Chapter Text
Frank Landon can say, quite frankly (hah!), that reincarnation sucks.
Imagine this. Frank is five years old, locked in a snowball fight with his sister. Snow drifts lazily from the sky, settling in his hair, clinging to his lashes. It’s so cold he can see his breath with every laugh that spills out of him.
Off to his right stands the snowman he built with his mom earlier, looking lopsided with a crooked smile. They'd been happily playing before his mom had gotten too winded and had to sit down.
Right now, Frank is laughing, having the time of his life, but the snowball that hits him next is more ice than snow. It cracks against the side of his head, and suddenly everything tilts. Something wet starts to slide down his temple. It’s warm.
Tara is screaming, he can hear her, distant and panicked, calling for their parents, but it sounds far away, like he’s underwater.
He tries to say “I’m okay, don’t worry” but the words won’t leave his mouth and before he knows it everything is black.
When he wakes up, he’s in the hospital, and there are three doctors staring down at him. One of them checks a machine next to him, and the other two say something he can’t hear, his brain too fuzzy.
He blinks blearily, reaching up towards his neck, which is when he absently notes that he has some contraption clipped onto his finger, glowing red like a signal light–and there’s a needle in his arm.
That isn’t what worries him.
What worries him is that he can’t feel his dog tags.
“Hey there,” one of the doctors says gently, offering him a small, reassuring smile. “Can you hear me?”
Frank’s brow furrows as he looks up at him, disoriented.
“You gave us a bit of a scare,” the doctor continues, voice calm and steady. “You hit your head outside when you had a fall. Do you remember that?”
A fall?
Frank tries to tilt his head in confusion but pain hits him as he tries to move.
“You’re in the hospital,” the doctor adds. “You’re safe and your mum and dad are just outside.”
Frank swallows, his confusion sharpening into something uneasy.
His ma and pa died long time ago.
“Doctor,” he says, his voice coming out thin–too high, too young. His brow furrows deeper. “To which location have I been transported?”
The doctor’s smile falters, just slightly.
“You’re at Petersburg Hospital,” he says carefully. “You hit your head and lost consciousness.”
“Petersburg?” Frank’s voice is panicked now. “Thun deration! I’m in Germany? Did the Nazis surrender?”
The doctors exchange a look. One of them clears his throat.
“Frank…” he says, more cautiously now. “Can you tell me what date it is?”
Sweat beads along his hairline. The question feels loaded–like a test he hasn’t studied for. If the war is over, he can finally go home to his girl, to Melinda, his sweet Mel. But if this knucklehead won’t answer him properly, then he’ll just get out of here himself. He’ll swim across the ocean if it means he’ll have her in his arms again.
“Listen, schnook,” he says, pushing himself upright despite how light his body feels. It’s probably just because of his need for real food since he’s been on the battlefield for months now. “It’s the fifth of May 1945. Hitler finally offed himself, and we were close–real close–to ending this thing. Now I need the situation, plain and simple, because I’ve got a girl waiting for me back home–and a daughter. That I haven’t even had to chance to hold yet.”
The doctors don’t look alarmed anymore. If anything, they look… amused. Frank can’t for the life of him figure out why. Don’t they get that they are at war? What’s so funny about a man desperate to go home to his wife and kid?
“Frank, can you tell me your name?”
Frank lets out a growl, once again disregarding the fact that his voice doesn’t sound quite right. “Lieutenant Franklin Levinson. ID 87152638. Last stationed at Marseilles, with the–”
He falters slightly, something about the words not sitting right in his mouth. And if the faces of his doctors are anything to go by then something is wrong.
The doctor, clearly the one in charge in comparison to the two others in the room, grimaces slightly before clearing his throat.
“Frank,” he says carefully, “you’re in Petersburg Hospital, in Virginia.”
A brief pause.
“And today is February fourth, 1997.”
Frank’s brain becomes fuzzy again, and everything goes blissfully black.
It’s difficult, adapting to all the different lives in his head. It’s difficult to remember that he’s not Fabian, or Fileas, or Finn or Francisco. No, in this life he’s Frank, just Frank. Not even Franklin like in his last life, when he was a soldier during World War 2.
His family doesn’t know what to do with him. Doesn’t know what to do when he has nightmares about wars and famine and children dying. He’s a child himself and still he can remember holding his son as he died from smallpox in the 1500s, his skin covered in blisters and his face filled with pain.
Those nights are the hardest.
But it doesn’t stop there. Every sharp noise sends him upright, pulse hammering, convinced, just for a moment, that the bombs have found him again. And sometimes the wrong language slips out, unbidden, curling around his words until his mother looks at him like she doesn’t quite recognize him. Like he’s said something he shouldn’t have. Like he is something he shouldn’t be.
But how can he be wrong, when this is all he is?
Every life, every version, all at once?
And he hates making his family sad. Hates seeing his mother whisper furiously to his father when Frank speaks about some historical event as if he was there to witness it. He hates seeing his sister get teased because she’s related to the boy who acts weird and much older than he is.
So, it doesn’t come as a surprise when his mother takes him to a psychiatrist.
The man speaks gently, like Frank is something fragile, something on the verge of breaking. He asks questions Frank doesn’t know how to answer, questions that feel too small for the enormity of what lives inside his head.
Then come the pills.
They make everything softer. Quieter. Blurry around the edges. Like he has cotton in his ears and he’s nodding at words spoken to him and he’s aware but he’s not really all there.
At first, his mother smiles more when he takes them. His father stops watching him so closely, like he’s waiting for something to go wrong.
But the memories–
They start slipping.
Not disappearing, not completely, but dulling at the edges. Like a book left out in the rain. The words becoming unreadable and the ink smearing together. Suddenly he has difficulty remembering her laugh or how her fingers felt intertwined with his.
And Frank can’t lose them.
They’re all he has left of them. Of her. Of his Mel.
So, he learns to hide it.
He begins to tell people that he’s a big history buff, and that’s why he knows all these obscure facts, like the fact that Queen Victoria liked to smear honey on her eyelids because she claimed it made her see better. He convinces his dad to take him to the Fort Pitt Museum, even though it’s hours away and his dad complains about the long drive. It’s worth it if it means he can keep her in his mind.
Even still, he can’t stop himself from doing a double take every time he sees blonde hair in a braid.
And even still, it hurts–every single time he realizes it isn’t her.
When Frank turns eighteen, two months before he’s meant to start college, he goes to Greece.
He tells his family it’s for freedom, for a chance to experience life before the long stretch of medical school waiting for him. His mother had cried, horrified that he was going so far away, but had been comforted by the fact that he would be home a month before he had to move into his dorm room in a whole different state.
When he arrives in Crete, the feeling comes almost immediately.
Not recognition, but something heavier.
Like grief that’s been waiting for him.
Nothing looked how it was before, which Frank expected. What he didn’t expect was for it to hurt so much.
The tree is gone. His tree.
In its place stands a kiosk, bright and garish, selling cheap replicas of ancient history to tourists who don’t know what they’re standing on. They don’t know whose memories they’re trampling on as they talk in too loud voices and take pictures every few seconds.
Frank stares at it for a long time.
He can still see it if he tries hard enough, the way the branches curved just slightly to the left, the way Mel had laughed when he’d missed her lips the first time he tried to kiss her.
Now there’s only plastic souvenirs and the sound of someone arguing over prices in a language he hasn’t spoken in centuries, but can still understand.
It feels wrong.
All of it feels wrong.
Even still, he makes his way up to the mountaintop where their house once stood, set apart from the village.
People back then had never been kind to Mel – not really. Not when she was so unlike the others – too honest, too unfiltered, speaking when others expected silence and refusing to soften herself for their comfort.
He remembers one day in particular.
They had gone to the market, and a vendor would not stop talking. Question after question, each more nonsensical than the last. Even when Frank stepped in, tried to redirect, the man just kept going.
Mel’s face had tightened, her hands rising to her neck, wrists pressed close like she was trying to fold in on herself, make herself smaller, quieter, unseen.
Frank had guided her away, murmuring softly, trying to ground her - but the rest of the day had felt… fragile.
As if one wrong step, one careless word, might shatter her completely.
Later that night Frank had held her in their bed, stroking her hair.
“Why must I be so unlike the others?” Mel murmurs, her voice small, frayed at the edges.
Frank brushes a loose strand of hair back behind her ear, his touch careful, reverent.
“Because you feel more than they do,” he says quietly. “And the world has never been kind to those who feel deeply. Who are sensitive.”
He pauses, his thumb brushing softly against her temple.
