Work Text:
The fiasco starts because Dr. Robby tries to do a nice thing even though they’re having a spectacularly shitty day at work, which, by Mel’s silent observations, could likely be a full chapter in his biography.
“Dr. King.” Robby jerks his head to the right, a silent request for her to follow him down the side hall. They’re exiting Trauma 1 after a successful – if still needing official OR repair – emergency end-to-end anastomosis, which Mel performed despite her experience being memories of photos in a university textbook at 3AM. Her hands aren’t shaking, which is likely due to a good night’s rest and Garcia and Robby’s composure and support, and there’s something lightly buoyant in her chest from the adrenaline and endorphin rush that has her nearly skipping in step, turning on her heel to face him.
His arms are crossed and face impassive, but she knows him fairly well by now, and isn’t surprised by his, “That was impressive work,” though it still makes her beam. “The idea to use a piece of the intestine was a good one.”
“I heard about it in one of my medical podcasts,” Mel explains, since she can’t have him believing that she came up with that idea herself; even implied dishonesty is dishonesty. “I have a couple I cycle through. I listen to one every day coming in to work. This was a historical podcast about how medicine has evolved through wars. It’s interesting, you know, it was a technique actually pioneered in Vietnam—”
“Indeed.” Robby cuts her off, albeit far gentler than most of her other coworkers, and she lets her jaw silently snap shut. “You’ve shown some aptitude and interest in emergency vascular repairs.” Her mind flips through a series of patients over the past year, and she wonders how he noticed that. “If you’re interested, I’ve actually been invited to give a lecture at the University of Michigan this weekend about vein grafts, since I—, well, anyway, they’re doing a one-day symposium about vascular surgery. I think there’s going to be about five sessions, breakfast and lunch provided. If you’re interested, you’re welcome to join me.”
For all Mel habitually keeps up with current medical content produced, she’s never made it to an in-person event. University was difficult; they do not plan conferences around med students’ schedules, particularly not med students who work and care-give full time while still attempting a full-time class status. After graduation, well – how does one go about getting an invite to these things?
Apparently, like this. She’s a little honored.
“I’d really be welcome?” Mel checks. It’s a bit sudden; she doesn’t want to put anyone out. “Will the hospital be alright with me going?”
Robby shrugs, seemingly fully unconcerned. “Sure. I can make sure that it is. They hem and haw up there about our professional development, and it’s not total bullshit – it’d be good to get you some professional training outside these walls. It’s a little last minute, but they owe me several times over. You’re one of our best. If you wanna go, let’s make it happen.”
A day off work, a weekend trip out of state, medical talks on vascular surgery, it all sounds nearly too good to be true. She bounces on the balls of her feet, excitement starting to build as she considers it. “Yeah, I mean, yeah! If you can get me off shift, and I gotta call Becca’s home and make sure—but it sounds wonderful, and—” She’s flustered and can feel the conversation starting to slip out of her grasp, so she forces herself to take a small breath, hold it, release it, and then look up into Robby’s thankfully patient eyes. “Yes,” she says, firmly. “That sounds nice.”
“OK, great. It’s a plan,” he says, patting her on the shoulder and then heading towards Dana, despite Mel having about two dozen more logistical questions to cover. What exactly are the dates? How are they getting to Michigan? Flying, driving? If flying, how does she get her ticket? Should she buy it? Will she be reimbursed? What is the hospital’s procedure for reimbursement, do digital receipts work? Do they have to be paid under a company credit card? Are the carpooling to the airport? If they’re driving to Michigan, who is driving? Should she brings snacks? Gas money? What’s the dress code of the conference? How much—
“What was that about?”
She startles slightly, shoulders rising to her ears and body tensing before the voice processes in her brain, and then she feels herself relax, turning to greet Dr. Langdon behind her.
“Hi!” she greets, warmly, her hand twitching in a half-aborted, unnecessary wave. “Oh, um, Robby invited me to join him on his trip to Michigan this weekend.” Langdon’s eyebrows raise into his perfect, floppy hair. “For a medical conference,” she quickly adds. “A professional, medical talk. About throats.”
Langdon’s eyebrows drop a little, and he nods in understanding, though he doesn’t look all that appeased. “Ah.”
Her Dr. Langdon thing is hardly even a thing. Mel has a difficult time even thinking about it straight on. It’s like she’s an animal in one of Whitaker’s many farm stories, where the thoughts are a cattle prod, and whenever they poke at her, she skitters away like a startled horse. It’s not-dissimilar to how she sometimes struggles to maintain eye contact; just, in this case, the eyes are her own really inconvenient feelings that have flown into the core of her heart and started to make a nest.
It’s embarrassing, is the problem.
She’s a grown woman, nearly thirty years old, successfully performing a career with a near staggering amount of responsibility; she’s a care-taker, she’s an adult, and lack of experience aside, she should be beyond a school-yard crush on the teacher.
It’s just. He’s tall, handsome with good hair, beautiful eyes, with kind words and gentle hands. He’s intelligent and brave, helpful and sweet, and praises her and considers her in spades.
It’s not surprising, she figures, whenever she does manage the honest eye-contact with her feelings. He’s the boy in the high-school romcom that exists solely to make the lonely girls watching heart’s flutter, their imaginations wander.
And it’s not like she’d ever consider acting on it. Even the thought of it makes her cringe – how she’d stutter, how he’d react, how they’d interact – god, no, the awkwardness can’t be borne, and that’s why it’s hardly even a thing. What do thoughts in the middle of the night matter? What matters is her behavior towards him, which she’s sure is respectfully normal in a friendly-coworker type way, and not in a way that betrays how dearly she craves his attention.
So when she considers texting to ask what dress code would be appropriate, she makes sure to copy Dr. McKay and Dr. Mohan as well.
Perfectly normal. Perfectly friendly. Perfectly coworkers.
Did Robby say the vibe? Samira texts back, nearly immediately, and Mel’s a bit satisfied that that is, apparently, a normal question to wonder.
Dr. Robby, for his faults, doesn’t leave her hanging for long, as that evening in her inbox lands a packet of information, including a message telling her to meet him at his hospital parking spot (hopefully not the motorcycle, she thinks morosely), as well as her plane ticket, an outbound flight out of Pittsburgh at 7 in the evening, landing in Detroit at around 8. She and Robby would work the night shift the day before, and catch up on sleep in the morning before leaving to carpool.
