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Frank is on the roof. It’s not where he expected to be this morning. Truly, the roof is more Robby and Abbott’s brooding place, and Frank has been in the business of avoiding Robby at all possible moments since returning to work. Robby’s three month sabbatical starting right when Frank came back was kind of a clue Robby was avoiding him right back.
It’s cool outside, not atypical for November, a rare break in the early hours of the morning of Frank’s less-rare-these-days night shifts. He’s sitting legs draped over the edge, arms wrapped loosely around the railing. He doesn’t think he looks like the picture of a man about to jump, but though he doesn’t hear the click of the door, he hears the hitch in Robby’s breath as he catches sight of him. Frank keeps his forehead pressed to the cool metal of the railing, too tired to pull himself to attention for Robby’s benefit, to scurry back downstairs and into the fray just to avoid him. Considering Frank’s MO the last few months has been to be desperately needed elsewhere – anywhere else – the moment Robby enters the room, this says something.
“Just needed some air” Frank says, aiming for unaffected but it comes out a little strangled. Their last patient had been a benzo overdose, a young-ish guy with young kids of his own and a wailing wife. He’d been gone before he’d hit their doors, but they still tried, still had to call time of death. Frank had felt his ribs crack under the force of chest compressions. Trinity had administered Narcan and Flumazenil and hadn’t even made a snarky crack at Frank’s expense afterwards. It had felt eerily like staring down a barrel of another timeline. Frank and Trinity had worked the case together barely looking at or speaking to each other, nothing but brutal efficiency. They’d been looked at like a sideshow the entire time. Or like a bomb ticking down its last moments. Robby had gone to finish speaking with the wife. Trinity had gone…wherever she went when she needed a moment and neither Whitaker or Mel were around. Frank had come to the roof - the ambulance bay left an itch under his skin that made him want to use - all he heard there was Robby screaming, all he could think of was Dana getting punched. Frank didn’t have too many safe spaces left these days. With Robby busy and Abbott on a rare night off, he thought the roof would be an okay bet. He bet wrong.
Robby walks towards him slowly, like Frank is a skittish deer or something. Frank is too tired for the fight Robby is clearly fearing, the fight they are both constantly spoiling for and why they haven’t been left alone is any capacity that wasn’t strictly professional and absolutely necessary since Frank returned to repeat his last year of residency, since Robby returned from sabbatical. The prodigal son returns, but no longer the golden boy of Robby’s ER. If he ever was. Dana runs more interference than either of them deserve, one of the only coworkers who treats Frank exactly as they did before news of his drug diversion and stint in rehab came out. Even when they had him working triage and chairs only, when they were treating him like a July intern even though he was on his second try of his fourth year, Dana treated him exactly the same.
Strangely, his fall from grace - while having driven a wedge between him and most of his colleagues - had him grow closer to Samira. Samira Mohan, Robby’s other protege, and the focus of his attentions with Frank out of commission. She was all too happy to have Frank return and share the burden of attention. Heavy the head that wears the crown, and all that. Two sides of the same parable maybe - if Frank is Icarus flying too close to the sun, melting his wings, then Samira is Icarus playing it too safe, soaking her wings in sea spray until it threatens to drown her just the same. Neither of them can win against Robby and his impossible expectations. But there is no Samira tonight, who is spending the night with Abbott in what is the ER’s worst kept secret. The worst kept secret, second only to Frank’s crush on Mel, which only Mel seems oblivious to.
Frank’s pretty sure there’s bets on him cheating on Abby, bets on Mel being the push over the edge his addiction wasn’t. But Abby and he’d been on the road to divorce before rehab. She had the decency to wait until he was stable to serve him the papers. The decency to give him supervised visitation with a path to 50/50 custody once his sobriety wasn’t on the line. So Frank’s divorced. And he still wears his wedding ring because taking it off feels like one more failure he’s admitting to the vultures. And he’s in love with Mel, which he’s apparently incapable of hiding.
There is no Mel tonight either, who detests night shift and avoids them when at all possible, not quite using Becca as an excuse but an argument in her schedule’s favor all the same.
Which leaves Frank on the roof with Robby. And no one to run to. Not even McKay is on tonight. Probably, whatever out they are going to have has been a long time coming. But the fight Frank has been spoiling for since last August simply isn’t in him tonight.
Robby sits next to him but doesn’t speak for a long enough minute that it starts to make Frank antsy. Frank looks over at him, “what do you need Robby? A drug test? To search my pockets? I didn’t take anything from that last patient.”
They had been not so subtlety keeping Frank away from overdoses, but particularly from patients who used his drug of choice. Removing a temptation as it were. You can’t fall off the wagon if there’s no holes to fall through, so to speak. He’s be a year sober. He wonders how long he’ll need to be sober before “addict” is no longer the first thing they think when they think of him.
