Work Text:
His phone rings at around 11pm that night. The caller ID is conspicuous and vague: “Work”
Abby is in the bathroom, getting ready for bed. He casts a sidelong glance at the door, open just a crack. He can see the steam from her shower has fogged up the mirror, smell her hair products and lotion. She’s doing her skin-care, he can tell by the strange light that bounces off the mirror. Her LED-light therapy mask that he had told her was nonsense and reminded him of Silence of the Lambs. Like with most things, she didn’t consider Frank’s input.
He answers the phone.
“…Doctor Langdon?” Her voice on the other end of the line is small, tearful.
Immediately, his heart drops into his ass. He gets up, walking into the dark hallway, down the stairs. If Abby asks, he’ll tell her the dog had to go out.
“You okay?” He asks, trying to keep his voice even over the phone. He knows she needs someone steady, someone to calm her down. A firm hand. A guiding presence.
“Um…” She sniffs audibly, she sounds terrible, like she’s been crying for some time. He hears her take a big, shuddering breath. His palms start to sweat, “…Frank?”
Shit, his first name? He should start planning how he should get to the hospital, what he needs to tell Abby in order to leave. Got called in, some kind of emergency. That’s sort of what this was, anyway.
“Yeah, baby, I’m right here. What’s wrong, is everything okay? Do you need me?”
She’s silent for a long moment, then she says, quiet as a mouse: “I had the baby.”
Frank almost drops the phone. A cold wave washes over him and for a moment, he feels genuinely woozy, like he might pass out.
Briefly, he imagines how it would play out: He’d go down, hit his head on the kitchen counter on the way down. Abby wouldn’t bother to check where he was until she came down to make breakfast for the kids. By then, Scout would’ve devoured half of him out of sheer spite. Paramedics pronounce him dead on the scene.
He takes a deep breath. He has to get it together, has to be a man with a plan, because at the end of the day, this was all his fault.
“Mel— honey,” He wills his voice not to come out too sharply, knowing he has to handle her like a prey animal. She’ll bolt if she gets scared, “Why didn’t you call me? Is— is the baby okay? Are you okay? I thought we decided…” The words I’d be there die on his tongue. He can’t be angry with her. No matter what, he can’t be angry with her.
“Um,” She’s waffling again, struggling for words, and once again Frank feels like he’s had the wind knocked out of him, suddenly overwhelmingly concerned that something had gone horribly wrong. He rushes over to the front door to get his shoes on, his flannel pajama pants the only thing that makes him pause. She sniffs again, “It’s okay. I mean, we’re okay. I’m… I’m so sorry!”
He stops, one tennis shoe half on. Pitifully, she starts to cry in earnest. He curses himself for everything all at once. He wants to pull the phone away from his ear, listening to her breaks his heart, but he doesn’t, because it’s what he deserves. He was the one who took a naïve, trusting girl looking for a mentor, a teacher, and he took advantage of that. Plied her with praise and got her comfortable, made her feel special, and then he fucked her. Typical.
And of course, she got pregnant.
Had carried his baby like a shameful secret under baggy hoodies until she was too big to hide it. And then she had to make up some excuse, some one-night stand. As if that was believable. Mel may as well have told everyone it was an immaculate conception, that would’ve been closer to the truth. He’d taken her and stained her, made her the target of rumors and bets and workplace drama. Sweet, well-meaning Mel who only wanted friends and connection and had found it in the worst place with someone who had used her all up and hadn’t even had the decency to leave his wife. The weight of what he’d done felt heavy, like the permanent strain on his lower back. He thought about OxyContin. Then, he tried to think about something else.
“It’s just— it was mother’s day, and everything, and I knew, um, you’d be with Abby and I really didn’t want to get you into any trouble, b—but— the thing is—“
She’s crying even harder now, big heaving sobs. He balances on one foot, nestling his phone into the crook of his shoulder so he can yank his shoe on the rest of the way, pajamas be damned.
“Honey, I would’ve done anything to be there with you, I swear to God— I’m sick to my stomach thinking about you there by yourself, seriously, I just need to see you, the baby, I—“
She cuts him off, “Frank. Listen.” Her voice suddenly goes a bit stern, although still thick with tears and snot.
“What? Is something wrong? Please, just tell me you’re okay, Mel. Is it your blood pressure? What’s wrong?”
“It’s just…” She takes another deep breath. He can hear some rustling in the room, maybe a nurse. Maybe Becca. Maybe it’s the baby, his baby that he hasn’t even met yet. His stomach turns.
“Frank…” She says again, voice so small, “I think we’re in really big trouble.”