A wonderful plan.
As is a reoccurring theme in an ER doctor’s life, the plan is not what happens.
9pm the night before sees her greeting an already exhausted Robby, who apparently had struggled to fall asleep in the daylight. 7am sees them handoff to the day shift. 7:27am sees them nearly collide in their haste to reenter the building, both called back before even arriving home to cover an MCI due to a particularly bad car pileup on the freeway from a snow squall. 4:30pm sees Robby grabbing her hood and politely, but hurriedly, guiding her to the lockers. 4:45pm sees them stopping by Mel’s house for her luggage, and they make it out of Robby’s by 5pm. 5:45pm sees Robby tapping his foot in the security line, and 6:25pm sees Robby pinching the bridge of his nose at the DELAYED DUE TO WEATHER alert, likely from the same snow squall storm, muttering curse words she pretends not to hear. 10pm sees them just beginning to taxi on the runway, 11pm sees them in the air, 12am sees them landing, and 1am has their Uber pulling up. The Uber driver proceeds to get extremely lost in the University of Michigan’s seemingly endless campus, as well as take the exact wrong turn to have to wait for a gaggle of teenagers to leave the middle of the street, and it’s nearing 1:50am when they’re dropped off at their address. 1:51am has Robby muttering, “Those cheap motherfuckers put us up in a student dorm instead of a hotel?”, and 1:59am has Robby and Mel standing in the doorway, staring at what is very clearly a singular full-sized bed in an 8×8 room.
Their eyes meet, desperation in hers and some type of soul-deep tiredness in his, before he presses his palms deep into his eyes sockets, clearly way too hard for his eye health, then groans, probably too loudly for a student-filled floor at 2am.
Abruptly, Mel remembers their patient at 3am, around 23 hours prior, a young woman who had situs inversus, a rare condition where her organs were mirrored in her body and thus not where they were supposed to be, and how Robby had faltered when trying to check an ultrasound of her likely-damaged kidney, and how he’d exited Trauma 2 with shaking hands, running his hands through his hair, and how he’d looked at her and said, “This has been a long day,” then snapped his gloves off, and went to follow Shen to another patient who ultimately died from wounds her boyfriend had inflicted.
“I’ll go ask,” Mel offers, words tripping over themselves slightly. She’s exhausted, truly, but— “Yeah, one minute, I’ll go ask the desk.”
It probably speaks to Robby’s mental state that he just waves her off, and from the corner of her eyes she can see him bring both their bags into the room behind her, shoulders drooped yet knuckles white.
They had checked in with a desk labeled “Night’s Watch,” manned by a freshman boy with a bowl cut, and he looks up from his phone when she skids to a stop in front of him.
“I'm sorry,” Mel says, and hates how she can hear the thinly disguised panic in her own voice. “You just checked us in? But there's only one bed in the room?"
He blinks at her. “Oh?”
He doesn’t continue. Maybe she wasn’t being explicit enough. “There’s two of us?”
“Oh.” A second passes, then the kid turns to the computer, and begins clicking his mouse. “Sorry, I’m not super familiar with the whole—” He waves his hand in the air aimlessly. “Guest quarters thing? It was part of the orientation but I’ve never had to deal with it before. They did say we had some people checking in today for your thing, but all of them came before you, on Taylor’s shift. Let me see.”
“Okay.” She nods, and resists the temptation to tap her foot as the seconds tick slowly by.
Finally, he clicks his mouse in what appears to be a triumphant selection, with a happy, “Found you! Dr. Robinavitch, right?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, okay, it says one bed. So we’re good.”
He nods like that settles it, and she tries to school her expression into something sufficiently patient and imploring, her hands coming out in front of her, twisting together. “Actually, we need two beds. So we’re not—quite good.”
“Oh.” Mel recognizes that tone of voice from the radiologists, and it doesn’t mean anything good. “Look, I’m sorry, but I’ll be honest, I don’t even know how to check if we have any other rooms available. That’s not my job.”
“Whose job is it?”
He’s tapping his fingers on the desk now, like he’s impatient, and Mel has to fight down an actual surge of true, real irritation that she rarely feels. “Marian? She’ll be in at 8am.”
“Okay, well, do you have cots?” He stares at her, blankly. “Roll-away beds?” No reaction. “A gurney?” she adds, a little desperately.
“I don’t—”
Clearly, all this is going to add up to is wasted time. “Okay, okay. Thank you.”
The hallway’s quiet on her short journey back, and she knocks lightly on their door to alert Robby, even though he left it slightly propped open for her. He’s sitting on the bed, but looks up from his phone when she enters. She shakes her head at the silent question in his eyes, and he sighs, deep and heavy.
“I just left several very angry messages with the hospital admin, but unsurprisingly, the person who made our arrangements works the day shift. Yay.” He jazz hands the yay, and she smiles weakly back. “Look, I’d offer to take the floor, but it’ll destroy my back at my age. I can’t go damaging myself like that.”
“Yeah, that could put pressure on your discs, which—” Abruptly, she remembers who she’s talking to. “Which I don’t need to tell you,” she says, losing volume as she concludes a sentence she definitely didn’t need to voice. “Obviously.”
He still nods at her, because for whatever reason, from day one he’s always been pretty indulgent of her quirks, then slaps his knees in that way she associates with middle aged dads. “Okay. I was looking, and there’s some hotels about 15 minutes away by car. We can’t walk, it’s too far, but maybe we could Uber again.”
The thought of picking a hotel, booking another car, walking outside, loading their luggage, being driven through the campus and the city, going into the hotel, trying to find two rooms, going up the elevator, opening the door – it suddenly all feels like an impossibly large tasklist. A wave of exhaustion sweeps over her, and she’s feeling all of the 32 hours she’s been awake.
She knows he can hear it in her voice at his wince to the question, “And we’d get another Uber in the morning before breakfast? At 7am?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
They both stare at each other.
Suddenly, she feels a little childish. He’s tired, she’s tired, they have to be up early, and wasting another hour or so trying to figure out accommodations when there realistically, literally, is nothing wrong with this bed, is stupid. She’s not a middle schooler who is afraid of cooties.
