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Tanner Peter Langdon, currently aged four, had always struggled with certain aspects of his speech. His Aunty Amelia’s name for one, usually he shortened it to ‘Aunty Mills’ because it was easier than saying ‘Aunty Amelia’ and his dad had called Aunty Amelia ‘Mills’ on occasion. His sister’s name was the second hurdle; Penelope Patricia Langdon was a mouthful for any four-year-old. That one was easy because even Penelope couldn’t even pronounce her own name and therefore called herself PenPen. Their parents called her Penny instead. Tanner had gone for a neutral third option and just called her ‘baby sissy’. And thirdly, Tanner found it hard to pronounce the word happy. It started off when he was learning to speak. He could never quite get the roll of the ‘H’ or the ‘P’ sound, so instead of happy, it always ended up sounding like ‘abby’. This continued on for years.

His parents had found it adorable when he started saying it.

“Hey, Tan, what’s something that makes you happy?” Frank asked their son as he blew kisses on the toddler’s stomach.

“Mommy is my abby!” Tanner exclaimed excitedly through a flurry of giggles.

Mel laughed at their son. “Darling, I think you mean happy.”

Tanner looked up at his mom in confusion. “But I said abby.”

Mel just gave her son a soft smile and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “Of course then, darling, of course.”

***

The first time Amelia Langdon heard Tanner call Mel his ‘abby’ she just ran with it.

“Well of course, your mommy is abby,” Amelia laughed at her nephew as they sat on a park bench, ice cream cones in hand, “she makes everyone abby.”

Tanner nodded firmly and took a long lick from his ice cream.

***

“Hey, Abby,” Amelia teased her sister-in-law when she walked through the doors of Frank and Mel’s house in Pittsburgh.

Mel sighed forlornly. “Not you too,” she lamented.

Amelia shrugged as she placed Tanner’s backpack on the door hook, the boy in question zooming past his aunt and launching himself at his mother’s legs. “Abby!” he cried excitedly as he looked up at Mel with his bright blue eyes, an exact clone of his father.

Mel softened at her son, brushing his hair back from his forehead. “Yeah, sweetheart, I’m your abby.”

***

So, what started as Tanner’s inability to say ‘happy’ it became the longest running inside joke of their family. Even Frank’s parents, Carolyn and Peter, had got in on it once they found out.

“Oh, that’s just precious of little Tan,” Carolyn had cooed with a sweet smile, “and he’s not wrong, Mel, you’re just such a loveable and ‘abby’ presence in our lives. We’re so glad to have you as our daughter-in-law.”

Peter had laughed at his wife. “She might as well just change her name to Abby now if the family’s gonna keep calling her that,” Peter teased with a full bellied laugh.

Mel merely laughed as Tanner snuggled closer into his mom.

***

The Pitt crew didn’t find out Frank was married until his R2 year. He had been a fairly private person during his internship, just trying to survive in the ER during the depths of the COVID pandemic and, you know, stay alive. He hadn’t worn his wedding band during his R1 year due to COVID restrictions and hand hygiene requirements but slowly started incorporating it back in after the dust of COVID had settled and he felt comfortable that he wasn’t going to lose it. Mel had always joked he would’ve well and truly lost his wedding band by now if he hadn’t left it at home during COVID. He was notorious as a medical student to be seen going through the scrub pile at the end of the day searching for his wedding band. One memorable time he’d been running up and down the corridors of the hospital searching for it, then spotted it just as it was about to be vacuumed by the EVS technician. Mel had not found it that funny when he relayed the story to her at home that night.

“When did you get married? That happen recently?” Dana asked him as she looked pointedly at him.

Frank’s cheeks flushed red and he rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh, I’ve been married since medical school. I met my wife in undergrad, we did premed together,” he told her sheepishly.  

Dana gave him another pointed look. “And I’m just finding this out about you, kid? What’d you do? Keep your wife under house arrest?” she teased lightly.

“She’s on leave from medical school currently,” he explained with a soft smile, “she just had our second baby.”

Dana’s entire face softened. “Damn, she must have the patience of a saint. Medical school and two kiddos?” Dana whistled and then laughed, “you got pictures?”

“Uh, yeah, just gimme a second,” Frank said as he fumbled with his phone, opening his and Mel’s messages to show the latest photo of Tanner and Penny from Mel. On the screen was a six-week-old Penny with her wide, blue eyes and her little face scrunched up in almost displeasure at being in her brother’s arms. Tanner, completely unaware of his sister’s dislike of him, was seated on the couch, his equally bright blue eyes in focus as he gave a wide, toothy grin. His floppy dark brown hair askew. Frank knew that Mel had likely tried to brush back their son’s hair to no avail. Their son never sat still enough to be able to let either of them brush it.

“Exactly like someone else I know,” he could hear in her teasing lit. God, he misses his wife, was his immediate thought.

The caption Mel had written underneath the photo was:

Abby ❤️

Today 2:39pm

[One Image Attached]

I think Tanner likes his sister more than Penny likes him 😂

Dana laughed again and handed Frank back his phone. “Those kids are the spittin’ image of ya, did your wife’s genetics even try?”

Frank snorted. “That’s what she says,” he said with a short laugh but then his entire face softened as he ran a hand through his hair, “she really is my better half. Has never complained about the crazy hours here. Always taken everything in stride. She found out she was pregnant with Tanner, that’s our first, two months after I started working here. That was two months after she started medical school in Pittsburgh. She’s an amazing person. Her dad died when she was really young and her mom died when we were in college, so she took on caring for her sister. I love everything about her. She’s sunshine personified. She’s beautiful, kind, and an excellent mother to our kids. She’s the absolute love of my life. I can’t wait to get outta here and see her and the kids tonight.”

