wraps the tourniquet around his arm until it’s snug and palpates.

Oh, she realizes. Or really, some far-off part of her mind chimes in for her. I’m shaking.

A lot. Her teeth are chattering in her mouth. Feels like she drank too much caffeine this morning and is paying the price, except Mel dislikes caffeine. And she’s cold, which could cause some jittering, sure— Or she was cold, she thought, suddenly noting that the chills have stopped traveling up her spine and washing across her skin— Did she get so cold, she started feeling hot? That’s not a good sign at all.

“Dr. King?”

The patient is staring at Mel’s finger on his inner arm. She retracts her hand and tries to subtly steal a glance down at her palms. They won’t stop. She lets the heels of them duck beneath the safety of her jacket and they keep shaking as she assesses.

“I’m so sorry,” Mel gets out, a lilt in the middle of the sentence making her frown. “Um, I’m just going to palpate— Or, I’m going to look for a vein—”

“I know, Dr. King,” he replies, a little softer, like he’s worried he’s the one making her anxious.

But Mel is not a scared first-year anymore, she’s an R3, and she can’t count how many times she’s done an IV. She tears off the packaging of an alcohol wipe and rubs it against the insertion site as she thinks.

Since transferring to PTMC, Mel’s treated 29 patients for hypothermia. Her colleagues took on the other ones. Pittsburgh’s unhoused population suffers immensely in the wintertime and Mel’s smoothed so many heated blankets over so many patients and she knows that paradoxical cold is what actually kills hypothermic patients. Feeling so cold, the hypothalamus gets overwhelmed, and nerves get confused, and cold starts feeling like a burning heat instead, but Mel’s not hypothermic, she’s working, so it’d make no sense for her body to be firing up like a furnace—

“Um, usually the veins on this arm are better than the ones on my left,” the patient notifies, bringing Mel back to the present. “But if you wanna try the other one—”

“No, no,” Mel interjects, shifting uncomfortably. She hasn’t zoned out this terribly since her deposition. “I’m…” If she apologizes again, he’s all but got grounds to sue her for dozing off. Mel takes a deep breath that rattles her trachea as she tosses the alcohol wipe back onto the tray and grabs the needle. “You’ll feel a poke.”

He looks the other way. Understandable. Mel lifts the needle and anchors and that’s what really makes her realize, oh, wow, I’m not gonna be able to do this.

She’ll blow his vein if she does, and that’s if she finds one, glancing at the smooth, porcelain, expanse of his skin. She takes another deep breath, straightens her spine, but it does nothing. Mel can feel goosebumps rising under her sleeves and—

“Dr. King.”

—Mel caps the needle and sets it back down.

She turns around at the sound of her name and it’s Dana, in all her glory, poking her head through the door. “Sorry to barge in. Got a patient askin’ for you in Central seven.”

Seven. That was the kid who needed stitches in his hand. He’s only been waiting about ten minutes.

“I’ll be right there,” Mel calls back, but before Dana can disappear, Mel turns to her patient and adds, “I’m gonna— Would you just sit tight for a second, please?” and pushes open the glass door, calling after her with a rushed, “Dana?”

Dana stops short, turning around, a hint of amusement trickling into her expression. “You can finish the IV, Mel. Kid in seven ain’t dyin’.”

“That’s actually not what I was…” Mel looks around. She doesn’t know why she suddenly feels subconscious, but she does, and it’s heavy, and it’s making her quiver, harder, and really, that’s the last thing she needs right now. “Could you see if anybody’s around to finish up with my patient? I just—”

Just what? Mel doesn’t know, but she does know that, frighteningly, she doesn’t think she’ll be able to anchor the needle well enough to get a good stick, not with the way her hands are shaking.

“Everythin’ okay?” Dana asks, voice a little lighter, a little lower, body turned fully to Mel, now. She looks Mel up and down and the frown that forms on her face twists her entire expression with it. “Jesus, you’re shakin’ like a leaf.”

Oh, god, it’s noticeable. Mel nods, closing her eyes for a second when the motion makes her vision swim. “Mhm. I’m just a little cold—”

“Well, grab a blanket from one of the warmers and find an on-call room,” Dana tells her like she’s shocked Mel didn’t do it earlier. “I’ll have Princess take care of your patients.” Mel steps past her, a ‘thank-you’ forming on her lips, still cracked, still dry, but Dana gently puts an arm out to stop her. “You sure you’re feelin’ alright?”

“Mhm.”

“You eatin’ enough?”

“Yes.”

“Gettin’ plenty of sleep?”

“I try.”

“You look sick, Mel.”

Pale, Mel instantly wants to correct, not sick. Because pale doesn’t necessarily mean sick, and the distinction is very important.

“I just haven’t been out in the sun much, recently. I covered a few night shifts this week, so I’m only just getting back into the swing of things, and even then, sometimes, it’s hard to find the time to get outside—”

“Alright, alright,” Dana cedes, a quiet chuckle accompanying her words. “Just— Find somethin’ with Vitamin D in it and give it a chug, alright? And go get a spray tan, or a vacation. Y’need one, kid.”

That’s the last thing Mel has time for right now, but she laughs breathily and thanks Dana, anyway, as she heads toward one of the blanket warmers.

Mel starts wearing thermals. The hospital is cold. Really cold, lately. This is a good investment.

When Mel was fifteen, in the wintertime, she only ate soup and apples for an entire month, and in an attempt to cure herself of this strange, new, diet, she fell down an internet rabbithole. Mel didn’t fit the criteria for other eating disorders— she didn’t like being hungry, she didn’t care how much she weighed, the only things she enjoyed putting in her mouth were indeed edible, and she never had a desire to make herself vomit, so all signs pointed to ARFID.

Avoidant-Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, formally. Picky eater, as her parents put it for Mel, atleast until Becca was diagnosed with it, and then they started silently side-eyeing Mel at dinner, too, instead.

ARFID didn’t have a cure, but most mental illnesses don’t, so that was fine. Mel found other foods she enjoyed and kept a list of them in her phone in case she was ever lost on what to have for dinner. Tried to be brave when it came to new things, although that rarely worked unless she worked up to it through a similar food. Chocolate, to almond-chocolate bars, to almonds. It got easier to manage.

A lot of Mel’s life has just been about managing. Life piled one thing after another on top of her and she sifted through it like swimming through molasses. Slow and steady wins the race, they say.

McKay still lets Mel borrow her jackets from time to time, so with the new addition of the thermals, Mel’s running through the ED with a solid core temperature by the time the clock ticks past four in the afternoon. Mel was going to take a break and have lunch about an hour or two ago, but she didn’t realize she’d grabbed the wrong protein bar from the box this morning until she was pulling it out of her backpack by the ED’s lockers and tucking it back into the pocket with disdain.

Onto the next case, then.

Her muscles protest the movement of her limbs as she walks down the halls of the ED toward a new patient's room and she assures herself it’ll just be a few more hours until she can head back home and eat something proper.

“Dr. King!”

Now there’s a welcome distraction.

“Dr. Langdon,” Mel greets in return, and she can feel the tension in her body slip off like a second skin. He comes to a full stop in front of her, which is nice— Means there’s no emergency, means she has time to smile and make small talk and ask, “How’s your shift going?”

“Uh, can’t complain,” he sighs, hands slipping into his pockets to rest. “How about you?”

“I’m good,” she answers, and hopes it doesn’t come across as rushing when she inquires, “Did you need something?”

