Chapter Text
Mel had been insistent that she wouldn't get any special treatment, and her worries about it eased when Uncle Jack gave her that stupid stare with a “Don't worry, you'll get there soon enough.”
He was teasing, one of the few people that Mel could actually pick up on the teasing and sarcasm easily. It came from an entire summer at his house when she was eight. Becca had needed some very intense occupational therapy and their parents were spread so thin that Uncle Jack and Aunt Jennifer had insisted that Mel stay with them so that Mel could have the attention she needed.
That summer Mel became Jennifer’s “Protege,” learning to bake sourdough bread, cinnamon rolls, and all sorts of delicious treats that Jennifer sold at the local Farmers Market. They listened to audiobooks as they worked, most notably the last Harry Potter novel that came out that July and they locked themselves in the house until they finished all twenty-two hours of it in tears.
One of Mel's fondest memories was at the end of that Texas summer, their last week together, as Mel sat on the back porch with the two adults. Jennifer was on her right and Jack on her left, as they listened to the thunder after a long day. The couple talked quietly discussing their day as Mel dozed between them listening to Jack complain about the latest recruits. Halfway to dreaming, Mel had had a thought, an innocent question, the one a child asks without knowing that it might be rude: “Aunty Jen, are you sure you don't want to have kids? You'd be really good at it.”
“Oh Honeybee,” Jennifer has pulled her close, and kissed Mel's crown, "Visiting you and Bumblebee for holidays and you coming here for the summer are all Jack and I will ever need.”
Nearly twenty years later Mel had learned that after six miscarriages and a stillbirth (a boy they'd named Ryan Alexander Abbot) that Jack and Jennifer just didn't have the emotional bandwidth to try again.
Instead, the Abbots were the best godparents Mel and Becca could have ever asked for. They visited for holidays when they could; bringing presents for their favorite twins. The six of them went camping, and despite Becca's dislike of the disruption of the routine (and of dirt in general) Jack was always able to distract her with a new skill that she could hyper focus on: like the time they tied complicated knots for hours. The Abbots repeatedly had provided a safe haven for Mel's childhood, in particular. However sparsely the visits were timed they provided space where she didn't have to think, “Oh I don't need to pick the family movie tonight, I’d rather just let Becca choose and avoid a potential meltdown.” With Jack and Jennifer: Mel got to be the kid whose opinion mattered, rather than the afterthought.
It wasn't that Brian and Cynthia King had been neglectful. But when one daughter was in casts and physical therapy for clubbed feet as an infant, had repeated ear infections that required ear tube surgery, needed a tonsillectomy because Cynthia had walked into the twin’s room one night to find Becca struggling to breathe, and as she grew didn't hit her milestones and screamed and cried at the feelings of clothes and the sounds she didn't like… Well, the daughter who seemed to be doing just fine wasn't worried about.
Jack Abbot and Brian King had been Army buddies and like most army friends had brotherhood forged in the fire of trauma and hope of better days. Jennifer and Cynthia, the wives left behind for weeks and months at a time, had found that they liked each other so much that they decided to make it easy and save on rent as roommates while their husbands were abroad. Jennifer had been a saving grace, when Cynthia had been pregnant ith Mel and Becca: meal prepping and helping her nest when Cynthia was put on bedrest during her complicated pregnancy. There wasn't a doubt in anyone's minds who would be named as godparents to the twin girls.
Growing up as military brats hadn't helped either Becca or Mel with their social skills, something they struggled with organically. They moved from state to state: California, North Carolina, Texas, and finally landing in Virginia when the girls were ten.
And well, it was a tale as old as war. Brian King lost the fight that so many of the armed forces do. The reliance on alcohol and trying to self medicate away the PTSD after two tours in the Middle East had led to a fatal stroke at thirty-six, when the twins were just twelve.