His chest feels like it’s about to explode. He’s got both his shoes on now, and he’s shoving his stupid backpack with his phone charger, a water bottle, granola bars, anything he can grab, “Melissa. What does that mean? You’re killing me, here.” He’s pouring sweat.
“You’re coming, right?” She offers nothing to reassure him, which is fair, all things considering.
“Yes, baby. I’m coming right now. I’m going to run through every red light.”
“Well, please don’t do that— that’s a joke, right?”
“Yeah. Joke.” He’s lying.
“Then, um… you’ll see when you get here.”
In the end, he doesn’t make up any excuse for Abby at all. He just leaves her upstairs with her LED-mask on. There’s no time to do anything else but grab the keys and drive to the hospital, a familiar route which feels alien and bizarre at this time of night. Especially when he turns toward L&D instead of at the big, red EMERGENCY sign.
In his pajama pants and t-shirt, he signs in as a visitor with a nurse who definitely knows him but graciously pretends not to. With thin-lipped politeness, she leads him to Mel’s room.
He isn’t sure what to expect because he has no clue what happened, doesn’t know when she went into labor, whether she had a c-section or not. For all he knows, she had the baby two days ago and just needs a ride home. She didn’t have to tell him, but it would have been nice. But then again, a lot of things would be nice.
He’s relieved when he walks into the room that Mel looks healthy. She’s not extremely pale, no hemorrhaging (he’s checking boxes in his brain), no magnesium drip on her IV-pole, no FALL RISK bracelet on her wrist. She looks tired, her braid loose and hair falling into her face, eyes rimmed with dark circles and cheeks red from crying. She’s beautiful. His good, brave girl who had a baby all by herself. (She always did everything by herself).
He feels a bit stupid, looking at her as she holds their baby to her chest. He can’t see much, just a tuft of dark hair emerging from the nursery blanket. He felt this way with Tanner and Penny, too: stupid. What else is there to feel when Mel cradles the person that she made, that her body built and sustained from practically nothing. It’s enough to blow his fucking mind.
“Hi, honey,” He says as soon as the nurse leaves. She doesn’t look up until then, so wrapped up in her little bundle that the rest of the world is completely dead to her.
She blinks at him, as if startled to see him, “You’re here!” She says with a watery smile, not able to hide the look of relief on her face. She suddenly looks, to him, terribly young. Like a babysitter thankful to finally see the real grown-up pull into the driveway after a long day. It makes him feel slightly nauseated.
“In the flesh.” His arms feel numb. Maybe he’s having a heart attack. There’s a long moment of silence.
“Can I, uh, come in?” He’s hovering awkwardly near the door, feeling like he can’t move any further until Mel gives him permission. He’s been bad. To her, to everyone.
“Okay.” Her lower lip trembles, which makes his heart genuinely ache. He wants an EKG.
Slowly, carefully, he walks over to her side and sits down.
He doesn’t feel like he can touch her, so he doesn’t, he keeps his hands in his lap, but he does lean forward, trying to get a glimpse of the baby— their baby.
“We’re in really big trouble.” She repeats, just like she had over the phone, tilting the baby so he was curled up against her shoulder, her hand worrying at his back, patting rhythmically.
“I know,” He says, because they are, but he isn’t sure if they’re on the same page about why that is.
“It’s just— when you see him,” She sniffs, breaking his heart all over again.
“I’d like to see him, if that’s okay.” He’s thinking of every single thing that could be wrong with a baby’s face; skin conditions, vision problems, an extra eye, or something.
“…Alright.” She lets out a sharp breath that she's been holding, then carefully tilts the baby off of her shoulder and into Frank’s waiting arms.
The problem became immediately apparent.
“Oh.” He says, eyebrows shooting straight up as he observes the tiny, scrunched face of his son.
The nose, the eyebrows, the flop of dark hair, the chin— especially the tiny, dimpled chin.
Anyone who looked at this baby and knew him—hell, anyone who had walked past him in a hallway once— would know immediately that this baby belonged to him.
Not even Tanner, his twin in all but hair color, had looked as much like him as this baby did now. Any story Mel had made up, any fabricated one-night stand, was completely futile. From one look at this kid, there was no question about it.
“See?” She said, eyebrows knitting together with worry, hands flying up to rub at her swollen eyes, threatening to spill over with tears once again.
“Oh, baby,” He says gently, reaching up to tilt her little face upwards, bouncing the baby carefully on his knee to keep him calm, “You did such a good job. Look at him. I’m so proud of you. You’re so good, Mel. You’re such a good girl.”
Despite herself, Mel beamed, blinking back tears, “Really?”
“Really, baby.” He leaned forward and kissed her soundly on the head. They were in big, big trouble.