Langdon towers lankily over her and Mel feels warmth rush to her cheeks when he leans in almost imperceptibly and asks, “You mind helpin’ me out with a, uh… Demonstration?”

He says ‘demonstration’ with enough confidence that Mel would say ‘yes’ even if he weren’t a friend. “Okay. What kind of demonstration?”

“Got a kid who’s a little scared of— Everything, I guess,” Langdon explains, and starts walking half-backwards so he can still face Mel, that manner of movement that always makes Mel nervous he’s going to trip over something. “You’ve got a disarming vibe. Figured he’d be more comfortable if I showed him that the blood pressure cuff isn’t gonna hurt him.”

Mel hums in agreement, trying to match his stride beside him, if only so he'll actually walk properly. “That’s a great idea. Kids are a lot more comfortable doing something they’ve seen somebody they trust do first.”

“Oh, don’t I know it,” Langdon sighs, and before Mel can ask him why he sounds like he’s speaking from experience, he continues, “Tanner’s been putting my stethoscope on everything.”

“Everything?” Mel giggles, appreciating the way he laughs in turn.

“Furniture, stuffed animals, strangers, walls. I’m worried he’s gonna put it up to the fridge someday and hurt his ears from how loud it buzzes.”

“I doubt that’ll happen. But you should keep it out of his reach to be safe, anyway.”

“Have you ever tried to take something away from a six-year-old? I’d have better luck doing an intubation with a straw.”

A smile’s still tugging at the corners of Mel’s face when Langdon pushes open the door and they step into the room. A kid’s curled up on the bed, and Mel’s entrance only worsens the tensing of his muscles and the worried way his expression warps.

“Jax, this is my friend, Dr. King.” Mel gives him a small wave. “She’s gonna help me take care of you, okay?”

The kid doesn’t nod, doesn’t shake his head, doesn’t move, but it’s very clear from the look on his face that, sick or not, he does not want any part in this. Langdon produces the blood pressure cuff and Mel watches his deft hands work on unraveling it.

“What’s that?” the kid asks, and the fear in his voice is so primal, Mel can’t shake her gaze off of him until she’s visually confirmed that there isn’t some sort of poisonous snake curling around the kid’s abdomen.

Nope. He really is just authentically terrified of blood pressure cuffs.

“This?” she asks, taking it from Langdon and holding it up, hoping she’s not coming across too strong. The kid curls even further into himself and nods from behind his closed fist covering half of his face. Mel glances up at Langdon, surprised to find he’s already staring at her. She gives him an uncertain look and he returns it with a nod and a glance at the cuff.

Slowly, she clears her throat and starts pulling off her jacket. “This is called a blood pressure cuff,” Mel explains. Langdon, ever the gentleman, takes her jacket from her. “I’ll put it around your arm, and it’ll contract, then deflate, sort of like a balloon.”

Mel rolls up her sleeve, then works through rolling up the thermal underneath. She glances up at Langdon, who looks a little bewildered, albeit with a tinge of amusement. “You, uh… Got a snowball fight to get to after this?”

It takes her lagging mind a few seconds to register the quip. The attention is unwanted. “The hospital gets cold.”

Langdon hangs up her jacket (or really, McKay’s— Mel can’t help it. She loves the inner wool lining of the jacket, and none of her own jackets have it) on one of the hooks before taking the cuff from Mel. He starts pulling it around her arm. His hands are warm, the hair on her upper arm standing up against the touch.

“Like Dr. King said, this cuff’s gonna give your arm a super tight hug, then let you go. It tells us how hard your heart goes ‘boom!’ each time it beats,” Langdon elucidates over the sound of velcro ripping and sticking together. The cuff feels heavy on Mel’s arm. “It won’t last longer than a few seconds, I promise. Just watch Dr. King use it.”

Now snug, Mel watches Langdon trigger the cuff. The tight squeeze is white-hot for no longer than a moment before all Mel can feel is the slow, steady, throb of her blood traveling through her arteries.

“All done,” Langdon announces, upbeat and encouraging. The kid’s hands are in his lap, now, and Mel interprets the slightly more open body language as a win. Langdon reads the small screen attached to the cuff, a smile still on his face. “Perfect. We’re gonna give it a few seconds, and—”

The cuff beeps. His mouth hangs open mid-sentence in surprise. Mel rolls her sleeves back down, and Langdon turns off the cuff.

“Uh, perfect reading, Dr. King,” Langdon announces without any sort of tone or body language to accompany it. He turns to the kid. “Ready for your turn?”

Mel grabs her jacket back off the wall and informs Langdon she’s gonna check on a new patient in 12 with a laceration. He calls some sort of confirmation over his shoulder, and the rest of the hours pass. Mel forces her mind to shift to autopilot, a thesaurus of medical terms and reassurances that almost sound robotic when she’s saying them, but nobody’s pointing it out and Mel’s not the one with a patient satisfaction score six feet under, so that’s that.

Or so she thought.

Day has dipped into night outside, a fact Mel only knows because she’s taking a moment of reprieve in the hallway, staring out the glass doors toward the ambulance bay. A four-year-old with Kawasaki disease that her parents had been trying to ignore had a heart attack, and Mel doesn’t think she believes in god or miracles, but it is a minor one that they managed to get that tiny heart pumping back to normal.

And because misery loves company, footsteps hit the tile until the sound comes to a halt behind her.

“Mel.” Air flies and dizziness travels up Mel’s spine as she gets herself together to turn and face Langdon, hugging her tablet against her chest. “You got a sec?”

He looks nervous, but she’d like to believe it’s just jitters from the save they pulled off. Thankfully, she does, indeed, have a sec. “What’s going on?”

“That kid from earlier— The one who was scared of the blood pressure cuff?”

“Is he okay?” Mel asks, unease sinking into her skin.

“Yeah, he— The kid’s gonna be okay. I wanted to talk about you,” Langdon says, and then he starts ushering them out of the central hub, back toward the corner peds is situated in, where it’s quieter and emptier and there aren’t so many people zooming past. His hand on the small of her back disappears once they start going in the right direction, and Mel doesn’t know how to feel about the way her body mourns the loss of contact once it's gone.

Mel leans against the wall, shoulder protesting the dig into her bone as she situates herself. “Is everything alright?”

“Your blood pressure,” Langdon starts, and she nods a little. He crosses his arms and she knows from that alone that he’s gearing up for a long conversation. “It was 75 over 60.”

Hypotension. Classified as a blood pressure reading where the systolic and diastolic readings are under 90 and 60. Often seen in patients experiencing shock or massive blood loss, but other conditions can cause a low blood pressure. It is also common for athletes to maintain a low blood pressure. Maybe Mel should tell him that it’s actually a normal reading for somebody like her who goes on a lot of walks and runs around this ER 48 hours a week—

“Mel, I’m worried about you.”

She looks up at Langdon. Confused, concerned.

“It must have been malfunctioning?” Mel offers up, not meaning for it to sound like a question, but it does.

And Langdon, much to Mel’s chagrin, shakes his head. “No. I figured the same thing, so I used the same cuff on that kid, and on myself, and on Whitaker, just to make sure. They all gave normal readings.”