Dana’s gave Frank a gentle smile. “Sounds like you found a good one, kid,” she said, her eyes crinkling around the edges, “when Abbot does his next barbeque bring her around, yeah? We’d all love to meet her. Abby was it?”

Frank, still somewhat giddy and daydreaming about his wife, answered, “Yeah, that’s right.”

Completely unaware of the consequences this would have years later.

***

“How’s the fellowship applications going? Anything that interests you?” Mel asked him over the phone. He could hear Tanner and Penny chattering in the background. He could almost see Mel standing in their kitchen over the sink with the phone propped between her shoulder and ear, glasses dropping down her nose as she washed the dishes.

Frank leant his back against the cold brick of the ambulance bay. “Going, I guess…?” he replied uncertainly, “Robby wants me to apply for the medical education fellowship in the Pitt. Then there’s also the crit care fellowships at both PTMC and Presby. There’s also the emergency paeds fellowship, but I think that’s more of a you thing, sweetheart.”

Mel hummed thoughtfully. “I think the medical education fellowship would be a good fit for you,” she told him after a moment, “you were always such a good teacher during premed and medical school.”

Frank laughed at his wife, his head ducking as he smiled into the phone. They had met in their freshman year of college. Frank had fallen in love with her at first sight when their eyes met across the library at Penn State. Well…her eyes met his very briefly before she turned away with flushed cheeks and scurried off to a darkened corner of the library to study. But Frank knew that would be it for the rest of his life. There would be no one else for him.

The next time he saw her after that it was in their weekly Introduction to Biochemistry lecture. He had always sat a few rows behind her; he’d never paid much attention to the lecture. Occasionally, his eyes had been drawn to her blonde braid and the diligent way she took her notes, but most of the time, him and YoYo would just be snickering with one another. But today was different, when he walked through the door, he already saw she was there sitting in her usual spot. Her brow was furrowed in concentration as she focussed on her laptop screen, her tongue peeking out from the edge of her mouth, there was a few loose strands from her usually meticulous braid. And for the second time that day, Frank Langdon was completely and absolutely struck by Mel King. His heart raced in his chest. His mouth was dry. His entire body vibrated with nervous energy. Flight or fight kicked in. Because that was the only rational explanation for what happened next.

“Is this seat taken?” He had asked, completely unaware of how or when his feet had taken him to the aisle she was seated in.

Mel had looked up at him with her warm hazel eyes, her mouth slightly parted. Her entire face soft and so, so beautiful. Frank could have stared into her warm eyes for the rest of his life. 

“No, please sit,” Mel had replied, her lips morphing into a smile. “I’m Mel,” she introduced extending a hand to him.  

He took her hand. “Frank.”

And he was one hundred percent in from that moment. But what Frank had not known at the time was that so was Mel.

***

“Dr. Robinavitch?” Mel said brightly as she came up beside Robby, “Melissa King, I will be joining you today. I just came from two months at the VA.”

“Hey, welcome to the Pitt,” Robby said as he shook her hand. “This is Dr. Jack Abbot,” he introduced and gestured over towards Abbot.  

“Nice to meet you,” Mel said with a wide smile, her body brimming with excitement, “I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here today, so…”

And truly Mel was. She’d heard enough from Frank about the Pitt and his work colleagues to make it feel like she already knew most of them. Although, in all of their years of being married she’d only met a handful of them, if even that. The last barbeque that had been organised for the Fourth of July the year prior, Mel had been bedridden with a nasty strain of the flu, so Frank had taken both Tanner and Penny, sending apologies in her stride. She’d known Garcia from since their premed days and all throughout medical school, and although the trio had started together, Mel had had to take a few months off after the birth of both Tanner and Penny, which left her graduating two years behind them. She’d spoken to Lena over the phone once after Frank had been physically assaulted by a drunk patient on night shift. Mel had been six months pregnant with Penny and had been absolutely beside herself on the phone that her voice was unrecognisable. Luckily for Mel, Carolyn had been in town and offered to go to the Pitt and sit with Frank until he was cleared for discharge.

So, all in all, Mel is excited to start at the Pitt. She finally worked in the same hospital as her husband after all these years.

“We’re gonna save so much on gas now that we can carpool,” Mel declared jovially a few months ago when she was advised her next rotation was in the Pitt, “you know how much I hate driving.”

Frank had pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. “I’m just excited we get to work in the same hospital after all these years of not working together,” he told her softly, “you think I’m insufferable now? Wait until I get to see and work with my wife every day.”

Mel had a goofy smile on her face as she recalled the memory, her peripheral vision catching Frank staring at her from the charge nurse’s station.

Today was going to be a good day.

***

Gossip spread through the ER like nobody’s business because nothing brought up staff morale more than rampant, unhinged gossip. That, and a good betting pool everyone could get behind. Dana Evans knew this better than anyone. Decades of nursing experience had taught her that. What she had also learnt after years of experience was that around forty percent of extramarital affairs happened in the workplace, with reported rates being higher in stressful environments such as healthcare. She herself hadn’t as much looked at another man since she married her Benji, but she had been witness to many others who had during her tenure as charge nurse.

