Archive of Our Own

Everybody finds somebody someplace

There's no telling where love may appear

Something in my heart keeps saying

My someplace is here 

After a treacherous shift at PTMC, Robby stepped into his office in search of a moment of silence. His first instinct was to do absolutely nothing—to drop into his chair, put his head on the desk, and let the world shut the fuck up around him for one fleeting second. But then he thought—eh, better not. So instead, with a tired sigh and the familiar bone deep reluctance that followed shifts like this, he logged into his computer. The first thing waiting for him was an email Gloria had forwarded with the subject line:

Great PR Opportunity!

“Fucking PR,” he muttered under his breath, already rolling his eyes before he’d even clicked it open.

To whom it may concern,

I hope this email finds you well! My name is Frank Langdon. I’m a medical journalist with nearly eight years of experience in research, journals, and medical publications. I’ve attached several samples of my work for your review.
I’m reaching out in hopes of interviewing a professional from each department at PTMC. The discussion would focus less on the clinical side of medicine and more on the human experience behind the work—what it’s truly like to work within each department, how the job affects day-to-day life, the emotional realities of the profession, and the balance between personal identity and patient care.
Your hospital has long been of particular interest to me due to your reputation for handling high-acuity emergency medicine, your interdisciplinary collaboration, and your commitment to innovative patient care under pressure. 
If this sounds like something your team would be interested in, I would be thrilled to begin coordinating interviews. I will be in Pittsburgh from August 16th-30th. 
Thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to read this. I look forward to hearing from you.

Frank Langdon
Medical Journalist & Research Writer 

Robby stared at the signature for a moment before clicking the attachments beneath it. He was met with, honestly, some pretty great work. He read through some of the attachments before finally deciding, with far less reluctance than he’d expected, to respond. 

Mr. Langdon,

After reviewing your work—quite impressive stuff, by the way—I’ve decided this seems like an opportunity we’d be interested in pursuing. I already have someone in mind who I think would make an excellent interviewee. I’ll discuss it with her and get back to you as soon as I have confirmation.

Dr. Michael Robinavitch
Chief of Emergency Medicine
Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center

Truthfully, there was only one person he could think of who would not only agree to this, but would probably be genuinely excited about it. Most of the staff—himself included—would either dodge the interview entirely or spend the whole thing giving a brutally honest breakdown of how catastrophically overworked everyone in the Pitt is.

Senior resident Dr. Melissa King.

Mel could talk about medicine for hours if you let her. She loved the work, loved the chaos of it, loved explaining things to people who actually wanted to listen. She equally loved talking about the things she did outside of medicine, even if it wasn’t much. So Robby pulled out his phone, thumb already moving across the screen as he typed up a quick message to her before finally heading out for the night.

One email for tonight was good enough for him.

When Mel walked into her shift the next morning, she made a beeline straight for Dr. Robby’s office.

One thing about him was that he might as well have a doctorate in vague messaging. The text she’d received from him the night before had been incredibly cryptic and deeply anxiety-inducing, which wasn’t surprising in the slightest, but still managed to have the exact same effect on her it always did.

Meet me in my office first thing tomorrow morning. I have something to discuss with you.

Needless to say, Mel hadn’t gotten much sleep. Not that sleepless nights were unusual for her, but her insomnia wasn’t always fueled by anxiety, and this time the exhaustion had settled deep into both her bones and her psyche. By the time she arrived at the hospital, she was running mostly on caffeine and nerves.

She stepped into Robby’s office and was immediately met with a smile on his face. The sight of it loosened some of the tension sitting tight across her shoulders.

“Good morning, Dr. King,” he greeted warmly before pausing as he took in the look on her face. “Good things, Mel. I promise,” he added with a light chuckle, gesturing toward the open seat across from his desk.

Mel sat down reluctantly, still suspicious, and cleared her throat. “With all due respect, Dr. Robby, I’d really appreciate a little more clarity in your messages regarding work,” she said quietly, eyes fixed on the cup of pens beside his paper tray instead of looking directly at him. Robby laughed at that. It wasn’t the first time someone had complained about his messaging style, and unfortunately, due to his complete unwillingness to better himself in that regard, it definitely wouldn’t be the last.

“Noted,” he conceded easily, lifting his hands in quick surrender before leaning back slightly in his chair. “I wanted to talk to you about a pretty cool opportunity I was presented with that I thought would be a great fit for you.”

“What kind of opportunity?” she asked, her eyes finally shooting up to meet his, curiosity overtaking the anxiety almost immediately.

“A medical journalist reached out to PTMC wanting to interview someone from each department about what the job is actually like and all the personal stuff that comes with it, and I immediately thought of you,” he said, smiling softly and gesturing toward her like she was the most obvious choice in the world.

“Really?” she asked, excitement rushing visibly into her expression. “I would love to! Wow, this is so exciting.”

Ever since Mel learned how to read, her nose had been buried in a book.

It started with the obvious childhood staples—Magic Tree House, Junie B. Jones, worn library copies of The Babysitters Club with cracked spines and dog-eared corners. 

Then, as she got older, her taste matured alongside her. In high school, she devoured books like The Bell Jar, The Secret History, When Breath Becomes Air, anything dense and emotional and intelligent enough to make her sit awake at two in the morning staring at the ceiling afterward.

But one book had always remained in rotation: the twelfth edition of Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine. Her father had passed it down to her before he died, and she’d treated it less like a textbook and more like a bible ever since. 

In between novels and assigned reading, Mel would spend hours flipping through page after page of dense medical jargon, curled up at the kitchen table long after midnight with a bowl of cereal going soggy beside her. She read it on the bus with her headphones in, read it sprawled across her bed until she fell asleep with the heavy thing covering half her face.

To this day, some of Mel’s favorite things to read were medical journals and textbooks.