“But I would not have you any different. Not for anything this world could offer.”
Mel smiled at him with teary eyes, and Frank thought she had never looked more beautiful.
The memory lingers, vivid and aching.
He can’t help but mourn it, all of it. The moments no one else remembers, no one else could ever hold the way he does. They flicker through his mind in fragments: his youth, her laughter, the first time he realized he was in love with her.
Still, he can’t pretend he misses everything about that life.
He’s rather fond of indoor plumbing, for one. Proper hygiene, too.
But more than that, it was the way the world had treated her that always made something in him burn. Back then women weren’t even recognized as citizens, and he’d never been able to stomach the way others spoke about her, like she was something that belonged to him. Like property.
So yes, he misses some of the past. The quiet moments. The way it felt to love her there.
But mostly, he just misses Mel.
For the entire week leading up to his departure, he dreads going to the museum at the heart of Crete, because he knows what he’ll find there. It’s the whole reason he wanted to go on this trip in the first place.
When he finally buys his ticket, his hands are shaking. His breath turns shallow as he makes his way through the halls, each step heavier than the last, until he reaches the art section and stops.
In front of a single painting, with a woman and child.
Melissa, the nourishes of Zeus by Fileas ‘Frank’ Lambros, is written in neat writing on a plaque beside it.
Frank can feel a lump in his throat as he stares at the painting, at his painting, of Mel feeding their son honey.
It would seem blasphemous, perhaps, that the painting shows her feeding Zeus instead of their son, Theon, but Mel had insisted. She hadn’t wanted something so intimate to belong to anyone but them.
Frank had been the one to convince her otherwise.
A story, he’d said, just a story to fool the village. A painting of Zeus, hidden away as an infant, fed in secret before he grew strong enough to overthrow his father, Kronos. The woman in the painting, a princess of Crete and a nymph in equal measure, taken over by her need to provide for whom would become the king of all the Greek gods.
Thank Zeus that he had such a vivid imagination, because the village believed him wholeheartedly. The fact that the woman had the same name and bore a striking resemblance to his wife, that was just a coincidence and a testament to Mel’s beauty. That painting, and the story behind it, was the reason that they had more than enough drachma to live on.
In actuality, the scene was much more simple. Mel had been unable to breastfeed and when Theon had fussed too much, Mel had grabbed some honey and Theon had held onto the bottle, as if he had not known a greater joy in life.
Frank had painted the moment mostly from memory, though he’d coaxed Mel into modeling for him when he needed to get the details just right.
And now he isn’t sure whether he’s more grateful for that or resentful.
Because this… this is her.
This was Mel as he remembered her, the first version of her that he had ever known. Her face soft with tenderness as she leans over their child, love spilling from her eyes. The delicate mole beneath her right eye. The golden braid draped over her shoulder. The faint curve of a smile, one he knows, without question, had been there because of him.
All because Frank had made some ridiculous joke about their son eating Melissa instead, seeing as her name meant honey too.
The grief hits him all at once. It’s almost unbearable how much pain one body can carry, debilitating in a way that makes him both recoil and cling even tighter to the memory of her. There’s such an amalgamation of longing and want, that he has to clasp a hand to his mouth to keep his sobs contained.
His vision blurs. His chest stutters with every breath, small, broken hiccups escaping him despite his efforts.
And still, he can’t look away.
He only sees her.
The way she loved. The way she existed in that moment, preserved in careful brushstrokes and memory.
Frank Langdon is eighteen years old. And two thousand.
Both at once, young and ancient, caught in a war inside himself that can only agree on one thing.
He misses her.
He misses his soulmate.
College is a strange time for Frank.
He realizes, even with all the different lives he’s lived and how they are all some version of him, they are not who he is now. This version of him loves science, loves knowing how the body works. Wants to be the one to fix, to heal.
It’s a far cry from the artist he used to be, the one who grimaced at the thought of math and formulas. Sometimes, those past versions of him feel like they’re at war inside his head, urging him to pick up a paintbrush instead of a stethoscope, but Frank has learned to ignore them.
He may have lived before, but this life was his. His life to fuck up and learn from, and experience. So, he’s going to live it the way he wants. So maybe, it’s a fit of late teenage rebellion when he begins to resent Mel a bit.
Because why is he cursed with the memory of her? Why is it that in every life, he is drawn to her like a moth to a flame?
Is she even worth holding on to?
For all he knows, a past version of him simply romanticized her – turned her into something bigger than she really was, because she had been the center of his universe at the time.
So, it isn’t surprising that Frank starts pushing back.
He refuses to be bound by some imagined notion of fate, by something that exists only in his own head. There had been other lives, after all. Other relationships.
Like back in 1349 when he had been married to Adelaide. Not happily, but not entirely unhappily either. Content enough.
That life he hadn’t even met Mel until a year before his untimely death (The Black Plague sucked). And he had been fine.
So no, Frank did not need Mel. Frank could live a full, satisfying life without her (So why does his chest hurt like this?).
That’s why, when he’s invited to a frat party a year into college, he accepts without hesitation. This is his chance to let loose, to finally start living this life – his life – instead of lingering in the shadows of the ones that came before.
The party starts off well enough. People cheer him on as he chugs beer after beer, smoke burning his throat from something his mother would absolutely kill him for.
When a redhead with long legs and a wicked smile corners him after another win at beer pong, he grins at her, vision already blurring at the edges. He can’t quite make out what she’s saying, but her tone is playful, her hand warm as it slides along his bicep. A flicker of nausea twists in his stomach at the touch.
He ignores it. Blames it on the alcohol.
It doesn’t surprise him when she finally grabs his collar and pulls him into a kiss. What does surprise him is the way his entire body recoils.
It’s instant. Violent.
Like something is crawling beneath his skin. Like something is being taken from him – something he won’t ever get back.
Frank jerks away, eyes wide, breath uneven as he wipes at his mouth like he can erase the feeling.
He doesn’t look back. He just stumbles out into the backyard, leaving behind her shock, the pounding music, the thick smell of beer and sweat.
Frank barely makes it to a tree, one hand supporting his weight against the tree trunk as he empties his stomach onto the grass. His body heaves over and over, until there’s nothing left.
Tears blur his vision.
“Fuck!” His fist slams into the tree, the impact jarring up his arm. Frustration and loneliness twist together in his chest, sharp and unbearable.
Even touching someone who isn’t her feels wrong. Like his own body is fighting against him and his perceived betrayal.
Is this it? Is he meant to be alone, never able to connect with anyone because no one could ever measure up to her?
If he knew she was out there, if he knew she existed somewhere, waiting – maybe it wouldn’t feel like this.
But he doesn’t even know if she’s been born yet. Or if she’s even in the same country as him, for that matter.
And Frank is so filled with hurt and longing and want, so shouldn’t she know that he needs her? Shouldn’t she be here by now? Why hasn’t she found him yet?
Where is she?
“Well… aren’t you a sight.”
Frank looks blearily up at the woman who stands a few feet away, her nose wrinkling slightly and lips curled in disgust as she takes in the mess beside him.
He blinks at her and the world shifts.
Her loose hair twists into an intricate bun, pinned neatly at the back of her head. Her crop top and shorts melt into a deep purple dress, corseted at the waist, the skirt wide and heavy.
Frank blinks again and she’s back to normal.
Her face changes, almost imperceptibly, as she notices the tears on his cheeks.
“What’s got you down in the dumps, sourpuss?”
And then–
“What troubles you so, gigglemug?”
The sudden words echo soft and distant, pulled from somewhere deep in his memory.
With a sudden jolt he realizes who she is, or who she was. He would recognize that haughty expression and hawklike eyes everywhere. Knows the tilt of her head, the faint edge of mockery, the way concern hides just beneath it.
“Yolanda,” he breathes.
Yolanda raises an eyebrow, “Do I know you?”
You did, Frank thinks.
Instead, he says, “Please don’t ever wear a corset.”
Yolanda stares at him for a moment before she lets out a short, surprised laugh.
“You’re a weirdo.” There’s something almost fond in the way she says it, even as her expression settles back into that same haughty look. “But weirdly enough, I think I like that.”
Safe to say, she doesn’t manage to get rid of him after that. No matter how half-heartedly she tries.
Maybe Frank isn't that lonely after all.
Meeting Yoyo makes everything easier.
For the first time in a long while, Frank isn’t alone. Yolanda may not remember him the way he remembers her, but that doesn’t matter. The memories he carries are enough. Especially when they slip so easily into something familiar – into the same dynamic they once had as siblings.