Mel was woefully unprepared for a confrontation like this. “...Well, I don’t… I don’t know…”

“McKay told me you’ve been stealing her jackets.” It’s not stealing; Dr. McKay gave them to Mel to borrow, and Mel always returns them at the end of the shift. “And I don’t mean for this to come across the wrong way, but you’re extremely pale.” She just needs to get out in the sun more. “Dana told me you pawned a patient off a few weeks ago because you were shaking too much to insert an IV?” Mel didn’t pawn anybody off. It’s common for nurses to administer IV’s and perform stitches. “And you’ve got—”

He cuts himself off, but he’s looking at her arm, and Mel wonders what he’s picturing beneath her sleeve. She doesn’t self-injure. She doesn’t have any skin conditions. She doesn’t want to know what he was going to say. She thinks she knows and it’s scaring her.

“Have you been asking around about me?” Mel quietly questions, voice tight.

Langdon pauses, just for a second, before he says, “I would never go behind your back like that, Mel.”

There’s a ‘but’ coming, she knows.

“I’m sorry.” Or there isn’t. He shouldn’t be, he shouldn’t be, she doesn’t want him to be. “I was just wondering if anybody else had noticed anything about you. Some kind of sickness, or—?”

“I’m. Just—” Mel chokes on the words. “I’m just going through a difficult time.”

Langdon’s eyebrows raise, and he tilts his head down a little, worry creasing into the lines of his face. “‘A difficult time’?”

“Yes,” Mel stresses, maybe a little harder than she needs to, but it’s important he knows so he doesn’t have to worry about her on top of everything else he’s dealing with. “I’ve been stressed, and I haven’t been sleeping much, but I promise I’ll take better care of myself.”

The lie slips past her lips so easily, it scares her.

She knows Langdon doesn’t believe her. He breathes in and exhales and all the while he never looks away from her, like if he stares long enough, he can bore a hole into her skull and open it up and spill all her troubles onto the linoleum floor.

She knows Langdon wants to believe her, because that’s the kind of person he is.

“Okay.”

And thank god it is. He is.

“But promise me you’ll schedule a doctor's appointment,” Langdon adds in what feels like a last-ditch effort. “You could be coming down with something pretty serious.”

Mel doesn’t think so, but she tells him, “I’ll try to find the time,” anyway.

That should mark the end of the interaction, but before she can escape, Langdon pulls her back in with an uncertain, “And Mel, I—” He sighs, and a little softer, a little less forceful, he adds, “If you’re going through something, you can always talk to me.”

I’m okay, she thinks.

“Whatever it is. Okay?”

“Yeah. Thank you,” Mel quietly accepts, and if she says anything else, she’ll cry, so she walks away before she can tell him the same goes for you and lets the guilt sear her soul.

There is something indescribably satisfying, Mel thinks, in choosing to lose something.

She’s watched the life dissipate out of a stranger’s eyes before they even had a chance to recognize that Mel was trying to help. She went to her father’s funeral, then planned her mother's funeral three years later. She felt more than processed the absence of friends who lied that they’d always keep in touch. The Irish exits of college boyfriends she didn’t know she was dating until she heard through the grapevine that she was somebody’s ‘bitch ex.’

Nothing she could do about it. About any of it. How do people make peace with that? How did she make peace with it before?

Did she ever, really?

Becca is a lifeline that snapped in Mel’s hands. Mel knows it's her own fault for tugging on the string ‘till it broke, but Mel was the only one that stumbled backwards from the rip, and she doesn’t know how to get back up without facing the empty spot where Becca once stood.

Maybe that’s what makes it so easy to fiend for scraps. When one constant’s lost, another one must take its place.

Mel doesn’t need to text Becca if she’s preoccupied with the way her stomach rumbles in the middle of the day and the calories she’s tracking in her phone, the number getting lower, and lower, and lower, every day. She doesn’t need Friday night dinners if she can go on walks or runs instead. She doesn’t need anything but herself and the person she’s building. The person she’s shaving off, somebody she doesn’t want to be anymore. If Becca is starting anew, why can’t Mel, too?

On a Friday, sometime after seven in the evening, Becca asks Mel if she wants to get dinner.

And Mel doesn’t know when this little thing went from a habit of a handful of almonds for breakfast and half a smoothie for lunch and skipping dinner and supper, but she does know that the menu in this Olive Garden is extensive and disgusting and she’s scared.

And it’s not the tiny, pinprick-fear kind, it’s a wave of uncertainty, and it's eating her before Becca can set down her own menu and excitedly announce, “I’m going to order the never-ending pasta bowl. Spaghetti and meatballs.”

“Spaghetti. Good choice,” Mel responds, because it’s second-nature to snap back when Becca talks, even though this is unsurprising and Becca has ordered the same thing every single time they’ve been here. “Do you like any of the other pastas on the menu? I think there’s a new one.”

“Pasta is always good,” Becca retorts with a giggle. Mel looks at her, really looks, all the way past her glasses and bright eyes and at the glimpse of what her Friday’s used to look like, and it makes her own eyes sting. “What are you getting?”

The million-dollar question. “Maybe—” Mel looks up, face pinched with uncertainty, teeth gritted. “Maybe just a bowl of spaghetti.”

“So we’re getting the same thing?” Becca asks enthusiastically.

“Oh, no. I don’t think I could finish endless bowls of pasta,” Mel admits.

“Aww. You used to order that all the time.”

Mel laughs. “Yeah, and I’d finish three bowls if I was lucky.”

“One time you ate five.”

Mel did do that, maybe eight months ago. She’d just finished a fifteen-hour shift at the time and she didn’t get to eat anything except a granola bar she split with Ellis during it. She vomited when she got home, but it was warranted.

At least, it felt like it was, at the time. Now, the reminder just makes her shift uncomfortably.

“Just one is fine for me,” Mel quietly asserts, and Becca frowns, but the waitress is setting down their drinks and asking if they’re ready to order before Mel can explain that these days, her stomach feels like it’s protesting any meal that isn’t the size of an apple.

(Which is maybe, potentially, just a little bit of a problem. If a patient came into the ED and complained that they couldn’t eat normal portions anymore, Mel would interrogate, order CT’s, labs, whatever tests they needed based on their stature and standing. She’d worry, really worry, her empathy a vice at times and a beacon at others.)

It doesn’t feel like a problem when Mel’s logging six bites of her food into a calorie tracker. If it feels good, then it can’t be wrong. If the dopamine rushing through her is the only thing that gives her the strength to get through her shifts, get through her lonely nights— She’s taking it.

They sit through their meal, talking and laughing and it’s so familiar that Mel can almost pretend it's June and it’s a regular Friday and nothing bad has ever happened between them, nothing life-altering, nothing that demands the distance Becca suddenly decided she wants from Mel.

But eventually, the night ends and the restaurant closes and before Mel can catch up to the present she asks Becca, “Where do you wanna go next week?” while they’re ambling toward the street sign where the ride Mel ordered is allegedly waiting.

Becca sucks in a breath through her teeth and says, “Oooh, I don’t know if I’ll be free next week. There are a lot of events going on and Adam wants to go to them with me.”

That’s fine. Mel’s fine.

“Right,” she comprehends. She tucks her hands into her jacket pockets. Small and pathetic. “Well, I had a lot of fun tonight. If you want to do it again sometime?”

“Mhm! We probably can.”

Probably. It hurts. Mel’s personalizing what doesn’t need to be personal, but screw that, no, how is this not personal?

“I’m sorry that we haven’t done anything in a while,” Becca starts talking again. “I just never really noticed how much you controlled my life until the hospital. I’ve been having a lot of fun doing things by myself and with Adam.”

That hurts even more.

“How much I— You feel like I was controlling you?” Mel asks, tilting her head, perplexed. “Becca, I was never trying to do that.”