Anyone who stepped foot into her apartment would find stacks on nearly every surface—coffee table, kitchen counter, nightstand, even the arm of the couch. It was an absurdly expensive collection, but completely worth it in her mind. How could it not be when she was constantly learning something new?

So being presented with this opportunity, to be interviewed by someone who creates some of her favorite media, and more specifically—a chance to talk not just about medicine itself, but everything surrounding it—was immediately, deeply appealing to her.

“Awesome. He said he’ll be here the last two weeks of August—” Robby trailed off as he clicked through something on his computer. “Looks like you have the twenty-sixth off. Wednesday. Does that work for you?”

Mel immediately pulled out her phone and opened her meticulously organized calendar app. She clicked over to August and smiled when she saw no color blocks filling the date.

“That’s perfect,” she said, her smile widening as she set her phone back in her lap, fingers twisting together with barely-contained excitement. “Thank you so much, Dr. Robby. This is very exciting for me.”

“I thought so,” Robby replied, smiling fondly at her enthusiasm. “Go get ’em, kid.”

“Absolutely,” she said quickly, nodding once before standing to head back out into the chaos of the department. But halfway to the door, a thought suddenly struck her. “Quick question,” she said, turning back toward him.

“Shoot.”

“What’s the name of the medical journalist?” she asked, glancing briefly down at her shoes before looking back up at him.

“Hmm,” Robby hummed absently, clicking back through his computer until he found the email again.

Then, casually—

“His name is Frank Langdon.”

It took less than half a second for recognition to click into place. Mel’s entire body went still. Her eyes widened slightly, all the excitement from moments ago abruptly freezing into something closer to shock. For a second, she genuinely looked like she’d seen a ghost.

“Dr. King?” Robby interrupted carefully, eyebrows pulling together as he watched her expression shift in real time. “Is everything okay?”

Because Frank Langdon was Mel’s favorite medical journalist.

Sure, most people didn’t have a favorite medical journalist. Most people weren’t invested enough in the personal side of medical research and journalism to repeatedly seek out the same byline until it became familiar, comforting even. But Mel had never been particularly normal about the things she loved, so honestly, this tracked.

She had read almost everything he’d published. His work sat highlighted and tabbed among the stacks of journals in her apartment. She knew the cadence of his writing, the way he balanced clinical precision with humanity, how he somehow managed to make medicine feel less sterile and more alive. She’d referenced his articles during residency more times than she could count. Hell, she even had a copy of Seconds to Cut: Inside the World of Emergency Surgery by Frank Langdon sitting in her locker at that very moment, just waiting to be annotated. 

It didn’t help that the little headshot attached to the end of all his work looked like it had been pulled straight from a Hollywood actor’s résumé. He looked unfairly handsome, even through the grainy black-and-white print.

And now she was apparently going to be interviewed by him.

“Mhm, yup,” she said quickly, nodding a little too hard. “Everything is great! Thank you again, I’ll—I will see you out there!” she finished, snapping her fingers and pointing at him with entirely too much enthusiasm.

Robby blinked at her once, clearly unconvinced, and nodded slowly.

Real convincing, Mel, she thought, internally facepalming as she turned and hurried out of the office before she could embarrass herself any further.

Mel spent the weeks leading up to the interview overthinking nearly every aspect of it.

What should I say?

What do I wear?

What happens if I misspeak? Can I take it back, or is it too late the second it leaves my mouth?

What color are his eyes?

What should I do with my hair?

What if he asks me something I don’t know how to answer?

The questions looped endlessly in her head during long shifts, during showers, during the quiet moments right before she fell asleep.

Slowly, though, she figured those things out as best she could. She spent time thinking through the kinds of questions he might ask, though that proved difficult considering “personal stuff”—as Robby had so eloquently phrased it—could realistically mean almost anything.

The night before the interview, she spent an embarrassingly long time deciding what to wear. She felt a little ridiculous standing in front of her closet weighing outfit options like they somehow mattered this much. 

This was a professional opportunity, not a blind date. Frank Langdon was a complete stranger. A respected stranger, sure, but still a stranger. He was interviewing people from every corner of hospital life, and she just happened to be the one Dr. Robby selected from the ED.

That was all.

It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Mel admired his work so much she could probably recognize his writing style after two paragraphs. Or that she occasionally lingered on the tiny black-and-white headshot attached to the end of his articles a second longer than necessary before closing the journal for the night. Not because she was obsessed with him—she absolutely wasn’t—but because it honestly felt unfair for someone that intelligent to also be that handsome.

That was all.

Finally, after way too much deliberation, she landed on a white button-down, a dark pleated skirt, and a black jacket with a striped tie loosely sitting around her collar. It probably didn’t actually matter what she wore, realistically, but she wanted to feel good walking into the interview. She told herself that was mostly for her own benefit. 

Mostly. 

She woke to the insistent sound of her alarm on the morning of August the twenty-sixth after getting approximately three hours of sleep.

Most of the night had been spent tossing and turning, her mind refusing to settle long enough for real rest to take hold. Every time she started drifting off, another thought about the interview would float to the surface and jolt her awake again. Eventually, she gave up.

With a tired groan, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, bare feet hitting the cold hardwood floor before she shuffled toward the bathroom.

Mel was a night showerer. She’d always found it calming, a way to wash the day off before trying to sleep, even if on nights like this it made almost no noticeable difference. At least it meant one less thing to worry about this morning.

She stood in front of the mirror for a beat too long, just staring at herself, then she turned on the sink and splashed cold water over her face a few times, gripping the edges of the counter afterward as she exhaled slowly. The nervous, buzzing feeling crawling up from her toes made her feel completely ridiculous.

This is a professional opportunity to speak about what it’s like to work in an ED. Not a meet and greet. She seriously needed to pull herself together before she walked into that conference room and made a complete fool of herself fan-girling over a medical journalist.