“We can share.” That didn’t come out as confident as she wanted. “We can share,” she repeats, more firmly this time. “We’ve seen each other sleep in hospital beds, couches. What’s the difference?”
He fixes her with a look, one that says even you know that’s full of shit, and she can’t really hold back her responding grimace. “We really shouldn’t,” he says, and the exhaustion in his voice has Mel’s resolve strengthening.
“It’s fine. Really. Let’s just get our—” She checks her watch, then winces. “Four hours of sleep.”
Robby peers at her closely, like he could parse out if she’s lying about her level of comfort with this. She doubts he knows her that well, but, then again, she’s always been told she’s an open book. She crosses her arms, and tries to look stern, like her elementary school teachers used to do.
He lets out a little sigh. “Look, I am so fucking tired I am considering just taking the floor. And I would much prefer the bed. But I do not want you feeling – feeling pressured, here, I guess.”
“I’m not. I offered.”
“I know. You gotta know that I really, really, really am not going to do anything to you.”
“I know,” she says honestly. “You wouldn’t.”
She does know, and it’s not even about her relative desirability, which, if she’s shamefully honest with herself, most of the time is what she would assume; this time, it’s about him as a person, which is probably as good of a recommendation to his character that she could make. He wouldn’t touch her.
“OK.” He rubs his forehead with his hand, then looks up at her with those hangdog eyes he has. “King, this sentence makes me feel like a gross old man – but please don’t tell anyone about this. I don’t want a reputation of the creep preying on his young, female doctors offsite.”
“I think it’d be worse for my reputation than yours,” Mel points out. “Young girl, sleeping with boss to get to the top—”
He cuts her off. “Yeah, alright, both bad. Vow of silence?”
She nods, too quickly and awkwardly, but he just nods back to her quietly before running his hands down his face. He flips off his shoes while shedding his hoodie, before scooting backwards on the bed towards the wall. He balls his hoodie up in his hands and shoves it towards the top of the bed, a clear makeshift pillow, before grabbing the actual proffered pillow and placing it halfway through the bed, a clear dividing line. He lays on his back, straight as an arrow, his hands resting on his stomach, and closes his eyes.
He may be able to sleep in jeans and t-shirt, but Mel has sensory issues that prevent rest even with how tired she is, so she quickly tugs her luggage into the bathroom, shutting the door as quietly as she can manage.
Not how I thought I’d spend my first night in bed with a man, she thinks, as she’s pulling on her pajama bottoms. As a young woman, she always had this little fantasy, only to be indulged on at night when hugging a pillow, of the first night of her sleeping in bed with a boy. She’d slip under the covers and crawl her way over to him, snuggle up to his warm side, place her head on his chest, her arms tucked safely in-between them, cocooned under the blankets, with his arms burrowing her in tight. It’d be warm and safe and she’d feel love to bursting, and he’d cart his hand through her hair and whisper that he loves her too.
But if there’s one lesson she’s learned from how her life has gone thus far, it’s that romantic, childhood dreams exist to be punctured like a balloon.
She’s only in the bathroom for a few minutes, just long enough to brush her teeth and change into flannel bottoms and a university tee, but by the time she exits, Robby is clearly unconscious, a perfectly straight line probably born from sleeping on hospital beds all the time when off-shift.
Carefully, Mel peels back the one blanket they were given, and settles down on her side. She’s lightly pressed up against the pillow between them, but can’t feel Robby at all, can only hear his quiet breaths.
She’s asleep before she can even be grateful that he doesn’t snore.
She wakes to her alarm, feeling overheated and under-rested, but doesn’t feel she can complain when Dr. Robby sits up with a noise usually reserved for patients with appendicitis.
His hair is awry and his eyes are drooping like a basset hound. “Fuck. It’s morning?”
The gravel in his voice makes her feel a little better about the crusties in her eyes. “Yeah.” She quickly slips out from underneath the blanket and stands, leaving him alone in the bed. She had the forethought to bring her overnight bag out of the bathroom last night, so she bends down to take out the Samira-approved dress they had decided on.
“You sleep OK?” he asks from behind her, and somehow she knows he’s rubbing his eyes.
“Yeah. Did you?”
“Yeah.” A pause. “Did I—”
“Didn’t even know you were there,” she assures swiftly, though she can’t quite bring herself to look away from the insides of her bag. “Perfectly respectful.”
“Good. Good, I’m glad. You too.”
Frankly, she doubts he would have noticed even if she was trying to seduce him, given how quickly he was out and soundly he slept, but even she wisely knows to keep that to herself.
She enjoys herself at U of M, though; the presentations she attends are informative and interesting, and she even gets to practice some networking, for whatever it’s worth making connections in Michigan. She’s kept up a pretty pleasant text back-and-forth with Dr. Langdon, regaling their travel troubles with convenient omissions and giving probably too-detailed synopses of the lectures she’s listened to, including Dr. Robby’s. To her profound relief, Robby humors her throughout the Uber and airport with answering her medical questions about grafting, and when they part in the parking lot with a backwards wave, the night hadn’t even crossed her mind. By the time she’s back in the Pitt, Dana greeting them with a barking, “Hey, welcome, how’d it go!” she’s gratified to feel like she’s able to nod and answer, “Really good!” in a mostly normal fashion.
“Seriously, Mel, I do not know how veterinarians do it.”
She loves when Dr. Langdon – or, honestly, anyone, but Langdon is really the only one who does it – stops to make small talk during a lull moment. She’d been reviewing an intake form near the board when he’d slid over, hip against Dana’s desk, and begun to yap before she could even get out a greeting. A warm, contented feeling swirls in her belly at the inclusion, at being considered the best audience for a story about how his dog is apparently a 90lb wuss at having its toenails trimmed. Her fingers are all tingly, and she hides them in the pockets of her scrubs, clenching lightly, in and out.
“We have agitated patients bigger than dogs, though,” Mel points out, reasonably she thinks. “What’s the difference?”
“Sedation,” he answers immediately, and she snorts. She opens her mouth to point out that the actual act of sedation can sometimes be a hairy process, when she’s interrupted.