She mocks him when he gets anxious before a presentation, just like she used to mock him for stumbling through the pianoforte in front of their family’s guests back in the 1800s.
Even now, he’s surprised by the memories that come with her. Because when he first remembered his past lives, after the accident, everything had centered around Mel. Every memory, every life, seemed to lead back to her in one way or another.
With Yoyo, the memories are a slow trickle into his mind, instead of a sudden onslaught that he’s unprepared for.
There's one memory that sticks with him, which he remembers the first time Yoyo and him have a serious fight.
“I don’t get why we can’t just ask for an extension,” Frank says, frustration bleeding into his voice. “Even if we fail now, we can make up the credits next term.”
Yoyo drags her hands through her hair, sharp and restless.
“I can’t afford to fail, Frank.” Her voice snaps. “I could lose my scholarship.”
Frank exhales harshly, throwing a hand up.
“Then apply for financial aid or something – I don’t know.”
“Yeah,” she shoots back, “you don’t know.”
There’s a bite to it now.
“Not all of us get to fall back on daddy’s money when things go wrong.”
Frank stiffens.
“You don’t know anything about my life.”
Yoyo lets out a short, humorless laugh, jaw tight.
“I know it’s easier than mine.”
She steps closer, eyes sharp.
“You don’t get it, Frank. I don’t have the kind of freedom that you do.”
“Freedom is not mine to claim.”
The word freedom lodges somewhere deep in his chest, and pain blooms behind Frank’s eyes, sharp and insistent before he gets sucked into a memory.
He’s standing in the drawing room.
The curtains are drawn against the evening light, the air thick with the faint scent of perfume and polish. Somewhere in the house, a clock ticks steadily, far too loud in the quiet.
His parents are gone, off to some soirée in London.
Yolanda stands by the window, spine straight, her expression carefully blank.
She’s been like this for weeks now. Ever since their father announced her engagement to Lord Harris. A gentleman old enough to be their grandfather.
Yolanda’s hands move restlessly to her corset, tugging at it as though she might loosen it by force alone.
Frank winces in sympathy.
It looks painfully tight. Restricting and suffocating.
He wonders, briefly and helplessly, if that’s what her future will feel like too.
“Let me speak with Father again.” He says, stepping closer “I will make him see sense.”
Yolanda lets out a soft, humorless laugh, rolling her eyes.
“Do not be foolish, Francis.” There’s a smile on her lips, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Father may indulge in your opinions because you are his heir, but in this his mind is set.”
She inhales slowly.
“I am to be wed in a fortnight.”
The words land like a blow.
Frank rises to his feet, pacing once before turning back to her, agitation burning in his chest.
It makes no sense, none of it does.
Their family wants for nothing. The Langdon coffers have never run dry, and for years now, eligible bachelors have come and gone, calling upon Yolanda with eager smiles and polite intentions.
It was that notion that made the realization sit bitter on Frank’s tongue.
Their father’s acceptance of Lord Harris’ suit was not a father wishing for their daughter’s happiness. It was a punishment. A display of control.
In the eyes of the Ton, Yolanda has already lingered too long in the marriage mart – five seasons without securing a husband is enough to raise brows, invite whispers.
But it never mattered. Not truly.
Their family had more than enough to support her, should she choose to remain unmarried.
Frank would have made certain of it.
He would have supported her for the rest of their lives, if it meant she could live as she wished.
But his father had never held any affection for Yolanda. During childhood, Yolanda had been defiant and rough, filled with radical thoughts and not gentle and soothing like the other ladies of the Ton.
For the most part their father had paid her no mind. Quiet punishments like getting her book privileges taken away or not letting her attend fencing lessons.
But it came to a head when their father realized the nature of Yolanda’s relationship with the modiste, Trinity.
Frank had never seen his father so filled with rage, his face flushed an angry red, his voice louder than Frank had ever heard it.
His words had been cruel, calling her a sinner and asking God for his forgiveness. He had even threatened to send her to a convent, but Frank had stepped in by then, defending her against his foul words.
He had asked, countless times, why loving and being loved could ever be wrong. Why did Yolanda have to be punished for finding solace and peace in another human?
His father had just kept on muttering “It’s unnatural. It is not done. It cannot be done.”
Frank had stared at the poor excuse of a man in contempt, before he had replied “It should be. It will be.”
And then he led a still crying Yolanda out and into her room, where she cried herself to sleep onto his shoulder.
It’s with these thoughts running through his head that Frank cannot help but feel helpless. He has to fix this; he has to do something.
"Let's depart! Forget London, forget Father and let us go where he will not control us!"
Yolanda looked up with mocking laugh "Don't forget yourself. Do you take me for a fool? You would not run without your precious Melisande, and she would not leave her ailing mother behind."
Frank had gritted his teeth, "Do not bring Miss Kennedy into this. I wish to care for you as mother intended me to. Be it without Miss Kennedy or not."
Yolanda had a shine in her eyes, but she did not let her tears fall. "You would have me leave? For us to abandon both of our loves?"
Frank pleaded with her, "What else can be done for you to have your freedom?"
Yolanda looked away for a time, a multitude of emotions appearing on her face.
"Brother, I know of your care for me, but society does not permit me to be free." She looks back at him.
"I am a woman.” Her lips press together. “Freedom is not mine to claim.”
Frank stills.
The words settle heavily between them.
Yolanda reaches out, tapping his cheek lightly, almost affectionate.
"Go back to your governess, brother.” she says, something gentler threading through her voice now. “Take comfort in the fact that you may love her openly.”
Yolanda left without looking back. A month later she was married. A year later she died in childbirth.
Frank has tears in his eyes now. The memory lingers, the image of her coffin being lowered into the ground fresh in his mind, making Frank feel a little hysterical.
But there is also the strange feeling of grief and relief, tangled together.
He mourns what she lost. But here she is.
Alive. Free.
Loving who she wants, openly and without fear. And he gets to see it.
It’s like he’s seeing through another pair of eyes, watching her with a kind of pride that doesn’t belong solely to him. How lucky he is, to witness his sister finally living the life she was always meant to have.
“You’re right,” Frank says hoarsely.
Yolanda’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise.
“I’ve been taking my freedom for granted… and ignoring how little of it you have. I’m sorry.”
Yoyo opens her mouth, then closes it again, clearly thrown off., “It’s okay uhm—” She lets out an awkward cough, “Let’s just finish the project before the deadline, yeah? We’ll pull an all-nighter.”
Frank huffs out a quiet breath, something lighter settling in his chest.
“You got it, boss”
Unfortunately, it was not only people like Yoyo from his past life that seemed to be drawn towards him.
Others also appear.
Not all at once. Not in any way he can predict. But they come back, eventually. Orbiting closer and closer until something clicks into place and Frank knows.
There are consistencies between every person he suddenly remembers. Hair color, eyes, similar disposition, some faces.
That was how he had always recognized Mel. The same blonde hair she wore in a braid, and the delicate beauty mark just beneath her right eye.
The hair had been harder to explain in feudal Japan but then again, so had his blue eyes. It wasn’t surprising they’d been drawn to each other that life. The blonde haired courtesan and the blue-eyed samurai.
Unluckily, this also meant that he remembers the redhead from the frat party.
He learns her name is Abby a few weeks after that unfortunate encounter. Not from her, since she seems far more interested in pretending nothing embarrassing ever happened, but from overhearing someone call out to her across the quad.
He's sure that under other circumstances, more normal ones, he would have enjoyed getting to know her. Maybe they could have even become something together, but these were not normal circumstances.
So he tries to avoid her to the best of his abilities, but she is everywhere.
At the library, sliding into the seat across from him like it had been empty just for her. Outside lecture halls, leaning against the wall with a smile that says she knows exactly what she’s doing. At the coffee shop where he works, tipping generously and lingering just a little too long when he hands her the change back.
It would almost be flattering.
If not for the way something in him recoils every time she gets too close.
It's not fear or disgust, but recognition that begins to creep up on him when she gets near.
And thus it is a normal day in the library when Abby appears once more before him, sliding into the seat in front of him. She learns forward, a grin on her face.
"Reading something good, Frankie?" She runs a hand through her hair, letting it linger at her collarbone and with the sunlight catching in the red of it, Frank remembers.
Angelina.
And as always, the memory follows.
“I have always been true to you! And this is my repayment?”
His voice is sharp, cutting through the air like a knife. The room smells faintly of herbs and something sour beneath it, something he has learned to associate with Angelina.
Frank - no, Fabian, in this life - stands rigid across from her, jaw tight enough to ache.