This kind of behaviour in the ER had been present since the dawn of time. It happened before Dana was charge nurse, and would likely continue long after Dana retired. Residents and nursing staff always came and went. Usually, they were young and only looking for some fun, despite Dana and Robby giving the express advice of “don’t shit where you eat” for when it inevitably went wrong. Sometimes it ended amicably, with both parties knowing exactly what their relationship was. Sometimes it ended because someone moved away. The residents usually for an attending position, and the nursing staff because they had become too burnt out with bedside nursing and had found a cushy travel nurse gig. Other times it ended in shouting matches across the Pitt where security had to get involved. And one memorable time, that Princess and Perlah still talk about to this day, a drunken love confession from a resident to a very married attending, which resulted in their whole torrid affair being aired like dirty laundry for the entire department. Last Perlah heard, the attending had moved to New York and had a restraining order against the resident, who found an attending job in Seattle after quietly finishing their residency at PTMC.

Dana had liked Frank Langdon from the moment she met him. He had been a quiet, sheepish thing when he had first started in the Pitt over four years ago, but she had seen him grown and blossom into an excellent emergency physician that PTMC would be lucky to keep an attending. He’d been thrown into the deep end with a worldwide pandemic, but he had taken everything in stride without complaint. It had truly been trial by fire, and he had made it out the other side. Even more impressive once Dana found out he’d slept in Robby’s spare room for months when Tanner was a newborn and Frank had been terrified of bringing COVID or any number of respiratory viruses home. Both him and Heather would be excellent attendings when the time came. So, it came as a surprise to Dana when in his R2 year that he revealed he had a wife and not one, but two children.

Whenever Frank had spoken about his wife it had only ever been positive things.

“Oh, my wife would love this. She has a massive sweet tooth,” he had commented when admin had brought down sugar cookies for Christmas, then snagged a few extras and wrapped them in a napkin, presumably to take home for her.

“Abby, my wife, loves rom coms, we have a whole stash of DVDs at home,” Dana had heard him say to a patient as he was suturing a nasty forearm laceration.

“Yeah, Abby’s on leave currently, but she’ll finish med school in a few months,” Frank had told Robby when the attending had asked how far into medical school Frank’s wife was, “she’s also looking to apply for an ED residency, but maybe at Presby. I would love her to work here, but she’s worried about the power imbalance.”

“My kids love their mom, probably more than they love me honestly,” Frank had laughed as he spoke to McKay, “I don’t blame them honestly, I think my whole family loves her more than me. My ma jokes that Abby’s her favourite child.”

Dana had never met the mysterious Mrs. Langdon, or Dr. Langdon, she supposed, but for how much Frank spoke about her and how enamoured he was with his wife, it was surprising to Dana to see him basically attached to the hip of the new R2. Dana’s eyes had followed them around like a hawk as they skirted through the ER. He would do things like tug on her braid or lean down to whisper into her ear, something Dana frowned at. Mel would giggle back in return, her cheeks flushing prettily at his words. The hairs on the back of Dana’s neck stood up. She’d seen behaviour like this before. It wasn’t anything new, but she hadn’t imagined Frank ‘I-am-borderline-obsessed-with-my-wife’ Langdon to become part of that statistic.

Even more suspicious was when Garcia arrived for the facial trauma and revealed that all three of them had gone to medical school together, but Mel had taken time off to have kids, which was why she was only an R2, whilst Frank and Gracia were both R4s. It was then that Dana saw the two gold rings attached to a necklace around Mel’s neck, one presumably a wedding band and the other a vintage engagement ring.

“I really hate wearing rings, they’re just too much from a sensory perspective for me,” Mel explained at Dana’s intrigued look.

Dana had only hummed in response, knowing exactly what she needed to do.

“Langdon, can I borrow you for a sec?” Dana asked sternly as he walked past the nurse’s station, Mel not next to him for once.

Frank looked momentarily taken aback and stopped to stand in front of Dana, resting his arms on the nurse’s station. “Uh, yeah, what’s up?”

Dana took off her glasses, resting them by her side, and gave him a sharp look. “Seriously? You don’t know what’s up?”

Frank shrugged helplessly. “I really don’t, Dana. What’s going on?” he asked, his tone clipped and somewhat perturbed.

“Frank,” Dana stressed again, this time instead using his first name, which she almost never did, “you are married. She is married.”

“Yes, and…?” Frank asked, his brow furrowing in confusion, “is there any issues with that?”

Dana’s jaw dropped. She wanted to slap the man. The absolute audacity. She opened her mouth but was interrupted.

“Can I get some help over here! Cardiac arrest!” Whitaker’s trembling voice was heard and before Dana knew it Frank had fled the nurse’s station.

Dana huffed loudly and shoved her glasses back on. She would find another time to give him a piece of her mind.  

***

Samira Mohan didn’t really keep up with the social lives of her colleagues. She barely had a social life of her own! But there were some things that were certain in the ED.

Number one, Robby and Heather had a thing during her R1 or R2 year, they kept it under wraps, but the break-up had apparently been messy and left a trail of destruction that everyone was still trying to clean up years later.

Number two, the ER interns, whilst fresh faced, new and teaming with life, would inevitably screw up somewhere. Samira had done it in her intern year. So had Frank, Heather, and everyone else in recent memory. It was an inevitability, it did not mean they were bad doctors, it just meant that they were human.

And number three, Frank Langdon loved his wife and kids. Some in the ER would say he was borderline obsessed with her, to which Frank would merely laugh and reply, “If you met her, you’d understand why.”

Samira has never met the elusive Mrs. Langdon, or ‘future Dr. Langdon’, Frank corrected whenever someone called his wife ‘Mrs’. Because Frank used every opportunity he could to brag and/or talk about smart, beautiful, and wonderful his wife was.