It was truly bad luck that Jennifer Abbot passed DOA in a three car pileup in Texas that same day. Jack was still on tour, two weeks away from losing his leg, Jennifer alone in Texas, and Cynthia and her girls in Virginia. Scattered across the world and lost to one another: quickly the calls were unanswered, eventually the phone lines disconnected, and slowly addresses changed. One last move with their savings brought the King ladies to Pennsylvania where a teaching job opportunity called Cynthia's name: a school program for Becca, a house for rent that was just within budget, and she could leave behind the memories of finding her husband's body on the kitchen floor behind.
And so, Cynthia King, unmoored but resilient: spent the next eight years raising her two special daughters on her own. She hadn't been interested in that new social media when it first became popular but by the time her body was weak and her bones aching from the pheochromocytoma she decided to give it a chance. She scoured online spaces to search for her last hope. But in the end, Jack Abbot wasn't anywhere to be found.
Mel, twenty years old, two years into her undergrad education, and now the sole provider and caretaker of Becca could have let it overwhelm her. But she was Brian and Cynthia King's Daughter and she was a military brat: discipline and routine were her anchors. By the time she was twenty-six she'd survived all the way to her first year of residency at Pittsburgh’s VA. She didn't care that she was constantly on the edge of burnout because she was extremely proud of herself for doing it all: clawing her way towards her goals. Med school had been a personally selfish decision with the extra schooling and the debt. Mel could have gotten a job with her Bachelor's of Science in Biology, but her childhood had been filled with so many Christmases of Uncle Jack explaining, in terms appropriate for a child of under 10, just what he did as a combat medic (Brian joking from the kitchen: “Combat Engineering is way cooler Melissa! Don't listen to him.”) that Mel couldn't imagine being anything else other than a doctor.
Working at the VA clinic was fulfilling, taking care of veterans, hearing their stories and sometimes telling a few of her father's or her own as an army brat filled a part of Mel's heart. Most of the vets also didn't care that Mel was just a little strange, considering they were more often than not a little strange themselves.
And then at the end of her intern year, Jack Abbot walked in for a prosthesis adjustment.
She knocked before entering the exam room, and introduced herself, “Good morning, I'm Dr. King and I will be your provider today,” before she looked up and saw him.
Fifteen years had changed both of them significantly, especially Mel, but Mel knew him immediately: taking in how his dark brown curls were now streaked with grey, the wrinkles of his face, the stubbornness of his character in the lines of his jaw, which was hanging open in shock.
“Melissa? Honeybee? Is that really you?”
He still called her Honeybee? Still thought of her with that silly little nickname? Mel was nodding, barely able to ask past the pounding of her heart, “Uncle Jack?” as the tears had started streaming down her face. Jack was up out of his chair, stumbling a bit on the leg that he'd come in to have adjusted, and pulling her into his arms and suddenly they were holding each other up in that very human experience of feeling love, happiness, and grief all at once.
The tears turned to wet chuckles at the absurdity of it all, as Jack pulled back with his hands on her arms as he took in this new version of her (the last images in his mind of her were so widely out of date). “Look at you. All grown up, and a doctor. Just like you said you'd be.”
His eyes glistened as he gazed at her, “God, you look so much like your dad.”
That wasn't something Mel heard often. Usually when she showed people a picture of her mom and dad it was the similarities between her and Cynthia that were pointed out. But it felt extra special that the first thing Jack saw was his old friend Brian in the shape and color of her eyes, and the outline of her ears. The things Mel noticed when she cared to look that long in the mirror.
Mel was able to help him fix his prosthesis, an adjustment he couldn't do on his own because he needed to be standing and upright to ensure correct positioning. Afterward he insisted on knowing when she was off so that he could pick her and Becca up for dinner that night; they had over a decade of life that they needed to catch up on.
Becca, who usually hated surprises, was overjoyed to see Uncle Jack outside her day center. He'd even remembered that Becca hated hugs, and had just offered a hand to hold that Becca grasped tightly as she asked him where he'd been for so long.