“You may have been true to me in body, Fabian,” Angelina replies, her lip curling, “but your heart has always belonged to another. If Meliora were of rank—”
“Do not speak her name with your foul mouth,” he snaps, the words leaving him before he can temper them. “Or you will never utter a word again.”
Angelina recoils slightly, but there is no fear in her expression. Only bitterness. Only fury.
“You would silence your wife?” she demands. “Your wife, whom you have sworn to cherish before God?”
“My wife who has committed a sin, you mean?” Frank shoots back, voice cold. “Who has fallen to lust?”
Her eyes flash.
"You would leave me with nothing?"
“You would deserve it.”
The words land heavy between them, final in a way that leaves no room for repair.
Angelina’s mouth trembles, just slightly.
Frank does not soften.
He cannot.
Not when the truth sits between them, ugly and undeniable. Not when every touch from her now feels like something poisoned.
Frank jerks back into himself with a sharp inhale, the present snapping into place around him like something too tight. Abby frowns at him, confusion flickering into irritation.
"You alright?"
Yeah. No. Absolutely not.
It may be petty to hold a 400 year old grudge, but he is not going to entertain a person who gave him syphilis in the 1600s. He feels a desperate need to itch his balls suddenly.
“I’ve got to go!” The words tumble out in a rush as he grabs his rainbow backpack and hightails it out of there, leaving Abby behind with a murderous expression.
Later the same month he ends up in his dorm room with Yoyo, a beer in hand and his patience worn thin, well and truly at his limit.
“She showed up at work again today,” he mutters, dragging a hand down his face. “And then she waited until my shift ended. Who does that?”
Yoyo snorts from where she’s sprawled across his bed.
“Someone who wants to get laid, probably.”
Frank glares at her.
“This isn’t funny.”
“It’s a little funny,” she counters, taking a sip of her beer. “You’ve got a hot girl chasing you around campus and you’re acting like she’s a serial killer.”
Frank grimaces.
“You don’t get it.”
“Then explain it to me,” Yoyo says, gesturing vaguely with her bottle. “Because from where I’m sitting, the solution seems pretty obvious.”
He already knows where this is going.
He hates that he knows.
“Just fuck her once and get it over with.”
The horror is immediate.
Frank’s stomach turns, something sharp and visceral curling beneath his ribs.
“I can’t,” he blurts.
Yoyo stills.
“Why not?” she asks, more carefully now. “She’s hot, and you haven’t been with anyone since we started. That’s, what, two years?”
Frank shakes his head, scrubbing a hand over his mouth.
“It-” He exhales sharply. “It wouldn’t be right. I can’t do that, Yoyo.”
For a moment, she just looks at him.
Then something in her expression shifts, the teasing edge softening into something quieter.
“Hey,” she says, sitting up slightly and nudging his shoulder with her own. “It’s okay. If you say you can’t, then you can’t.”
Relief hits him harder than he expects.
Yoyo takes another sip of her beer, the nonchalance slipping back into place like it had never left.
“If you want, I can make her back off.”
Frank’s head snaps up.
“Oh, God, yes, please,” he says immediately. “She’s driving me insane.”
Yoyo smirks.
“Consider it handled.”
The next time he sees Abby, it’s in the cafeteria.
He spots her before she spots him, red hair catching the light as she moves through the crowd with easy confidence.
Frank braces himself, already preparing for whatever new tactic she’s decided on.
But when her gaze lands on him, she stops.
Just for a second.
And then her expression shifts, into something almost pitying.
Frank frowns.
She gives him one last look, strange and sympathetic, before turning away and continuing on like he isn’t there at all.
Frank blinks after her, thrown.
“…what the fuck?”
He’s pulling his phone out before he even fully registers the motion.
Frank: wtf did you say to abby she just looked at me like my grandma died
The reply comes almost immediately.
Yoyo: told her you had a micropenis
Frank groans, dropping his head back slightly.
Frank: 🖕
Frank: you're buying the first round next time we go out
Yoyo: whatever you say sourpuss
Frank wakes up feeling off.
The feeling sits beneath his skin, restless and insistent, like his body is trying to tell him something his mind can’t quite catch up to. Like he’s waiting for something without knowing what it is.
It’s the same sort of feeling you get before an exam or a big game, like a relentless buzzing trying to escape its confines.
Normally, he would blame the benzo withdrawal. That would be the logical explanation, but this feels different, which makes him more anxious than usual. Which, luckily for him, benzo withdrawal has a tendency to amplify.
He enters the hospital and changes into his scrubs quickly, tugging them straight before stepping into the emergency department. The usual noise greets him, voices overlapping, monitors beeping, people moving with purpose. It’s overwhelming in the best sort of way.
He spots Collins by the board and moves in beside her. She gives him a small smile.
“Good morning, sunshine,” he says, trying to keep himself upbeat, ignoring the buzzing in his body.
Collins gives him an unimpressed look. “You obviously haven’t seen this board.”
Frank glances at it briefly. “Ah, we’ve seen worse. Nothing like a good challenge now and then to keep everyone on their toes.”
Collins snorts, “Your enthusiasm sometimes makes me think you’re on drugs, Langdon.”
Frank barely suppresses a wince at the words. Did she know?
“I am,” he says easily. “It’s endorphins, baby. I ran a quick six this morning, followed by a twelve-minute ice bath. Eliminates all inflammation in the body and boosts the immune system through-”
“I stopped listening at ‘ice bath.’”
Frank lets out a guffaw, turning toward the central desk—
And that’s when he sees her.
At first, he thinks he’s dreaming. That the universe is playing some kind of cruel joke, putting the love of his life here, of all places.
But no. There she is.
He can only see her side profile, but it’s enough. The curve of her cheek, the way she’s smiling so wide and bright, the same way she always did when she was particularly excited about something.
It feels like he’s falling in love all over again, and he doesn’t even know this version of her yet.
Absently, he hears Robby introduce her.
“As you can see we have some new faces this morning. Starting with second-year resident Doctor Melissa King fresh from the V.A.”
King?
It feels almost ironic, King being her surname this life, considering the way he once painted her. As a princess in a story only he remembers.
She finally opens her mouth and says, “Everybody calls me Mel.“
“Mel” Frank mouths at the same time, like he can’t help it.
Even her voice sends an avalanche of feelings and memories through him. He has to blink to will the tears away, but he’s sure someone has noticed how intensely he’s looking at her..
“I’m super happy to be here.”
I’m really happy you’re here as well.
He distantly notes that he and Collins get introduced as the senior residents, and he gives a winning smirk, even though he feels unmoored when Mel directs her eyes toward him. He feels her gaze like a caress against his skin and has to stop himself from shivering in response.
Is she looking at him with curiosity, or is he making it up?
He presents his case during rounds in a daze, running on autopilot, fidgeting, shifting, unable to stay still. His eyes keep returning to her, and every time, she meets his gaze with a soft, reassuring smile that makes something in him ache.
But there’s no recognition in her eyes.
No devotion like the kind he’s sure is written all over his own face.
So he has to stay calm. Act like nothing is out of the ordinary. Like he hasn’t just been reunited with the love of his life.
Like his heart isn’t breaking when he realizes he’s the only one who remembers.
To say Frank feels out of it would be an understatement.
He knows that he’s running around and responding appropriately to the incoming traumas, but it all happens at a distance, like he's watching everything from outside his body.
He's working on a woman with a degloved ankle who was pushed onto the train tracks, and he sees Yolanda sweep in, her gaze critical as she pressures them to up the morphine intake so she can assess her properly. From the corner of his eye, he catches her shooting him a concerned glance, probably wondering why he isn’t as chatty as he normally is.
Suddenly, everything is too much. The lights are too bright, the woman is screaming too loudly, and sweat is trickling down from his hairline.
He answers her without thinking, slipping into her language like it’s second nature because it used to be.
“Hē, hāmī tapā'īnlā'ī maddata garchauṁ, ṭhīka cha?”
Hey, we're going to help you okay?
He meets her eyes, steady despite the startled murmurs rising around him.
“Gahirō sāsa phērcha.”
Deep breaths.
The woman’s face is still etched in pain, but she seems a bit calmer now. Frank looks up with a relieved smile, only to freeze at the wide-eyed looks around him.
Right. Of course seeing Mel has thrown him off his game.
Frank shifts where he stands, the moment catching up to him all at once.
“You understand her?” Collins asks, bewildered.
“I like languages?” he says, already wincing as it comes out sounding like a question.
Princess looks at him with curiosity, giving him a slow, leering once-over.