“Dr. King, a word?”
Mel turns, and there’s a woman behind her, dressed in a navy, pinstripe pantsuit with a neat ponytail, and holding a clipboard. Mel doesn’t recognize her.
“Dr. Robinavitch, you too,” she says, waving him over.
Mel takes a dutiful step forward and Langdon takes a respectful step back, distancing himself from the conversation, but not, she notes, from hearing. Robby ambles over from the charting computer, hunched as always, and stops when he’s shoulder-to-shoulder with Mel.
“Hello, Sarah,” he greets, and that’s at least a name to the face, even if the name is still meaningless to Mel.
“Hi, you two.” She nods at them both, her lips still pressed in a thin line. “I hope your lecture went well, doctor?”
Robby nods a yes, mouth tight, a non-verbal response that Mel usually really doesn’t appreciate, but at least its not her who has to interpret it this time; she was there, she knows he shook hands after his talk for a good seventeen minutes.
Sarah grimaces out a smile. “Good. Okay. Well, I actually just came down here to apologize.” Robby’s eyebrows fly up, as do Mel’s. “I know. I just felt bad – I knew Dr. King was going too, obviously, given the booked ticket, and I had a sticky note on my keyboard to call U of M and update your sleeping accommodations, but during the MCI I was called down to the first floor because the charting system kept glitching when logging medications, and somehow it’s become my job to contact IT—anyway, you don’t care. By the time I came back, the sticky had fallen off and I completely blanked. Had a bit of a panic when I listened to your voicemails.”
Mel does remembering him saying he tried to contact the hospital, back at 2am. Mel’s not surprised Sarah didn’t answer; Mel certainly wouldn’t have, either, if she had an administration job.
“Sorry about those.” Robby does sound a bit sheepish. “I was very tired, and not particularly amused.”
“Yes, I’m sure. Extremely awkward situation. I trust it all worked out?”
“Yes,” Robby says, and glances over at Mel, a verbal cue she definitely does understand, and she hurries to nod. Are her nods too hurried? Oh boy. “Alls well.”
Mel clearly needs to give a verbal agreement, given Sarah’s look; her fingers are tap tap tapping on the clipboard, and it has Mel on edge.
“Totally cool,” Mel says, maybe a little brightly, and gives two thumbs up for good measure.
Sarah’s eyebrows raise and her expression pinches slightly, but, in the end, she just lightly shrugs. “Right. Okay. Well, remember to send me your expense reports before the last of the month. Dr. Robinavitch, Dr. King.”
She gives a parting nod before turning on her heel, and manages not to hit into Perlah who’s wheeling a patient to the elevator, which is pretty graceful for someone in admin unused to the chaos.
Robby harrumphs loudly, catching Mel’s attention. “Wouldn’t it be nice if an apology ever actually came with the fix to the problem they caused, instead of a thank you to us for taking care of it?”
Mel has no idea how to respond to that, so she just nods again. She fears Robby may sign her up for a communications workshop after this.
He just dramatically rolls his eyes, a gesture he usually limits to once a shift. “God. Alright. Well, back at it, Dr. King.” Robby turns. “You too, eavesdropper.” Langdon is still standing by the desk, just a few feet behind and to the side, where Mel had somehow actually forgotten he was lurking. Robby flicks Langdon in the shoulder, who flinches a little too hard for what was, in actuality, probably a friendly gesture.
Mel carefully avoids catching Langdon’s eyes, despite them annoyingly trained on her face, question marks visible even to her. She hums, fingers clutching a little desperately in her pockets, and looks up to the board, hoping there’s something, anything, that can give her an idea for small talk.
“What was that about?”
“Oh, you know,” she fumbles, trying to think up a suitable lie, eyes still scanning the board. “I told you the plane was delayed.”
“Uh huh.” He sounds unimpressed. “She said there was something wrong with the accommodations? Something awkward?”
Usually, Mel appreciates when people are unnecessarily detailed in conversations. She risks a peek, and he’s still standing with his hip against the desk, but now he’s leaning forward on his elbows, all attention attuned to her. Unwittingly, she can feel her cheeks start to darken. “Uh, yeah. She—but Robby and I worked it out, so everything is A-OK.”
She punctuates that with another awkward double thumbs up, which she truly needs to retire out of her social repertoire.
“Uh huh.” His eyes track her hands, which she quickly stuffs back into her pockets. “And how did it work out, exactly?”
“We, uh—” Why isn’t she quicker on her feet? Isn’t that a specialty of hers, as an ER doctor?
His expression darkens, eyebrows furrowing. “Did something happen?” he asks carefully, and there’s enough genuine concern and worry painting his tone that she finds her resolve to keep her silence-promise melting, an ice cube on a coal.
She scans the nearby area quickly – there’s no one really in hearing distance, the closest being Dana and Princess discussing the board about four feet away, but that’s way too close for comfort due to the strength of the Pitt gossip mill, so she risks a hand on his wrist, gently pulling him over to a mostly-abandoned hallway that leads to a staircase.
His wrist is warm, and slightly hairy, and she drops it quickly when she turns to speak to him. He, somehow, looks even more concerned, so she starts with a very earnest, “Nothing bad happened at all.” She leans in slightly, to whisper, and he mirrors her, tilting forward. It makes the skin on the back of her neck goosebump. “It’s just that I was a late add on, and the room they booked us for was only for Dr. Robby. That woman, Sarah, forgot to tell them I was also coming. Don’t tell anyone, but there was only one bed in the room.” Langdon’s eyes widen drastically, she hurries to continue. “I know—remember everything I told you, about the plane delay and the Uber and the weird kids in banana costumes blocking the street for like ten minutes, and—anyway, we already were only going to get a couple hours of sleep, and he had a talk in the morning, and the first session I was going to attend was at 8am, and breakfast was served at 7, so we decided to just share.”
“You—” He stops. She actually may have stunned him this time, his mouth open with no words emitting. He’s still leaning forward, though she doubts he realizes he’s doing it.
