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8:02. Mel is officially 2 minutes late. Langdon looks at his watch and starts looking around the hospital. He even checks triage. Nothing.
He rushes towards Robby. “Hey Robby. Mel isn’t here yet” he says, grabbing the stethoscope that’s around his neck with both hands, like he does when he’s nervous.
Robby answers.
“Oh, yeah. Well, her shift starts specifically at 8:10. After then, she’s considered late. Don’t worry. I’m sure she just slept through her alarm.”
Langdon grips his stethoscope more tightly.
“It’s Mel. She’s a very light sleeper and has like 10 alarms, all going off every 5 minutes. She’s never late. She drops her sister off at 7:40 and gets here at 8:00. On the dot. Every day. She even accounts for traffic.”
Robby wonders why Langdon knows that. “How do you know all that?” “I once texted her at like 2 in the morning on accident. She answered. And the alarms thing is an inside joke actually” Langdon smiles through his concern but Robby still notices Langdon’s worry. “Look, there’s nothing you can do right now. So just… focus on setting up, cleaning anything that needs cleaning, and then start focusing on patients. Patients are your job. Doctors are mine. If I see Mel coming in, you’ll be the first to know”
Langdon begrudgingly goes to do his job. Even when he gets his first patient, he’s still looking around the trauma bay to see if she’s there, constantly checking his watch and gripping his stethoscope with anxiety. Then, chaos happens.
3 car crashes. 5 injured people. 3 men, 2 women. No way to know the extent of their injuries. All near Mel’s apartment. And, of course, the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center is the closest hospital, so all the patients go there. Langdon gets even more worried. Every time he sees a new person coming in on a gurney, he prays it’s not Mel. He’s thankful all patients go to the Pitt. If they didn’t, Langdon would surely be having a panic attack right about now.
While he’s finishing up with a patient who luckily came out with just a few scratches, his phone rings. He takes a quick glance, thinking it’s just his lawyer wanting to talk about the divorce or custody. It’s Mel. He takes a second, leaves the room and looks at the call, praying, almost begging that it’s not a cop with Mel’s phone calling with bad news. He picks up.
“Hey Langdon. I’m so sorry. I know I’m late and I don’t have Robby’s phone number to tell him why I’m late. There were 3 crashes near my place, and I haven’t been able to get past a block from my apartment. Becca is sick so someone from the facility came by to take care of her while I’m gone and I left my apartment later than usual. It’s been a hell of a morning”
Langdon sighs with relief. “We’ve only gotten 4 crash patients” he says jokingly. But Mel thinks he’s serious.
“Wait what? No. There were… oh. You’re joking” Langdon laughs. “Yes, I am, Captain Scurvy” Mel laughs. Langdon says “Look, it’s okay. Just get here as soon as you can. But don’t rush. We don’t want there to be another accident.” Mel smiles “Yes sir,” she says mockingly, “I’ll see you later” “Yeah,” Langdon replies, softer now. “See you.”
He doesn’t hang up immediately. Neither does she. There’s a small pause where both of them are still on the line, listening to the faint sounds in the background. Traffic, a distant siren, chaos in the ER, them breathing.
Mel clears her throat. “It’s gridlocked. I might be… thirty minutes away. Just tell Robby that there’s seriously no way out of this traffic.” “Okay, yeah, don’t worry” he answers easily but with a small tone of concern as his eyes flick toward the ambulance bay doors again.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” she asks suddenly. He frowns slightly. “Why wouldn’t I be?” “Because you sound like you just ran a marathon.” He lets out a quiet breath that almost turns into a laugh. “We did just get five traumas in under 15 minutes” There’s a pause. “Right” she says.
She goes quiet, and he knows exactly what she’s thinking. The timing, the what-ifs, the fact that she could’ve been in that intersection five minutes earlier. “It’s fine,” he says, steady, like he’s grounding a patient. “They were at the wrong place, wrong time. You’re not responsible for that.” “You don’t know that,” she mutters. “Mel.” His voice shifts just slightly, firmer but not harsh. “You are not responsible for that. Instead of focusing on them, think about yourself. Be thankful Becca is sick. Be thankful you woke up later. Be thankful you’re… okay”
The silence that follows is softer now.
Dana calls his name from across the trauma bay and he glances up as the doors swing open again. “I gotta go,” he says. “Yeah. Me too. Traffic is starting to clear up” Another pause. “Drive safe.” He hangs up this time but is still gripping his stethoscope, just with less pressure now.
The next gurney rolls in and he doesn’t feel that worry anymore, he knows she’s okay. But he still checks the clock. 8:17. He runs the trauma with clean precision, voice steady, hands sure, but every time the ambulance doors open his eyes lift for a fraction of a second.
8:43. The doors slide open again, and there she is, hair slightly wind-tossed, bag over her shoulder, already scanning the room before she’s fully inside. Their eyes meet across the chaos. No smile. No greeting. She pauses mid walking, standing at the center of the hospital. He pauses while he’s checking on the patient. The whole world goes quiet for them as they feel the relief of finally being in the same room after a traumatic morning. Mel feels as if she’s breathing for the first time since leaving home. Langdon looks at her as if it were the first time he’s ever seen her. How is it possible that she’s even more beautiful today than yesterday?
Dana sees Mel just standing there, not realizing she’s looking at Langdon. “Hey, honey. I need you to move okay? This place is crazy right now and I don’t have time for doctors to do nothing. Go find something to do.” Mel gets startled as Dana starts talking to her but once she registers what’s going on, she starts moving quickly. Goes and puts her bag in her locker, going to help Langdon with his patient. She realizes she didn’t grab gloves but before she goes to grab some, Langdon calls out to her. “Hey. Come on.” He says as he grabs gloves and stretches his arm for her to grab them. She grabs them and smiles, realizing that this is a common occurrence for them.
“What’ve we got?” she says as she puts on her gloves and enters the room “Male, mid-thirties, restrained driver, hypotensive in the field, may need a chest tube.” Langdon replies without missing a beat. She steps in beside him like she was never gone and he makes space for her, moving in sync, anticipating each other’s adjustments around the bed. He asks medical questions and she answers with ease.
The patient gets wheeled up to the OR and the team starts to disperse as Langdon hands Mel the chart. “Good call on the fluids. That alone might’ve saved him.” he says. It’s not out of the ordinary; he constantly praises doctors for doing their job, or at least, he used to. Mel realizes that she can’t really remember the last time he said that to someone else. She quickly turns down the thought, filing it for when she’s not at work.
She puts down the chart and starts walking to the next room when he says softly, almost a whisper: “Glad you’re here. I was… pretty worried for a second there.” She turns around. “Me too,” she admits “I’m glad I called you earlier. You calmed me down.” They smile. When a patient lets out a painful cry, they look at where the sound was coming from, snapping both of them back to reality. Mel notices they’re standing close. Not ‘boss and subordinate’ close. Not ‘friends’ close. Maybe something more. She runs to check on the patient before she has time to overthink. She knows tonight is gonna be a busy night for her brain.
Robby looks over at them. He looks at Mel. It’s scary how easily she can anticipate his movements better than any doctor who’s worked with him for years. He smiles, looking at Langdon and remembering how scared he was in the morning and he sees that Langdon is acting like himself again. Nothing in the ER has changed. Patients are coming and going. There’s chaos and blood everywhere. The one thing that changed was Mel. She was finally here. In a quick second, Robby notices…
Langdon isn’t gripping his stethoscope anymore.