Work Text:
It had been a busy 11 hours for the day shift, and their day was far from over when Robby and Abbot gathered them around the hub to announce that there had been a major fire and traffic was completely and utterly fucked.
What that meant for those who had been there since 7am, was that they were going to have stay and do overtime whilst night shift struggled to get from point A to point B in addition to treating the influx of patients who had burns, smoke inhalation and stampede injuries from the panic.
A collection of groans filled the air around the hub, a couple sounds of heads smacking against desks as the energy left the bodies of multiple staff members who were so close to being free of work for the evening.
Robby and Abbot continued their briefing, answering questions and reassuring their people that night shift will try and get in as soon as they can to relieve them, but for now to drink some water, eat something and prepare for the worst but hope for the best.
You were stood with Santos, Whitaker, Mohan, Javadi and Mel, complaining about how you were still going to be expected to finish your charts whilst also picking up on night shift slack for the next however many hours, when you spotted Langdon breathing heavily at his perch in front of a computer, head in hands and slouched over.
“Langdon!”
Heads turned towards Robby, who’s sabbatical clearly didn’t achieve what he wanted it to achieve (as in: his mental health was worse than ever – you were sure that Dana was trying to get him to see a therapist to actually help him so that he wouldn’t keep taking his anger out on everybody else), and saw him staring down the brunette.
A sound of acknowledgement came from the doctor, making no move to lift his head.
“Look alive, we need all hands on deck. Even if they’re yours.”
In the few weeks since Robby got back, jaws would have dropped, shocked that the attending would say something so unprofessional out loud for everyone around the hub to hear, however you’d all become so accustomed to his attitude that you weren’t caught off guard anymore.
Langdon gave a thumbs up, still not really moving, as Dana and Abbot corralled Robby away to berate him and tell him to get his attitude in check, or at least that’s what you all thought they would do.
You looked at the man that you, admittedly, had a huge crush on, and felt a wave of sympathy wash over you at the clearly struggling doctor, but with the two of you not exactly being friends, and certainly not lovers, but some strange something in between, you felt unsure if you should approach him or not.
Deciding against your better judgement, you remove yourself from the group and head over to where he was sat, pulling a chair over with you so that you could be on the same level as Langdon.
“Dr Langdon?”
“You need me for something?”
“Uh, no, no, nothing like that. I just wanted to check if you were okay.”
Langdon took a deep breath and reached into the back of his scrubs, pulling a single use heat pack from his waistband and throwing the now cooling plastic package onto the desk, gently leaning back against the chair as to not aggravate his body.
“I kind of tweaked my back at the end of yesterdays shift, and there were power cuts at my apartment building last night so I couldn’t use any of my heat packs, microwaveable or otherwise, and I used all the disposable ones when Tanner pulled a muscle at the park during a visit the other week and I didn’t replace them,” he explained, his old confidence still yet to get back to what it was, and so the sheepish expression on his face had just become Langdon’s default look for the past five months since he’d returned from rehab.
“Is it still painful?” You asked, mentally kicking yourself the moment the words left your mouth, because of course it was still painful.
“More than normal. Couldn’t sleep much, and I must’ve slept on it strange during the couple of hours I did get.”
“That sucks.” What was wrong with you, ‘that sucks?’ Get a grip.
“Yep.”
The silence that followed was awkward, or perhaps in your mind it was. You had no idea what was going on inside Langdon’s head, as much as you wish you could.
“You’ve been doing a good job today, despite everything,” You reassured him, Robby’s words still echoing in your mind.
He looked at you, properly looked at you as if he was staring into your soul with what could be unending gratitude for your words, or maybe he thought you were stupid for reassuring a senior resident as if you were equals. But he was only a year ahead of you, so, who knows? Certainly not you.
Eventually, after what felt like minutes instead of seconds, he broke the silence that he’d created, “Thank you. I really appreciate you saying that.”
You weren’t quite sure why you felt so awkward around him these past few weeks, for you were friends before you’d started crushing on him. You would go out for coffee on your days off, and go with him and Cassie to the park with their respective kids when you had nothing to do with your day, and you’d talked about hard things before – like rehab, and your financial struggles during med school, and your collective wishes for the future.