“But you were,” Becca argues, only it’s not an argument, Mel realizes. It’s never meant to be one, at least, it’s just a lack of a filter, just Becca speaking her mind.

And Mel has her entire world in front of her and she’s just tired. She’s too tired to reel her in tonight.

“I’m sorry,” Mel says weakly.

Becca just smiles and nods. “You’ve said that before.”

Isn’t that the understatement of the century?

“Yo, Mel-ancholy.”

Santos’ voice is flat and sharp at the same time, an icepick shattering against concrete. Mel lifts her head and it makes the top of her skull tingle like small marbles bouncing around an empty steel bowl. Santos waves around a pretzel stick, conducting the train tracks of Mel’s mind to get back on course.

“You with us?” Santos checks.

It’s late. Past when all of them should have gotten out of here, at least. ‘All of them’ being the day shift, but that’s just another day in the PTMC, really. Mel’s trying to catch up on some charting before she leaves, and she assumes the three residents, also boring holes into computer screens with their eyes, are doing the same thing.

Or were, at least. Once Santos got her hands on Shen’s family-sized bag of pretzel sticks, she got a little distracted.

“Sorry. What?” Mel refocuses, gaze flitting between Santos and her screen. The weight of her confusion is heavier than she wants to carry right now.

“You. Me. These two dorks.” Santos gestures vaguely to her left and right at Whitaker and Javadi and the latter rolls her eyes. “The bar on Liberty. Friday night.”

Santos is eyeing her expectantly. Mel curses how stupid she sounds when she asks, “Are you inviting me to go out with you guys?”

Santos shrugs. “You look like you could use a fun night out.”

“Just so you know, Trinity only takes us to gay bars,” Whitaker informs quickly, sparing Mel a glance away from the computer screen.

“Why would you say it like that? Do you think Mel’s homophobic or something?” Santos fires back instantly.

Mel definitely wants to shut down that thought process. “Oh, I’m definitely not h—”

“Woah, woah, woah,” Whitaker talks over her. “I wasn’t implying that— I just—” His face flushes pink. “It’s a very different environment from a normal bar, and I’d hate to see her get overwhelmed—”

“I think he’s homophobic,” Javadi shares, not even looking up.

“Oh my god—”

“What’s it gonna be, Mel?” Santos interrupts, loud enough to cover Whitaker’s cut-off protests and Javadi’s fit of laughter.

The invitation is a sweet gesture, Mel recognizes, and if it were a few months earlier, maybe she would’ve said “yes” and spent the night on the dance floor, shouting nonsense at the other patrons and pulling up her hair in the bathroom when the feeling of it on her shoulders gets unbearable. Maybe Santos would take a bad selfie of the two of them, and Javadi would touch-up Mel’s blush in the noisy bathroom, and Whitaker, well, god only knows what he’d be doing, but—

“Uh, it’s been a really long day,” Mel declines, the sadness in her voice genuine. “I’m sorry.”

“No, we—” Javadi laughs, light and sweet. “We’re going on Friday, not tonight.”

Mel sucks on her inner cheek and stares. It’s also gonna be a really long day on Friday?

“My week is just kind of busy,” Mel stutters out. “I don’t think I’ll have the energy to go to a bar. But thank you for inviting me.”

Santos starts to say something, but shuts her mouth and nods instead. “No worries.”

“Hey, the offer always stands,” Whitaker adds, which is sweet.

“That out of the way—” The bag of pretzel sticks crackles as Santos rolls it up and stands up out of her chair. Tablet in hand, she walks over toward Mel’s side. “I’d love to hear your thoughts on a case, Dr. King.”

That’s a nice change of topic, and Mel can spare a second not charting, so— “Sure. What is it?”

“Are you finally showing her my alcoholic?” Javadi asks flatly.

“Crash’s patient,” Santos confirms, and Mel cranes her neck to look up at her as she reads off the chart. “33-year-old female came in— Or really, I should say stumbled in—”

“Some tact, Dr. Santos?” Whitaker interrupts exasperatedly.

“—Ambled in with extreme confusion, nausea, and vomiting. Kept blacking out in the middle of her exam, but she was talking nonsense, anyway. We administered 300 thiamine and a liter of LR.”

Upon first listen, it sounds like someone going through the bad end of a good night out. “Okay. Did she consume any drugs or alcohol?”

It’s Whitaker who jumps in. “That’s the thing— She’s been here since last night. Said she doesn’t drink, but she had a blood alcohol level over 20. Her friend who came in with her— She was sober— She backed up her story, too.” Mel winces. Thank god she had her friend to bring her in. “This is the third time this year she’s been admitted to an ED for alcohol poisioning.”

Three times. That’s beyond grounds for an involuntary commitment.

“Dr. Mohan has been trying to get her to admit to her problem, but—” Javadi frowns, fumbles with her hands for a second before she finishes gesticulating, “She’s just being really stubborn.”

Okay, Mel, she tells herself, dipping into the beginning of a very-needed pep talk. Early 30’s. Female. Alcohol poisoning, but no alcohol. Allegedly.

“Did she tell you what she was doing when her, um… I guess, when the alcohol poisioning started?” Mel questions, rubbing her forehead when a spark of pain jolts through her temples.

“Her friend said they were at a buffet with some other people, and by the end of night, she was tripping over herself,” Santos informs with that tone that implies Santos believes anything but. “No alcohol, no drugs, just a plain old dinner party.”

“It is uncommon, but you could have her tested for Auto-Brewery Syndrome,” Mel offers.

“What are the chances she’s got ABS and she isn’t just an alcoholic in denial?” Santos retorts.

“I mean, there’s… There’s really only one way to find out.”

“Auto-Brewery Syndrome is really rare,” Javadi voices, and she’s right, sure, but they asked for Mel’s opinion, and she gave them a potential illness.

“If you really think she’s just an alcoholic, you could try to have her involuntarily committed,” Mel suggests instead.

“Uh, I think that’s jumping the gun a little,” Whitaker speaks. “Maybe we just leave it to Dr. Mohan for now?”

“Could ask Kiara to talk to her.” Javadi looks between the three of them.

“Jesus. At this rate, this woman’s gonna meet every healthcare professional in this hospital,” Santos mumbles, heading back over to her seat, which Mel appreciates, because she was starting to feel a little suffocated by her presence towering over her. Mel tries to find her line again on the chart she was proofreading, assuming the conversation is over.

Then Javadi thinks out loud. “How common is ABS in women?”

Uncommon, but the condition is severely underdiagnosed in general, Mel’s mind fills in.

“Dr. King?”

Oh. Javadi was actually asking her specifically.

“I’m sorry. It’s more common in males than females, but not unheard of in women. ABS is significantly underdiagnosed as well. Most doctors assume the patient is an alcoholic in denial and don’t run the proper tests for it.”

“Well, what are the tests?” Santos asks.

And Mel doesn’t know why, but she gets a little angry.

Makes her chest swell with a prickly heat. She picks her hands up off of the mouse and keyboard and clenches them into fists under the table, feigning consideration, but she doesn’t think she’s doing very well.

“A Carbohydrate Challenge Test, combined with… Measuring blood alcohol levels before and after,” Mel explains, and it takes considerable strength to politely add, “Y’know, I really need to catch up on—”

“Can we run that kind of test here?” Javadi wonders out loud.

Deep breaths, Mel, she tells herself, but all she gets is the scent of sterile hospital and gross technology and her brain swells once more with pain. Her stomach feels like it's twisting into itself. “I dooooon’t… think so. Not in the ED,” Mel murmurs. “You should refer her to a gastroenterologist.”