“Abby was valedictorian in our undergrad class, completely whipped both YoYo and my’s asses in premed,” he had laughed fondly, “she would have completely creamed us if she graduated the same year as us.”

“Yeah, sorry, guys, Abby’s out with the flu at the moment, just me and the kids today,” he apologised as he entered Abbot’s backyard with a six pack of beer and two young children in tow, “she’s devastated she couldn’t make it. She was looking forward to meeting y’all.”

“Yeah, Abby’s the best person I know, way better than I ever could have been,” Frank had told Donnie in the breakroom, “she put med school on hold because she got pregnant. Twice. Failed birth control both times. My sister is an OBGYN and offered to get a referral for her to get her tubes tied but Abby said I needed to get a vasectomy for my bionic sperm. What the wife wants, the wife gets.”

So, whilst Samira has never met Frank Langdon’s wife, all she knew about her was that she was a good wife, and an even better person. She must have been to have met and known Frank Langdon, still agreed to marry him, and subsequently procreate with him. However, accidental that was. And whilst Samira doesn’t have kids of her own, she knew Frank’s kids were an absolute handful. Absolute ‘pocket rockets’ she had heard Abbot call them on the night shift after the Fourth of July barbeque at his house.

“Absolutely the progeny of Frank Langdon,” Heather had teased Frank with a laugh, “I hope you treat your wife well with the three of you under one roof. She deserves some kind of medal for having two kids under two in medical school with you.”

Abby Langdon is an elusive figure in the Pitt that everyone seemed to know of, but no one has ever properly met. But what Samira also knew was that from how Frank spoke and admired his wife, that Abby Langdon had her own little fan club in the Pitt. Which is why when Frank started hanging around the new R2 on her first day a little too closely, and being a little too friendly with her, there’s whispers and stares at him.

Even more pressing when Dana went to talk with him and he’d made it seem like infidelity was a non-issue in their relationship. They all supposed that they could have had an open relationship, but then they’d all thought back to the times when other staff members, patients, or patient’s family members would flirt or ask him out, and he’d very firmly said he was ‘very happily married’.

Samira hadn’t thought Frank to be the kind to cheat on his wife, considering how much she had given him and how much he seemed to appreciate the sacrifices she had made for their family. But then she’d overheard an obviously private conversation between Frank and Mel, and the doubt kicked in.

She had been coming back from getting some fresh air outside the ambulance bay and was about to round the corner when she overheard them.

“You’re doing great, baby, you’re really crushing it with your patients,” the familiar timbre of Frank’s voice broke through. Samira could hear the smile in his words as he spoke.

Mel laughed softly. “You would have done the same thing as I did,” Mel said in response.

Frank hummed. “Maybe, maybe not. Who knows,” he replied in turn, “you’re a good doctor, sweetheart. I mean, I always knew you were, but it’s different seeing it in person.”

Mel laughed again, there was some shuffling feet, and Samira was certain they were now hugging. Her suspicion was confirmed moments later when she ducked her head around the corner for a look. It was a full-bodied hug, their bodies pressed as close as physically possible. Frank’s hand was wrapped around her neck, his other arm slung slowly around her hips as his fingers played with the hem of her scrub top. He pressed a kiss to Mel’s temple as she rested her cheek on his shoulder with a longing sigh, Mel’s arms wrapped around Frank’s waist. It was far too intimate to be something just shared by friends.

It felt like an age that they broke apart from the hug, Frank immediately moving his hands to cup Mel’s face in them, pressing a delicate kiss to her nose before pressing one to her lips. It would have been sweet aside from the glittering wedding band that was very clearly visible on his left hand as his thumb stroked Mel’s cheek.

“I love you, sweetheart,” Frank whispered against her cheek, his voice so soft and so loving.

“I love you too,” Mel replied easily as if she’d said it a thousand times before.

Samira’s jaw dropped. Maybe this affair had been going on for far longer than just today. She’d overheard someone mentioning that they’d gone to medical school together years ago. Samira couldn’t believe they’d been so brazen. They were in the ambulance bay! Where anyone could have seen them! The actual audacity of them! 

Samira had never met Abby Langdon, but she is enraged on behalf for her. her blood was absolutely boiling. All men were trash, even the ones that seemed good. But no, even good men would have affairs with their R2s for months whilst their wife delayed medical school to birth two children, one of which was born during a worldwide pandemic.

So, then Samira started plotting, surely there was a way to get Abby Langdon’s number and message her any number of the incriminating photos she had taken of Frank and Mel together…

***

“Did you see how he looked at her after she walked out of trauma one after they’d declared that little girl dead?” Perlah whispered to Princess as they sat beside one another, both trying to complete their charting.

Princess nodded vigorously, then craned her neck up, as if looking for something, then ducked back down before whispering to Perlah in Tagalog, “I heard Dr. Mohan caught them hugging and kissing at the back of the ambulance bay. Dr. Mohan was trying to find Abby’s contact info to let her know.”

Perlah gasped, clutching at her chest. “So. Much. Drama. It’s like a telenovela here today!” she exclaimed, her eyes wide, then she frowned, “but Langdon loves his wife so much. Why would he cheat on her?”

Princess shrugged. “All men are trash,” Princess replied simply in English, “the only ones not trash are fictional, and even then, some of them are suspect.”

Both Princess and Perlah burst into a fit of giggles but immediately stopped as they realised Frank was walking past them with a perplexed expression on his face as he watched them.

“Uh, have you guys seen A—I mean, Mel, anywhere?” he asked them.