“Sino ang nakakaalam na si wonder boy ay may higit pa sa kanyang hitsura?” Princess says to Perlah beside her.
Who knew wonder boy had more than just his looks?
“Naiintindihan ka rin nitong wonder boy” Frank says with a smirk. No use stopping himself now.
This wonder boy understands you too.
He keeps going, enjoying the caught look on her face.
“Ibig sabihin alam kong nagustuhan mo ang hitsura ng aking puwet sa aking mga scrub noong nakaraang linggo.”
Which means I know you liked how my ass looked in my scrubs last week.
Princess’ mouth drops open, and Frank laughs before he can stop himself.
“You’re a polyglot?” Robby asks. “Why did I not know that?”
Frank shrugs, an easy grin settling into place.
“I have to keep an air of mystery around me, boss.” He pats the wall on his way out, saying over his shoulder, “She’s Nepali.”
As he leaves the room, the smile drops from his face.
This was going to be a really long day.
He keeps catching sight of her.
Not directly but in fragments. The swing of her braid as she turns, the edge of her voice carrying across the room, the way she leans in when someone is speaking to her.
Frank tells himself not to stare.
He can’t just walk up to her. Not without reason. Not like this. He’s the senior resident, there’s a line there whether he likes it or not.
So he waits.
He’s become quite good at waiting.
At the central desk, he pretends to focus on charting, his leg bouncing under the table, pen tapping lightly against the screen.
He’s aware of Robby before the man even speaks.
“How many languages can you speak, then?”
Frank suppresses a sigh. Of course.
“I know quite a few.”
Robby hums, a low, unimpressed sound that settles somewhere uncomfortable in Frank’s chest. It’s a familiar sound. One that makes you second-guess yourself, makes you want to fill the silence.
It had sounded exactly the same centuries ago, too. Back when Robby had been his father.
Different name. Same tone.
Frank shifts slightly, already bracing to elaborate when a voice cuts in.
“I have a lethargic four-year-old with no PMH, no antecedent illness, no fever or vomiting. Parents just couldn’t wake him up this morning.”
Frank looks up.
And there she is.
Looking directly at him.
For a second, he forgets how to respond. The rest of the room fades just enough that all he can focus on is the fact that she came to him. Not Robby. Not anyone else.
Him.
“Yes! Uhm-” He straightens slightly, forcing himself back into the moment. “What room?”
Robby’s eyebrow ticks up, but Frank ignores it.
“South 15,” she says, already turning. “No nuchal rigidity, no skin lesions, no focal neuro. Looks well fed and cared for.”
They walk together, steps falling into place too easily.
“DKA from new onset diabetes?” he offers, pulling his focus back where it needs to be.
She shakes her head. “No, BG’s 85. CBC, BMP, UA ordered.”
He nods once, grounding himself. Work. Focus.
They enter the room together.
Frank focuses on the child on the bed, only introducing himself to the parents out of necessity.
Tyler is small. And entirely too still.
Frank steps forward first, voice steady as he crouches slightly by the bed, ignoring the twinge of pain in his back at the motion. “Tyler, can you wake up for me?”
No response.
“He’s not usually this sleepy?” he asks, glancing up at the parents.
“No,” the mother says quickly. “He barely flinched for the blood test.”
“He’s usually nonstop,” the father adds. “Goes all day until he passes out.”
Mel tilts her head slightly. “Passes out?”
“No, just… you know. Sleeps.”
Frank presses his knuckles gently against Tyler’s sternum. The boy stirs, lets out a soft groan, then sinks back under.
Frank exhales quietly, already moving through possibilities.
“Any chance he could have ingested something? Medications, vitamins, anything left out?”
“No. Everything’s locked away. The house is childproof.”
“What about alcohol?” Mel asks. “Anything left open?”
The parents exchange a look. “No.”
Frank keeps going. “Pets?”
“No.”
“You said he’s active?” Mel adds. “Any injuries? Hit his head recently?”
“No—he roughhouses, but he doesn’t get hurt.”
Frank nods, eyes flicking briefly to Mel before returning to the child.
“Oxygen’s normal. Pulse and BP are good. No obvious signs of infection. We’ll start with blood and urine, check for metabolic causes.”
“Is he going to be okay?” the mother asks.
Frank meets her gaze, steady. “We’re doing everything we can.”
It doesn’t take long before the results come back and Mel finds him again.
He wonders if he’ll always be the one waiting.
“Dr. Langdon?” she says, holding out the tablet slightly. “Everything’s back on our sleeping boy Tyler. One hundred percent normal.”
Frank takes the tablet from her, his fingers brushing hers for a fraction of a second.
It’s nothing. Barely anything.
Even still, he feels it.
He looks down quickly, scanning the results. He already knows what he’s going to see.
Nothing.
“What are we missing?” she asks.
He glances up and she’s closer than he thought. Watching him. Not uncertain, just waiting for him.
Trusting.
It lands somewhere deep in his chest, heavier than it should.
He looks back at the screen before he can linger too long.
“That,” he says, steadying his voice, “is a very good question.”
They head back into the room and Frank runs through the exam again, slower this time, more deliberate. Tyler’s still out, breathing steady, vitals unchanged. Nothing obvious. Nothing that makes sense.
He leans in to check his mouth, more out of habit than expectation and pauses.
Something’s caught against the back molar.
“Did he eat anything this morning?” he asks, already reaching for a tongue depressor.
“No, why?”
Frank doesn’t answer right away, gently scraping along the tooth until a small green fragment comes loose. He studies it briefly between his fingers.
Mel shifts a little closer beside him. “Gelatin?”
“Yeah,” Frank says, turning it slightly. “Like a-”
“-gummy?” she finishes.
He glances at her in surprise.
“Yeah.”
For a second, something settles into place, not just the diagnosis, but the way they both came to the same conclusion.
“…shit.”
The father’s voice cuts through the haze that was threatening to envelop both him and Mel.
Frank looks up just as the color drains from the man’s face, the realization hitting all at once. The explanation comes quickly after that, gummies, coat pocket, Cleveland, and the room shifts with it, tension snapping tight.
“Are you fucking serious?”
The mother shoves him, hard enough that he stumbles back a step, and the room tightens instantly.
Frank is already moving.
He steps forward, not just between them but slightly in front of Mel without thinking, one hand coming up to catch the father’s shoulder, guiding him back before it can escalate.
“Let’s step outside,” he says, voice even, controlled. “You can help me figure out how much he might have had.”
“I’m sorry,” the man starts, but Frank doesn’t react to it, just steers him toward the door, focused on keeping things contained.
Sorry.
The word sticks, unwelcome.
For a split second, it catches on something.
“Sorry-”
Her voice, softer. Closer.
A different room. Warmer light.
Mel standing in front of him, flour dusted across her hands, her mouth twisting like she’s trying not to laugh even as she says it.
“Sorry,” she repeats, not sounding sorry at all as she presses her hand against his shirt, leaving a pale mark behind.
He huffs out a laugh, "Honey." he says while catching her wrist-
And then it’s gone.
Out in the hallway, Frank lets go of the father and pulls out his phone. “ED, this is Dr. Langdon. Can I fast-track a tox screen for a patient, Tyler Jones.”
He turns slightly as he listens, pacing a step or two without really noticing, and through the glass he catches sight of her still inside the room.
She hasn’t moved much.
Still by the bed.
Still watching him with a curious look.
Frank looks away first.
The first case he and Mel worked together should have been enough to ground him.
Instead, it leaves him unsteady.
There’s something deeply wrong about feeling that kind of quiet, consuming joy while standing in a room with parents watching their child lie unconscious on a hospital bed. It sits poorly in his chest, tangled up with something sharper, with the knowledge that he is not as far removed from that situation as he would like to be.
Every time Mel looks at him, he wonders if she can see it.
Even now. Even when he’s clean.
So, he throws himself into the next case with something bordering on relief.
A young man, early twenties, doored off an e-scooter. Airway compromised. Urgency, clean and sharp and immediate.
This, he understands. This, he can do.
The room tightens quickly around them, voices overlapping, hands moving, the familiar rhythm settling in like muscle memory.
Yolanda appears at his side, already gloved, already assessing.
“We should crike.”
“Don’t listen to Edwina Scissorhands here,” Frank shoots back automatically, eyes still on the patient. “If they can’t cut it, surgery doesn’t know how to fix it.”
“The contusion is high at the thyroid cartilage,” Yolanda counters, already reaching for instruments. “So, you just stand there looking pretty, ER Ken, and let me fix this.”
“Vitals are dropping,” someone says.