She tries to put as much firmness into her tone as she can. “It was purely professional. Like, seriously.” She opens her mouth to continue, but the door to the staircase opens, Garcia emerging. She spares them and the way they are huddled one judgmental glance, before she stalks off towards Trauma 2. Idly, Mel wonders what Santos is dealing with in there. She shakes her head, slightly, refocusing. Langdon’s eyes are still wide. “Dr. Robby was asleep before I was even done brushing my teeth. There was a pillow between us and no touching and—and honestly, it was like, completely fine. I’ve shared with my sister before, it was no different than that.”
He makes a noise she in no way could ever interpret. “You shared a bed with Robby.”
Mel winces. “Can you not say that aloud? It sounds bad.”
“Yes,” he emphasizes. “It absolutely fucking does.”
She flinches despite herself; he doesn’t normally swear, oddly enough. Her eyes flick down, and when she gains the courage to look back up, he’s softened, slightly. “Nothing untoward happened,” she repeats, firmly. “I did not touch him.”
He’s already shaking his head, shaking that comment off, continuing urgently, “Okay, but did he touch you?”
She stares at him. Even with their fight and the awkwardness since his return, he should know better. “No. Come on. No. It honestly was like sharing the bed with a very tall, hot teddy bear.” Langdon’s eyes, somehow, widen even further, and she mentally reviews the sentence in her head. When it clicks, she flushes, and stumbles over her explanation. “Hot as in temperature! I was like, sweaty when I woke up, he just – you know, it was hot. Like actual heat. And he’s just kind of soft and pudgy and non-moving, like a prone, inanimate teddy bear with—”
“Dr. King,” Dr. Whitaker skids to a stop in front of her, and the rush of relief she feels nearly makes her lightheaded. “Can I borrow you for a sec, about our patient in BH-3?”
“Yes, yes, take me.”
She lets Whitaker lead her by the elbow down the hallway, and tries to concentrate on Whitaker’s presentation and not Langdon’s eyes she can feel on the back of her head.
A headache is blooming behind Mel’s right eye. She had a repeat patient in today, a young man with gastro issues, and Dr. Mohan had to pull her gently aside to suggest that perhaps his constant ulcers were, in fact, because his diet contained way too many acids, and that he was point-blank lying to their faces about it.
Pattern recognition has never been her strongest suit, and neither were liars; she tended to take people at their word.
“Mel!” She glances up from her charts, scanning to find the source of her name, and – ah. She smiles, involuntarily.
“Hi,” she greets, warmly. The teenager evaporates from her head. “How did it go?”
“Got the keys!” Langdon reaches into his pocket and produces a set of keys on an old, beat-up stethoscope keychain. Something about it makes her feel a little soft. “Want to come over and see it?”
“Of course,” she agrees, eagerly. “Does it have the in-unit washer and dryer?”
He smirks, smug. “You bet it does. And a dishwasher.”
“Fancy.”
“Indeed. How about, say…” He rocks back and forth a little, like he’s picking a number from midair with his eyes. “8pm?”
“Oh!” That’s a surprise. The both have a slightly earlier shift today, ending at 4, due to Abbot needing to be off earlier in the morning for some weird day-road trip to Philly. “8 is a bit late, no?”
Langdon shrugs, the gesture dramatic and twitchy, like he always is. “Well, I don’t know, it’s after dinner, gives you time to get home and eat and get Becca settled. And it’s no issue if it ends up taking a while, you can always stay over.”
She cocks her head slightly, but his expression doesn’t change; a little doe-eyed, a little eager, totally innocent. Huh. She would have thought he knew— “I can’t just leave Becca overnight without head notice, either at our place or at the home.”
He visibly wilts. “Oh. Right. I knew that.”
“I still want to come, though!” she rushes to assure him. He’s been permanent-apartment hunting for months; his month-to-month lease has been a constant expense and complaint since his return from rehab. “Can we make it 6?”
“Uhhh—” He elongates the word far longer than she’d think he’d need to consider – is two hours really that big of a deal? – but he does eventually do a small eye roll, then nods. “Of course.”
The next week, she and Dr. McKay have a successful breakfast outing before their shift. Mel’s trying this new thing, where she asks all the doctors (Maybe nurses, next? She’s not sure) out for a meal before a shift, in an attempt to put herself out there and make some new friends. While work has its drawbacks as a friendship pool, it’s the only fishing spot she currently knows.
Most haven’t taken her up on it, but she’s on her fourth, which is pretty good by her own, internal standards.
Dr. Langdon and Dr. Robby are elbow-to-elbow, reviewing something on an iPad when they walk in; Langdon salutes them both, but Robby simply raises his eyebrows.
“Do I smell fraternizing?” Robby asks genially, tipping his head towards them. “Tsk tsk.”
Mel smiles, because Robby’s always encouraging them to ‘get a life’ outside of the hospital; he’s clearly joking, and its nice to be on this side of a jape. She’s contemplating what would be a suitably jocular response back when Langdon snaps, “Pot and kettle, much?”
Mel freezes, the sharpness of his tone zinging through her spine, while McKay just stares in disbelief, and Robby – well, Robby does as Robby usually does in conflicts, which is raise his eyebrows and cross his arms.
“Something you want to say, Dr. Langdon?”
Langdon flushes, a clear, deep red, and sheer mortification settles over his features. “No. Sorry. Forget it. I’ll recheck on Mr. Jones’s labs.”
He retreats, his shoulders hunched and to Robby’s unimpressed, “You do that.”
McKay turns to her, and gives her one of those silent looks that Mel’s always wanted to be on the inside of. What the hell was that about.
“Frank and I get along really well,” McKay says. “But boy, he’s a weird one.”
The next evening finds her and Dr. Langdon watching the third Fast and Furious movie. He was her first foray into the “coworkers to friends” experiment, although he seemed to exclusively prefer evenings to mornings and movies to food. Not that she’s complaining – it was even him who instigated this hangout, which made her smile like a buffoon while stitching up a patient who accidentally stepped on a beer bottle.
“You and Dr. McKay seem to be striking up a friendship,” Mel comments. She’s curled up into the corner of her own couch, and it’s only Langdon’s relaxed sprawl on the cushions that gives her the bravery to bring it up. As expected, he shoots her a look out of the side of his eyes.
“Gahh.” He sits up, placing his glass of water on the coffee table. “Sobriety talk.”
