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“We can’t keep doing this,” Mel pants while Frank bites down her neck.
“You said that last time,” he groans in her ear. His hand on her waist is bruising, stoking the fire in her core.
“You’re married,” she states. Frank nips her earlobe in retort.
“I know.”
“This is so bad,” she whines.
“If this is bad, then I don’t want to be good, baby,” he says. It shuts her up easily. He crashes their lips back together, Mel’s head falling back to the wall behind her. He puts his hand behind it to cushion the impact.
It’s so hard to stop when he’s like this. And he’s always like this. Always attentive, always kind and sweet and catering to her every whim. She knows if she asked, if she really made an attempt to stop, he would step back. He would give her space, distance himself from her.
The real issue is she doesn’t want to. She wants him, has wanted him since her first day, something she has since learned he reciprocated.
She spent ten long months thinking about this, daydreaming about the way his hair would feel between her fingers, the way his callused hands would feel on her skin, the way his stubble would feel in between her legs. She talked Becca’s ear off about how nice he was, how well he understood her, or at least how hard he tried to. She thinks by the third month her sister just stopped listening altogether, not that she blames her.
It wasn’t exactly a secret that she had a crush on him. She knows everyone thinks she follows him around like a lost puppy, and maybe she does. But they don’t know that he’s just as bad.
They don’t know the way he hangs off of her like a baby koala when they’re alone. They don’t know that he follows her into every room of her apartment, even if it’s just to grab a glass of water. They don’t know that they shower together every morning. They don’t know that he’s always touching her in some way; ankles tangled together under the dinner table, his head in her lap on the couch, a hand resting gently on her waist as she chops vegetables for him to fry up for dinner.
She knows. She knows him inside and out, down to his core, knows what he looks like and acts like when he’s in love because it’s geared towards her.
She knows he would stop if she asked, but how could she? How could she when he says things like I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way before and The flecks of green in your eyes is my favorite color and If this is bad, I don’t want to be good, baby?
So she doesn’t. She lets herself have this one thing–the greatest thing–in her life.
She winds her fingers into the hair on the crown of his head and pulls, triggering a pathetic groan out of him. “Oh my god, Mel.” It makes her smile against his lips. He bites her bottom lip in retaliation. “You’re evil.”
She giggles against his mouth before he manhandles her away from the wall and tosses her over his shoulder to head to her bedroom. “Frank!” she yells, pounding her fists into the meat of his ass. “Careful with your back!”
“My back is fine, Mel. I’ve been doing my stretches!”
He climbs on top of her once he’s flopped her on the bed, her back bouncing on the mattress. “I have literally never seen you do a single stretch,” Mel retorts. He kisses her again, hand climbing up under her shirt, squeezing her breast, pinching her nipple, making her cry out.
“Maybe because I never see you anymore,” he grumbles.
“We see each other basically–ah–every day.”
Frank moves his hand down to the waistband of her pants, her underwear, teasing, pulling them off but not touching her. “Yeah, at the hospital. You won’t let me fuck you there.”
“Sorry,” she pouts at him, making fun of him. “The brilliant Dr. Langdon needs to be focused on his patients. He’s an emergency medicine attending, didn’t you know?” He makes his way down her body, biting, bruising. Her body feels electric, telephone wires connecting all the points he’s touched her. “He’s very important–”
She’s cut off when his hand dips into her underwear. “He’s also your superior,” he comments, cupping her, dangerously close to where she wants him, but never granting her relief. “Maybe you should listen when he tells you to do something.” He runs his fingers through her folds, teasing her, making her feel like a ticking time bomb, ready to explode. “We both know how good you are at following directions, Dr. King.”
She tries not to moan at his words, tries not to give the game away, but he’s teasing her and she’s so incredibly turned on, she can’t help it.
“What do you want me to do then, Dr. Langdon?”