With another quiet sigh, she reached back and pulled her hair free from the braid she’d slept in. Soft waves fell over her shoulders as she combed her fingers through them gently. She plugged in her straightener before reaching for her makeup bag, only to realize it wasn’t where she’d left it. She eventually found it shoved beneath the sink behind a bottle of OxiClean after several seconds of mildly irritated digging.

When she was done, she paused in front of the mirror one last time, taking herself in properly. The outfit looked nice. Professional, but still like her. The sheer black tights and black chelsea boots pulled everything together better than she expected they would. Her hair rested softly against her shoulders, and her makeup was subtle enough that she still looked like herself underneath it.

Yeah, she thought quietly, a small smile pulling at her mouth. I look good.

She glanced down at her watch. 

9:25

The interview was scheduled for 10:00, which meant she had exactly thirty-five minutes to drive to the café, order a double espresso latte and something vaguely substantial to eat, then make it to the hospital and somehow collect herself before walking into the interview.

The second Mel walked into the ED, she felt every set of eyes land on her at once. It wasn’t even subtle, either. Heads turned openly as she crossed through the doors, the usual rhythm of the department briefly disrupted by the fact that Dr. Melissa King had shown up looking noticeably more put together than usual. She could practically feel the attention searing against her skin. The last time she’d come into work dressed up like this was when she had to bring Becca in after she’d taken a nasty fall on the ice coming out of winter formal at Middle Hill.

Mel had never been particularly good at handling attention when it came to her appearance. Something about it always made her feel hyperaware of herself, like her skin suddenly fit wrong.  Back in middle school, when she got her braces off, someone told her she looked like “Normal SpongeBob,” and the comment had somehow stuck hard enough that she covered her mouth when she laughed for months afterward. So she tried her best to ignore the stares now, keeping her focus straight ahead as she hurried toward the lockers.

Unfortunately, Dana spotted her almost immediately.

“Look at you, smokeshow! You got a hot date or somethin’?” Dana called from the nurses’ station, looking her up and down with absolutely no shame whatsoever.

Mel immediately felt heat creep up the back of her neck.

Smokeshow?

That definitely hadn’t been the goal. She’d been aiming for professional. Polished, maybe. Not smokeshow.

Right?

“No, no date,” Mel said quickly, adjusting the coffees and paper bag of cream and sugar balanced precariously in her hands. “Just that interview, which I have to be upstairs for in—” She glanced down at her watch and swore under her breath. “Shoot. Two minutes.”

“Well get goin’, kid,” Dana called back.

Mel immediately pivoted toward the lockers.

“Wrong way!” Dana shouted after her.

“I have to grab something from my locker first!” Mel yelled over her shoulder without slowing down.

She reached her locker, pulled it open, and grabbed what she’d come back for. Then, moving as fast as she reasonably could, she hurried upstairs toward the tiny conference room where Frank Langdon was waiting.

Standing outside conference room seven, Mel took one fleeting moment to steady herself as best she could.

This is a professional opportunity, she reminded herself for what had to be the thousandth time.

Not a meet and greet.

Not a blind date.

Just an interview.

She drew in a slow breath, held it for a second, then let it out carefully before lifting her hand and knocking lightly against the door.

“Come in,” a voice called from the other side, low and husky even through the solid wood.

Her stomach flipped instantly. She reached for the handle and took one final breath before pushing the door open and stepping across the threshold.

The room was small, quiet, almost strangely calm compared to the chaos downstairs. Her eyes found him immediately. At first, she could only really see the top half of him, his attention fixed on the notebook spread open across the conference table. But even then, she recognized him instantly. The outfit was almost identical to the one from the tiny black-and-white headshot she’d stared at too many times over the years—a simple black suit, white button-down, black tie.

Not all that different from what she herself was wearing.

Great, she thought immediately. We’re matching.

“Doctor—” he started, glancing down briefly at his notes. “Melissa King.”

As he said her name, he stood from his chair and finally looked up at her, and something in him shifted. A brief, unexpected pause somewhere deep in his chest.

She looked polished without seeming overly put together, her dark skirt and jacket sharp against the softness of her hair resting over her shoulders. There was nervousness written all over her despite the professional outfit—the kind that showed itself in small things, like the way she held herself a little too carefully in the doorway.

She was pretty.

Strikingly pretty, actually.

Frank blinked once, almost imperceptibly, before a warm smile settled across his face. “It’s very nice to meet you,” he said, and held out his hand toward her.

Mel quickly set her belongings on the table before stepping forward to accept his handshake. The second their hands met, something in her chest tightened unexpectedly. His hand completely enveloped hers—warm, steady, unfairly large. For a brief moment, she forgot every sentence she’d rehearsed on the drive there. Frank seemed momentarily caught off guard too, his expression shifting almost imperceptibly as her soft hand settled into his. The handshake lingered just slightly longer than necessary before they finally let go.

“My name is Frank Langdon,” he said, settling back into his chair and gesturing toward the open seat across from him in silent invitation. “I’m excited for the opportunity to ask you some questions about what it’s really like to work in emergency medicine.”

Mel remained standing for half a second too long, her brain still struggling to catch up with the fact that this was a real person sitting in front of her and not just a name and a headshot printed beneath articles she’d reread a dozen times.

Blue.

His eyes are blue.

Bright, striking, almost unfairly blue.

“Yes, I know—” she blurted out before her brain could stop her.

God dammit.

Heat rushed instantly into her face. “I mean—yes. Me too,” she corrected quickly, laughing softly at herself as she finally lowered into the chair across from him. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Langdon.”

To Frank’s credit, he didn’t seem put off by the stumble at all. If anything, the corners of his mouth lifted slightly more, like he found it charming. “You can just call me Frank, Dr. King. Mr. Langdon is my father,” he said, his eyes meeting hers once more, holding her there.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Surely her heart couldn’t handle this. This is so much worse than she had anticipated. Astronomically worse. She knew he was handsome. She’d seen that photo of him so many times before. She knew how he wrote, how easily his charm came through on the page. But now, sitting across from him with those arctic blue eyes fixed on her, she was sure she was going to have a heart attack.