She flushes, though he didn’t say it meanly. “Sorry—”
“Can we talk instead about how nice this couch is?” he interrupts, petting the couch back and forth, the soft corduroy fabric moving under his touch. Its light gray, an L shaped, soft, practically the size of the room, and monstrously expensive.
She lets him shift the topic. “I spent a whole paycheck on it,” Mel admits. “Becca and I have some sensory things, I don’t know if you noticed.” He simply looks at her, and she continues, “It just matters that it’s soft and has a good amount of support for sleeping on.”
“Which I am excited to do.” He dramatically pats it, demonstrating its fluffiness, and she has to suppress a smile. “This might be nicer than my bed.”
“Not as supportive, probably. It’s not designed to support sleeping, beyond just – being big enough to sleep on.”
When he invited himself over, it was later than their usual movie evenings; it wasn’t his typical evening with Tanner and Penny, but apparently they both were in an after-school play, and he’d taken them out for celebratory ice cream with Abby. By the time he made it to her doorstep, it was past 8, and he sheepishly asked if she’d mind if he could take the couch, since they both have a day shift the next morning. She’d agreed, butterflies pleasantly fluttering at the concept, though she’d purposefully not allowed herself to consider what exactly their coworkers would have to say about a carpool.
“Well, I think I’m ready to turn in on it. Long day. That stupid movie, and the kids are always bundles of energy, and did you know my last patient of the day tried to bite me? I—” He picks up his glass of water to sip from, and, in an uncharacteristic lack of coordination, drops it all over himself and the couch. “Damn it, shit.”
His jeans are definitely wet, a large blotch on his right leg, but the couch definitely suffered the worst of it, a large wet spot right where he was sitting, a dark gray stain. He looks up to her, guilt overriding his features, and says, “Sorry, Mel,” so contritely that she can already feel a blush rising and words falling off her lips, unconsidered and flustered.
“No worries, no worries, it was just water, it won’t stain.” She hurries to the kitchen and finds a hand towel on the stove, quickly rushing back. She waves him off the couch, and he agreeably stands, watching as she dabs the fabric.
“It’s wet, though, the whole cushion. I don’t suppose this dries fast, no?” Probably not. And he had just said he was sleepy; it’d be so unfair to make him drive back to his apartment after she already agreed to let him stay. He continues, oblivious that he’s adding to her internal turmoil, “You don’t have a spare bed either, right?”
“No,” she mutters, dabbing the spot more viciously than before. “It’s a two bedroom, just me and Becca.”
“Ah, and no couch cover, I assume,” he muses, and for all that it sounds like he’s just saying words, that gives her an idea.
She races over to her linen closet, and pulls out a very large quilt. Her grandma, back before her Alzheimer's took away her hands, had made it for her and Becca when they still were mostly thoughts in her mother’s womb; it was soft, it was thick, it was patterned after the starry sky, and it was very, very large.
She reenters the living room with it spilling from her arms, and triumphantly lays it on top of the couch. “Here,” she says, motioning for him to help her lay it across. He does, after a delayed second, and she’s pleased to note its as big as she thought it was, big enough to lay across the entirety of the oversized beast. Carefully, she tucks it in to the sofa creases, pulling it across the cushions on all four corners. She steps back to admire it – a makeshift sofa cover.
“How about that?” she says, gesturing to the couch with a smile. “Good as new, for sleeping, at least.”
His eyes snap between her and the quilt several times. “Won’t the water seep through?”
“No!” She lifts it out of a corner, showcasing it to him. “Do you see, it’s like, triple lined. It keeps me warm all winter long, its so thick. You should do just fine.”
His bright, blue eyes track across her face, and she wonders what he’s thinking.
“Thank you, Mel,” he says, at long last. “That was smart.”
“I really did enjoy myself,” Mel repeats for what feels like the fifth time in an hour. “Thanks again for the invite.”
“’Course,” Langdon waves off easily, ushering her through his doorway. “I’ve always liked Zoo Brew. It’s cool being at the zoo at night, with all the animals still out – feels spooky.”
She places her coat over a dining room chair, watching as he heads over to the fridge to pull out a couple more drinks – water for her, sparkling water for him.
“I don’t know how I feel about all the alcohol.” Mel frowns, taking the offered bottle and sitting. “Those college kids yelling at the tiger.”
“That woman did kick them out,” he points out, gracelessly falling into his chair and popping the tab to his drink. It fizzes and bursts.
“I suppose.” Still, though. A tiger doesn’t deserve to be harassed just because its in a cage; maybe less so, even.
“You’re on call tomorrow, right?”
That gains her attention, and she can’t help the involuntarily cocked head she gives him. She’s fairly certain she didn’t tell him that. She’d been originally scheduled to have the day off, but McKay had called her late last evening to see if she’d be willing to swap, since Harrison had a rescheduled soccer game. Mel had agreed, but she had purposefully not mentioned it to Langdon, not wanting the invitation to be rescinded given how late the event let out.
“I am,” she admits, hands fiddling with the water bottle. Back and forth, back and forth it wobbles. “But it’s OK, I’m pretty good on low sleep.” She wants to keep talking. She always wants to keep talking to him.
“I’m not going to keep you up any later, Mel.” He directs one of his signature smiles her way, and back and forth it wobbles, faster, and faster. Why do his eyes have to be so blue. “You can obviously stay here. Don’t even think the buses are running anymore.”
That’s not true at all, but the thought of waking up on his couch, getting to make breakfast with him – it’s too enticing.
“That sounds nice,” she thanks, softly.
“Room is that way.” He jerks his head towards the left, and it takes her several seconds to process what was wrong with that motion.
“That way?” she clarifies, pointing the other direction, where she knows the kids’ bedroom is. She just got a tour of this place a couple weeks ago, and it seems unlikely that he’d have already rearranged the rooms, particularly because she knows Penny was adamant about needing the room with the “biggy window,” as she called it.
“No.” He leans back in his chair, arms crossed, clearly challenging her. “You’re not taking the kids’ room, Mel. They’re children. Their beds are like, three feet long.” At her furrowed brow, he waves his hand to the right, a clear invitation.