They picked up pizza (plain cheese for Becca and Mel. A meat supreme for Jack) and he drove them to the King Apartment. Dinner was spent explaining where each party had ended up and a few anecdotes of the biggest moments and milestones of their lives. The sisters cried when Jack explained why Cynthia hadn't been able to get ahold of Aunt Jen. And Jack cried when he told how he hadn't been able to get in contact because he'd been a bit preoccupied with the whole amputation and becoming a widower thing, so by the time he'd realized he hadn't heard from the Kings: phone numbers must have been changed and there was the fact that he and Brian had had a fight that the girls hadn't known about. Jacked assumed that maybe he wasn't wanted anymore.
The evening was so full of intense emotions that Mel encouraged Becca to follow her nighttime independent routine even though Jack was still sitting at their dining room table. Becca, happy but verging on overstimulated by emotion alone, thanked Jack for the dinner before grabbing her weighted blanket from the couch and heading to her room.
Jack had taken one look at Mel, Becca now in her room, the mask slipping from a long day of keeping up her energy at work and the emotional toll of their conversation.
“How are you really, Honeybee? Med School and now residency along with making sure Becca is taken care of, that's a lot for one person to shoulder. And I'm guessing Becca's Day Center isn't a cheap expense.”
Mel sighed, “I'm… I'm handling it. I used the grace period on my student loans to try and save up but. Well, it's med school. The interest is already adding up. And with Becca's center I've got maybe another year before I use up the last of Mom's life insurance money.”
Jack looked pensive, “There's no comfortable way to say this: I want to help. My house is too big with too many bedrooms for just me. You and Becca could move in, save on rent.”
Mel shook her head, “We couldn't possibly impose-”
“If your mother had passed when you were teens instead of when you were adults... I was named in your parent's will to take you and Becca in. I missed out on taking care of you and I want to make up for lost time. Let me take care of my goddaughters the way I promised I would.”
Jack was looking at her so earnestly, his hand over hers on the dining table, that Mel gave in. Years of acting as Atlas and holding the sky on her shoulders and the idea of it being lifted in the slightest reduced her to tears for the third time that day. The silent weeping turned to shaking sobs, and Mel heard a quiet, “Oh sweetheart,” before she was being pulled up out of her chair and toward the couch. Jack arranged them as he sat them down, and for the first time in a very long time Mel was embraced; held like the child she hadn't allowed herself to be since her father's death.
----
Mel still refused the rooms in Jack's house. Mel and Becca liked their apartment. Or at least, they like the location, the closeness to a bus stop and several locations that they wanted to go to were within walkable distance.
But, she did accept his offer to pay for Becca's Day Center, and had even gone along with Jack's suggestion that they apply for the Middle Hill Assisted Living Center that Mel had originally wanted but had ultimately been priced out of.
She wouldn't take any more of the monthly allowance he suggested, and maintained her stance that he only cover a part of the cost of Middle Hill. While the help for Becca's well-being was easier to accept, years of hyper-independence and sticking her axe to the grindstone made accepting help for herself difficult. Mel felt itchy at the thought of it, help she wasn't used to receiving like a wool sweater against her skin.
He insisted on making them dinner at his house, or taking them out to eat at least once a week. “Making up for lost time.” He declared, getting to know them as the grown women they are and not just the children he remembered. It was at one of these dinners that Jack learned that Mel had originally wanted to go into Emergency Medicine, but had ultimately been matched with her second choice of the VA clinic.
“I am an attending at PTMC, you know. I could put in a good word for you, if you want to try to transfer.”
Mel had declined, citing that she would hate to take advantage of any nepotism through him.
But when an R2 decided to drop out of the program in August -declaring that the burnout and mental load too difficult to bear any longer- Jack brought the application paperwork to Mel's door. “Just try, kiddo. Don't even mention me. Get in on your own merit.”
And, to the surprise of Mel (but not the surprise of Uncle Jack) they accepted her application. The bus ride was closer than the VA, and after dropping off Becca at Middle Hill, Mel entered PTMC’s front entrance to fill out all the paperwork and get her ID tags from HR.