“Okay, Frank,” she responded, her eyes falling away from his down to her hands threaded together in her lap, “If that’s the case then you can call me Mel.”

“Sounds like a deal,” he replied, his voice incredibly smooth, sending goosebumps up Mel’s back. She desperately needed to change the subject.

“Here,” she said, reaching for the coffee she’d picked up earlier and held it out toward him. “I wasn’t sure if you drink coffee, but I didn’t want you to get stuck with the mediocre stuff we have here, so… I got you one. It’s black, but I grabbed cream and sugar too, just in case.”

Frank looked at her for a moment, visibly caught off guard. He’d conducted hundreds of interviews over the years. He’d traveled all over speaking to doctors, nurses, surgeons, paramedics—people from every corner of healthcare imaginable. He’d sat through countless conversations watching interviewees walk in carrying fancy iced drinks and overpriced lattes while he survived on stale, watered-down hospital coffee that somehow always tasted vaguely burnt.

Usually, he stopped somewhere beforehand. This morning, though, he’d been running late.

When PTMC had sent over the names of the people he’d be interviewing, he’d done what he always did and looked through the staff directory online for anything that might help guide his questions. Then, he landed on Dr. Melissa King, and he’d paused. Not because he was some creep obsessing over a hospital headshot, but because there had been something immediately warm about her face. Kind eyes. A smile that looked genuine even in a stiff professional photo. So undeniably pretty that he’d found himself staring a second longer than necessary before finally clicking away.

Which, unfortunately, had led to him spending far too much time that morning fixing his hair, adjusting his tie, and mentally rehearsing ways to sound charming without sounding like he was actively trying to be charming. At one point he’d actually caught himself standing in front of the fuzzy motel mirror rehearsing introductions like a nervous freshman asking the head cheerleader to homecoming. And now she was sitting across from him in a perfectly coordinated outfit, arm stretched toward him offering what was very obviously expensive coffee, and somehow she was even prettier in person.

The smile on her face made something strange and light flutter briefly in his chest.

“Oh, uh—” He swallowed quickly before reaching for the cup, his fingers brushing hers again for the briefest second. “Thank you. That’s really nice. Honestly, this hospital has pretty shit coffee.”

Mel laughed softly at that, the sound warm and easy as she lifted her own cup for a sip. Then she gestured toward the little bag of cream and sugar sitting between them.

Frank lifted a hand politely. “No, thank you. I prefer mine dark and bitter.” A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.

Mel laughed again almost instantly.

Ridiculously handsome, intelligent, and funny in a way she didn’t have to overanalyze just to understand?

Yeah, she’s fucked.

He lifted the cup to his mouth and took a sip, humming softly as the hot coffee slid down his throat. “Good stuff,” he said, setting it back down on the table and tapping lightly against the lid with his fingertips.

“Yeah,” Mel replied with a small smile. “It’s my favorite spot.”

He smiled back at her easily, the kind of smile that seemed to come naturally to him, before taking one final deep breath through his nose like he was mentally shifting gears. The atmosphere in the room focused subtly after that

“Okay,” he said finally, nodding once and lifting an eyebrow slightly. “Shall we begin?”

Mel nodded gently in return, wrapping both hands around her own coffee cup like it might ground her somehow.

Frank tapped his pen against the notebook in front of him three times before glancing down at the page. When he looked back up at her, there was something different in his expression now. The charm was still there—she got the feeling that was simply built into him—but it was layered now with something more attentive.

“I want to know about you,” he said. “What’s the driving force behind your career?”

Mel paused almost immediately, her eyes dropping toward the coffee cup sitting near his hand. Frank could practically see the gears beginning to turn behind her expression, her brain clearly sorting through carefully rehearsed responses and trying to decide which one sounded smartest.

“Okay, let me stop you really quick,” he interrupted gently before she could answer, leaning forward slightly and resting one hand against the table between them. “You seem like the type to spend hours predicting the questions I might ask. Am I right?”

She looked back up at him then and caught the knowing amusement sitting in his eyes, softening the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. It wasn’t mocking. If anything, it felt strangely fond, which made absolutely no sense considering they’d known each other for less than five minutes. Something about how quickly he read her made her heart stumble awkwardly against her ribs.

“Maybe,” she admitted, her tone immediately giving her away.

Frank laughed softly at that and leaned back again, spinning the pen once between his fingers. “Okay,” he said, pointing it toward her briefly. “Forget everything.”

Mel genuinely didn’t think that was possible, but he seemed to believe it was, so she tried anyway. She closed her eyes for a brief second and attempted to push down the tornado of thoughts that had been spiraling through her head since the moment Robby said his name weeks ago.

“I want to know about you,” he said again, quieter this time. “Not what you think I want to know.”

A chill moved lightly down her spine. She immediately reminded herself that this was an interview. Of course he wanted to know her. That was the entire point of his work—the humanity behind the profession, the people beneath the titles and credentials. But there was something about the way he said it that made her stomach flip unexpectedly. Maybe it was the eye contact. Maybe it was the warmth in his voice. Maybe it was the fact that when Frank spoke to someone, he had this unnerving ability to make them feel like they were the only person in the room worth listening to.

“Ready?” he asked again after a moment, his voice still gentle. Genuinely willing to wait for her to catch up.

Mel laughed softly under her breath and shrugged one shoulder, lips pulling slightly to one side. “I guess,” she admitted.

He looked into her eyes again, but this time they held something she couldn’t quite decipher. “Go ahead,” he said, his hand opening toward her like he was ready to catch every word she gave him. “I don’t really care about the version of you everybody else gets.”