“I know you didn’t.” Robby says, finally. He doesn’t say I trust you. But it’s an olive branch - not the first he’s offered, but maybe the first Frank will be willing to take with any grace. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Christ, Robby” laughter boarding on hysterical bubbles up in Frank, “of course I’m not okay, I feel like I’m going to be sick. I thought I’d try out yours and Abbott’s favorite coping skill, seeing as mine haven’t historically worked out for me.”
He’s aiming for a joke with that last line, but Robby’s face turns, if possible, sadder and more complicated, so Frank has clearly missed a mark somewhere. They cannot skip right to joking about it and sidestepping the emotional elephant in the room, clearly, no matter how badly Frank wants that to be the case. In the absence of being either Robby’s friend or best resident, Frank doesn’t really know what to be with Robby, other than maybe a disappointment.
“Probably time to head back” Frank says, unsubtle but not caring, he moves to stand and feels Robby press a hand to his shoulder, “keep your head down”. He pauses for a second. The heat of Robby’s hand feels like a brand against Frank’s shoulder blades - that more than the physical force keeps him seated. “They’re fine for now. Dana will page us if she needs to.”
If Robby got Dana involved, he means to put this to bed tonight. Robby’s anger is easier to swallow than his quiet disappointment, his sadness. The anger left Robby after the “meltdowns in other people” comment a year ago, and Frank’s been spoiling for a fight to bring it back ever since, dodging the personal emotional conversation about their relationship since returning to work. But it looks like the clock has run out.
“We’re doing this?” Frank asks, resigned. “We’re doing this.” Robby says. He looks vaguely like he’d rather chew glass.
“Do I get to put this off some more if I actually get sick?” Frank asks, only sort of joking. The nausea that had him leaning into the cool railing, even as the clouds overhead threatened to spill, returning with full force.
“The price for keeping your feelings, in this line of work, is that you get sick sometimes. Some doctors decide to get rid of their feelings. You decided to keep your feelings. It made you sick. You’re learning to live with it.” Robby says. He sounds far away, looking down rather than at Frank himself. The words themselves sound like something told to Robby himself – a man who struggles with the idea that he himself is not above the mortal failing of emotions. Frank cannot tell if it’s meant to be a condemnation.
Frank looked up, “maybe I’d be better off as one of the doctors without my feelings. I thought I was one.”
“Keep your head down” Robby says, his eyes flick up, like he’s asking God or someone else up there to give him strength, “you live with it. The alternative is that is kills you” he says bluntly. “Keep your feelings. Get sick sometimes. Live with it.”
“How?” Frank asks, he doesn’t look at Robby, partly afraid to look at his face, partly knowing Robby will just tell him to look back down, to keep his head between his knees as he breathes. Robby’s hand is still on his shoulder.
“One step at a time” Robby says, and he passes over a coin.
Or, not a coin. On closer inspection it’s a chip - a sobriety chip, metal, the kind you get for 20 years. Frank is so startled he almost drops it. Considers for a moment pitching it off the roof on purpose. All his briefly forgotten anger at Robby welling up inside him once again. It must read on his face because Robby says, “this is how I know it gets better.”
The fight leaves Frank as quickly as it came on, hair trigger as his temper is, he isn’t a particularly angry or cruel person. “This why you were so mad that day? About not seeing the signs?”
Robby rubs a hand down his face, “one of the reasons. I was pissed at you. I was pissed at myself for missing it.” Frank nods in an absence of knowing what to say.
“I set the tone” Robby says, self-mockingly, his inflection indicating he’s quoting someone, but not it’s not a line of Adamson’s or anyone else that Langdon recognizes. “I set the tone for this ER, and look where it landed us, landed you.”
“My choices aren’t on you” Frank tells him. There’s been a lot of rehab and therapy in Frank’s life over the last year, and much of it he’d pulled himself through with sheer force of will and stubbornness, while rolling his eyes and internally kicking and screaming. Abby had held his hand through it and gently handed him divorce papers that he’d entirely deserved. Mel had dragged him into dinners and movie nights with Becca and late night phone calls when Frank couldn’t stand not using, couldn’t stand going home to sleep in what was once the guest room of his own home, because Abby trusted him enough to let him stay but not enough to let him see the kids without someone else as a buffer. But Frank had accountability forced into him, and this is the closest he can come to taking accountability outloud when he’s speaking to Robby and not a meeting. A work in progress – to apologize to Abby for the risks he took, apologize to Dana for putting her in the middle, apologize to Trinity for putting her in such as awful position on her first day of internship. He hadn’t gotten to a point where he could apologize to Robby, not when so much of him wanted to blame Robby to an extent.
The sky breaks loose as they sit in silence, spitting rain it had been threatening all night. And that’s when their pagers break the silence.
“Multicar pile-up. ETA for the first patients is 3 minutes. Let’s go.” Robby says, hurrying.
“Once more into the fray.” Frank mutters. And off they go.