“Kiss me,” he rasps. Her heart cracks open in her chest then, and she’s again reminded why she could never give this up. The way he looks at her, the way his voice softens to her, the words he says only to her.
She kisses him, long and deep, turned on but also in love and completely unable to walk away.
“I love you,” he tells her in between kisses.
“I love you,” he whispers when she’s right on the edge.
“I love you,” he groans as he slides into her, like he was made for her.
“I love you,” he whimpers into her neck as they come apart together.
“I love you,” he mumbles into her hair as sleep takes over.
She wakes to the ruffling of fabric and an empty pillow next to her. She can’t really see–it’s still dark out and her glasses are resting on her nightstand–but she knows what he’s doing.
“Gotta go, baby,” he tells her, buckling his belt. She hears herself make a pathetic little noise at his words. “I know, but I’ll see you later.”
“Yeah, at work,” she groans.
He walks over and places a knee on her bed, leaning over her. “I’ll see if we can sneak in a few hours after shift, okay?” he asks, brushing a strand of her tangled hair behind her ear. She nods and pulls him down to meet her mouth. Her heart flutters in her chest. “Love you,” he mumbles against her lips before pecking her one last time and heading out.
She checks the time on her phone and sees it's only half past three, and falls back asleep with a smile on her face.
When she wakes again, the first streams of daylight are brightening the deep navy sky outside her window, and she has a weird feeling in her gut. She can’t put a finger on it, but it makes her just want to stay in bed and breathe in the scent of Frank’s shampoo and cologne and sweat sticking to her sheets.
She needs to wash them again soon, her next day off maybe, but it always makes her a little sad to lose the scent of him. She likes that there’s a part of him that is left behind when he leaves, even unintentionally. She likes that he’s here, in her bed enough that he becomes imprinted in the fabric of her bedding. She likes that she can roll over in the middle of the night and be enveloped by him, even if he’s not there.
The eerie feeling follows her all the way to work, itching in the back of her brain, continuing to worsen with every new step.
First her hair won’t lay right in her braid. She struggles with it for 15 minutes and eventually has to give up and throw it into a ponytail before she misses her bus. Then, there’s an accident on her bus route and they have to take a detour, making her get to the hospital later than she’d like. Within her first hour in the ED she’s vomited and urinated on, and has to change into the scratchy hospital scrubs instead of her own, the fabric making her feel itchy and on edge all morning. (The patient was a baby, so it’s understandable, but the scrub thing still makes her mildly annoyed.)
It’s not until a few minutes after noon that everything falls apart. She’s in triage, caring for flu-like symptoms and broken bones, an overhead speaker announces a Code Silver and orders all non-essential workers to evacuate the building. Working in a hospital means high stakes nearly 24/7, but in all her time spent in a hospital, this situation has never come up. She makes her way to Radiology, the ED’s designated evacuation zone.
Once evacuated, she finds a few of her coworkers in the CT room. She tries to find Frank in the mess, searches for a tall head of brown floppy hair in the crowd of people, but comes up empty handed. She’s not worried, just assumes he’s elsewhere, on the phone or evacuated to a different location for some reason.
She does find Dr. Robby, brows furrowed, scraping his fingers through his beard in stress. He’s talking to Dr. Santos, his body tense, eyes hard. Dr. Santos is biting her lip in a nervous tic, arms crossed over her chest.
She spots Mel first, but looks away quickly before Mel can read the expression on her face.
“Dr. Robby,” Mel greets, joining the two of them.
“Mel.” His voice is strained. Dr. Santos still won’t look at her.
“What’s going on?”
She watches his face change, from stress to quiet resolution. “There was an… aggressive patient. He had an open carry firearm and he is now, uh, holding one of our doctors hostage in Trauma 1.”
“One of our doctors meaning the hospital? Or—”
“No. One of our ED doctors.”