“Alright,” Robby cuts in. “Pull out. I-gel, bag and crike.”
There’s a beat, a shift in the room.
Santos hesitates. “I’ve never done a crike before.”
Frank doesn’t even think about it.
“Mel will do it,” he says, already turning toward her. “Glove up, Mel.”
Yolanda makes a sharp sound. “No, I’m doing the crike, doctor.”
Frank doesn’t look at her. Doesn’t need to.
“You would be,” he says easily, “if it wasn’t an odd day. Surgery gets even days, ED gets odd days. You know this. For crike’s sake!”
“That’s because you’re all fucking odd down here.”
“Teamwork,” Robby snaps. “Let’s focus.”
Frank lifts his hands slightly in surrender. “I so appreciate your gracious understanding.”
Yolanda huffs, but she steps back. “I’ll assist. In case she screws up.”
Frank winces, just slightly. Of all days, he wishes Yoyo would just lay off today.
He’s aware, suddenly, of how close Mel is standing. She’s taking a deep breath and trying to steady herself.
He turns to her, softer now.
“You ready?”
Yolanda leans in before Mel can answer. “You’ve done this?”
“Yeah,” Mel says, then adds sheepishly “In the cadaver lab.”
“Let’s hope that’s not where this poor guy ends up,” Yolanda replies briskly. “We’ll do an open technique.”
Frank watches Mel’s hands as she positions herself.
There’s no tremor. Just focus.
“Alright,” he says, quieter now, meant only for her. “You’ve got this. Landmarks first.”
She nods once.
Everything narrows.
The room falls into that strange, suspended quiet that only exists in high-pressure moments, the kind where everyone is watching but no one is breathing.
Mel makes the incision. Clean and precise.
Frank feels something in his chest loosen.
“Good,” he murmurs. “That’s perfect.”
Yolanda passes her the next instrument without comment, watching closely now. Not unkind, just sharp.
Mel works quickly, controlled despite the pressure, and when the airway is secured and the numbers begin to climb again, the tension breaks all at once.
Frank lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
A grin pulls at his mouth before he can stop it.
“Great job,” he says, and he means it.
Mel glances up at him, and for a second she beams. The smile brief, bright, unguarded.
Yolanda, of course, ruins it.
“Does your resident know how to suture,” she asks dryly, “or do I need to teach?”
“You’re all class, Yoyo.”
“I know,” she says. “Means nothing coming from you.”
Frank rolls his eyes, but when he looks back at Mel, something shifts.
She’s quieter now.
“Mel,” he says, tone gentler without him quite meaning it to be. “You okay?”
Mel glances up at him.
Over her shoulder Yolanda stills. She tilts her head as she looks at him, a curious expression on her face.
Frank doesn’t notice.
He’s still looking at Mel.
“If you’re done fighting.” Mel says.
“We’re not fighting,” Yolanda cuts in, the curious look in her eyes still present. “This is playing. Langdon’s too soft to fight.”
“Yeah, I have nothing but respect for Dr. Garcia,” Frank says easily. “She’s just a pain in the ass.”
“Later, sourpuss.”
Yolanda moves off, and the others follow, leaving the space around them quieter.
Frank turns back to Mel as she continues suturing, her movements just a fraction more careful now.
“Hey,” he says, softer. “Take your time. You’re doing great.”
She exhales, small but noticeable.
“Sorry.”
“You’ve got nothing to apologize for,” he says. “You’re feeling okay?”
She shakes her head slightly. “I get frustrated when I can’t do things. Or when it looks like I can’t.”
“Yeah,” he says, a quiet huff of agreement. “You and me both.”
She lets out a breath, eyes still on her hands. “It’s just that my frustration manifests itself emotionally, and then, uh, I get upset, and then it looks like I can't handle things, and, you know,.” she gestures vaguely “I can't cry in front of the patient because no one wants to see their doctor cry. That's just a big red flag.”
Frank watches her for a second, sees the stray hair falling from her braid and the way her breath catches, uneven.
“You just did a perfect crike.” He says gently, “You should be proud of yourself.”
She freezes, just slightly.
“I know I'm proud of you.”
Mel looks up in surprise, disbelief on her face, “Really?”
Frank grins back at her, the sort of smile that makes the corners of his eyes crinkle. He sees Mel’s eyes dart towards the detail, a brief dazed look appearing on her face before she blinks and the expression is gone.
What just happened?
Then she just nods, once, and returns her focus to the patient in front of her.
Frank doesn’t look away from her for a second.
They fall into an easy rhythm over the next few cases.
Working with Mel feels as natural as breathing, effortless in a way that throws him off more than anything else has today. There’s a synchronicity to it, to the way they move around each other, anticipate, adjust, that he doesn’t have with anyone else. Not even after years at PTMC.
It’s unsettling.
But it’s also, he’ll admit it, kind of incredible.
He still has to resist the urge to grin like an idiot when he thinks about the way she laughed earlier.
“I think this guy’s got scurvy,” Mel had said, studying a patient file on the tablet.
“What is he, a pirate?” Frank had shot back.
Mel hadn’t even blinked. “No. He’s an unhoused man who lives almost exclusively on dollar store ramen. There’s perifollicular hemorrhage, gingivitis, and bleeding gums. No fruit or vegetables in his diet.”
Frank had nodded solemnly. “I suppose that could do it. As long as you’ve ruled out piracy. No parrot, no peg leg? Doesn’t reek of sweat and rum?”
“Well,” she’d said, a pensive look on her face, “now that you mention it, there was a smell.”
“Probably a pirate,” Frank had concluded. “Tell him to pick up some vitamin C next time he docks at a dollar store.”
She’d looked at him then, something caught between amusement and confusion. “I can’t tell if you’re joking.”
“Captain Scurvy’s got a vitamin C deficiency,” he’d replied easily. “Cheapest fix is a daily supplement.”
“Captain Scurvy is another joke.”
“I’d like to think so.”
She’d laughed then, bright and unguarded, and the sound of it had lodged itself somewhere inconvenient in his chest.
The moment creates a sense of comfortability between Mel and him, so he doesn’t hesitate when the Terrance case comes in. Frank had recognized immediately that Terrance was on the spectrum without needing to read his file, but being aware of it wasn’t the same as being able to help.
He was embarrassed to admit that while he knew in most cases how to help people on the spectrum, most of his tricks where tailor-made to help Mel, so when confronted with others he often floundered. Which admittingly was not great, since he’s supposed to be an ER doctor.
But he knows Mel will thrive with Terrance, so for once, he’s the one who seeks her out.
It shouldn’t feel as nerve-wracking as it does.
“Hey, Mel-” His voice catches, just slightly.
He clears his throat quickly, hoping she didn’t notice. If she did, she’s kind enough not to mention it.
“Yeah?” she asks, turning toward him.
“I’ve got a patient,” he says, keeping his tone even. “Autistic. I thought,” he hesitates, then pushes through it, “You might be better suited to take point on this case.”
She frowns slightly, confused. “What expertise?”
He blinks at her.
“You mentioned your sister,” he says. “When you were talking about the V.A. That’s why you moved to Pittsburgh, right?”
She blinks at him.
“You remembered?” she asks, surprised.
Frank shrugs, like it’s nothing. Like it didn’t stick with him in a way very few things do.
“Yeah.”
Her face brightens. “Yeah, Becca and I moved here because there’s a really great facility that supports her needs.”
Becca.
The name lands somewhere deep.
And suddenly-
Frank, please come home soon. I know you’re fighting for our country, but I want Rebecca to meet her father. I want to see you hold her in your arms.
Frank blinks, the memory slipping away as quickly as it came.
He’s back in the ED. Back with Mel.
“Your sister’s name is Becca?” he asks, voice just a touch rougher than before.
Mel beams. “Yeah. We’re twins.”
He smiles at that. “Sounds like you’re close.”
“We are,” she says easily.
They reach Terrance’s room together.
Frank hangs back once they’re inside, letting Mel take the lead without hesitation.
“Hi, Terrance,” she says, her tone immediately softer. “I’m Dr. King. You’ve met Dr. Langdon.”
Frank gives a small wave, content to stay in the background.
Mel moves through the space quickly, efficiently dimming the lights, silencing an alarm, stripping away the noise that had been pressing in.
“It’s a little bright in here,” she says apologetically. “The ER can be… a lot.”
“I agree,” Terrance says.
Frank watches the shift happen almost in real time. Terrance seems to flourish under Mel’s attention.
Mel sit on the chair by the bed to meet him at eye level. “I heard you might have sprained your ankle playing table tennis?”