“We’ve got gastroenterologists upstairs,” Santos points out.

To which Whitaker notes, “I don’t think this is enough of an emergency to, like, fast-track her to one, though.”

“But we can refer her,” Javadi says rapidly. “And tell them what tests to run. Right?”

Mel rubs the back of her neck and it turns into fingernails digging into the soft flesh. “Mhm. Once her blood alcohol level is back down to a normal number, they can run tests.”

“I guess,” Santos says dismissively. “If you wanna go through the trouble.”

“Don’t say that,” Javadi sighs. “It’s important for us to explore every possibility. That’s our job as doctors.”

Final stretch. Mel just wants to finish her charts and go home and pass out, or try to, at least, and wake up every two hours because her body’s screaming at her, but that’s the new normal, really, isn’t it? Spend the evening thinking of meal prepping and never doing it? Eyeing her phone on the coffee table for texts that are never going to come?

“So, Mel—”

And something snaps inside of her, harsh as a whip cracking, and before Mel can swallow her temper, she’s shouting, actually shouting in the middle of the emergency department, “Would you please just stop talking?!”

Everybody goes very, very, still.

Except Mel. Her hands are shaking where she lifted them for emphasis and she doesn’t think she’s ever raised her voice like that in her entire life. Never. Never, ever, ever. That was louder than she could handle if she were the one being berated at this table. That was too much. That was an extreme overreaction.

Becca, just tell me.

Dana’s staring at her from the central desk. A lot of people are staring at her, actually, but nobody’s looking at her quite like Javadi, who looks more shocked than offended, but the hurt is seeping through the cracks of her expression, anyway.

“Sorry,” Javadi says softly before Mel can be the one to issue the very necessary apology herself.

Mel almost wants to die. Instead of slamming her head against the keyboard and bursting into tears, however, she stands up and walks toward the ambulance bay.

This is dumb. She could have finished that chart and actually left, but maybe it’s a little blessing in disguise that she doesn’t have to return to her empty, silent, apartment, for a little while longer. Mel watches the moon in the sky, shrouded by clouds. Listens to the cars somewhere further down. The bushes grooving in the wind.

No, it was definitely still dumb. She wants to go to bed. Her head hurts and her legs are a shaking foundation for the crumbling statue of her body and the hollowness of her torso is a bruise that stretches through every rib.

“Mel?”

McKay’s pushing open the doors and invading Mel’s little pity party. Mel stares stupidly at her for a long time before she gets out, “Dr. McKay. Did you need somethi—?”

“No, I was just—” McKay forks a thumb over her shoulder back toward the hallway she just exited from. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. That was, uh. Intense.”

“Oh, I’m— I’m fine,” Mel assures, fidgeting with her fingers, hoping her eyes don’t look as wide and afraid as they feel. “Actually, I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have had an outburst like that in front of so many people and patients, and it was really unfair to Dr. Javadi—”

To her surprise, McKay laughs, tilting forward a bit with the motion, crossing her arms. “Oh, no, don’t sweat it. This place has seen worse, trust me.”

Mel chews on the inside of her cheek.

“But, uh—” McKay’s smile gets smaller. “You should probably apologize to Victoria, though.”

“I know,” Mel sighs shakily, and she feels like she’s five years old getting caught with a hand in the cookie jar again. “I will.”

“Okay,” McKay nods, and presses, “Did she do something, to make you…? Or…?”

“No, I’m just…” Losing my everloving mind? “Overwhelmed. And I took it out on her when she didn’t deserve it,” Mel shamefully explains.

McKay’s eyes dart across Mel’s face, then down to her shoulders, where Mel realizes she’s wearing one of her jackets that she never returned.

“Oh. Oh,” Mel breathes, then starts practically ripping off the jacket. “This is yours. I’m so sorry—”

“No! No, don’t worry about it,” McKay hushes, hands on Mel’s shoulders so Mel keeps it on, and she’s grimacing when she says, “You look like you could use it.”

The contact is the most Mel’s felt in months.

“Uh,” Mel exhales, “Thank you. I’m okay.”

McKay takes her hands back and pushes her bangs out of her eyes with a heavy-handed palm, visibly disbelieving when she deadpans, “So I’ve heard.”

That’s an odd tone. “What?”

McKay nods grimly. “Nothing. I’m taking your word for it.” The interaction, for god knows what reason, doesn’t end there. “I’ll see you back in there?”

“Yeah. And thank you. Again. For letting me borrow your jacket. And for checking on me.”

“It’s the least I can do,” McKay replies, a sad smile on her face that has Mel questioning the exchange long after she’s left Mel alone once more in the ambulance bay.

Mel’s at a coffee shop. Sun streaks on the wooden table, proof of life and people past. The fifth time she’s seen Becca in the span of countless, endless, long, months, all blurring together.

Her sister looks good across the table. Her hair is tied back in a ponytail and her glasses, the frame, it’s brand new, flowers decorating the rims, and Mel is just staring. Taking her in like it’s the last time she ever will, because that’s a possibility that is very, very, real, now.

There’s hot chocolate on the table and the whipped cream has melted into the drink. Mel told Becca she could finish the drink for her. The sugar would hurt her stomach, anyway.

They’ve been talking about nothing, really. Becca’s dates. Becca meeting Adam’s family. Becca winning game night and traveling to parks and museums and on and on and on while Mel picks at a hangnail and smiles when she has to.

She’s so happy for her. She’s so exhausted.

“Mel,” Becca addresses after she’s finished talking about a water park and how she got a tan. Her voice is suddenly really strained. “Are you sick?”

It takes Mel more conscious effort than it should to lift her chin off the heel of her palm where it was resting, to set her elbow down on the table instead of leaning against it.

Mel doesn’t like lying to her sister. To anybody, really. What an awful person she’s become.

“I think I’m coming down with something,” Mel mutters.

“Maybe you should go to a hospital,” Becca tells her. “Like the one you work at? Your friends can help you. I don’t want you to get me sick and then I’ll be sneezing everywhere next time I see you.”

Next time I see you. Hope is a dying, wet, flame, flickering in Mel’s heart, but Mel can count on one hand the number of times she’s met Becca in the past five months.

She just wants so badly to believe. Wants to believe Becca didn’t say that out of muscle memory, wants to believe they can be okay—

“I don’t think you have to worry about that, Becca.”

—but it’s learned helplessness, now, and even if Becca attached herself to Mel’s hip today, Mel really, really, doesn’t know if she could keep looking herself in the eye like that.

Santos talks a lot.

Or she’s talking a lot right now, at least.

Mel’s on the floor of the on-call room leaning against one of the beds built into the wall and the hard surface of its frame digs into her spine. It’s pain and that’s the only sensation she can focus on, the only thing grounding her, lighting up her nerves, keeping her anchored to Earth.

“Hey, Mel. Are you fucking dying?”

There’s a weight on Mel’s shoulder that she instinctively knocks off with the back of her wrist, and she only knows it was Santos’ hand because the mentioned hisses a quick, “Okay, boundaries, got it.”

Just give me a minute, Mel thinks, wills her lips to form the words. It’s difficult to speak without oxygen, though— No, impossible, actually. Mel knows she still has oxygen in her body. If she didn’t, she’d have lost consciousness and Santos would be shoving a tube down her throat, not eyeing her like a wild animal.

It’s humiliating, but unavoidable, given that Mel shoulder-checked Santos when she was sprinting for the on-call room, and Santos must’ve either wanted to beat her up, or make sure she was okay.