For the first time since she was twenty, she wasn't putting a somewhat willing next door neighbor or her landlord down as an emergency contact (mostly because when the emergency contact section was left blank: HRs would call her later saying it couldn't be left blank.) and she smiled as she wrote in his name, phone number, and relation to her (Family friend, she'd written, to be purposely vague.)
And so, on September 5th, Mel walked into The Pitt as its newest resident doctor. She and Jack had a deal: with him on the nightshift and her primarily on the dayshift, they didn't need to spell it out for everyone that they were family, and she would learn and grow at PTMC without any special treatment from him. Jack, personally, was excited to see just how much she would thrive, especially when he got the rare opportunities to push her farther than she ever thought she would be able to go.
When Dr. Robby made introductions for her, she internally laughed at the “Ignore him. He had a rough night and is having an ongoing existential crisis.” Quip about Jack, (Dr. Abbot, she reminded herself) but made an internal reminder to bake him some brownies for their next after dinner dessert as a pick-me-up.
The pace was so different from the VA. All day Mel struggled to make small talk with her new colleagues (Why did they keep just. Walking away without saying goodbye first?). Though Dr. Langdon at least took the time to listen to her, telling her that he'd learned something from her and encouraging her to stay because they needed people like her. He, at least, was one work friend she was happy to have made on her first day.
It was a terrible day. Worrying about Rita abandoning Ginger, Amber Phillips drowning and there being nothing that could have possibly been done to save her, the whole entire mess that was The Pitt becoming a MASH unit in response to the shooting at PittFest, and ending with Flynn's spinal tap that she was happy to do when the father finally gave his consent. (Was she feeling a little vindictive against the mother? The anti-vax movement because parents would take a potential-dead-from-measles child rather than a potential autistic child just. Well, Mel didn't say she hated very easily. She really really disliked those kinds of people, so she would keep her feelings to herself.)
Despite the sheer load of awful that came from the day: Mel had liked it. Liked teaching Santos and Whitaker and Javadi when she was in a position to do so. She got to pet a dog and clean out a road rash wound and she'd felt like she'd really made a difference in Terrance’s provided care. Oh, and she'd been able to help deliver a baby!! Obstetrics and pediatrics had been disciplines she'd enjoyed on her med school rotations, and she'd debated for a long time just what discipline she wanted to go into before settling on emergency med, so it was fun to see that even among the death: there was still so much life in The Pitt.
Jack made an alfredo vegetarian lasagna for their Sunday dinner that weekend (with her shift of the day over, and it being his night off) and he'd reassured her that while Hell Days like the aftermath of PittFest existed in the ED, that truly to have that many bad things in a row was a once in a blue moon kind of day. And she believed him. Her Saturday and Sunday had been tough in their own ways. There was another honor walk for an organ donor from a car vs cyclist who had been wearing a helmet but had ultimately been internally decapitated, and a patient who kept cussing at her because he demanded to be seen by a “real doctor, not a girl.” She'd heard Princess whispering to Ahmad about Dr. Langdon taking a leave of absence to go to rehab, which was a rumor she decided to ignore, because if it was the truth… Well, her heart ached for her new friend, and tried not to imagine what he'd been going through in the background of his life while also taking the time out of his day to be kind to her. These things were difficult, but the horrors of each day hadn't compounded on each other the way they had Friday.
Mel was, for the first time since her mother's diagnosis, content and looked forward to what the future would bring.
---
Mel was having an absolutely terrible week. She'd been knocked over and hit her head because the patient who she later realized had been flirting with her had turned out to be a criminal. The deposition went terribly, the technology shut off to prevent a cyber attack, Becca and her UTI and secret boyfriend of six months that she's kept from Mel. And she learned that she would have to be brought in for a second deposition. (And that was just the first day).
Sure, karaoke had been fun with Dr. Santos (were they finally becoming friends? Mel would need to do more research.) and Dr. Langdon had finally come back to The Pitt and he'd apologized to her, of all people, twice. Once for “letting her down” and going to rehab (and truly. He hadn't let her down. Mel had meant that when she said it.) and another for snapping at her in the break room (which, was it truly snapping? He hadn't even raised his voice when he'd interrupted her.) and Mel tried to ignore the fluttering of her heart when she remembered watching the fireworks in the ambulance bay with him.
