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Mel found herself in the on-call room. It was dark and peaceful, the sounds of the Pitt distant background noise. If she timed it right, she had just enough time for a nap before she had to go back to work…
“Hey,” a voice from the doorway said, and Mel turned, smiled.
“Dr. Langdon,” Mel said happily. “Hi. Sorry, did you need…?” She could go sleep somewhere else. Whitaker had been doing it for months, apparently.
Dr. Langdon shook his head. “Frank,” he said, coming inside and closing the door behind him. With careful movements, he crossed the space, coming to a stop directly in front of her. Directly in front of her. So close she could see the freckle above his left eye, see the faint hint of 5 o’clock shadow on his chin. His chin with the little–what did Santos call it? The ass-chin? Mel didn’t know why she called his little dimple that. She thought it was cute.
Oh. Mel swallowed and looked up at him. She hadn’t said that out loud, had she? His eyes were boring into hers, all quiet intensity.
“What’s, um…” Mel swallowed, tightened her grip on the stethoscope around her neck. “Dr. Langdon–”
“Frank,” he insisted, reaching up to prise her hands off her stethoscope, gently but insistently. He was holding her hands. He was holding her hands.
“...Frank, I…I don’t think…”
“Then don’t think,” Frank said, closing the distance between them with a kiss, soft at first but growing more urgent by the second. Mel let out one tiny squeak before her brain shut all the way down, and she felt her arms wrapping around his neck. He was so - tall and strong and married this should not be happening this should not be happening--
They were on the bed, and he was kissing her neck, and their scrubs were in a pile next to the bed. She was already seeing stars, and she couldn’t find the words and this felt so good and his hands were sliding down her hips, down her thighs and–
Mel awoke with a small start, eyes flickering open to an unfamiliar bedroom. No, wait. This was her bedroom. Hers and Frank’s bedroom. It was big and sunshiney yellow, pastel and perfect.
“Morning,” Frank said, nudging open their bedroom door with his hip, sliding through and then shutting it with his foot. In his hands were two mugs of coffee, and he gave her an easy smile. “Sleep okay?” He was in his pajamas - a plain white t-shirt and a pair of boxers. She looked down and realized she was also in a plain white t-shirt. His.
“I–yes, thank you,” Mel said. Her hair was falling in loose, messy waves over her shoulders, the way it always did when it wasn’t in her work-braid. She reached for the coffee with her left hand and paused as he slid the handle between her fingers.
There were rings on her finger. An engagement ring and a wedding ring.
Mel smiled to herself, couldn’t even try to hide it by having a sip of her coffee. “We’re married?”
Frank laughed as he draped himself across the foot of their bed. “Last I checked,” he said, eyes sparkling with merriment. “But–yeah, sometimes I can’t believe it either. How’d I get so lucky?”
Mel could honestly say she had no idea. But this felt so–right, so warm and safe and–
Beep beep. Frank sighed and plucked his pager from his waist - when had he changed into his scrubs? - downed the coffee and sighed again.
“I had to take RBG into the Pitt,” he said. “We should probably get down there.”
“You had to take–” Mel frowned. Red Blue Green? That didn’t make sense.
“Ruth Bader Ginspurr?” Frank said, giving her a strange look. “The cat?”
Oh. Right. “Oh. Right.” Ruth Bader Ginspurr. The cat. Sure.
“Wait, why did you take the cat to–”
Mel was standing in the Pitt, near the nurse’s station. It was the central nerve of the whole ED, and it was as busy and chaotic as usual. And she was just standing there.
In Frank Langdon’s plain white t-shirt.
And no pants whatsoever.
“Dr. King,” Dr. Robby said, shoving open the nearest trauma-room door. “We need you in here.” He was wearing blue gloves, a tear-away poncho. Both were covered in blood.
“I–I’m not wearing pants,” Mel said helplessly, feeling the heat rise to her face. How had she come to work with no pants? She wanted to cry. Dr. Robby stared at her with the perfect mix of parental disappointment and annoyance.
“We don’t have time for pants,” Dr. Robby said, as seriously as he had ever said anything else, ever, in his life. “Dana?”
Mel turned to look at Dana, who clucked her tongue at Mel. “Here, take mine,” Dana said. Before Mel could stop her, she was shimmying out of her scrub pants, revealing–
More scrubs underneath.
What?