Mel’s face is still intact, so she’s leaning toward the latter, in a rare case of Santos being tender.

“Dude, you’re just having a panic attack. You’ll be fine.”

Slightly tender, at least.

And, well, Mel knew that much. She doesn’t have any respiratory conditions, and she’s in— Decent health, so a heart attack wouldn’t make a lot of sense, either. Besides, her chest doesn’t hurt, if she doesn’t count feeling suffocated by her heavy jacket and long-sleeve and thermal suffocating, which, actually, yeah, maybe that isn’t helping.

Mel’s eyes are pressed into her knees pulled up to her chest, hard enough she can see the colors floating behind closed eyelids. It forms spasms of soreness in the sockets, but despite the on-call room's light being off, what little light is shining through the window on the door is too much.

“Hey, Mel. Take my hands.”

The request forms a speedbump in the long, dwindling, road of Mel’s panic. She lifts her head, brows furrowed, peering just through her eyes to see Santos. She’s sitting on her ankles in front of Mel. Her palms are up. Her voice is gravely serious, eyes unblinking in the low light of the on-call room.

“Why?” Mel manages to get out.

“Do you want my help, or not?” Santos huffs, and, well, Santos isn’t exactly the most comforting presence, but she’s all Mel’s got, so Mel puts her damp hands in Trinity’s own, and Trinity commands more than asks, “Squeeze my hands.”

“What?”

“Hard as you can,” Santos adds, ignoring Mel’s question. “Come on. Like I’m a stress ball. Do it.”

The peculiarity isn’t lost on Mel, but it’s outlandish enough that she feels comfortable giving in to Santos’ request. Mel wraps her fingers around Santos’ palms and squeezes, and the soft flesh doesn’t give way to the force. Mel tries to study her face, but Santos doesn’t even flinch. Not when Mel feels bone and knuckle, not when her own fingers burn from the press.

“You know the 12 cranial nerves?” Santos asks, not a single wince in her tone.

What that could possibly have to do with the current situation, Mel is entirely lost on, but it surprises her enough to get a small edge over her panic. “What?” she pants. “Um— Yeah?”

“‘Course you do,” Santos mumbles judgmentally under her breath, although Mel’s pretty sure she was supposed to hear that. Mel’s also pretty sure every doctor in this hospital knows the cranial nerves, or at least she really hopes they do, but she doesn’t have the clear mind nor the words necessary to tell Santos that. “Okay. List them, in order, and between each one, take a deep breath.”

Mel wants to say, You’re asking a lot from me at a very bad time, but that’s a long sentence, and it’s way easier to blink, think, and blurt out, “Olfactory?”

Santos’ eyebrows raise like even she wasn’t expecting this to work. “Good. Deep breath.”

And Mel gives it her best shot. She knows some oxygen slides into her lungs. Has to be, because she’s able to adjust her grip on Santos’ hands and continue, “Optic.”

“Alright, A-plus,” Santos nods. “Again.”

It’s a fraction easier this time.

“Oculomotor.”

“Congratulations, you’re a fourth of the way there,” Santos praises sarcastically, and she doesn’t have to ask Mel to breathe again, it just happens.

Mel can feel her heart pounding against her ribcage, but it’s a welcome sensation. It’s tangible. She’s alive. Her body is keeping her alive. “Trochlear.”

“Function?” Santos tests, a wrench in the routine, but if Mel didn’t like unpredictability in these walls, she wouldn’t have chosen the ED.

“Um…” Mel takes a shaky breath, glances at a black-shrouded corner of darkness like it’ll hold the answers. It’s that exact motion that makes it easy to remember. “The trochlear nerve allows… Provides motor function to the superior oblique muscle for intrusion, abduction, and depression of the eye.”

“Wow,” Trinity cackles. “Somebody memorized their textbook.”

“And the trigeminal nerve controls facial sensation and chewing.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

That is a faceful of ice water. Concerned, Mel asks, “You didn’t know that?”

“No, Mel, I’m making jokes,” Trinity eases. “It’s ‘grounding,’ or whatever. Of course I knew that.”

“What’s the sixth one, then?”

The words slip out before Mel can bite down on them. Her shoulders slump. She takes a deep breath and it settles all the way down in the bottom of her stomach. It’s nice.

Trinity’s eyes widen, and she scoffs, “Are you teasing me right now?”

It’s quite fun. Mel sees why Trinity does this so often. Hesitantly, Mel challenges, “Show me what you got?”

Trinity blows air out of her lips and her diaphragm expands as she takes it all back in. Mel decides to retract her hands, trying not to visibly cringe from the texture of sweat sticking to her palms. “Fuck, what’s the mnemonic?” Trinity snaps her fingers. “‘Touch and feel very good velvet’?”

“‘Ah, heaven,’” Mel finishes for her.

“Yeah, that’s useless. So the sixth one’s—” Trinity counts on her fingers, and Mel is shocked, honestly, that she’s still entertaining this. She peers through one eye and guesses, “Abducens?”

“Moves the eye laterally,” Mel confirms. Maybe this is what it was like to have study groups with friends in college. Mel frequently drifted through different friend groups when she was a student, but none of them ever really spoke to her outside of classes they shared.

“‘Laterally.’ Say ‘horizontal’ like the rest of us,” Trinity mutters, and Mel laughs, genuine and boisterous, the sound rattling her limbs pleasantly.

When the feeling fades, Mel brushes hair out of her face until it sits neatly behind her ears. “Um— Thank you, Doctor Ssss…” Is that too formal? They were just exchanging jokes. Maybe that means they’re friends? Weren’t they already friends, to some extent? God, Mel hates this kind of thing. “Um. Trinity.”

Trinity ducks her head, but it doesn’t hide a small smile. She’s got bags under her eyes that Mel can see even this low. She shifts so she can sit beside Mel instead of in front of her and everything’s flat and dull and calmingly so when Trinity responds, “Don’t mention it. Seriously, or Robby’s gonna put you on a fucking… psych hold.”

Mel has no plans to mention it, so she masks the flash of bewilderment on her face and agrees, “Okay?”

It’s prime time to splash her face with water in the bathroom and suffer through the sensory nightmare of patting it dry with paper towels, Mel thinks, stretching out her legs in front of her. Mel sets her hands down in her lap and caresses her knuckles. Every extremity is edging on numb. She pulls her wrists a little further into her sleeves.

“Speaking of psych holds,” Trinity says, and boy, what a way to start a sentence, “what the hell’s going on with you?”

Wow. This is weird. Mel can count the number of times Trinity has initiated a conversation about something other than work on one hand.

“Nothing,” Mel defends, maybe a little too quickly. “I just got really dizzy for a minute, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe, but those are all common symptoms of a panic attack, so, um. I think I was just overwhelmed. I really appreciate your help—”

“I’m not talking about your little—” Trinity rolls her eyes and gesticulates something Mel doesn’t think anybody could understand— “Freakout, I’m talking about you. You’re like a ghost.”

On the contrary, Mel doesn’t think she’s ever felt so light and free.

“Alright, look,” Trinity continues, even though her voice is hard to take seriously sometimes when she always comes across so sardonic. “You look sick. You don’t blurt out weird, nerdy, shit in the middle of conversations anymore, which is honestly just wrong. You’re always distracted. I know you must be freezing, you’re bundled up like you’re about to hike Mt. Everest. Really, you look ill, Mel. You know that’s why Robby’s been putting you on triage, right?”