Suddenly, Mel’s nerves lit up again, but this time it wasn’t the anxious buzzing that had followed her around all morning. Excitement spread through her chest so quickly it almost caught her off guard. Because this man—someone whose work she had admired for years—was sitting across from her with his full attention fixed unwaveringly on her face, asking to hear the version of herself nobody else really stopped to ask about. And yes, logically, she understood that this was his job. Frank made a career out of getting people to open up to him. He traveled around interviewing healthcare workers, listening to their stories, peeling back the layers beneath the polished professional exterior. That was the entire point of this.

But still. There was something in the way he looked at her that felt a little too personal to write off completely. Like he was searching for something in her eyes that words alone couldn’t fully explain. Like he wanted to understand her instead of just document her. And maybe she was imagining it—honestly, she probably was—but it made her heart beat just a little harder anyway. Nobody really looked at her like that. Not like they wanted to know her beyond the version she handed people to make herself easier to understand. It didn’t feel like it was for the sake of a story or a good interview quote.

The way he looked at her felt like he genuinely wanted to see what was underneath all of it. 

She sat quietly for a moment before finally speaking, her mind drifting back through all the moments in her life that had slowly solidified her love for medicine. The little things from childhood that planted the need to care for people so deeply inside her that she wasn’t sure she could separate it from herself anymore.

“My father was a doctor,” she said finally, her eyes dropping to her hands still wound tightly together in her lap. “A family physician. He owned a private practice in my hometown. It was a really small town, so he was basically everyone’s doctor.”

When she glanced back up, Frank was writing quickly in his notebook, his pen moving fast across the page. But after a moment, he lifted his eyes to hers again with an expression that silently encouraged her to keep going. 

So she did.

“Before he died, he gave me one of his old textbooks for my birthday, and it quickly became…” She paused, searching carefully for the right words before finally finding them. “A safe haven for me. Especially after he passed away.” Her voice softened slightly at the end of the sentence.

Frank’s eyes lifted from the notebook again, and this time she could see the compassion sitting plainly behind them. Not the rehearsed kind people used when they didn’t know what else to say. It was a look of  genuine understanding.

“When I flipped through the pages and read all the medical jargon that I could barely pronounce, let alone understand, it almost felt like…” She hesitated again, her brows pulling together slightly as she tried to explain something she’d never really put into words before. “Like he was there, if that makes sense?”

Her voice lifted slightly at the end, not uncertain exactly, but hopeful that he understood what she meant. Because she had never actually told anyone this before.

Nobody knew that after her father died, she used to stay awake late into the night underneath her blankets with a flashlight, flipping through page after page of anatomy diagrams, handwritten notes, and dense medical terminology while trying desperately not to wake Becca with the sound of her crying.  She would trace her fingers over the notes her father had scribbled into the margins, staring at his handwriting until the ache in her chest dulled enough for sleep to finally take her.

Frank looked at her with so much quiet compassion that it made her feel strangely exposed, like one of those nightmares where you show up to work naked and don’t realize it until everyone is staring at you. His eyes held on hers so steadily it almost felt like he could see the deepest parts of her without her having to explain them out loud.

“Yeah,” he said softly after clearing his throat. “I can imagine how hard that was. But, it must’ve been nice to have something that still made you feel close to him.”

Mel immediately felt her throat tighten, and heat pricked behind her eyes so suddenly it almost annoyed her.

Seriously, Mel. Already? she thought bitterly to herself, and cleared her throat, desperate to shake the feeling.

“Yeah,” she said softly, reaching for her coffee and taking a sip, letting the warmth wash some of the constricting feeling of grief from her throat. “It helped.”

Frank nodded slightly and jotted a few things down in his notebook, though his attention never seemed to fully leave her.

“So, would you say your father was your main inspiration for pursuing medicine?” he asked after a moment, finally looking back up at her.

“Absolutely,” Mel answered easily this time. “I remember sitting in his office after school playing with all the little models he had scattered around. Organs, skeletons, cross-sections of the brain—stuff like that. He’d always take a few minutes between patients to explain them to me and my sister.” A fond laugh slipped out of her as the memory settled over her. “She would usually turn away and hide in whatever book she was reading at the time. She never liked the graphic side of it. My mom was the same. They both always said it gave them the ‘heebie-jeebies.’” She lifted her fingers into air quotes as she said it, laughing quietly to herself.

Frank laughed softly with her, smiling down at his notebook as he scribbled something else onto the page.

He was good at talking to people. He had to be in this line of work. But something about talking to Mel felt strangely effortless in a way he wasn’t entirely prepared for. Most interviews had a rhythm to them that he controlled carefully, guiding people from one topic to the next with practiced ease. This didn’t feel like that. This felt easy, familiar almost.

“Are you and your sister close?” he asked after a moment.

Mel visibly lit up at the question, and Frank watched something warm and almost protective fill her eyes immediately. “Yeah,” she said, smiling wider as she leaned forward slightly in her chair. “We’re best friends. There was this one time we were on a swing and—” She stopped herself abruptly, her expression shifting with embarrassment. “Sorry, you probably don’t have a lot of time and that’s not really relevant—”

“No, please,” Frank interrupted quickly, his smile softening almost involuntarily. “I want to know those parts too. We have all the time in the world.”

Something about the way he said it made warmth creep instantly back into her chest, and she couldn’t stop it from creeping up to the tips of her ears.

“Okay,” she said, finally pulling her eyes away from his before she completely lost her train of thought. “We were swinging in our backyard, and Becca fell off and sliced her knee open on a rock. It wasn’t a bad cut, but any kind of pain for her is significant. She has autism, so her senses are already heightened as it is, and physical discomfort tends to feel really overwhelming for her.”

As she spoke, her voice softened in that unconscious way people do when they’re talking about someone they love deeply.

She glanced back up at him mid-sentence and realized he wasn’t writing anything down anymore. The pen was still loosely held in his hand, but it had gone still several moments ago. Instead, he was just watching her with this quiet, unwavering focus that made her chest feel strangely tight. Like every word she said mattered enough for him to stop doing anything else while she said it.

