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Mel lingered in the ambulance bay long after she should have left.
The rest of the ER was winding down around her in that strange, post-shift way where everything somehow felt both quieter and louder at the same time. Stretchers rattled over uneven pavement. A helicopter thudded somewhere in the distance. Someone laughed near the bay doors, the sound carrying briefly before disappearing into the warm July air.
She was halfway through debating whether she should just go home when she heard the doors swing open behind her. She turned to find Dr. Langdon making his way toward her, stethoscope still hanging around his neck. He looked tired in that way he always did after a hard shift, but there was something in his face that looked… excited, almost.
"There you are," he said.
Mel raised an eyebrow.
"Were you looking for me?"
"Maybe."
He stopped beside her, leaning back against the brick.
“I reduced a uni-facet cervical dislocation earlier,” he said. “Manually. Closed reduction.”
Mel’s eyes widened, jaw dropped. “Did you actually?”
He grinned proudly, nodding his head.
“Dr. Langdon,” she said, looking up at him. “That’s huge.”
She lifted a hand toward him almost instinctively and he laughed, reaching up to meet it. Their palms connected in a quick, sharp high five, but neither of them pulled away right away. Her hand slid down against his for half a second too long before they both dropped them at the same time
“I, uh - I saw Neurosurgery do it once in ICU,” he said. “It's traction on the neck, you flex the dislocated side and into slight extension. And, yeah. Immediately improved neuro exam.”
He shrugged, but badly. There was no hiding how pleased with himself he was.
“That’s - that’s actually amazing.”
A laugh slipped out of him, quiet and surprised, like he still was not entirely used to the feeling.
A few hours earlier, in the break room, he’d admitted to her that he wasn’t sure if he was ready to be back yet after almost intubating an asthmatic boy with a missed pneumothorax. He had looked exhausted and uncertain and unlike himself in a way that pulled at something deep in her chest.
She reassured him - that even if he didn’t catch it right away, he would have eventually. That he would have saved him.
Now, standing beside him in the warm July air with that proud, almost boyish grin on his face, she nudged his arm lightly with hers.
“I told you you were ready to be back,” she said softly.
For a second, he just looked at her.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “You did.”
He smiled then. Small, but real. Mel felt something warm twist in her chest.
“I want you to teach me how to do that,” she said.
Frank let out a quiet laugh through his nose. “You want me to teach you how to manually reduce a cervical dislocation?”
“I want you to teach me everything,” Mel said, before she could stop herself.
The words hung there between them for a second. Too much. Too honest. She looked away immediately, heat rushing into her face.
“I mean medically,” she added quickly. “Obviously.”
Frank was still looking at her.
“Right,” he said, though there was something in his voice that suggested he had heard the first version too.
“Yeah, I can teach you,” he said. “Not on an actual person, ideally, but... yeah. I mean, in a perfect world you’ll never have to use it, but it’s nice to know.”
She looked back over at him.
“Really?”
“Really.”
And God, maybe it was pathetic, but the thought of more time with him - even if it was standing over some anatomy dummy in a skills lab while he walked her through cervical traction - made something warm unfurl in her chest.
For a second, neither of them said anything. The city hummed quietly around them. Fireworks had already started somewhere in the distance, faint pops echoing across the skyline. Frank glanced out toward the street, then back at her.
“You doing anything tonight?” he asked.
She shrugged.
“Well, Becca’s going to watch fireworks with Adam.” Something shifted in her face as she said it - small, but there.
"You don't sound thrilled." he said.
She looked down at the pavement.
"I am thrilled," she said. "I mean... I want her to have her own life. Obviously."
Frank stayed quiet. Mel let out a breath before continuing.
"I just... don't know." She hated how vulnerable she sounded.
"She's my person," she said finally. "It's always just kind of been me and her."
Frank's expression softened. "And now you're worried it's not going to be anymore."
Mel looked over at him. There was something so deeply unfair about how easily he could do that. Just reach into her chest and pull the exact thought out of it.
"Maybe." she said, shrugging lightly.
"It still will be," he said.
She smiled faintly.
"You don't know that."
"I do."
The certainty in his voice made something ache in her. She looked away before she could sit in it too long, eyes drifting out toward the street beyond the ambulance bay.
“Trinity invited me to karaoke,” she said after a second.
Frank blinked, turning to look at her properly.
“Karaoke?”
“Don’t sound so horrified.”
“I’m not horrified,” he said, though he definitely looked a little startled. “I’m just trying to picture... you. Doing karaoke.”
Mel let out a quiet laugh, folding her arms loosely over her chest.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“Nothing. I just would’ve guessed you’d rather die.”
“... Normally, yes.”
He looked over at her, waiting. “But?”