But ever since he started showing signs that he reciprocated some other feelings for you besides friendship, you had spun out, become the most awkward version of yourself and put distance between you and the man you had a good friendship with.
Why? Because you were scared to do anything in case you’d read everything wrong.
Your spiral was humorous to Langdon’s fellow senior resident and your fellow R3. Samira and Cassie did their best to reassure you through their sly smiles and knowing looks.
“Right, we’ve got two traumas coming in and plenty more on their way! Get moving!” Abbot instructed the tired day shift, breaking Langdon and you out of your bubble.
“Best get moving, Doctor,” Langdon urged you, quite clearly making fun of the fact that you’d addressed him as ‘Dr. Langdon’ instead of Frank, as you had done plenty of times before.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m going,” you respond, getting some of your natural sarcasm back instead of the fumbling, clumsy you that kept making an appearance recently.
He watched you go, eyes tracking your movements as you joined Robby and Princess in Trauma 1.
Langdon was not an oblivious man, or at least, not all the time (some may argue that fact), but he wasn’t blind to the fact that something had shifted between the two of you, and he wasn’t mad about it, especially after talking to Cassie about finding happiness after addiction.
The divorce, the new apartment, the shittier car, the continuing pain that was never going to go away, disappointing himself and the people around him, it really sucked, and trying to learn that he was still allowed to become a better person and enjoy things instead of staying miserable for the rest of his life was not exactly absorbing into his mind as much as Cassie would have liked it to.
But then you came back into his life in bursts of sunshine like you always did, and he finally started to let himself rebuild slightly, because, God, you were beautiful, and smart, and caring, and–
“Langdon.”
Dana was stood in front of him, a tablet held out and a look on her face that made him feel like a child, one who had been caught daydreaming in class instead of paying attention to the numerical equations being written on the board and if he were to speak then he would most definitely say the wrong thing.
“Not expecting you to take the trauma cases for the rest of your shift,” She gave him a comforting smile, “We’ve got a patient in North 5, been here a while. Try and get rid of him before the influx comes in.”
She passed him the tablet she was holding and he scanned it, looking at it in mild disapproval. A mild ankle sprain that the patient could bare weight on, but swears is broken and needs medical attention.
With a sigh, Langdon stood slowly and made his way towards the room, opening the glass door and pulling back the privacy curtain enough to allow him to greet his patient, a James Foster, who looked up from his phone to see who was disturbing his peace.
“Hello, Mr. Foster, I’m Doctor Langdon–”
“Finally, a doctor, if I had been sent one more useless nurse who keeps telling me it’s nothing serious I was gonna–”
“You were going to what, Mr. Foster? I suggest you choose your next words carefully if you wish for this exam to continue,” Frank spoke pointedly, his patience already wearing thin as he snapped on a pair of gloves.
The man fell silent, a vein beginning to pop out from his forehead as he quietly seethed as Frank began examining the man’s admittedly swollen ankle, palpating the area and asking him to move his foot around.
“I’ve looked at your scans, as have multiple radiologists, per your request, and five different nurses, and there is nothing broken. You can bare weight, and according to your friend who brought you in, there wasn’t a snap or popping sound when you rolled it,” Langdon explained, disposing of his gloves and picking up the table once again, “This can be managed at home with over the counter pain relief and the R.I.C.E. method; Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevate.”
“Come on man, it fucking hurts, you gotta give me something, it hurts so bad.”
“If it doesn’t improve within 1-3 weeks, or it gets worse, come back in and we’ll see if anything has changed,” Langdon continued, crossing his arms and looking at the man in the bed.
“This is fucking bullshit, I want a second opinion.”
“Well then you’re going to be here even longer, we’ve got multiple traumas coming in and I am not pulling away our doctors from critical patients for a sprain that has been given far more attention than necessary,” Langdon turned his back to look in one of the cupboards in the exam room, pulling out some pamphlets on at home care as well as information about addiction, “Look, man, I’m not trying to accuse you of anything, but if there is something deeper here, I understand your struggle–”
One moment, Langdon was turning towards the bed once again, and the next he was slammed up against the wall, a spike of pain blooming across his lower back and the back of his head, his airway getting cut off from a forearm across his neck.