They both fixed their firmest glare towards him as they could and then shook their heads simultaneously.

This only caused the confusion on his face to deepen more as he spun on his heel and walked towards the stairs.

“As I said, all men are trash,” Princess reiterated with a severe head nod to Perlah, who only nodded in agreement.  

***

Mel felt like she was on the verge of a panic attack. Her chest felt tight, her head dizzy and off balance. She hadn’t expected to watch a child die today. A child who was similar in age to her eldest. When she was doing CPR all she could have imagined was Tanner’s own little body on that gurney as he flatlined as the Pitt desperately tried to bring him back as she and Frank sobbed together at the head of the bed. Mel tried to shake that image out of her head.

Rationally, Mel knew it was a possibility that she could have lost a child today, but at the same time she hadn’t given it any thought. The Pitt had a much higher acuity than the VA. The most she ever saw was PTSD cases, the occasional fractured limb, and substance use disorders. She’d never worked on any paeds cases at the VA, she hadn’t since her R1 year, but during her R1 year she’d been placed in a non-trauma centre, so most of the paeds cases had been coughs and colds, with the occasional need for up-transfer to a higher acuity centre when the child was very sick.  

Mel knew her kids were safe. They were with Amelia, Frank’s younger, and arguably the more responsible one of the Langdon siblings, sister. Amelia had organised some vacation time for the next few weeks when Mel started up at the Pitt to help with the childcare and housework. She had been an absolute godsend during COVID; she had moved down from Boston to Pittsburgh temporarily to help care for Becca and Mel whilst med school was on hiatus. She’d done everything when Mel was heavily pregnant. Organising food and meals, even sending some to Frank at PTMC, making sure Mel took all her prenatal supplements, and making sure all her telehealth prenatal checks were up to scratch.

“As a future OBGYN, it would be remiss of me if my own sister-in-law didn’t receive the gold standard of care,” Amelia had told her pointedly after a telehealth with her OB.

Mel focussed on taking some slow and deep breaths, trying to focus on bringing her heart rate down and the way her body vibrated with anxiety and tension.

“Hey, you okay?” Frank asked her as he rested a gentle hand on her shoulder.

Mel immediately crumbled under his touch, her entire body turning into his as she sobbed into his chest. He immediately wrapped his arms around her, rubbing soothing circles with his thumb on her back.

“Woah, hey, hey, hey, it’s okay,” he murmured into her hair. “Everything’s okay. The kids are okay. They’re safe with Amelia,” he reassured as if he could read her mind.

Mel nodded into his chest, but didn’t make a move to speak, afraid she would start crying again if she spoke. They stood there for a few moments, just enjoying the presence of the other and their gentle touch.

“You would have seen so many kids die…how…how have you done this for all these years?” Mel asked him with wide eyes as she looked up at him, her eyes swollen and red.

Frank gave her a somewhat helpless shrug, then brought his left hand up to brush a hair back from her forehead. The friendship bracelet on his wrist that Tanner had very proudly presented to him last year after Amelia had brought her beading supplies to make friendship bracelets for the Eras Tour for her and Mel, catching her eye. “It was hard, I’m not gonna lie,” Frank confessed, “the first paeds case I had after Tanner was born, I was an absolute wreck. Nothing we could have done. Mom had woken up in the middle of the night because her baby was on four hourly feeds and found the baby dead in the cot. SIDS they said.”

Mel’s faced dawned in realisation. “Is that why you called me at two am so you could check on Tan?”

Frank nodded slowly. “Abbot saw I was on the verge of breakdown, so he told me to go for a twenty-minute break.”

Mel smiled gently at him. “Then you called me and we just watched our baby breathe for the next twenty-minutes,” she recalled fondly. Well, she wasn’t terribly fond of it at the time. She had just finished feeding Tanner, who had been a terrible sleeper and managed to get him down and was about to drift off to sleep when her phone had rung. Although, any trace of anger or annoyance she had towards her husband immediately left her as she saw his tear-stained face and downtrodden expression.

“Yeah, that was nice. Made me sad that I was missing so much of his early life though,” he lamented, “just another thing COVID took from us…”

“You more than made up for it with Penny though,” Mel reassured him gently as she took his hand in hers and pressed a kiss to it, “I swear our daughter loves you more than me.”

“Well, just like her dad then,” he teased and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Amelia is a full ass doctor as well, if anything were to happen, she would know what to do,” Frank told Mel sincerely, “she would never let anything happen to our kids.”

“Frank,” Mel started seriously as she pulled away slightly from her husband, “your sister constantly jokes she is a doctor from the waist down and the knees up in fifty percent of the population. Forgive me for being at least a little anxious about them right now.”

Frank laughed heartily, reaching down to his scrub pocket and pulling out his phone. “She doesn’t mean it like that. If it helps, she texted me this,” he told her and showed her the screen.

It was a photo of Amelia, Tanner, and Penny all crowded around the camera, the trio having equally wide smiles on their face and chocolate sauce on their mouths. Amelia’s bright pink hair matching both Tanner and Penny’s jumpers. Tanner and Penny both had an arm slung around their aunt’s neck. Mel can see the stack of pancakes on the table with both whipped cream and ice cream. She recognised the gingham tablecloth of the diner. It was their usual Sunday breakfast spot when both her and Frank had the morning off. Usually, she would have frowned at that, concerned about the amount of sugar her children were consuming, but not today. Today, Mel was just glad they were all happy and alive.