She stands, leaving her wobbling water behind, and pads down the hallway to the kids doorway, where two signs written in crayon display that this is, in fact, Tanner and Penny’s room. She softly pushes the door open, and – oh.
“You’re a cool dad,” she calls from down the hallway. “I always wanted a racecar shaped bed.”
He’s waiting for her back at the table, smug and cocksure, tipping the chair back on two legs. “Thanks. Yeah, you’re short, but not that-bed short.”
“I’m actually nearly exactly the national average for women.” She’s verified this many times, with many different censuses. “In Asia, I would actually be considered slightly tall.”
“Is that so.” He’s smiling at her, biting it back but its still oh so visible, and his eyes are bright and boring right into her, and she can feel her fingers twisting in her lap, her heart rate speeding just a bit too fast to be explained, and he looks so much like all the boys the movies loudly tell her that she can never have, and she needs to be out of this chair.
“Well,” she says, slapping her knees, way too hard, eyes fixed on the table. “I’ll take the couch, then.”
She can hear the clunk as the chair slams down back onto four legs, snapping her eyes to meet his. He’s suddenly far less confident, and she has no idea what just went wrong.
“What? No, I didn’t invite you over so you could take the couch. It’ll mess your back up.”
“Frank.” She doesn’t usually stoop to first names, particularly with someone she’s so careful about boundaries with, but really? He’s so exasperating. “You have the bad back. I cannot possibly let you take the couch.”
“Well, I know that—”
She knows he knows, which is why this is so stupid. This is likely what her aunt meant, when she said that men have no ability to see beyond their own nose. The lack of foresight is nearly astounding. “Then it’s settled. I take the couch, or you drive me home. No couch for you.”
He splutters for a few seconds, words not connecting from his mind to his lips, before he just shakes his head, and lets out a dutiful, “Yes ma’am.”
He’s grumpy the next morning.
Not absurdly so, and not to the extent that he’s snapping at her or making her feel uncomfortable, but enough that she’s careful to reign in her impulsive need to speak. He’s silently munching on a bagel, eyes downcast and free hand tapping on the table.
She knows better than to let her imagination get ahead of her, she knows, but she’d just – she’d imagined something different for this morning regardless. Maybe seeing him sleepy and soft. Maybe seeing him in pajamas, bedhead and blinking eyes. Maybe quietly crafting a breakfast together in the morning light.
Not him, dressed and hair gelled at 7am, accidentally waking her with a slamming door from his trip down the street to Einstein’s.
“Are you okay?” she asks, tentatively. She’s finished spreading peanut butter on her bagel, a request that he acquiesced to without a question, and the silence between them is suffocating for the hour.
He snaps his head up, catching her eyes, before rubbing the back of his neck, a gesture she’s nearly certain he’s picked up from Robby, though she’d never, ever tell him that. “Yeah, of course. Just—It’s stupid. I’m fine. Twitchy, I guess.”
He’s right about that, his fingers drumming on the table, his knee underneath bouncing. It’s not uncharacteristic for him, though, who seems in a constant state of motion unless given a scalpel. Although, even then, he’s usually cutting, so that’s its own form of motion.
“Okay.”
An awkward second passes.
“So, the construction on—”
“I had wanted you to—”
They start at the same time, and both immediately silence. She can see his face turn bright red, before smacking his forehead down on the table, loudly.
“Wanted me to?” she prompts, when it doesn’t seem like he’s going to continue that thought.
“No, you go ahead.” He waving his hand idly in the air in a ‘continue’ motion. His head is still down on the table.
“No, I had nothing to say, I was just trying to make it less awkward,” she says honestly. “What did you want me to do?”
He raises his head, looking at her balefully. “I feel very dumb right now.”
She has no idea why. He doesn’t look very dumb right now, his shirt pulling nicely across his shoulders and his hair flopping perfectly in his eyes. She doesn’t know what’s running through his mind, though, which always seems to be the point she trips up.
“I’m sure it’s not,” she tires to comfort, softly. “And maybe I can do whatever it is you want?”
“Gahh.” He groans, sitting up straighter, scrubbing his hands across his face. His cheeks are slightly red when he finishes, and he answers her so quietly that she almost has to strain to hear him. “I—I had just thought. I had thought you might sleep in my bed last night. With me.”
That pulls an emergency brake on her thought processes.
Sometimes, it becomes clear that people assume she’s still mentally a thirteen-year old, and not the nearly thirty-year old adult she actually is. Part of it isn’t her fault, just an unfortunate byproduct of people’s assumptions with her obvious otherness. Some of it is her fault, though. Her innate discomfort with her body that’s usually exhibited only in teens, which gives people the wrong impression. Her struggle to dress her age, to put forth the effort that’s usually associated with women in the middle of their careers. At some point, she’s stagnated emotionally as well, partly by her own doing and partly by circumstances, and it bleeds out into her relationships no matter how much she wishes it wouldn’t, making her seem immature and incapable of having adult-like conversations.
But she is an adult. She’s a thirty year old woman, she has the intelligence and experience and mind of a thirty year old woman, and she knows what it means when a man says he wishes she were sleeping in his bed with him.
It is, unfortunately, a little difficult to compute it coming from this man, and she can almost hear the reboot noise sounding in her head.
Also unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like her body is struggling to understand – her heart rate’s elevated, her palms are sweating, the acid in her stomach is doing a little jig, and she doesn’t even want to know what expression her face has on, particularly given his earnest follow-up, “I’m sorry. I just imagined something different last night, and I’m being an asshole because I didn’t get my way. It’s stupid and I’m sorry. You don’t have to do anything.”
She doesn’t have to do anything? She hasn’t been given the opportunity to do anything.
“If you wanted me to sleep in your bed,” she asks, carefully. “Why didn’t you just ask me to sleep in your bed?”
His puppy dog eyes turn confused, her sentences swirling in his head visibly. “Uh,” he starts. He stops, licks his lips, and then starts again. “I think I made it fairly obvious what I wanted.”
She leans forward, and he mimics her, unconsciously. Slowly, she reaches across the table, and takes his hand. She squeezes, pleased when he gives a squeeze back, and she looks directly into his eye, making the eye contact that so often evades her. “Frank,” she says, purposefully. “I did not know that’s what you wanted.”
Silence falls in the kitchen, as they stare at one another.