“I’m not a fucking drug addict, don’t ever fucking accuse me of that shit again. I’m telling you I’m in pain and you’re not listening.”
He should’ve kept quiet, for once in his life he should’ve shut his mouth and made a good decision, but that’s never been his way of life. Natural at disaster and all that crap.
“You’re bearing weight pretty well, Mr. Foster.”
✦✧✦✧✦
Thirty minutes later and the ED was swarming, patients everywhere, gurneys lining the hallway and paramedic crews waiting by the doors.
Santos was working through the minor injuries and smoke inhalation patients with Whitaker and Javadi, when Dana called out to the staff surrounding the hub.
“Anyone seen Langdon? I sent him to clear out North 5 before the rush, does anyone know where he’s gone?”
A chorus of no’s followed, and a look to the trauma rooms showed Perlah, Abbot and Mel working on a burn patient, whilst Robby, Princess and you worked on another, no sight of Langdon anywhere.
“Okay, Santos, can you stick your head into 5 before you examine a patient in North 4?”
Santos rolled her eyes at the request, but took the patient chart nonetheless, making her way over to the double doors leading to the north of the ED, and pushed open the glass door directly to the right of her as she passed through, not bothering to look into the room and instead reviewed the chart of her next patient.
“Dr Langdon, Dana’s looking for you,” She said, and when she didn’t get a response, she sighed and opened the door further, pulling open the curtain further, “Seriously, how long does it take–“
The criticism died on her tongue as her eyes fell upon a messy scene, her mind taking her back to memories she thought she’d buried long ago that only reared their ugly head when a particularly nasty patient showed up or in the worst nightmares that plagued her sleep.
There, surrounded by scattered papers, a smashed tablet, and the contents of the ransacked cupboards, was a motionless Langdon, face bloodied and bruised; body curled into itself.
“Fuck.”
She opened the door again.
“I need help in here! I found Langdon.”
She rushed back to him, kneeling down and checking if he was breathing, taking note of his injuries as Donnie, McKay and Javadi swarmed the room, various exclamations of shock reaching her ears as they assessed him.
Working as a team, they managed to get his body onto the now empty gurney, the man regaining consciousness at the worst time imaginable, letting out a groan of pain as every nerve on his body lit up like a wildfire.
“Langdon? Can you hear me?” Santos asked, checking his pupils as he flinched away from the light.
He wheezed out something unintelligible, reaching for the nearest hand to find some form of comfort.
“Okay, we’re going to take you to trauma,” McKay reassured him, and he was vaguely aware of everything beginning to move around him, making the already spinning room turn into a trip on merry go round on steroids.
“Trauma 2’s open!” Dana instructed them, telling Abbot to look after Langdon.
They worked around him, getting an oxygen mask over his mouth and getting some trauma shears to cut through his scrubs and undershirt, revealing bruises littering his abdomen and the uneven rise and fall of his chest. The team gathered around him, discussing what they could see and treatments plans, talking to each other about what happened.
Langdon’s mouth opened and closed like a fish, breathing laboured and hard as he grasped at the mask over his face as claustrophobia crept in from the constriction, trying to say something and failing as the panic became blinding and overwhelming. Words entered his mind, the voices unintelligible even if he could see who was speaking as he grasped for people’s attention.
“Langdon, I don’t know what you’re trying to say, okay,” Abbot spoke, putting a hand on his shoulder to keep him lying down, “You’ve got a pneumothorax, this is gonna hurt like a bitch but we’re gonna give you some IV pain meds.”
That only seemed to send the doctor into more of a panic, and he refused to hold still as they attempted to get an IV in – they kept glancing at his vitals as his heart rate continued to climb, and his sats continued to drop.
As if the universe had heard his struggle, it had sent the patient in trauma one on their merry way and allowed you to see the commotion of what was happening in the room next door, Robby hot on your heels.
“Fuck.”
You immediately asked for a run down from Donnie, who briefed you in one impressive breath what they knew so far and what they planned to do, meanwhile Robby began ranting and swearing and doing nothing to help the situation, emotions bubbling over as the situation got more dire.
“Don’t give him anything stronger than acetaminophen,” you instructed, moving to go towards Frank’s line of sight, grabbing the hand that was reaching for something to hold, casting aside any hesitancy or awkwardness you may have felt earlier.