Mel felt the sudden urge to ask why he’d stopped taking notes, but swallowed it down just as quickly. He was the journalist here. She assumed he had his reasons.

Still, something about the way he was looking at her made it very difficult to remember what she’d been saying.

“Uh,” she cleared her throat softly, smiling despite herself as she tried to gather her thoughts again. “Yeah. So, I brought her inside and patched her up, and afterward she thanked me for taking care of her.” The smile lingering on her face softened into something more fond as she spoke about her sister. “She’s always been really open with her appreciation. Very adamant about it,” she said with a quiet laugh. “Being a caretaker can sometimes feel kind of thankless for a lot of people, and I’m really lucky that Becca never holds back when it comes to thanking me for the things I do for her.”

“Are you your sister’s caretaker?” he asked, his curiosity quiet and genuine, like he wanted to understand every layer of her life he could.

“Yes,” Mel replied, inhaling deeply as she mentally prepared herself for another emotional detour. “Forgive me for the trauma dump. My life story isn’t exactly the lightest conversation topic.”

He waved a hand dismissively. “Never apologize for your story,” he said softly, leaning back slightly in his chair. “The things people try hardest to soften or skip over are usually the parts that tell me who they really are, so please, ‘trauma dump’ away.”

Something about the gentle way he spoke to her made her feel strangely exposed, like he was carefully cracking her open against the edge of a pan and letting everything she usually kept tucked away spill out.  It should’ve made her want to retreat, to pull herself back together before she gave too much away, but instead it had the opposite effect entirely. He made her feel like she could tell him anything. Which was honestly a little terrifying considering she’d only known him for maybe fifteen minutes, and somehow he already knew more about her than people she’d worked beside for months.

So, she told him everything.

She told him about being a sophomore in college, five hundred miles away from home, when her mother called her from a hospital bed and told her she needed to come home. 

She told him about sitting in the stiff leather chair beside her mother’s bed for hours, watching machines blink softly in the dark while trying to pretend she wasn’t listening for changes in the rhythm of the monitors. 

About how cold her mother’s hands had felt wrapped around hers as she made Mel promise to never leave Becca’s side.

And Mel had promised.

Her voice shook as she spoke about the years that followed. 

About how hard it was for the two of them to suddenly become all the other one had left. 

About balancing her role as Becca’s caretaker while still trying to survive medical school and residency without completely falling apart under the weight of it all.

She told him about working three jobs at twenty-one years old just to afford groceries, rent, medications, tuition, utilities—every impossible thing stacked on top of another impossible thing. 

About nights where she would come home so exhausted she could barely feel her own body anymore, only to still stay awake helping Becca through sensory overloads or panic attacks because there simply wasn’t anyone else to do it.

And through all of it, Frank just listened.

Not with the detached attentiveness of someone collecting material for an article. Not like a journalist mentally sorting through quotes or shaping a narrative in real time. He listened like every piece of her mattered to him personally, his eyes never drifting from her face for more than a second at a time.

At some point, he quietly reached behind himself for the tissue box sitting on the counter and slid it toward her without interrupting her train of thought. 

“Thank you,” she murmured thickly, giving him a watery little smile.

Frank’s chest tightened painfully at the sight of her trying to smile through tears. Something instinctive inside him urged him forward before he could stop it, a sudden overwhelming need to comfort her somehow. 

To reach across the table and wrap her hands in his. 

To brush the tears from her cheeks with his thumb and tell her she didn’t have to hold herself together so tightly all the time.

But that wouldn’t be appropriate. He reminded himself of that over and over again, forcing himself to stay where he was even as every part of him seemed to pull toward her anyway.

So he offered her as much as he could. Small sympathies in between her recounts of that time, and his complete unwavering attention. By the time she finished with a “that’s pretty much it,” and a weak smile, he looked down and realized he hadn’t written a single thing down that entire time.

And strangely, he was fine with that.

Most of what she’d told him had already bypassed the part of his brain reserved for interview notes and quotable material. The details of her life had filed themselves somewhere else entirely, tucked carefully into a space that felt unexpectedly personal. 

Separate from work. 

Separate from the article.

Anything worth writing down had already committed itself to memory.

“Nobody should have to handle so much on their own,” he said softly after giving her a moment to collect herself. “I’m sorry you guys had to go through all of that.”

Mel went still at the sincerity in his voice, her eyes dropping once again to her lap as her fingers tightened faintly around the crumpled tissue in her hand.

She hadn’t had this in years. Not someone sitting across from her and listening to the things that shaped her like they actually mattered. Not someone paying attention to every word without interrupting, without trying to fix it, without waiting for their turn to speak.  Most people heard fragments of her life in passing—little pieces she offered casually to make things easier to explain—but nobody ever stayed long enough to sit with the heavier parts of it.

Frank did.

And somehow, impossibly, he made it feel natural. Like she mattered enough to be listened to carefully. Which was insane, honestly, considering he was still basically a stranger. But every time she looked up and found those bright blue eyes fixed so steadily on her, something inside her seemed to split open a little more. The compassion in his expression never felt forced or performative. If anything, it felt dangerously genuine.

Why was it so easy to talk to him? Why did it feel like he could look directly into the deepest parts of her and somehow make her want to hand them over willingly?

She could cry to him all day if he let her. 

Something told her he would.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly after a while, dabbing carefully beneath her eyes. “I told myself I wouldn’t cry if this subject came up.”

Frank shook his head almost immediately, abrupt enough that it stopped the thought in its tracks before she could spiral any further into embarrassment.

“No,” he said firmly. “Don’t apologize.” The softness in his voice returned just as quickly as the sharpness had appeared. “It’s okay to let yourself fall apart every once in a while.”

Something in the way he said it made it sound less like reassurance and more like permission. Like maybe he understood what it felt like to hold yourself together so tightly for so long that eventually the cracks had to give somewhere.