Mel didn’t know that.

Sarcastically, Trinity adds, “Did I mention you look, like, really fucking sick?”

Not sick. Just pale. Mel knows it’s false even while she’s actively telling herself it. She’s not just pale, not anymore, and there’s no freedom in being light when she’s stuck wandering around the same old ghost town of her past and present problems.

If Mel performed an intake on herself, it’d be a no-brainer.

“I’m just tired.”

And the lethargy in her tone isn’t at all fake, it’s just that that’s a tiny puzzle piece of the bigger picture. Mel doesn’t really know why she’s trying to hide it; Trinity’s got that look in her eye like she can read Mel’s mind and Mel doesn’t even think it’s just something Trinity can do, it’s just that Trinity’s the only one with a wit sharp enough to put things the way they are.

“You’ve got something way more sinister going on, Mel-nourished.”

Trinity lifts off the floor with her palm and starts back toward the door. “Before you let it kill you, you should check out the eighth floor. Or, y’know.” Trinity shifts from one foot to the other in a rare display of uncertainty, and her voice isn’t soft, but it is the softest Mel’s ever heard it when she adds, staring at the ceiling, “Talk to one of your coworkers? Maybe not me. I give terrible advice. But a professional. If you ever feel like it.” A pause, where she visibly contemplates. “Okay, fine, fuck, or even me. Just someone.”

Mel looks up at her in awe, and Trinity puts a hand on the door handle and swiftly ends the exchange. “Alright, awkward, great, bye-bye.”

The door clicks shut and Mel is left alone in the darkness picturing PTMC’s Psychiatric and Behavioral Health unit on the eighth floor.

Sometime in February, Mel’s fingers turn a little blue.

Logically, she knows that they actually must have been slowly turning blue over a longer period of time, but it only exists once she sees it, doesn’t it?

And it’s there on the tips of her fingers, just the pads, a light shade of paling blue. She’s certain she’s only seeing it because of the bright light in this patient’s room as she tugs a pair of gloves over her hands.

And for the first time since she started telling herself she wasn’t allowed to eat at work, she doesn’t feel anything when she sees it. The way her knuckles and tendons poke through her hand, how she can wrap her pinky and thumb around her wrist, the lanugo that grows reassuring her that she’s making an impact. Proof of one thing she can do right.

She feels nothing.

Maybe just a little curious. Wonders if she’s reached a point of no return. If this Ship of Theseus she’s turned herself into can ever be what it used to.

If she’s really, really, really, better off.

She wraps gauze and bandages around a handful of small lacerations on a man’s arm. Her hands don’t shake as violently as they used to, just dulled down to a slight tremor. Maybe it’ll never go away.

A quarter after five, Robby tells Mel to take five and grab a snack from the vending machine, and Mel finds the stairs and climbs them until she sees stars in her vision and she’s shoving open the door to the roof.

Apparently, this is a popular spot, both in theory and in practice, because somebody else is already up here.

Mel’s feet feel like they’re glued to the ground. Langdon heard the roof door open, though— He’s taking a hand off the railing and turning around and she’s surprised, for some reason, when he smiles at the sight of her.

“Hey. Grabbing some air?” he asks.

She walks toward him, pulling the sleeves of her own jacket, not McKay’s, down. “Robby told me I needed a break.”

“Well, he was probably right,” Langdon sighs, leaning back against the railing, and Mel decides to do it, too. Her muscles feel like they’re on fire. “You’ve been working hard lately.”

“You think so?” Mel asks, a genuine question, really, because if anything, she’s been slacking off these past few months.

“Yeah.” Langdon winces against a particularly strong gust of wind and Mel watches his hair fly with it, then settle back down over his forehead. “I know Robby’s been sticking you on triage, but you’ve been doing a great job during the traumas that come in.”

Mel clears her throat. “I can’t remember the last time I actually, um… Participated in one.”

Mel spreads her hands out over the cool, metal, railing. It’s the medical cart all over again. Numbness against numbness. Her fingertips are blue and it’s her own fault. She’s falling behind and it’s her own fault. Nobody calls for her to help out during traumas and it’s her own fault, it’s her own fault for resigning herself to this, really, for giving in instead of growing up.

And that’s the nail.

In the metaphorical coffin. Since July, distaste has developed rottenly on Mel’s tongue and it’s built up and up and up and when it crawls over her skin like spiders she’s accepted it as part of what’s necessary to feel better in the long run, but here, now, right at this moment—

She’s sick of it.

Mel ducks under the railing. Langdon’s hand reaches out, grazing her shoulder. “Woah, hey, be careful, Mel—”

“I’m okay,” Mel assures, holding the bar again once she’s on the other side, and then she lowers herself to the ground and takes a seat on the concrete. Pulls her knees up. Distances herself from the bar, enough that it’s not digging into her back, but not so far that she can see the view below.

“Jesus,” Langdon mutters, moreso to himself, and then he’s also ducking under the railing, lowering himself to the ground right next to her.

Mel straightens up, alarmed. “You don’t have to sit with me—”

“No, this is— It’s nice,” Langdon replies, almost like he actually believes it is.

“What about your back?”

“I’m not geriatric just yet, Mel.”

“That’s not what I meant.” You know what I meant.

“Mel,” Langdon firmly addresses her, though not unkindly. “I’m good. The view’s nice. Makes up for it.”

Mel fidgets with her nails, her unpainted, blue, nails, arms wrapped around her knees. She rests her chin atop them. Robby said five minutes, but Mel thinks she could be here for ten. Pittsburgh’s sunset tonight very nearly makes the city look like it isn’t suffering from some of the worst air pollution in the country. It’s bright and vibrant, clouds stretching overhead, and the purple-pinks are hard to make out between the yellows and oranges, but at least they’re there at all.

The silence between them is unfamiliar, but Mel doesn’t blame anybody but herself. She can’t respond to any questions about herself nowadays without I’m fine or I’m okay or Don’t worry about me.

Still, he’s sitting here. That means something. That means he hasn’t given up.

And Mel, selfish, stubborn, stupid as ever, doesn’t really want to give up, either. She really, really, doesn’t. It’s a foreign feeling. It’s a chilling one.

“Can I ask you a very personal question, Dr. Langdon?” Mel can’t help but ask.

Hesitant for no longer than a second, Langdon nods and tells her, “Yeah, go for it. What’s this a—?”

“How did you know you had a problem?”

Mel’s voice wavers.

She forces herself to stare very intently at the solid, concrete, flooring of the rooftop. “How did you— How did you know you were addicted to benzodiazepines, and needed help?”

It’s quiet for a long time. The breeze blows sweetly against Mel’s face and she doesn’t like the flyaways that have escaped her braid, but she’s not surprised they have, either, considering the shift she's been having.

“I didn’t,” Langdon responds, eventually. “I mean, not really. I knew… I knew that what I was doing was wrong, it was just… It felt so necessary at the time that I didn’t realize how badly I was hurting myself, or the people around me. Not until everything blew up in my face.”

Mel takes it in. Rolls the words around her tongue and conjures up a few replies of her own. Okay, thank you for telling me. I appreciate it. I’m glad you got the help you needed. You’re doing great. It’s not easy to open up about that sort of thing.

“Why?”

Mel perks up. “Hm?”

“Why do you ask?” Langdon clarifies.

Mel’s shoulders feel like tectonic plates, shivering, shaking, jitters she can’t brush off any longer. Blood rushes to her ears and she sprawls out her palms on the rooftop even though it’s dirty, and even though they’re dry, and numb, and so, so, so, cold, endlessly cold, light blue forever.