“Oh.” There’s a thick, sinking feeling in her gut. It could be anyone. It could be one of the residents she doesn’t know very well, or a med student that just started their EM rotation—still sad, of course, but not the unthinkable. It could be anyone, but she knows deep down that it’s not. “Have you seen—”
“It’s Langdon, Mel,” Santos blurts out, clearly agitated. “I… I’m really sorry.”
Mel and Frank’s closeness isn’t a secret in the ED. It’s a known fact that they work best together—the way they orbit around each other and finish each other’s sentences—and spend a decent amount of time outside of work together, but everyone seems to assume that he’s her best friend that she has an unrequited crush on. (If only they knew.)
Santos’s words echo in her brain, causing a headache with every reverberation. She feels like she might throw up, here, on the asphalt of the ambulance bay. “Is, uh. Is there anything we can do?”
“The police are monitoring. The Crisis Negotiation Team is on their way. They’re gonna do their job and get him out.” Robby’s voice is measured and even, but she hears the twinge of fear underneath.
“Okay, uh,” Santos speaks up. “Why don’t we go take a seat, Mel?”
She’s led to an empty corner of the room and placed gently on the floor, back against the wall. She thinks she’s doing a decent job of covering up her anxiety, trying to breathe deeply, to keep her face neutral, but she’s never been a good actor. Her fingers are wringing in her lap, her self-soothing tactic.
“He’s gonna be fine,” Santos speaks again. “He’s too stubborn to die.”
Mel snorts a bitter laugh. “Thank you, Trinity, that's very helpful.”
“Just doing my part.” She can tell she means for it to be a joke, but it comes out sad, conflicted. Then: “Mel.” She meets her eyes, a worry in them that Mel’s never seen before. “What— I’m only gonna ask this once, and then I’ll drop it. What is he? To you, I mean. You guys are close obviously, and everyone knows you’re, like, best friends or whatever, but I don’t know. The way he looks at you sometimes… It seems like something different, I guess.”
Santos has always been too smart for her own good, much like Frank. She’s observant, always catching onto things that others miss. Diagnoses, addictions, and now affairs. Mel doesn’t answer, just meets Santos’s eyes. It’s enough.
“Okay.” Santos nods, and says nothing else. They sit in silence for a while after that, Mel wringing her fingers into knots over and over, biting her lip so much that it begins to bleed. The metallic taste on her tongue almost sends her hurling. Picturing Frank alone in a trauma room with a gun pointed at him, Frank on the floor in a pool of the same red fluid seeping out of Mel’s lips surrounding him, growing by the second.
Mel hears a voice then, one that haunts her dreams most nights.
She’s met Abby a few times. It was hard to avoid it when the two of them both play big roles in Frank’s life. They’re not the biggest fans of each other. Aside from the obvious, they have almost nothing in common. Abby is cold and professional, wants things done right the first time and when her plans don’t go the way she imagined them, she gets angry, taking it out on those around her. She loves her kids, probably even loved Frank at one point (though that ship has long since sailed), but her tolerance where Mel is concerned has never been high.
The first time they met was when Tanner broke his arm and was brought into the ED. Abby was wearing Lululemon from head to toe, dark hair perfectly styled, her nails freshly manicured. She was also quite unpleasant, but Mel assumed it was just the stress that revealed itself as anger, and decided to think nothing of it.
The couple of times after that were in passing. Mel picking Frank up for work the day his car was in the shop, Abby dropping off Frank’s lunchbox when he forgot it, the very awkward car ride home with the three of them when Frank was driving Mel home after a night shift and Abby got too drunk at brunch and needed him to pick her up too. Mel sat in the back seat like a petulant child, her desire for him growing by the second, while Abby complained the entire ride to Mel’s apartment, then insulted it backhandedly for good measure. He ended up kissing her for the first time less than a week later, in that very same car.
Now is the first time Abby has ever seemed happy to see Mel, in an unfamiliar part of the hospital, presumably already informed of Frank’s situation, following behind Robby. “Mel,” Abby sighs in relief. She pulls Mel into a frantic hug without asking, causing Mel to tense up in her arms.