Mel wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that, so instead she just looked at him quietly, waiting for him to guide the conversation forward again. For a few seconds neither of them spoke. The room fell still around them, filled only with the faint hum of fluorescent lights and the distant muffled chaos of the hospital outside the conference room walls.

Eventually, Frank seemed to realize she didn’t have anything else to add.

“Whenever you’re ready, we can continue,” he said gently, his eyes never really leaving hers. “Take your time. I’m in no rush.”

Her expression softened at the quiet assurance in his voice, and she took a slow breath, trying to gather up the last few fragile pieces of composure he’d managed to pull out of her without even trying.

“I’m okay,” she said with a small nod. “Go ahead.”

But the words came out thinner than she intended. Weak enough that neither of them really believed them.

Frank’s brows pulled together slightly as he studied her face. “You sure you’re okay?” he asked softly.

And it was immediately obvious he wasn’t asking out of politeness or obligation. He genuinely needed to know the answer.

“A hundred percent,” she said, forcing another smile onto her face. “We can keep going.”

He still looked unconvinced, his eyes narrowing just slightly like he was trying to decide whether to push further or let her have the out she was clearly asking for. But he could also tell she didn’t want to stay in this part of the conversation any longer, and after a moment he finally relented. He tapped his fingers lightly against his notebook and cleared his throat before lifting his eyes to hers again.

That feeling still lingered there between them, untouched by the heaviness of the conversation. The strange, almost disorienting sense that despite only meeting a little over an hour ago, something about the other person already felt deeply familiar. Like they had somehow known each other before they’d ever even spoken.

“Okay,” he said finally, though he still looked unconvinced. “Let’s move to a lighter topic.” He glanced down at his notebook for a second before his head lifted again, something apologetic flashing through his expression. “Not that I mind,” he added quickly.

Frank shook his head lightly and waved a dismissive hand between them, like he was physically trying to erase even the possibility of her thinking she’d somehow burdened him.

“I don’t—” He stopped to clear his throat, his voice softer when he continued. “I don’t mind at all.”

And the thing was, he really didn’t.

For some reason, he felt like he could sit there for hours listening to her talk about the things that hurt her. 

As a journalist, Frank had trained himself over the years to stay focused and efficient—ask the right questions, gather the information he needed, move cleanly from one subject to the next without lingering too long.

But every instinct he had around Mel seemed to work differently.

Something in him wanted to slow down with her. To let her take her time. To become someone she could hand these things to without worrying they’d be dismissed or mishandled.

He thought briefly about the way her voice had trembled while talking about her parents, about how practiced she seemed at swallowing her grief back down before it became inconvenient for anyone else. It didn’t feel like the voice of someone who’d ever truly been allowed to sit with their pain for very long.

And when he thought about what her life must have looked like after losing both parents so young—having to bury her own grief beneath responsibility because someone else depended on her—the thought settled heavily in his chest.

“Do you have—” The question slipped out before he could stop himself. He looked back up at her then, and the sight of her waiting quietly for him to continue, eyes still soft with leftover sadness, made something twist painfully inside him. “Anyone you can talk to…about this stuff?” he asked gently.

Mel sat with the question for a moment. It felt strangely foreign to even consider. Slowly, the words seemed to settle into her bones.

“No,” she admitted finally with a small, sad shrug. “Not really.”

Frank’s chest tightened again.

I can be that for you, he wanted to say. I’ll listen. I’ll sit here for as long as you need me to and let you tell me every terrible thing you’ve had to carry by yourself.

But instead, all he said was, “I’m sorry, Mel.”

He hoped somehow it sounded like more than just a simple sympathy. 

She only shrugged again, like loneliness was just another fact of her life she’d long since stopped expecting anyone to fix.

Frank cleared his throat quietly and looked back down at his notebook, forcing himself to regain at least some semblance of professionalism before he completely forgot why he was here in the first place. After a moment, his eyes landed on another question.

“As an emergency medicine doctor, you handle high-stakes cases and long hours,” he said. “A lot of people in your field struggle with maintaining any kind of work-life balance. What do you do to help foster that for yourself?”

Mel sat across from him thinking about her answer for a beat longer than he’d prefer.

Not because she was slowing the conversation down or struggling to articulate herself, but because the effort it took for her to come up with anything at all seemed to tell him everything he needed to know.

“I mainly spend time with my sister,” she said after thinking for a moment. “She really likes Kennywood and, oh, she likes to watch movies. Her favorite is Elf, so we watch it every Friday and—”

“Sorry, let me be clear,” Frank interrupted gently, leaning forward slightly as he spoke. “What do you like to do? I want to hear about you.”

The question seemed to catch her completely off guard. Mel blinked at him a few times, her lips parting slightly before closing again as she searched her brain for an answer that existed separately from Becca. 

Frank watched the realization happen in real time, watched her mentally sort through years of responsibilities and routines trying to locate something that belonged solely to her.

Finally, a small smile tugged shyly at the corner of her mouth.

“I like… the Renaissance Faire,” she admitted, almost like she was embarrassed by the answer. “I’ve always really loved history in general. Colonial Williamsburg was my favorite school trip growing up, and the Fort Pitt Museum is really cool too.”

Frank felt his heart warm immediately at the sight of her talking about something she genuinely enjoyed. There was a subtle shift in her entire demeanor when she spoke about it—lighter somehow, softer around the edges. And it absolutely did not help that those were things he loved too.

A surprised laugh slipped quietly out of him. “Okay, now that’s what I like to hear,” he said, smiling wider as he rested back in his chair. “I spent an embarrassing amount of time at Colonial Williamsburg as a kid. My parents used to joke that if they left me there long enough I’d eventually start speaking exclusively in an eighteenth-century dialect.”

Mel laughed instantly, the sound brighter this time.