“Part’a bein’ a nurse, always bein’ prepared,” Dana said. “Give you the clothes off my back around here. Would you hurry up and get movin’, Dr. King?” Dana said, tossing her the pants across the nursing station. Mel caught them, barely, and hopped into them, trying to walk and dress at the same time.
She had no shoes, either. This was not safe ED practice, she thought dully to herself as she pushed open the trauma room door. Her friends were gathering around the bed in the middle of the room like bees in a hive, all fighting valiantly against the ever-present spectre of death that loomed over them all.
“What’s going on?” Mel asked as she scrambled to don her own poncho and gloves. On the table was…
A cat.
Mel frowned. Come to think of it, she didn’t even have a cat.
And also, this was an emergency department for humans. They were doctors, not veterinarians.
That was okay, though, because next thing she knew, when she looked back at the table, there was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The human. Machines beeped wildly and her friends jostled around her, reaching and grabbing and taking and checking and doing all the things they did every single day. She was so proud of them all–they were going to save a Supreme Court Justice!
“You gonna stand there or you gonna jump in?” Santos asked. Mel shook her head, then nodded quickly instead.
“No. I mean, yes. I mean–what do you want me to do?” Mel asked, looking to Dr. Robby. If they hadn’t started yet, where had all that blood on his gloves and clothes come from?
“You need to do a reverse anti-bilateral crike,” Dr. Robby said. “And quick. We need three liters and two CCs, wide open.”
Mel blinked. Three liters and two CCs of what? “I don’t know how to do a…reverse anti-bilateral…”
Whitaker bumped her hip affectionately. “Nobody does,” he whispered, gently and with a tiny smile. “Nobody actually knows what they’re doing, Mel.”
“I’m not wearing shoes–there are scalpels--”
Before Whitaker could reach down and do whatever a reverse anti-bilateral crike was, the door to the trauma room banged open once more.
Dana stood in the doorway, wide-eyed and terrified.
“There was a shooting at PittFest,” she said breathlessly. There was music coming from somewhere, terribly juxtaposed with the words coming out of Dana’s mouth. I was kissin’ Valentino by a crystal blue Italian stream--
“No,” Mel breathed, the world going slanted. “No no no no no not again–”
This time when Dr. Mel King woke up, it was for real. She sat bolt upright and put her hand over her hammering heart and tried to catch her breath. She fumbled for her glasses, slid them on, and looked around.
She was in her own tiny dark bedroom. There was no Dr. Langdon to be seen. There were no cats, or Supreme Court Justices who had, in fact, been dead for years anyway.
Mel let out a long, slow breath. Pittfest had been months ago. Langdon hadn’t come back, after that terrible day. At least, he hadn't yet. Every day, Mel found herself glancing around, hoping she'd see him striding through the Pitt like he had on her very first day. Mel slid her hands over her face, fingers under her glasses, and sighed again. Her Monday morning alarm song had started over.
They didn’t even have an ‘on-call room’, not in the ED. They had a break room, but there weren’t any beds in there. If they did have an ‘on-call room’, it would be in constant use by night-shift people napping before their shift. There was absolutely no way to have a romantic rendezvous at work–not when your work was a hospital Emergency Department, anyway. Not when your work was The Pitt.
All of those stupid hospital shows on TV got it so wrong, it was literally warping her brain.
Six o’clock already and I was just in the middle of a dream, her alarm rang out. Technically, she got up at 5, but close enough. Mel let it play a minute, then sighed. Just another manic Monday… Mel groaned and reached for her alarm clock, fumbling until she found the off button. Usually she snoozed it exactly twice, but, well.
No way was she getting back to sleep now.
Mel sighed and dropped her hands into her lap, looking up at the ceiling. The nightmares had gotten less frequent, thankfully; the counselor Mel had been going to, faithfully as ordered at least once a week since the incident, had helped.
Mel didn’t know if she’d tell her therapist about this dream. She could tell it was one of those dreams that would stick with her - the hot blush of shame under Robby's gaze, the hot blush of...something else, under Langdon's...she could feel the edges of the dream clinging to her like fog. She could almost feel his hands ghosting over her, almost feel the pair of rings on her finger...
If she did tell her therapist about it, she decided, as she made her way to the bathroom, took her meds and turned the shower on, as hot as it would go, she would leave out the first part.
And the second part.
And all the parts concerning Dr. Frank Langdon.
…And the part about the pants.
Nobody, least of all a hospital-mandated therapist, needed to know about that.