But the next week was hell, at work. The summer heatstrokes never ended, and the injuries expected on the 4th seemed to be blending into the 5th and 6th as people continued celebrating over the weekend. There was something going on with Dr. Al-Hashimi, Gloria came down to talk with her more than she ever came down to talk to Robby, and Becca was avoiding her.
And then the air conditioning of her apartment gave out.
Four days of July heat with the only reprieve was a box fan with a bowl of ice in front of it. Becca could stay at Middle Hill to avoid the heat (which had the bonus of letting her avoid Mel so that they couldn't have a better talk about the whole Adam thing.) but Mel was left barely sleeping in the too hot apartment. Her meticulous sleep ways were being disturbed. She couldn't sleep under her weighted blanket, the sound of the fan kept waking her up, she could feel the sweat on the backs of her knees, and her dinners sat heavy in her stomach since she was stuck with microwavable frozen food because the idea of even turning the stove on was a nightmare.
Santos and Mckay side eyed her all day, but Mel persisted through her shift. By the end of the twelve hours Mel was dead on her feet. She fell asleep charting the last of her patients at 6:40 (Santos woke her up with a gentle tap, luckily before Dr. Al-Hashimi noticed). Her feet screamed and begged to be free of her shoes and to be elevated. Her glasses kept sliding down her nose from the perspiration, and her head pounded no matter how much water she sipped. After the patient handoff Mel sluggishly changed out of her scrubs in the locker bathroom and stuffed them into her backpack (she would NOT be wearing hospital germs on the bus, and she desperately needed the fabric off her body.) and it was like moving her body through water as she made her way out past The Hub. Really, it was a miracle that she even registered the, “Dr. King, do you have one moment?”
Jack (Dr. Abbot, they were still at work, she had to remind her heat muddled brain.) had that severe look on his face, one that Mel still wasn't quite sure how to interpret. He led the way into North 6, which was empty because Esme still hadn't been in to clean up some blood that was streaked on the floor.
“Are you doing ok, Honey?” Uncle Jack had taken that stance he always did, his feet apart, his hands behind his back. But rather than leaned backward he leaned forward towards her. “You look like Hell chewed you up and spit you back out. Is your A/C still on the fritz?”
All the water in Mel's system was needed for function, so luckily she didn't have anything left for tears, "Maintenance came by and tried to fix it. They said it's completely dead and needs to be replaced with a new unit. With the summer heat we're on a wait-list. It’ll be another four or five days until they can do anything else for us. Becca is staying overnight at Middle Hill until then.”
Jack nodded once, and then reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys, “Ok. Here's what you're going to do. You're going to take my car and go home and grab whatever you need: pajamas, your favorite blanket, or whatever. Your fucking shampoo if you need it, I don't care. And then you're going to drive to my house and sleep there.”
“Jack I couldn't possibly-”
“Melissa Rose King.”
That. That shut her up. Goodness it'd been over a decade since she'd been full named at the beginning of a scolding.
“I will not stand by and do nothing when your apartment is attempting to get you to check yourself in as a patient for heatstroke. Now, take these,” he forced the keys into her hands, “and get going. I'll take an Uber home.”
And Mel really can't say no to that, so she takes the keys, thanks him profusely (which of course he shrugs off) and finally walks out of The Pitt doors. She hasn't had a car since their mother's car broke down on the side of the road three years ago, so she and Becca always made due with the bus. When Mel finds herself behind the wheel of Jack's SUV, driving home for the first time, it's a little nerve-racking. She sees so many MCVs each week, she hasn't been desensitized to being the one in charge of one of the thousands vehicles on the road. She decided she didn't particularly care for being in charge of hundred pounds of moving metal.