“Um, hi,” is all Mel can manage in response. She doesn’t know what to do with a display of kindness from Frank’s wife.
“I saw it on the news and Frank’s not answering his fucking phone. Do you know anything?”
“Um,” Mel looks at Robby, still standing next to the two of them. He nods. “Frank is being held by an aggressive patient. That’s all I know.”
“Fuck,” Abby breathes. “Fuck! The kids. What am I gonna do? I can’t handle them alone.”
Mel is hit with a spark of anger then. Abby’s love for Frank seems to extend only to the things he can provide her, not who he is as a person.
Mel has always known this somewhat. When Frank got caught diverting, when he was out of work for ten months, Abby’s first concern was how they would afford their lives without his (already measly) salary. When she found out he would have to repeat his R4 year, she nearly cried because he wouldn’t have that delicious Attending Physician money for another year.
Apparently Mel’s comeuppance for being a mistress to a man with kids is having to sit next to his wife for an indeterminate amount of time while he’s held at gunpoint in their work place. The entire situation is tense and awkward, and Mel spends the entire proceeding hour twisting her fingers into knots.
She must dissociate herself out of the situation, desperate to not be here, because when she returns to her body, there’s a large cop in front of her. He’s wearing a vest with “NEGOTIATOR” printed on his chest.
“Dr. King?” the cop asks, grabbing her attention.
“I’m sorry?” she responds.
“I was saying we made contact with Dr. Langdon inside the room. He’s asking to speak with you.”
Her heart drops into her stomach, but she tries her hardest to school her expression. Abby is still sitting two feet away from her.
In all honesty, Mel never felt especially guilty for sleeping with (falling desperately in love with) a married man. She should, probably, but it’s hard to feel any negative emotion when there is Frank Langdon next to her and around her and inside of her. The most guilt she felt was for taking him away from time with his kids, though he always assured her they were already asleep when they were together.
Before they started this whole affair, when their friendship was just that, the two of them spent time with Tanner and Penny somewhat often. They’d take trips to the park in Mel’s neighborhood and each push one of the kids on the swing, or they’d sit on a bench and watch them play pretend on the jungle gym, talking for hours. Sometimes she thinks she fell in love with Frank on that rusted park bench, though the reality is it was long before then.
Now the two of them only seem to see each other in the walls of the hospital or in the dead of night. It makes her feel a little dirty sometimes, like a secret to be hidden, but then he kisses her and holds her and tells her he loves her over and over again, and then it’s just happiness she feels. If Abby noticed that she and Frank never hang out anymore (at least in her eyes), she’s never mentioned it. No one knows if she’d even care.
Abby is looking between Mel and the cop, still holding the phone in mid air, her face unreadable. Mel is sure in another time this would cause her immense anxiety, but Frank is locked in a room with a gun right now, so she doesn’t really care. She just takes the phone, hand shaking.
“Hello?”
“Mel,” he sighs, his voice wavering in fear. “Mel, I need your help.”
“What?”
“Mr. Sutton has asked for the best doctor I know to help me with his case,” he tells her, speaking very carefully. “He’s made it very clear that this isn’t a psychological condition. Can you help me with a diagnosis?”
“Yes.” She knows then, what he’s telling her to do.
They’ve always been good at reading each other, finishing each other’s sentences on the second day of working together, after ten months of separation. It’s one of their strengths in the ED, but everywhere else too. Mel knows exactly what Frank is going to ask for during a trauma—EFAST, oxygen, intubation tray. Frank knows exactly how to make Mel laugh until she snorts and tease her until she begs.
“Okay. I’m gonna put the phone on speaker.” There’s a rustling on the phone telling her he’s made the switch. Mel does the same, so the police know what’s happening.