He blinks.
“Huh.”
He licks his lips.
“No shit?” he says, finally. “You didn’t pick up on that?”
Her head ducks a little, embarrassed, and she finds herself staring at the wood grain of the table. It’s clearly fake; he probably bought this from IKEA. “I—I’m a little better when people are straightforward.”
“And I already knew that about you,” he says, mostly to himself.
“It’s OK.” She wonders how she is calmly reassuring him when it feels like there’s a static, screaming cloud building in the back of her head, thunder rumbling. The implications of this conversation are demanding to be noticed, as hard as she’s trying to stay in the moment. “I know being honest can be kind of hard.”
“I’m usually not a coward, though.” The words barely hang in the air before he winces. “Well.”
“No,” she all but snaps, ready to head off that rabbit trail before it begins. She hates when he gets in a self-deprecation mode. “You’re not a coward.”
He smiles at her, weakly, then squeezes her hand, gently. She squeezes back, harder, and can feel a smile threatening to break out across her entire face. She must be tomato-red. Her insides are still squirming, but she tries to swallow around them, force them to quiet. It’s not quite time to let herself fall into the feeling. Not quite yet.
“Okay,” he says, softly. Then, purposefully, he straightens, squeezes her hand, and says, “Straightforward. Okay.” A squeeze, then, seriously, “Mel. Dr. King.”
“Dr. Langdon,” she parrots, seriously.
His lips twitch. “Mel. It bothered me that you slept with Robby.”
She flinches, instinctively dropping his hand and drawing hers back into her stomach. “Oh,” she breathes, softly. “That is what this is about?”
What, he only wants what another man has had? She’s heard of men like that, but has never been friends with one. Or is it just that it’s Robby, some strange left-over bitterness from their friendship, fueling a competitiveness that’s purposeless and miserable?
Langdon has no idea what he’s envious of. She doubts either one of them were even conscious for a full straight minute in the same bed.
“Jesus Christ,” he says, looking heavenward. “Sorry, God, no, that’s not what this is about.” He reaches forward again, and she lets him drag her hand back, even though she wants to curl it back in. There’s something soothing about holding her stomach. “No, it just – that was stupid, me starting there. It just has been driving me nuts, thinking that he got the opportunity to be with you that way, to curl up next to you, to be around you, to hold you, that someone else—it’s not a jealousy thing, well, I mean, it is, but that’s not what I mean.’’
This isn’t what she meant about straightforward.
“Dr. Robby didn’t touch me. Like, seriously.”
"I know. I know. It has nothing to do with Robby. Why did I have to bring him up?” She wishes he hadn’t, and by his pained expression, so does he. “It just prompted me to think about it. Like, all the time. Like a burr under my saddle. I can’t stop thinking about it, what I can’t have. Story of my life.”
He’s suitably sincere in expression, but it feels like they’re having two entirely different conversations. Story of Mel’s life. “Who said you can’t have me in your bed? You still haven’t asked!”
He blinks at her, processing, and he’s one of the most intelligent people she’s ever met, what could possibly be so difficult about connecting A to B?
This is not how they depict these moments in the movies. There’s far less music, for one. And far more kissing.
Perhaps she should give him a little grace. It’s not like she knows the path to connecting A, this moment, to B, kissing.
“Oh. Yeah. I guess I haven’t.” He falls back in his chair slightly, rolling his eyes clearly at himself, then lets out a little huff of air, strong enough it makes his hair wobble in front of his eyes. It’s infuriatingly charming. “Mel, would you be willing to share a bed with me?”
“Yes.” Of course.
A smile begins to spread over his face, when a thought strikes her. “To clarify,” she adds, and clocks how he wilts a little. “Are you talking about sleeping or sex?”
“Sleeping,” he answers immediately, and she knows that he clocks how she wilts a little, and quickly adds, “Whichever you are up for, actually.”
“Oh.” The butterflies explode in her stomach. Perhaps it’s finally time to let them be felt. She lifts a hand to her mouth, trying to hide the grin she knows is widening with every second. She swallows around a massive lump in her throat to answer, “Either.”
“Either?”
“Both, yeah.”
It’s morning. Her phone is on the loudest it possibly could be, just waiting for the inevitable call into the Pitt, but right now, it’s just a quiet morning, with the low sounds of traffic wafting in through the windows, his fridge humming, the overheads buzzing. There’s a fly, somewhere. And there’s a man, in front of her, with floppy hair and bright blue eyes and an ever widening grin and she can feel affection pouring out of nearly every molecule of her.
“This is quite literally maybe the worst love confession of all time,” he offers conversationally, unaware that every word makes her feel like her heart pumps an extra three beats per second. “I hit some new record lows here.”
“Love?” Her throat is croaky.
He stares at her, blinks once, then buries his head in his hands. “Oh my god,” he groans, the sound slightly muffled. “I never even said that part out loud, did I? Christ.”
“Hey.” She gently pulls his hands away from his face. He lets his eyes drift, meeting hers, and they’re embarrassed, but clear. “I didn’t sleep enough last night. Do you want to go back to bed for a few hours? I have my phone, in case I’m called in.”
His sigh is heavy and happy. “Please.”
With a smile, a thudding heart and only slightly shaking hands, she links their fingers, and pulls him towards his own bedroom.
It’s sparse, a bachelor’s bedroom through and through, complete with a sweatshirt on a chair and socks on the ground, but the bed is rumpled and inviting, and, at this point, she’d probably cuddle him on a stretcher if it was available.
They slip under the warm, heavy duvet. It smells like him, cologne and something unidentifiable; she crawls over to him, reaching him quickly, her hands slowly making contact with his warm, dry skin, his lightly hairy arms and firm, firm body. She snuggles into his warm side, making sure to process how he feels pressed against the length of her. Carefully, she rests her head on his chest, tucking her arms safely to collapse between their chests. His arms reach around her, burrowing her in tight, and she can feel his lips gently press against her hair, his hand cupping the back of her head. It's warm and it's soft and it's intimate and it's – it's what she imagined being held would feel like.
She will never, ever, ever tell HR about her and Robby’s bed sharing. She hopes, with all the might and optimism and desire in her heart, that she will about this one.