She's going the opposite direction of morning traffic so it takes no time at all to roll onto her street and park in her assigned parking spot, and she breathes a sigh of relief as she puts the gearshift into park. She stumbles through her door and practically runs to take a shower. The lukewarm water rejuvenates her enough that she is able to think through eating a granola bar, brushing her teeth, grabbing her duffel, stuffing it with her pillow, weighted blanket, her white nose machine, and a change of clothes. In her pajamas (shorts and a tank top because it's still too warm and humid outside at 8:00) she lugs her stuff to Jack's car and throws it in his trunk. Mel blasts the car AC and it feels amazing against her slightly damp hair. This time she remembers to plug her phone in through the USB-C so that she can play Megan The Stallion rather than scroll through Jack's radio settings (Ew. She'd suffered on the way home.)
Jack's house is too big for a single man, but he'd inherited it when his parents passed and wasn't willing to sell, especially considering he'd ended up in Pittsburgh anyway. The red brick is charming, the craftsman style gable and front porch inviting and warm.
Mel unlocks the door, and is soon met with a new dilemma. Jack probably intended for her to take the guest room. But it's Jack's bedroom that has the blackout curtains that Mel knows she'll need to truly get a good night's sleep.
It's the picture of Aunt Jen, Becca, and herself -all three of them in braided pigtails and covered in flour and laughing- on his bedside table that solidifies her decision. Mel had expected the picture to be just of Jennifer, but instead he'd fallen asleep next to a picture of his late wife and his once lost goddaughters for years. His bed was made, and she can imagine him making sure that everything is tucked and neat after years of being required to do so on various army bases. She lays her weighted blanket on top, and shuffles under it and the covers. Her nose and ears feel cool in his blessedly chilly house, the sheets smell of Jack, the sandalwood of his bodywash familiar in a way that her inner child distinctly remembers, and she has the thought of “Smell is the sense most strongly connected to memory” before she drifts off.
She sleeps for thirteen hours, so deeply that it feels dreamless. It's the sounds of movement from the kitchen and the aroma of cooking that wakes her. She shuffles out of the bedroom, grabs a throw blanket (a deep blue long since faded, quilted. Familiar) from the back of the couch in the living room and wraps it around her shoulders like a cape.
Jack is still in his scrubs (ew) and he places a plate with a stack of pancakes and a small bowl of blueberries in front of her as she takes a seat at the kitchen island.
He tells her about his patients that day over his own stack of pancakes, and updates her on the three she'd handed over last night. She takes over in the kitchen to clean up, rinsing the dishes before sticking them in the dishwasher, and washing the dirty pan in the sink.
And Mel wants. She doesn't want this moment to end, where she's taken care of but she does her part. Mel hasn't been just a daughter in so long. She's always been the “you have to take care of Becca” daughter. The “I'm so glad we don't have to worry about you” daughter. The never explicitly stated but always implied “Your dad is gone, so I'm going to need you to act grown up so that we can get through this” daughter. And then she'd taken over being sister and mother and caregiver and she was just so so tired. And so lonely.
After a year of Sunday dinners at least every other week, of being loved and cared for in those small, seemingly meaningless ways (Extra lunches left for her in the break room fridge. Texts checking in when he'd heard she’d had a tough case or lost a patient unexpectedly. Movie nights with Becca that weren't watching Elf or games nights when their schedules aligned for it.) and being loved in the big ways (Tickets to the Renaissance Fair next month and he'd promised to dress as a pirate and show off his prosthetic leg. Giving her the dried remnants of Aunt Jen's sour dough starter that he'd miraculously been able to save all those years ago. Opening his home to her so that she could truly sleep for the first time in a week.) Mel was finally ready to take what she wanted.
She'd given everything. And last week when she'd realized that Becca had everything she wanted, and Mel had spiralled, lost in the woods of all her life circumstances and decisions that had led to her that day.
When Uncle Jack offered the guestroom until her AC was fixed it was easy to accept the invitation.
And when he glanced at her, a little hesitant but hopeful, “And maybe it could be a trial run. If you want?”
His offer from last year had never been rescinded. Mel wanted. And for once: Melissa King took.