The Better Langdon Sibling 😈

Today 3:23pm

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I am claiming the title of world’s bestest aunt award as per these little munchkins. Don’t let Becca know. 🤐 🫡

Frank

Today 3:24pm

Becca would absolutely eat you alive, Mills. 🤣 🤣 🤣

“Yeah…” Mel trailed off as she handed the phone back to Frank, “that did make me feel better. Thanks, Frankie honey.”

“You’re welcome, baby,” he said softly and pressed another kiss to her hair.

Both of them were completely unaware that Cassie McKay had seen the last part of their interaction with her jaw on the floor.

***

All Dennis Whitaker wanted to do today was make a good first impression and survive his first shift in the Pitt. What he was not expecting to walk into was something straight out of a soap opera. Killing rats in the ER was one thing. And yeah, getting various bodily fluids on himself and needing to change his scrubs an innumerable amount of times, wherein one time the scrub machine gave him the wrong size was something straight out of a bad comedy. Catching two of his new colleagues having a full-blown affair was not on his bucket list for today.

Dennis knew they were both married with children. Just not to each other. He’d heard it down the gossip tree in the Pitt, and he hadn’t even worked a full shift! He doesn’t want to imagine what a full rotation in the Pitt would reveal.  

He had only been trying to get into the breakroom to grab a drink from the fridge. He hadn’t drunk any water all day. And all he can remember in this moment was one of his first year med school lecturers repeating, “when all else fails, remember to sleep, exercise and, eat and drink well.” What he had not expected to see through the door window was Frank Langdon and Mel King seated on the floor of the breakroom, Crosby lying comfortably between Mel’s legs. They looked to be deep in conversation when unexpectedly Mel reached out to brush back the hair from Frank’s forehead, her hand gently running down the curve of his cheek.

Mel let out a forlorn sigh, her shoulders slumping, about to drop her hand when Frank captured her hand in his and pressed and gentle kiss to her palm, resting it on his cheek. His severe blue eyes incredibly soft and rounded as he looked at Mel. Dennis recognised that look. It was fondness. It was love.

And it was something Dennis wanted absolutely no part of. Especially after Mel lowered her head to rest it on Frank’s shoulder. The man in question bringing his hand up to stroke the top of her head and turned his head to press a kiss into it.

Not my circus, not my monkeys. Not my circus, not my monkeys, Dennis repeated like a mantra in his head, not my circus, not my monkeys…

***

Trinity Santos liked to think she could sniff bullshit from a mile away. Her mom had always said she was born with an inbuilt bullshit detector. Like when she was five and her father introduced her to his ‘lady friend’ and asked a young Trinity to keep it a secret. Trinity had immediately run to her mom and told her exactly about this meeting with her dad and his lady friend. Trinity had remembered the resulting aftermath. The shouting. The fighting. The broken glass. And the very, very messy divorce proceedings that resulted in Trinity never seeing her dad again.

So, yeah, Trinity felt that she could detect bullshit from a mile away. Which is why when her very married senior resident, stood a little too close and hovered a little too much at their very equally married new R2, Trinity felt the alarm bells begin to ring. Especially when said R2 came up to Trinity later than evening looking for said senior resident.

“Uh, hey, have you seen, Fr—um, I mean, Dr. Langdon?” Mel asked, her eyes darting around the Pitt as Trinity continued on with her charting. Trinity turned her head to face Mel, she could see Mel was desperately trying to remain neutral, but her bright eyes and the ghost of a smile on her face gave it away. She was happy. She was excited. 

Trinity cocked her head to the side and spun her chair to face Mel directly. She fixed the R2 with a quizzical expression on her face as she stood, crossing her arms over her chest. Mel swallowed, fiddling with the cuff of her jumper. “Uhh, no?” Trinity answered, then appraised Mel again with keen eyes. Trinity’s brown eyes falling onto the necklace that held both a wedding and engagement ring. “You guys are really hitting it off, huh?” she asked, hoping to sound indifferent, but when in actuality Trinity was fishing for information.  

“You think so?” Mel squeaked out, the pitch slightly too high to sound natural, and Mel knew it immediately too because she cleared her throat and forced a smile, almost willing it to be somewhat detached, “Dr. Langdon and I went to college together with Dr. Garcia as well. We’ve known one another for over a decade now.”

Trinity hummed noncommittally. “Huh, I see now…” she trailed off, pausing briefly before speaking again, “how—”

Trinity was interrupted by a familiar booming voice. “I heard there was a delivery in the Pitt! Heard you helped save a mom and baby!” Frank cried in delight, speeding up his pace so he was in front of Mel in an instant, grabbing both her hands in his, a movement that did not go unnoticed by Trinity. “You need to text Mills about this. She’s gonna be so jealous,” he laughed, his body bouncing with unspent energy.

Mel rolled her eyes at Frank. “Your sister is literally an OBGYN resident. She delivers babies for a living,” Mel retorted, “I don’t think she’ll be jealous of one delivery I did.”

Frank shrugged. “I’m gonna text her anyways, baby,” he told her and leaned forward to plant an unnecessarily sloppy kiss on her cheek before bouncing off down the hallway before turning back to face her. “Told you today was gonna be a great day when we woke up, love you!” he called back to her blowing her a kiss, which Mel reflexively caught with her hand. He then scurried off taking his phone from his pocket and presumably texting his sister.

That had left both Trinity and Mel standing next to one another. Mel rubbed her wet cheek with the sleeve of her jumper.

Trinity’s eyes wide and jaw unhinged. “You know he’s married right? Like you’re married right?” Trinity asked Mel slowly, wanting to clarify exactly what she knew.