“And the Renaissance Faire?” he continued, shaking his head lightly. “I completely get it. There’s something fun about how committed everyone is to the bit. It’s like people finally give themselves permission to be a little weird for a day.”

The smile that spread across her face after that made something in his chest tighten all over again.

Slowly, somewhere along the way, the interview stopped feeling like an interview at all.

The notebook between them became more of an afterthought as the conversation drifted naturally from one topic to another. Frank asked her about the things she enjoyed, the things she avoided, what scared her, what made her laugh. He asked about the books she read growing up, about the first time she ever realized she was good under pressure, about whether she preferred Pittsburgh winters or hated them with the same passion as everyone else in the city.

And thankfully, there were no more tears. The heaviness from earlier softened into something warmer, replaced with easy laughter, quiet understanding, and the strange comfort of feeling deeply seen by someone who somehow never made it feel invasive.

Every once in a while, Mel would catch his gaze drifting down from her face to where her sheer black tights hugged her crossed legs before snapping quickly back to her eyes, and she’d feel something warm and fuzzy swirl in the very depths of her stomach. 

After a while, Frank glanced down at his watch—and nearly stopped breathing when he realized they had been talking for almost three hours.

Three hours.

Somewhere deep in his chest, something opened painfully wide at the realization that Dr. Melissa King was the easiest person he had ever spoken to in his entire life. Then, almost immediately, a sinking feeling replaced it when he realized his second interview had been supposed to start over thirty minutes ago.

He took a slow breath in, mentally preparing himself to cut short their conversation despite the fact that every selfish part of him wanted to cancel the rest of his schedule entirely and keep her sitting across from him for the remainder of the day.

“This was really nice,” he said instead, his voice softer than before. “It’s been a real pleasure getting to know you, Mel. Truly.”

Heat rushed instantly into Mel’s face before she could stop it, and judging by the slight shift in his expression, Frank noticed it too.

“Likewise,” she replied quietly as she reached for her bag. “Thank you for listening.”

And she meant it more than he probably realized. She still couldn’t fully wrap her head around the fact that this person she’d spent years admiring through journal articles and carefully crafted prose was somehow more beautiful in real life than he was on paper.

Inside and out. 

She didn’t want to leave. More than that, she wanted to stay and keep talking until there was nothing left unsaid between them. She wanted to tell him every thought she normally swallowed before it could leave her mouth, every fear and strange little interest and painful memory she usually kept tucked safely away because nobody ever seemed interested enough to hold onto them for long.

But Frank cared.

Talking to him felt easy in the most dangerous possible way.

“Oh, uh,” she said suddenly, reaching into her bag. Her fingers wrapped around the journal she’d grabbed from her locker earlier that morning. “This is probably so weird, but…” Her entire face burned as she held it out toward him. “Would you sign this?”

How could she possibly let her favorite medical journalist sit in front of her for three hours and not ask for something to remember it by?

Frank looked down at the journal in her hands, visibly caught off guard. Sure enough, it was one of his more recent publications.

“Well,” he said after a second, clearing his throat lightly. “This is a first.”

A bashful smile tugged at his mouth as he took it from her and flipped open the cover. His pen moved quickly across the page, writing far more than just his signature.

Mel couldn’t quite see what he was writing from where she sat, but judging by the faintly smug look pulling at the corner of his mouth, it was definitely something.

When he finally stood and handed the journal back to her, that same expression was still sitting plainly on his face.

“It was really nice to meet you, Mel.”

She took the journal from him, and the moment their fingers brushed again, the spark that shot up her arm felt almost violent in comparison to before. Goosebumps raced across her skin so quickly it nearly startled her.

Frank felt it too.

“It was really nice to meet you too, Frank,” she replied softly.

The second she opened the cover, her breath caught.

You are very, very easy to want to know more of. And for the record, I thought you were incredibly beautiful the second you walked into this room. I hope this isn’t the last conversation I get to have with you.

Frank Langdon ☺︎

And beneath it—

His phone number.

Mel looked up at him so fast it almost made him laugh. Her eyes were wide with disbelief and delight, and the sound of his chuckle finally slipped free before he could stop it.

“I hope you’ll give me the chance to get to know even more of you,” he said finally, warmth settling into his expression.

“I—” Mel blinked at him, momentarily speechless. “Yeah. Yeah, definitely.” 

“I’m looking forward to it.”

For a second she just stood there staring at him far longer than was probably socially acceptable.

“Me too,” she finally managed. Then she gathered herself enough to turn toward the door. But before opening it, she glanced back over her shoulder one last time, and he was still looking at her.

She gave him a small wave, and he returned it with a smile that made her stomach flip all over again.

The second she stepped out into the hallway, the grin she’d been desperately trying to suppress finally took over her entire face. And sitting directly across from conference room seven was Yolanda Garcia.

“What the fuck, King,” she said immediately. “My interview was supposed to start almost an hour ago.”

The realization that Frank had let their conversation run long past what it was supposed to be made her stomach flutter so hard it was almost embarrassing.

At that point, though, it didn’t matter what Garcia had to say.

Honestly, it didn’t really matter what anyone had to say anymore.

The second she stepped through the hissing doors of PTMC the realization truly settled in her bones, quiet but certain. When she had woken up that morning, she knew what she was getting herself into. Knew that she’d be walking into an interview with someone she had not so quietly admired in some ways—and silently admired in the others—for so long.

But beyond that truth, there was no way she could’ve predicted exactly what she would find in that small conference room. No telling what that place would bring.

And as she walked down the sidewalk to her apartment, her bag bouncing against her hip, the gentle thud of the journal against her side, something in her heart kept saying that in those four walls, an understanding had quickly formed between them.

A deep, mutual understanding, that for her, crept dangerously over the line to a place that felt almost like…love?

And she didn’t know this, but when Frank received her message later that night, smiling fondly at his phone screen as he laid between the sheets of his motel bed, it finally hit him—really hit him—that that’s exactly where he was too.