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The Pitt was already simmering with its usual chaos: half the waiting room was restless, muttering to one another, and the other half wilting sadly under fluorescent lights that never dimmed. Mel had been running on adrenaline for hours, on chairs alongside Langdon. He’d been back a few months and was still kept to the front, so Mel followed him when she could.
It was almost too easy, working with him again. He knew when she was about to reach for vitals before she did, sliding a wristband into her palm with a quiet, “Here, you’ll need this.”
He filled the silences with low jokes no one else heard, his voice rasping against the shell of her concentration. She’d grown used to catching herself smiling at the wrong time, her cheeks heating before she could mask it.
She told herself no one noticed. She wasn’t sure she believed it.
It was just easy being with him. He was good, at least to her. She had no problem working chairs and triage with him, assessing patients together, and joking around with each other in the rarest of lulls.
“Think the other team won?” Frank asked jokingly before taking a sip of his energy drink. Mel eyed the young man who sat embarrassed in a chair near the vending machine, cradling his definitely broken arm.
“That's awful,” a nurse griped next to him.
“Now they’ll never make it to nationals,” Mel whispered to him, earning a startled laugh from him.
When the sliding glass doors whooshed open and she caught sight of a familiar blonde head of hair, her chuckle stopped short. She was out from behind the desk before she could realize, all but running to her sister.
“Becca?”
The clipboard in her hand nearly clattered to the floor as she hurried across the linoleum, every cell in her body screaming that something had gone wrong.
Her sister shouldn’t be here. Not in this space. Not under these lights.
Her panic burst out in a rush. “What happened—are you hurt?”
Becca stared at her, clutching the strap of her crossbody. Beside her stood Mara, pale and folded in on herself under a Hello Kitty blanket, and the caregiver Mel recognized from the center.
“I’m fine,” Becca said carefully, enunciating the word as though Mel had forgotten what it meant. “It’s my friend Mara. She got sick.”
Relief hit like a body blow, knocking Mel back a step. Her hands itched to touch her sister, to check her pulse, to do something, but she forced herself to crouch instead and fire off the right questions to the caregiver.
Fever, vomiting, it came on all of a sudden. Stable vitals for now. When she straightened, Frank was there, close enough that his shoulder brushed hers. She hadn’t even heard him following after her.
Frank offered to bring Mara into the bay to get her blood pressure, temperature, and other needed answers to his questions.
For a split second, Mel let her weight tilt toward him, just enough to catch her balance on the rush of relief. Her hand brushed his as she passed the patient chart over, warm and grounding.
⸻
They fell back into the rhythm of chairs, the two of them moving easily together. His presence was a steady hum at her side, and she hated how obvious it must look: the way her body leaned toward his without her permission, the way his laugh was always for her. When they did tasks together his hand would find the small of her back, guiding her peacefully. Their ankles bumping together on purpose where they’d sit side by side.
It didn’t last.
The fight broke out without much warning. A man’s raised and angry voice cracking through the waiting room, another man shoving back, chairs screeching across the tile. Mel’s heart stuttered—patients crying out, a child startled into sobs—and before she could even push her way through, Frank was gone from her side and into the room, not letting the glass barrier hold him back. His voice was raised but firm.
Ahmad was there holding one of the men back as Frank controlled the other, sternly by the shoulders.
“There are women and children here,” Langdon hissed before the man yelled more nonsense at him; Mel was fiddling her thumbs together nervously as she watched with the nurses, who were all too eager for their front row seating.
He moved with authority, intercepting the swing of an arm, holding the man back until two other security guards quickly swarmed in, taking over. It wasn’t violent, but the noise was enough.
Mel spun at the sound of muffled keening.
Becca.
Her sister was curled into herself on the plastic chair, hands pressed hard over her ears, her eyes wide at the scene. The caregiver was with Mara in the back, Becca had wanted to stay closest to Mel. She couldn’t help but feel guilty and think briefly that this was her own fault.
“Becca—” Mel managed to mutter before entering the waiting room, steering clear of the men and security guards. She dropped to her knees in front of her, her sister’s face was white with distress, her chest heaving slightly.
Frank’s eyes found hers over the commotion. Then he turned on his heel away from everyone else and crouched in front of Becca alongside her. He did it all without any hesitation.
“Hey,” he said softly, like he had all the time in the world. “Too loud in here, huh?”
She nodded without lifting her hands.
“Alright. Then let’s bail Becca, you, and me.” His voice was calm, like he was offering her a cigarette break instead of a genuine rescue. “C’mon, I know where they hide the good snacks in the cafeteria,”
Mel opened her mouth, guilt clawing up her throat. She should go, she should—
Frank shook his head once, small but certain: I’ve got her.
Her heart clenched. But she stayed behind, needing to do her job.
⸻
An hour later, on her well-deserved break, she found them.
She expected to see Becca still small and trembling, maybe staring at the floor with her hood up. Instead, her sister was perched at a cafeteria table, hands busy demolishing a bag of mini pretzels while Frank leaned in close, listening like every word she said was gospel.
“And Mel can be a witch,” Becca was saying, “but you can’t be a clown. No clowns. I don’t like clowns.”
Frank put on his best thinking face. “Noted. No clowns. What about a vampire? I’d get to wear a cape, right?”
Becca giggled, crumbs scattering. “Yes. And you have to say bleh. No exceptions,”
Frank mocked her statement with the worst accent Mel had ever heard, and Becca doubled over laughing.
Something in Mel went soft, fragile as spun sugar. She leaned in the doorway longer than she should have, her chest aching with a feeling she didn’t dare name. Becca wasn’t easy with people. She guarded her routines, her spaces. But here she was, laughing with Frank like it was the most natural thing in the world.
When Becca spotted her, she waved her spying sister over.
“What do we have here?” Mel asked, already knowing the answer. She leaned against his chair, wanting to be close.
“We’re planning out Halloween. Frank’s coming with us by the way,”
“Oh, is he?” Mel slid into the chair beside them, trying not to look at Frank, who was smiling into his coffee cup like it was no big deal.
⸻
They walked home later per usual, Becca humming under her breath, the streetlights painting her ponytail gold. Mel kept close, exhausted but strangely light, the night air cool against her scrubs.
Becca was quiet until they turned onto their street. Then, with no warning, she said:
“You should date Frank.”
Mel nearly tripped. “Becca—”
“You should,” her sister repeated happily. “He makes you laugh. And he’s nice. And he got me pretzels.”
Her throat tightened. “It’s not that simple sissy.”
But Becca only shrugged, already done with the subject, satisfied in the way she always was when she’d sorted something into a neat category.
Mel kept walking, but her cheeks burned, her chest a mess of warmth she couldn’t shake. And when her phone buzzed later with Frank’s goodnight text—
Tell Becca I’ll work on my vampire accent—
She sat on her bed too long, smiling at the screen like a fool. She had something to look forward to.