She gives it a moment until she speaks next. “Hi, Mr. Sutton, I’m Dr. King. Can you tell me your symptoms?”
When there’s no answer, Frank speaks up, voice more strained than before. “He told me he’s been having nausea and headaches, along with some balance issues and blurry vision.”
“Okay. Well, it could be a few things, but we’ll need to run some tests to confirm anything. We’ll have to take you to Radiology for that, so you’ll have to leave the ED. Dr. Langdon can lead you there. Is that okay?” She tries very hard to keep her voice even, her tone calm.
The cop next to her sends a simple signal to another down the hall, who then speaks quietly into his radio. Frank knows that the ED is evacuated to Radiology in crisis events, and she will probably get a mouthful if he makes it out of this for sending a man with a gun to her exact location.
“Uh, okay. Yeah, we’ll head that way.” He doesn’t hang up, though. “Mel.” His voice is different then, softer. The same softness that he uses when they’re alone, when her entire body is wrapped around his. She takes the phone off speaker then, holds it back to her ear. “If I get out of this,” he pauses, letting out a watery breath. “If I get out of this, we’re doing this for real, okay? No more sneaking around. I love y–” Then the line goes dead.
Her heart drops into her stomach, a chill runs down her back. All she can do now is hope he makes it out.
It takes another twenty minutes for any news to come. It’s a dreadful, tense wait. Abby paces the perimeter of the hall. Mel sits in a corner, curled as small as her body will allow. Robby is rubbing his hands raw through his beard. Santos bites her nails down to the quick.
Mel is about to explode with anxiety when there’s a commotion at the end of the hall. There’s an entourage of cops in uniform, with the same NEGOTIATOR vests as the one she’s been speaking to. She stands up quickly at the noise. One of the cops announces that the suspect has been detained, but it means nothing to her until she sees Frank.
Every new person that enters the space is another person who knows where he is, knows if he’s alive. Her heart rate rises with every unfamiliar face. Then, like an angel descending from the heavens, she sees the dark head of hair that she’s spent the better part of two years memorizing. It knocks the wind out of her, makes her forget how to breathe.
The crowd of uniformed officers parts and he’s there, still in his scrubs, face flushed. There’s bruises forming all over his body. She feels sick. He’s searching the bodies crowded in Radiology, looking for her, she knows.
Robby finds him first, though Frank all but blows him off. Their relationship never quite recovered from the diversion. “Where’s–” Frank starts.
“Abby’s over there,” Robby tells him, pointing him in the direction of his wife.
“Uh, yeah, right. Abby,” he stammers. “Thanks.”
Mel’s eyes follow Frank over to Abby. Her long arms wrap around his neck easily. Abby’s always been a polar opposite to Mel. Shiny dark hair that stops just below her shoulders, bright green eyes that can function without glasses, gorgeous long legs that make her stand at five foot ten. Frank couldn’t have chosen two more different women to love.
A mean, self-deprecating part of her brain thinks about how much better Abby is suited for him. She can kiss him easier, so he doesn’t have to lean down and hurt his back. She doesn’t have a grueling job, she can be the perfect stay-at-home wife, and can care for him the way he deserves. (Though she doesn’t think she actually does that.)
Then, the most damning of all, she’s the mother of his children. The reason he gets up in the morning, the reason he got sober, the reason he stays in a loveless marriage with a woman he dated for three months before the world shut down and he made the choice to quarantine with, then ended up accidentally getting pregnant.
Mel knows Frank loves her. She sees it in the way he looks at her, feels it in the way he kisses her, hears it in the way he tells her over and over. She just doesn’t know how she can compete with the Goliath that is Abby Langdon.
Frank’s arms slowly, cautiously wrap around Abby’s waist, but he looks more confused than relieved. Then, his eyes find Mel’s in the chaos and she sees his body melt, his eyes soften, even while his face is tucked into his wife’s neck.
His eyes on her are too much, so she turns and walks the opposite way down the hall.