“I everted it.”
“Yeah?” she says, like that makes perfect sense. “What’s your biggest concern today, Terrance?”
There’s a pause.
“Do you mean right now?” he asks.
“Right now.”
Frank tilts his head, interest piqued despite himself.
He wouldn’t have thought to phrase it like that.
Terrance nods slowly. “I’m worried I won’t be able to play. There’s a tournament in six weeks. It’s my first one.”
Mel’s expression softens. “That’s a big deal.”
As Terrance launches into an explanation of rankings and goals, Mel listens, really listens, nodding at the right moments, asking just enough to keep him going without overwhelming him.
“Let’s get you to that tournament,” she says eventually. “Can you walk around for me?”
Frank steps in briefly when needed, grounding the assessment, then steps back just as easily.
It’s seamless.
By the time Mel explains the likely diagnosis, even pulling out a model to show him exactly what’s going on, Terrance is calm. Engaged. Reassured.
Frank feels something settle in his chest as he watches her.
Pride.
Sharp and immediate. And, embarrassingly, something much warmer as well.
She’s good. Of course she is.
He doesn’t know why that still surprises him.
They step out into the hallway once she’s finished, the door closing softly behind them to keep the noise out.
“You were great with him,” Frank says.
She glances at him, a little unsure. “You think so?”
“I know so,” he replies easily. “How’d you get him to open up like that?”
She shrugs, a small smile tugging at her mouth. “I just listened. Like I said, my sister is on the spectrum. It just takes a different approach sometimes.”
“Sounds like she’s taught you a lot,” Frank says.
“Oh, yeah,” Mel says, brightening immediately. “She has. There was this one time, we were on the swings, and she fell, and the pain just… completely overwhelmed her. She wouldn’t stop screaming, and I couldn’t calm her down at all.”
Frank leans slightly against the desk as they come to a stop, angled toward her without thinking.
“So, I told her I saw a frog,” Mel continues, her eyes lighting up. “Because she loves frogs. And I said it was funny that frogs are reptiles.”
Frank huffs a quiet laugh.
“And she just stopped,” Mel says, almost delighted at the memory. “Looked at me like I’d personally offended her and went, ‘No, they’re amphibians!’”
“And that worked?” Frank asks.
“Yeah,” she says, grinning. “Completely derailed the meltdown.”
They’ve drifted closer without noticing, both turned fully toward each other now.
“Smart,” he says, softer.
Mel smiles at him, just a little dazed, like she’s not entirely sure why she’s smiling.
“Yeah.”
“Langdon!”
Robby’s voice cuts through the moment.
Frank glances over his shoulder, already stepping back.
“A patient’s asking for you. South 9.”
He sighs lightly. “Duty calls.”
Glancing back at Mel he says, “But I want to hear more of that story later.”
And he means it.
Mel blinks at him, something like surprise flickering across her face before it softens into a small, flattered smile.
“Sure,” she says. “See you later, Dr. Langdon.”
Frank nods once, then turns and heads down the hall.
He can still feel her eyes on him for a second longer than necessary.
No matter how happy Frank feels to be reunited with Mel, they still both work in the ER.
Which means the day does not pause for reunions.
An assault in the waiting room. A young girl drowning while saving her sister. The quiet, heavy weight of an honor walk that still lingers somewhere behind Frank’s ribs, like something lodged there that he can’t quite dislodge.
So, it doesn’t surprise him when Mel disappears for a while. He was the one who told her to take a break after all. But he can’t stop himself looking for her.
He finds her in the break room. Sitting on the floor, back against the wall, a dog tucked neatly between her legs, one hand resting in its fur, absent, grounding.
Frank pauses in the doorway for half a second.
Then steps inside.
“This must be Crosby,” he says, crouching down with a quiet exhale, as he reaches out to scratch behind the dog’s ears. “I’ve heard a lot about you, buddy.”
Crosby leans into the touch immediately.
Frank smiles faintly at that, then lowers himself the rest of the way down with a slight wince as his back protests the movement.
“How’s my least problematic trainee?” he adds lightly. “Well, technically, you’re all pretty green. But you’re growing on me.”
Mel’s mouth twitches into something that almost resembles a smile.
“Thank you.”
It doesn’t reach her eyes.
Up close, she looks worn. Not just tired. Not just shaken.
There’s a dullness in her eyes that scares him.
Frank’s chest tightens.
“So,” he says, gentler now, “how are you doing?”
“I’m…” she starts, then stops. “Better.”
He hums softly, unconvinced, but doesn’t push immediately. Just watches her, gives her the space to fill.
“It’s just…” She exhales, her hand tightening slightly in Crosby’s fur. “The girl. And the sister. It hits too close to home.”
Frank’s gaze softens.
“Because of Becca?”
She nods.
Something in him shifts at that.
He lets out a quiet breath, scrubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Yeah,” he says. “The things we do are hard.”
“Yeah.”
There’s a pause.
Crosby shifts between them, content, unaware of the weight pressing in around the room.
Frank glances at her again. Looks at her golden braid and the beauty mark beneath her eye that he so adores.
“You’re sitting here thinking maybe you’re not cut out for this.”
It’s not a question.
Mel’s shoulders lift in a small, helpless shrug.
“Yeah.”
Frank huffs out a quiet breath, something almost like recognition in it.
“Been there,” he says. “We’ve all been there. Trust me.”
She looks at him then. A long lingering look, mixed with disbelief. As if she can’t imagine him ever doubting his place here.
At his earnest look, something in her expression softens. The dullness in her eyes dissipating a bit.
Frank holds her gaze, his voice dropping without him quite meaning it to.
“Mel,” he says, more carefully now, “you’re a sensitive person.”
He sees her brace, just a fraction.
“But that’s not a weakness,” he continues, steady. “It just means this place hits harder.”
Her breathing evens out, just a little.
He doesn’t look away from her.
“We need people like that,” he says quietly.
There’s a beat.
Something shifts. Subtle, almost imperceptible.
“I need you.”
The words settle between them.
For a second the breakroom disappears.
“I need you, honey-”
The memory slips in, uninvited.
Sunlight through linen curtains. Her hand in his, warm and real and-
Gone.
Frank blinks, the break room snapping back into place.
Mel is still looking at him.
Her mouth parts slightly, like she’s about to say something, but nothing comes out.
The moment between them stretches.
Frank feels it, how easy it would be to lean into it. To say something he shouldn’t. To reach for something that isn’t his yet.
So, he doesn’t.
Instead, he leans back just slightly, letting the tension ease.
“Now,” he says, lighter, like nothing just happened, “I’ve got the perfect job for you.”
Mel blinks, the spell breaking.
“You do?”
“Mm.” He nods. “About a thousand pieces of gravel embedded in a two-foot road rash.”
Her eyes widen.
“A thousand?”
“Give or take a hundred,” he says, deadpan.
And just like that, she smiles.
Not small this time, but bright and bold.
Frank feels something in his chest loosen at the sight of it.
“South 20,” he adds. “Close the door behind you. Don’t want Crosby making a break for it.”
“Right,” she says, pushing herself up. “Yeah. Thank you.”
He nods once, watching her steady herself, watching the way she gathers herself back into something solid.
“Anytime.”
He starts to get up, bracing a hand behind him before hesitating for a second.
Then, before he can talk himself out of it, he reaches for her and gives her shoulder a brief, grounding squeeze.
It’s nothing. It’s also everything.
“See you on the other side,” he says, already turning toward the door.
He doesn’t look back. Afraid she’ll see how affected he is by being able to just touch her once.
Frank really should have known better than thinking he could go through the day unscathed.
Robby doesn’t raise his voice when he calls him over, which is how Frank knows it’s bad.
There’s no irritation in it, no edge. Just something flat. Like Robby has already made his decision, whatever it may be.
Frank still walks over like nothing’s wrong, like this is any other conversation, like his pulse isn’t already starting to pick up for no reason he can name. He leans a shoulder against the wall, easy, casual. “What’s up?”
Robby doesn’t answer immediately. He just looks at him for a moment, like he’s measuring something, and Frank feels it settle somewhere uncomfortable in his chest before the words come, clean and clinical.
Louie. Missing meds. Santos.
They don’t hit all at once. They sink, slow and heavy, until there’s no space left to pretend this is anything but what it is.
Frank doesn’t react at first. He’s good at that. He’s had to be.
“I’m sorry,” he says, quieter than he expects, the words coming out without defense, without sharpness. Just… tired. “I know how it looks, but I can fix it. I just need to-” His breath catches, just for a second, then he pushes through it. “I need one more chance.”