She can never get warm anymore. She layers up and she sprints and she goes on the treadmill until the corners of her vision blacken and the sweat doesn’t even feel like sweat, just particles of ice sticking her clothes to her skin. She can never get warm. She can never be warm again.

God, she just wants to be warm again.

“I think I have a problem,” Mel whispers.

In her periphery, she can see that the admission has gotten Langdon to turn his head toward her, but she’s not brave enough to meet his gaze.

“Yeah?” Langdon replies, and his voice is velvet soft. “What kind of problem, Mel?”

She shakes her head. It feels right to. Shake it off, that is. Not make this somebody else’s problem. It’s not even a problem.

“I don’t know,” she tries, and she means to say, I don’t know to explain it, but, true to her word, they get trapped inside her voice box and she’s shutting her eyes and begging the world to swallow her up but she’s already digging a grave and to leave it this shallow would be letting herself down unforgivably. “I’m so cold, all the time.”

“Cold?” Langdon repeats, more like a confirmation. “What else?”

Mel shakes her head. She’s said enough.

“Mel.” Langdon says her name like a low warning of something unwanted but necessary to come. She can’t look at him. “It’s okay.”

But it’s not, it’s really not. “It’s not,” Mel argues. “It’s not okay, I’m—“

Cursed forever? Stupid? Foolish? Alone? Completely and utterly alone?

Mel faces him. He’s blurry and windswept and Pennsylvania’s sunset is so bright behind him that he’s almost an angel, he is her angel, even if it’s just in this moment, and Mel’s not on her hands and knees praying, but she’s still all but begging, “What do I do?”

“The first step toward getting better,” Langdon says, “is admitting you have a problem.”

This is all she has left. This is the culmination of all of her efforts. She can be good. She can be really, really, good at what she does. She can have control. She can survive. Surviving is enough.

“I think I have an eating disorder,” Mel says, and the wind takes her words and carries them far, far, away.

And she expected something almost magical. Some sort of weight off her shoulders, or hope to light up in her chest, but all it does is make her feel sick to her stomach.

“Or, I— I know I do. I’ve known since high school, but it’s not— It’s not manageable, anymore,” Mel rambles. “It turned into something bad. It’s hurting me. It’s hurting my body. If I saw a patient with my symptoms, I would schedule a psychiatric consultation, and give them a pamphlet of resources, and tell them that they don’t have to deal with this alone—”

“Then why do you?” Langdon interrupts, one of the only times Mel thinks he ever has.

“What?” she whispers.

“Why do you have to suffer alone?” Langdon clarifies, but as quickly as the sentence comes out, he’s affirming, “You don’t, Mel.”

Mel feels like her lungs are being crushed by a weight she can’t place, and if she hadn’t already been running on nerves and adrenaline and the dopamine high of control, control, control, for the past few months, she doesn’t think she’d have the gall to sniffle and confess, “Becca doesn’t talk to me anymore.”

Langdon lifts off his palms behind him, sitting up straight. “At all?”

“No,” Mel admits. “She texts or calls me sometimes, but she never really wants to meet up anymore. We used to go to dinner every Friday, and I’d stop by her facility after work often and we’d watch movies, and talk about our days, and— And I moved to Pittsburgh so she could go to this facility. I moved to Pittsburgh and I started working here so I could be closer to her, and now she doesn’t want me anymore.”

“Mel,” Langdon starts delicately, “I don’t think that’s true at all.”

He draws a leg halfway to his chest, arm hanging loosely off of his knee. Mel watches the sun reflect off his arms, shine something light on his dark hair.

“People grow up. And it sucks. And it hurts, really, really, bad, to watch it happen, but sometimes, when you get a taste of how things could be, you never want to go back to how they were.” Mel knows that all too well. “Becca hasn’t abandoned you, Mel. She’s just growing up. Learning how to navigate all the new doors that’ve opened up for her.”

But why can’t I help her? Mel wonders callowly, but she knows the answer. Becca doesn’t want Mel to help her.

Doesn’t need her to.

“I don’t know who I am if Becca doesn’t need me.”

“Mel, she’s your sister. Of course she still needs you,” Langdon answers easily. “She just doesn’t need you.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Mel says, wishing she could swallow the frustration clawing its way out of her throat.

Langdon sighs. “Listen to me.”

Mel looks at him. He’s ducking his head just above the arm he’s got so casually positioned so their gazes are level and Mel feels small and studied and self-conscious. There are people in the world who can tell what a person is thinking just from the way their eyelashes flutter or they bite their lip or raise their eyebrows and Mel certainly isn’t one of them, but when she’s reading the care in his eyes, not knowing what it stems from or how strong it is or where it comes from, she trusts her own judgment.

“All she needs is time,” Langdon says. “Just like you.”

Mel tries to laugh, but there are tears pooling in her eyes and all she really succeeds at is making some strangled noise before she asks, “You think time heals all wounds?”

“I know it does.”

She wants to believe that. On some level, she has to, because she can talk about her mom and dad without sobbing, and it took years to get to that point.

“I just…” Becca isn’t Mel’s, but Mel says it anyway: “I think I thought of her as the only thing I had left of… Of me? Of our family?” Articulation has never been Mel’s strong suit when she’s overwhelmed, but there’s no point in only laying out half of her dirty laundry, now. “This isn’t her fault. I don’t want you to think that I’m saying that.”

“Having a trigger isn’t the same as blaming somebody,” Langdon reassures her, all delicate and gentle, and it makes it even harder to think.

“Okay.” Mel inhales through her nose and wonders how much of that oxygen is actually getting to her cells. How much of it used to get to her cells. How hard it’ll be to get it back, figuratively and literally. “I just wanted to have something else to focus on. And my diet was easy, because I’d put a lot of thought into it in the past, anyway, because I was really picky as a kid, so I just, you know, I did a lot of research, but I— It wasn’t supposed to get like this. It was never supposed to get like this. It was never supposed to feel like the only thing I had— Or, or have control over.”

But this is all I have. This is my last shred of control. This is the last thing I have. This is it. This is the culmination of all of my life’s efforts.

What a disgusting thing to put on a pedestal.

“It’s not the only thing you have, Mel,” Langdon shakes his head. “Look.” He doesn’t mean literally. Mel likes that about him. “As long as you’ve got yourself, you still have somebody.”

She curls a fist over her heart, toying with one of the earpieces on her stethoscope. “Myself?”

“Yeah. And that’s all you need,” Langdon bestows upon her, and follows-up, “Nobody else can deal with this for you. Nobody else can heal for you. You’ve gotta do it yourself. You’ve gotta want to do it.”

Is she strong enough for that? Mel imagines her younger self would be, the version of her that got through medical school and funerals and caretaking, but the now, who she is right here on this rooftop—

“But other people can help,” Langdon continues, nodding with the statement, and it’s the emphasis she’s always loved seeing in him. “You just have to let them.”

“Is that—?” Mel presses her lips together. “I have a dumb question.”

“I have a dumb answer.”

She chuckles despite herself, despite the heaviness, despite everything he knows about her, more than anybody else, just maybe. Second-place, for sure. “How hard is it?”

Langdon looks right into her soul and says, “Nothing you can’t handle.”

Maybe he’s right. Just maybe.

The warm sun bores into Mel’s skin and Pittsburgh is quiet, just for a few seconds, just long enough for her to think that if trying is the second step, then perhaps she’s already halfway there.