She shrugged again, gaze dropping briefly to the pavement below them. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go.”
Frank nodded once, almost immediately.
“You should.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” he said. “You should go have fun.”
Mel looked over at him then.
The overhead lights from the bay caught against the sharp line of his jaw, softened the tiredness around his blue eyes. He looked older tonight somehow - worn down in a way that made something in her chest tighten.
“What about you?” she asked quietly.
His expression shifted just slightly. “What about me?”
“What are your plans?”
He looked away for a second, out toward the street, one shoulder lifting in a shrug.
“Nothing exciting,” He looked away toward the city skyline beyond the bay doors. "I'll probably just head home."
Mel hesitated. Maybe he had plans with his wife, his kids.
She looked back over at him.
"Well," she said, trying to sound casual, "if you're not up to anything... you should come."
Frank looked back at her. "To karaoke?"
"Yeah,” she said. “Could be fun."
He held her gaze for a second too long.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "Maybe."
Frank did, in fact, go home. Or at least to the apartment that technically counted as “home”.
It still didn’t feel like his.
There were boxes in the corner he still hadn’t unpacked. A coffee table he had assembled wrong three weeks ago and never fixed. A single lamp on in the living room because the overhead lighting felt too harsh.
He stood in the kitchen for a while with his keys in his hand and his wedding ring still on his finger.
He’d put it on this morning without thinking - or maybe with too much thinking. He had enough on his mind going back today that he didn’t need people asking questions about why he suddenly wasn’t wearing his ring after five years. He would deal with that later.
He looked down at it now.
Then at the empty apartment.
Then at the clock.
And before he could talk himself out of it, he grabbed his keys again.
The bar was already loud when he got there.
There were American flags hanging from the ceiling. Cheap beer. Somebody near the back yelling over a pool game. He spotted Mateo first, then Whittaker, then Santos standing near the stage with a drink in her hand. Javadi was there too somehow, sitting in a booth with a pink can of something and looking deeply pleased with herself.
Frank barely had time to process any of it before Santos grabbed the mic.
"This next one," she announced dramatically, "is dedicated to every man who has ever had the audacity."
The opening guitar riff of You Oughta Know started blasting through the speakers.
And then Mel walked onto the stage. Frank felt something in his chest stop.
He had never seen her out of her scrubs - she wore a pair of light wash jeans, white sneakers, and a simple black t-shirt. Her hair was still braided from earlier, and her glasses were slipping down her nose.
She looked up toward the crowd, grinning in that slightly wild, slightly drunken way people only really grin when they have decided they do not care anymore.
Then, she started singing. Not badly - not even close. She was actually really good.
Santos was throwing herself into it beside her, but Frank could barely look at anyone except Mel.
An older version of me
Is she perverted like me?
Would she go down on you in a theatre?
Does she speak eloquently?
And would she have your baby?
I'm sure she'd make a really excellent mother
By the second chorus, she was fully committed. Laughing. Pointing into the crowd. Singing like she had something to prove.
And I'm here, to remind you
Of the mess you left when you went away
It's not fair, to deny me
Of the cross I bear that you gave to me
You, you, you oughta know
Then, she reached up and pulled the elastic out of her braid. Her hair fell around her shoulders. A second later, she slid her glasses off and handed them blindly to Santos without missing a word.
The entire bar erupted.
Frank just stood there near the entrance with his jaw somewhere near the floor.
He had known, on some level, that he felt something for her. He’d known it after that very first shift they worked together ten months ago. But watching her like this - watching her come alive, watching her laugh and sing and throw her head back like she had forgotten to be guarded for once - this felt like the moment his body finally caught up to something his heart had apparently known for a very long time.
By the time the song ended, he was pretty sure his heart rate was somewhere in the 130’s. Absolutely tachycardic. Mel spotted him almost immediately when she stepped offstage and her whole face lit up, which made his chest swell.
"You came!"
Frank laughed softly. "I came."
She made her way over to him, still flushed from singing, slightly breathless, one hand wrapped around a drink she was absolutely too far into.
"How long have you been here?" she asked.
"Long enough."
"Oh god," she said, already horrified. "How much did you see?"
"Enough to know you apparently have a whole secret life as an incredibly aggressive Alanis Morissette impersonator."
Mel laughed - a real, genuine laugh. He had the sudden, ridiculous thought that he would do just about anything to hear it again.
"Did you like it?" she asked.
Frank looked at her - really looked at her. Hair loose around her shoulders. Eyes bright. Smile easy.
“I didn’t know you had that in you.” he said.
She looked at him for a second, a faint smile pulling at her lips.
"There's a lot you don't know about me, Dr. Langdon."
And then she turned around and walked to the bar.
Frank was absolutely done for.