Robby doesn’t move. Doesn’t soften. Doesn’t give him anything to work with.
Something tightens in Frank’s chest, something close to panic, but he keeps going because stopping would mean accepting it, and he’s not ready to do that. Not today. Not now. Not when-
“I won’t do it again,” he says quickly, the words starting to trip over each other now. “I mean it. I’ll get clean, I’ll do whatever you want, I just… I need to stay. I can’t leave like this.”
He cuts himself off.
Because that’s the truth of it.
He can’t.
Not today. Not when-
Mel.
The thought lands hard enough to make him feel it physically, like something dropping straight through him.
Of all the days. Of all the days to get caught.
Why did it have to be today?
Before this, it didn’t matter. If he fucked up, it didn’t hurt anybody but himself. There was no one else in the blast radius. No one to lose or disappoint.
Now there is.
And he can’t even explain it to her.
“Please,” he says again, softer now, because whatever composure he had is starting to slip at the edges. “Robby, I’m begging you.”
Robby exhales through his nose, something like disbelief flickering across his face, but it doesn’t reach sympathy. It doesn’t reach anything that could save this. Frank has always hated that expression, now and in the past.
It’s over.
Frank swallows, throat dry, and tries one last time, more careful now, like the wording might make a difference. “Can I at least say goodbye? I don’t want Mel to think I just left.”
That’s what gets a reaction.
Not the one he wants.
A short, incredulous laugh leaves Robby, sharp enough to sting. “Do you expect me to play matchmaker now?”
Frank flinches before he can stop himself.
It’s small. Almost nothing.
Still, it lands.
Robby grabs a bundle of his clothes and shoves them into his hands, the motion abrupt, final. “Don’t come back.”
That’s it. No raised voice. No drawn-out dismissal. Just a door closing.
Frank stands there for a second too long, the fabric heavy in his hands, like his body hasn’t quite caught up to what just happened. Then he nods once, because there’s nothing else to do, and turns away.
When the MCI call comes in an hour later, his body reacts before his mind can. Muscle memory. Instinct. He’s moving before he’s decided to, pulled back toward the only place that’s ever made sense when things go wrong. The ER is already chaos when he steps inside again. Noise, blood, bodies moving too fast and not fast enough all at once and it should feel overwhelming, but instead it feels like relief, because for a few seconds he doesn’t have to think, he just has to act.
And he can forget that it felt like his whole world collapsed just a short while ago.
But then he hears her voice.
“You’re here!”
It cuts through everything.
He turns before he can stop himself.
She’s across the room, blood on her surgical gown and eyes locked on him, something bright breaking through the exhaustion on her face. Relief. Clear and unmistakable.
Like she was waiting for him. Like she’s glad he came back.
Something pulls tight in his chest.
He manages a small, grim smile. “In the flesh.”
It’s not enough. But it’s all he has.
The shift carries on around them, relentless, and he throws himself into it because it’s the only way to stay upright, the only way not to think about what happens after. But the awareness of her doesn’t go away. It sits just beneath everything, steady and impossible to ignore, until the pace finally slows and the edges of the day start catching up with him again.
This time, he doesn’t wait. He heads out to the ambulance bay, seeing Mel lean against the wall with a tired look on her face.
“Hey,” he says when he reaches her.
She turns immediately, like she was expecting it. “Hey,” she replies, softer.
Up close, she looks haggard in a way he recognizes, like the day has taken something out of her it won’t give back. There’s something open in her expression too, something that makes it harder than it should be to say what he came here to say.
“I have to go,” he tells her.
The words feel wrong the second they leave his mouth.
Her expression shifts, just slightly. “Go?”
He nods once, keeping it short and simple, because anything more will unravel him. “I just didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye.”
She watches him, really watches him, like she’s trying to understand something he isn’t saying, her gaze moving over his face in a way that makes it harder to breathe. It’s like she’s looking through him.
Frank holds himself still.
If he says more, he won’t stop.
“Take care of yourself,” he adds, quieter now.
Her lips part like she’s about to ask something, but she doesn’t. Maybe she can tell he won’t answer. Maybe she doesn’t know what to ask yet.
“I will,” she says instead. “You too Dr. Langdon.”
It’s not enough. It will never be enough.
Frank nods again, sharper this time, like he can force the moment to end cleanly, and turns before he can hesitate, before he can look at her any longer than he already has. He walks away without looking back, because he knows with a certainty that settles deep in his bones that if he does, if he gives himself even one more second in her presence, he won’t be able to leave.
He will fix this somehow.
Somehow, he will become a man worthy of Melissa King.
Frank thinks it’s a magpie.
It lands on the low branch just outside the window, tilting its head like it’s looking right at him, black and white feathers catching in the pale afternoon light. He watches it longer than he probably should, tracking the small, precise movements of it, the way it hops once, then stills again.
Magpies aren’t supposed to be here.
He knows that. Knows it in the same distant, useless way he knows a hundred other things that don’t matter right now. They’re more common elsewhere. Not here. Not Pittsburgh.
Still, he doesn’t look away.
Because if it’s not a magpie, then it’s just a bird.
And if it’s just a bird, then there’s nothing special about it at all.
He’s still trying to decide when there’s a light tap on his shoulder.
Frank blinks, the room settling back into place around him, the muted hum of the common area filling in where the quiet had been. He turns his head slightly to find Rachel standing there, smiling down at him in that careful, measured way people here tend to smile.
“You’ve got mail,” she says.
Frank frowns.
Mail?
He doesn’t get mail.
He talks to his parents and his sister on Sundays, one hour, timed. Yolanda shows up when she can, loud and alive and impossible to ignore, usually with contraband snacks she swears no one will notice. That’s the extent of it.
He takes the envelope anyway.
It fells heavy, even though the envelope only contains a letter from what he can feel.
The second he looks at it properly, something in him stutters.
Elegant cursive stretches across the front. A font he is intimately familiar with.
His fingers tighten around the edges of the paper, just slightly, like he needs to hold it in place.
Rachel says something else, but he doesn’t catch it. He nods anyways, something automatic, and she leaves him to it.
For a moment, he just sits there. Looking at it.
His hands start to shake as he opens the envelope.
The paper inside is creased and marked. Ink blotches scattered like the pen lingered too long in places, like whoever wrote it hesitated, pressed too hard, stopped and started again.
There are words scratched out. Like they weren’t meant to be seen and couldn’t quite be hidden either.
Frank exhales, something unsteady leaving him as he begins to read.
Dear Frank Dr. Langdon,
I hope you’re doing well, or at least better than when you left. Things have been different without you here.
The Pitt feels quieter. Or maybe that’s just me noticing your absence more than I expected to.
I wanted to say that your patients are being taken care of, and your cases have been followed up on. You don’t need to worry about anything here.
I also wanted to say I miss you that I hope your recovery is going smoothly.
Robby has been pretty quiet about everything. He doesn't bring you up, but listens carefully when someone else like Dr. Garcia, mentions being in contact with you. I think he’ll be glad to have you back.
I will We all will.
I keep expecting to see you walk through the doors like nothing happened. Like you’ve just come back from—
I’ve been thinking about some of the cases we worked on together. You have a way of staying calm when things get complicated. It’s very reassuring. I hope we get to work on a case together again.
You are coming back right? I don't know what I would do without-.
I hope you’re taking the time you need. That you're taking care of yourself.
Please come back soon.
There’s no rush to come back if you aren't ready yet.
The team here is managing, but it’s not quite the same.
I’m not sure if this is appropriate to say, but how would you feel about me visiting you? Please write back to confirm with me, or don't, there's no pressure. As long as you focus on your recovery.
Take care of yourself.
Eternally yours,
Best regards,
Mel King
Frank stares at the page for a long moment after he finishes. His eyes are burning in his effort to try and keep his tears at bay. Still he can't stop a stray tear from dropping onto the paper, wetting Mel's name.
Something in his chest aches, sharp and unfamiliar in a way that has nothing to do with withdrawal, nothing to do with the dull, physical discomfort that’s been sitting in his bones for weeks now.
He exhales slowly, the breath uneven as he lets his head tip back against the wall behind him, the letter still held carefully in his hands like it might fall apart if he’s not gentle enough.
Outside, the bird is still there. This time he decides to believe it really is a magpie.
He folds the letter carefully, slower than necessary, like he’s memorizing it as he goes.
Then he pushes himself to his feet.
He has to find Rachel. He needs a pen and paper immediately.
Because Mel is waiting for him.