“That’s not even going to touch the sides of his pain,” Robby exclaimed, hands coming to rest behind his head, “He needs–”
“What he needs is for everyone in this room to respect his wishes that even in medical emergencies that no benzodiazepines or narcotics are used in his care,” you explain, “There are other options to help his pain management that won’t break his sobriety.”
Upon hearing his wishes being spoken aloud, or perhaps from the sound of your voice, Frank stopped resisting, his aching body finally relaxing to the point that his colleagues could get an IV in and begin working on treating the pneumothorax.
You took your time explaining to Frank what was going on, that Abbot was about to perform a thoracentesis to release some of the air building up between his lung and chest wall, that they were going to send him off for some scans when he’s stable to get a look at the damage.
“Has anyone called up to surgery yet to give them a heads up that one of our own might need an OR?” You ask, and when no one supplies you with a simple yes, “I’ll do it then.”
You start towards the phone, but are stopped when Franks hand refuses to let go of your own, his body moving to try and prevent you from leaving him, making it incredibly difficult for Abbot to focus on the needle he was holding in preparation for the procedure.
“Sorry, Frank, it’s okay,” you reassure him, turning back towards him, keeping him calm so that Abbot could insert the needle into his chest, attaching a syringe to draw out some of the air in hopes of reinfecting the lung, hoping that it wasn’t severe enough for a thoracostomy.
The large gulp of air that made its way into Langdon’s lungs made everyone breath a collective sigh of relief, smiling when they saw his heart rate slow and his sats rise.
“Okay, Abbot, Mohan, Donnie, you stay on this case, everyone else needs to go, it’s too crowded in here and there are more patients to see,” you said, taking charge when you realised that Robby was too close to another break down and Abbot too busy with treating Frank to delegate and instruct the team, “Thank you for your help.”
The room began to disperse, a few lingering until they heard shouts for them to help treat other people, leaving you with the team you’d assigned to Frank’s case and Robby as you did your best to keep him calm, the attending seeing if he could get any information out of him as to what happened, but you quickly realised that all Frank needed was comfort for the time being.
“Robby, with all respect, you need to leave,” you told your superior, looking into his eyes as you firmly told him to get out as politely as you could.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Yes, you are, brother,” Abbot put a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m trying to help.”
“No, you’re not,” you spoke, “With the way your relationship is at the moment, do you honestly think that you being in this room is helping him?”
Robby didn’t move, not until Abbot all but pushed him out of the room and took him to a quiet spot to talk about his behaviour.
Mohan and Donnie worked around the two of you as you waited for radiology to be ready for him, even if he was a high priority there were still worse cases than him due to the incident that led to the overwhelmed department – well, more overwhelmed than usual.
You stayed with him, held his hand for as much of it as you could, only leaving Frank’s side during his scans but quickly returning to your spot next to him as you waited for the results, walking alongside his bed until the line on the surgery floor that meant you had to let Garcia’s capable hands take over from that of Abbot’s. She and the team that were going to work on him listened intently as you reminded them of the requests he had for his treatment.
You had to return back to the ED once he was wheeled away out of your line of sight, still having a long job ahead of you to cover delayed night shift staff as well as being the prime target for questions regarding Langdon.
✦✧✦✧✦
It had just gone 11 o’clock when the night shift had all made it in, handovers were completed and day shift were officially off the hook, but most were reluctant to leave until they’d heard word of Langdon.
They cramped themselves into the staff room, sharing water bottles and letting their heads rest against anything they could – walls, shoulders, tables, cabinets – too tired to even attempt to keep their bodies upright.
You were sat on one of the few chairs, knee bouncing and eyes unfocused, vaguely aware of Dana’s hand resting on your shoulder as the time ticked by slowly. Eventually someone started up a game of eye spy to pass the time, which went… well, terribly.
Moving onto the thirteenth round of the unimpressive game, Dennis said that he saw something beginning with G.
“Green poster.”
“No.”
“Green chair.”
“No.”
“Green–”
“It’s nothing green.”
“Grapes.”
“Where do you see those?”
“In the fridge.”
“I can’t see in the fridge.”
“But there are some grapes in there.”