Mel’s face morphed into brief confusion, her hand reaching up to fiddle with her necklace. “Uh, yes, I am aware of that.”

Trinity paused for a beat. “Huh,” she said before heartily slapping Mel on the back, “you do you then, Melanoma.”

Mel jumped at the contact but said nothing as Trinity sprinted away.

***

Not much else was said to either Frank or Mel after six pm about their so-called affair because a few moments after the Trinity, Mel, and Frank interaction, the alert for the PittFest Mass Casualty Incident was declared and it was all hands-on deck.

Donnie had made the one-off comment after hearing the gossip from Princess and Perlah, cornering Frank near one of the scrub machines and fixed him with a sceptical look. "Dude, you’re married with kids. She’s married with kids,” Donnie had told him, his voice somewhat judgmental.

Before Frank could clarify what Donnie meant by that, Abbot declared that he needed extra hands in trauma one, where both Frank and Donnie rushed to. Their conversation unfinished and forgotten by the time the trauma was dealt with.  

Mel and Frank didn’t have a moment together until well after nine PM when the traumas finally slowed and they could finally take a breather. One hundred and twelve patients walked through the Pitt, six died, but that still meant one hundred and six patients triaged and saved today. The odds could have been worse. Frank has definitely seen worse odds. 

“Hell of a first day,” he said with a laugh, leaning against the nurse’s station, facing her, “doesn’t get any worse than this. You should be proud of yourself. The first shift of many to come.”

Mel laughed at her husband. “You weren’t so bad yourself, Frank,” she told him with a smile, “you’re a pretty good doctor yourself.”

Frank absolutely beamed at her, opening his arms up for her. “The highest praise I can get, if I do say so myself.”

Mel rolled her eyes at him, about to step into his embrace, when a throat cleared from behind Mel. Mel twisted her body to find Robby standing behind her, his lips pressed into a thin line as he looked down between both Mel and Frank. An unreadable expression on his face, but when Mel turned towards Frank he gulped. That couldn’t have been a good sign.

“Excuse me, Dr. King, but I need to speak to Dr. Langdon for a moment. Alone,” Robby emphasised and gave Frank a pointed look over Mel.

Frank nodded as he brushed past Mel, his hand going to squeeze hers briefly before he followed Robby to the locker room.

Robby leaned against one side of the lockers as Frank leaned on the parallel lockers, waiting for his boss to speak. An uncomfortable silence filled the room. Frank ran a hand through his hair multiple times, causing it to stick in all manner of directions. He picked at the hem of his scrub shirt, racking his brain of anything he’d done wrong today.

He’d yelled at Trinity earlier in the day, but after an earful from both Mel and Robby, he’d apologised to the intern. It seemed to be all water under the bridge because he saw how her eyes brightened when he’d supervised her for both an indirect intubation and a chest tube during the MCI. She’d even taken on YoYo’s moniker of calling him ER Ken, which he assumed meant his earlier lapse in his temper was well and truly forgiven.

Frank continued to go over every single thing he’d done today. Nothing had stood out. He had taken some time out to comfort his wife after a traumatic incident. And Robby had yelled at him to go find his ‘other half’ when he had given her a twenty-minute break in the middle of a busy shift, which Frank had done and then insisted her sit down and pick out gravel from the patient with road rash. And he’d do it again in a heartbeat. If that was what Robby was going to be on his ass for, then Frank was prepared to defend himself. No doctor working twelve hour plus shifts should go without a break.

Frank was about to open his mouth, when Robby spoke first.

“It has come to my attention that there are some rumours circulating about you that need to be clarified,” Robby began, his voice tight, as if this was the last conversation he wanted to have. And in all honesty, it probably was. Robby had never been one to sugarcoat things.

“Robby, man, whatever has been—”

Robby cut him off abruptly. “Frank Langdon, are you cheating on your wife with the new R2?” Robby asked him bluntly, not even trying to disguise the disappointment in his eyes.

All the tension that was in Frank’s body immediately left. He looked up at Robby in confusion, tilting his head to the side. He blinked slowly. There was a beat. A pause. Then Frank did the absolute last thing he should have done.

He burst into laughter. A full bellied laugh where he doubled over and rested his palms on his thighs as he tried desperately to collect himself. His entire body jostled with every laugh he did. Tears forming in his eyes. When Frank finally looked up, he saw the beyond perplexed expression mixed with anger on Robby’s face.

“Is this funny to you?” Robby almost growled, “you have a wife and kids at home! A wife who delayed medical school to have your kids and you go and cheat on her with someone you knew from medical school? That’s fucked up, man.”

Frank stood ramrod straight and shook his head furiously. God, he had been such an idiot. “No, no, no! You've got it all wrong!” he protested. “That is one hundred percent not what is happening. Mel is my wife. My only wife,” he clarified unnecessarily. 

Robby’s anger simmered, his eyes now furrowed in confusion. “I thought your wife’s name was Abby?”

Frank’s face filled with horror. His face turning pale. It was then he realised that he’d fucked up. He fucked up so bad. Like a generationally bad fuck up.

He was never going to hear the end of this from Amelia and Becca.  

***

Mel was anxiously scrolling through her phone, her head looking back towards the locker room where Robby had retreated with Frank moments ago.

Her phone pinged with a text from Amelia.