“Actually, I ate the rest of those, so not anymore.”
“Fuck.”
“That still wouldn’t have made you win because that’s not the object.”
“Garcia.”
“No.”
“No, moron, as in, Garcia’s here.”
Heads snapped towards the door where a tired looking surgeon stood, hands crossed over her chest and a sad look on her face, and it was as if the whole room collectively stopped breathing as they waited for an update on the man.
“Is he..?” Santos started, the question that no one wanted to ask but were desperate to know dying on her tongue.
“He pulled through. Admittedly, we finished a little while ago, I wanted to wait until he woke up before leaving him.”
“Has he said anything about what happened?” Donnie asked from his perch against the wall.
“Nope,” Garcia looked around at everyone’s tired faces, “Go home, get some sleep, there’s nothing more the rest of you can do now.”
As everyone began saying good night and filtering out of the break room, an arm pulled you to the side, and you came face to face with the surgeon.
“Walk with me.”
The two of you left the rest of day shift to their own devices, walking to the elevator to head up to the patient rooms in silence, and it wasn’t until the metal doors slid shut that Garcia started speaking, halting your thoughts.
“He’s listed you as his emergency contact, and as his power of attorney,” Garcia told you, leaning back against the wall of the metal box, “Judging by the look on your face, you didn’t know he did that.”
Your mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, your mind trying to process the information that felt like a freight train hitting you all at once.
“Considering how well you stood up for him and reminded everyone of his wishes that he’d discussed with you, which aligns with what he put in hospital records, I’d say he picked the right person to advocate for him,” She reassured you, clearly still shocked that Frank had that much trust in you.
You walked out of the elevator, dropping your voices lower as you made sure not to disturb any patients at this late hour, whilst Garcia began filling you in on his surgery: he had to have a splenectomy after a ruptured spleen was what caused the majority of his internal bleeding, and a few other repair jobs here and there. He had a concussion and a few bruised ribs – a miracle really that none of them were broken.
Her recap of his injuries came to close as she opened the door to Frank’s room, the man looking tiredly to the figures who entered, body visibly deflating as the tension left his muscles, his voice croaking out your name as you moved over to his bedside, sitting gently on the edge of his bed and stroking the hair out of his eyes, taking his hand in yours.
“I’m going home, Langdon. Walsh is on your case now until the morning,” Garcia said, checking everything was in order, “He’s got an electric heat pack on his back that’s on a timer to help manage his pain; you can thank ortho’s rehab clinic for that one.”
Her words were lost on the two of you, and she accepted that after the day you’d had all you wanted was to relax upon seeing your friend somewhat alright, leaving you two alone in the quiet room.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” You asked.
It took him a moment, “I thought you’d say no.”
You gave him a look of disapproval, shaking your head as a gentle smile appeared on your lips, “Then you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
“This fucking sucks,” He groaned, head falling deeper into the pillows, eyes falling closed.
You hummed, continuing to stroke gentle patterns onto the back of his hand, “It does.”
“Thank you for being here,” he whispered.
“It’s what friends are for, Frank.”
He scoffed, and then winced at the harsh breath he let out, shaking his head slightly and opening his eyes again to look at you, “I think we both know that whatever we have is more than that.”
To hear him say the words you had been freaking yourself out over for the past few weeks was strange, and validating all at the same, a door you were trying to keep closed for fear of rejection creaking against the wait of his statement, desperate to burst open.
“I do.”
He smiled softly, although more restricted than normal from his bruises that littered his face, a reminder that this conversation was not something to have now.
“Go to sleep, Frank.”
“This talk isn’t over though, right?”
“No, but I think it’s wiser to do it when you are better and not concussed and freshly post-op,” you move to go and sit in the reclining chair that someone had moved closer to his bedside.
“Can you–”
“I’ll still be here in the morning when you wake up,” you reassure him, settling under the spare blanket and tucking yourself into the small space, watching over him as he attempted to fall back asleep, which didn’t take him long.
Eventually, you let yourself relax, and the days shift and the stress of the past few hours pull you into the depths of sleep, dreaming of many things that night, some scary, but for the most part, you allowed yourself to dream of a future with Frank now that your suspicions and doubts had been cast aside by the man you’d started to fall in love with.