Your Favourite SIL 1️⃣

Today 9:24pm

Kiddos are in bed. Becca’s watching a movie in her room. Leftover pizza in the fridge for you and Frankle. Hope it wasn’t too crazy of a day for you. 🍕

Mel

Today 9:25pm

Thanks, Mills. Hopefully Frank and I will be home soon. Absolutely crazy day. I’ll tell you about it when we get home. Love you! ❤️

Amelia heart reacted the last message, which Mel saw before she put her phone down and sunk her head down onto the desk with a despondent sigh. The last time Mel had been this tired was after Tanner was born and Amelia had gone back to Boston as med school had restarted in person again. Tanner had always been a fussy child that never slept and had cried from the most benign of things. Mel had struggled to care for her newborn without Frank there with her in person. The few times he had come over, he’d worn a mask and showered twice to prevent the newborn from getting any infections he could have brought home from the ED.

When Frank finally moved back in after four months sleeping in Robby’s spare room, Mel had been so overjoyed when he drove into the driveway that she had burst into tears. Everything had been somewhat smooth sailing from there. There had been the occasional disagreement, but majority of the time they had been able to communicate their feelings resulting in an agreeable solution for both of them. The only time that hadn’t happened was in Mel’s final year of medical school when her birth control failed yet again, and she had found out she was pregnant with Penny. That had put a spanner in the works because Mel had always planned to try and match at Presby for their emergency residency program. This caused issues because Penny would have been due around the time she would have needed to start her R1 year.

Frank had apologised to her, citing this was all his fault. Mel had disagreed with him. This was her stupid birth control’s fault. She was so furious that she immediately called Amelia and asked for alternative options for birth control.

“I could always get you a referral to get your tubes done or Frank could get a vasectomy,” Amelia had answered.

They had argued that night on the merits of Mel having a bilateral salpingectomy or Frank getting a vasectomy to prevent a surprise and third accidental baby. They’d both said hurtful words to one another, with Frank opting to sleep on the couch and Mel in the bedroom. If you asked them now what they said to one another, they wouldn’t be able to tell you because it wasn’t important in the grand scheme of things. Then at two am Frank was awoken by Mel shaking him on the couch. Her hair was knotted and her eyes full of sleep. She was in his old Penn State t-shirt from their undergrad days. She glowed in the soft moonlight coming through their living room.

“Come back to bed, I miss you,” Mel had said with a yawn, “we can talk in the morning, but please come back to bed.”

Frank hadn’t argued with her as she led him upstairs to their bedroom.

“What are you smiling about?” Dana asked her as she slid up next to her, snapping Mel right out of her reverie.

“Oh, just my husband,” she said dreamily. “We got into a fight when I found out I was pregnant with our second child. I was about to finish medical school, and we’d agreed to try for another baby when I was properly in residency, but my birth control failed and boom there was Penny. I was so mad at the time when it happened, but I think it all worked out in the end,” she said with a laugh, but her words had caused Dana to turn sharply towards her.

“Penny?” Dana asked, intrigued, “you know, Langdon also has a daughter called Penny. Strange coincidence.”

Mel laughed. “Yeah, I suppose you could call it coincidence, but the easier explanation is that he’s my husband and the father of my children,” she said breezily, not realising the magnitude of what she had just revealed.

Nearly every single pair of eyes in the ED fixated on Mel and Dana’s conversation. “Langdon? Langdon’s your husband?” Dana exclaimed, slightly too loudly for Mel because she flinched at the volume.

Mel looked around at her colleagues, slightly embarrassed. “I, uh, yeah, Frank and I are married,” Mel explained.

“Since when?” Trinity blurted out, absolutely no filter on her.

“Since forever?” Mel said with a soft smile, “but if you want to know the actual answer, for the last eight years.”

Cassie whistled lowly. “Damn girl. Didn’t realise Langdon’s girl was you. He’s been holding out on us,” Cassie said with a laugh. “But that explains why he’s been downright giddy all day. He’s got his wife in the Pitt with him now,” then a realisation dawned on Cassie as horror filled her face, “he’s gonna be absolutely insufferable now that you’re here. Gods, he’s never gonna shut up about you ever.”

“Oh no, I don’t—” Mel started to protest but was cut off by Donnie.

“Mel, you didn’t know what he was like,” he remarked dryly, “it was always ‘my wife this’ and ‘my wife that’. It’d be annoying if he wasn’t so damn sincere about you and the kids. Glad to put a name to the face though…but wait, wasn’t Langdon’s wife named Abby?”

Mel’s entire face turned bright red. Just then both Frank and Robby emerged from the locker room. Frank appeared intact, but thoroughly scolded, and Robby, well, he just looked exhausted and over today. They both approached the nurse’s station.

“I think Frank needs to share something with us all,” Robby announced and gestured towards Frank.

“If it’s that Mel is his wife, we know. We just all worked that out ourselves,” Dana declared triumphantly.

“Oh, thank god,” Robby said towards the ceiling, then turned back to Frank, who had moved next to Mel and taken her hand in his, “do not do that again to us, man. You hear me? I cannot deal with another in house affair. It’s not good for my blood pressure. The last one was already bad enough.”

The entire Pitt laughed at Robby, who was muttering to himself as he exited the Pitt.

Mel squeezed Frank’s hand in her own. He squeezed back.

“Ready to go home, Dr. King?” he asked with a teasing lit to his voice.

“It’s actually, Dr. King-Langdon,” she corrected with a laugh, then turned to the rest of her colleagues at the nurse’s station, “you know if any of you looked at my charts, you would have seen Melissa King-Langdon as the signature in all my documentation.”

And for what seemed like the umpteenth time today, everyone’s jaw dropped to the floor as Mel and Frank left the Pitt hand in hand.

***

"Wait, so, where does the name Abby come from then?" 

"Oh, shut up, Huckleberry."