Work Text:
It was always half and never whole
You've begun to feel like home, yeah
But what's mine is yours to leave or take
What's mine is yours to make your own
November 11, 2025
Frank has one foot out of the shower when he hears her shout his name in a panic. And it happens as if by instinct—as natural as Mel’s response to Benji’s needs—his legs moving automatically towards her voice, heart pumping fiercely against his chest. The towel he wraps and ties around his waist is almost an afterthought.
Maybe it shouldn’t surprise him, not when it seems as if he’s spent every free moment with them for the past month. Not when they’ve come to some kind of unspoken cohabitation agreement since Mel’s breakdown post-deposition papers. Not since he’s discovered that he’s madly yet irresponsibly in love with her.
A switch flipped in his brain recently, and now he’s attuned to her in ways he’s never been attuned to anyone. He wants to care and provide to dizzying degrees, to keep both of them safe. Maybe it had happened the night she cried herself to sleep in his arms while they sat on the couch, Benji dozing against her chest. Or the other morning in bed as they listened to Benji’s happy coos over the monitor, smiling knowingly at each other, the chastity pillow wedged between them. The desire isn’t new per se—not since the night he realized his feelings—but the intensity certainly is. Whenever it happened, he’s grateful that it hadn’t been sooner; there’s no telling how he might have blown up his life for her and who would have been collateral damage.
When he rushes down the hall, Frank finds Mel standing near the couch, facing the coffee table with her hand outstretched towards him, held slightly behind her body. His mind flashes with ghosts of ED patients past—toddlers coming in with split lips and cracked skulls, all manner of bumps and bruises. Guilt washes over him; what had he forgotten to babyproof last week? He grasps Mel’s hand and squeezes his apology. She doesn’t hate him, not yet. He can make this right.
“Wha—”
“Shh!”
Mel turns to him briefly, her face pink and eyes brimming. The sight does nothing to lower his blood pressure. Since he stepped back into her life in September, hardly a day goes by that Mel isn’t awash in tears. Postpartum depression, yeah. But also the rest of it, the punches life keeps throwing her way. But what differs this time—the only thing that eventually dampens the adrenaline rush of her shouting his name—is the watery smile on Mel’s face.
As she silently points, Frank follows her gesture to their son, who is up on his hands and knees, wobbly but determined, on a baby blanket. It’s a position he’s been trying for a few days now, but Benji has never looked more ready, his little fingers inching along the floor.
Swallowing a lump of emotion in his throat, Frank waits riveted next to Mel. His grip on her hand remains, his focus so locked onto Benji’s shifting knee that he doesn’t register the danger of the touch, only how right it feels.
It happens in a blink, first the push of the knee and then his chubby palm lifting and coming back to the blanket, barely a palm’s length in front of him. Drawing her hand away from Frank’s, Mel covers her mouth and nose with both in shock, looking at the baby and then up at him with wide eyes as if to say, did you see that? And Frank smiles.
Their baby just crawled.
A sound escapes Mel, half-laugh and half-sob, before she launches herself at him, her arms wrapping around his neck. He catches her, ignoring the twinge in his back because he’s finally present for one of his son’s milestones and he holds the woman he loves in his embrace.
Not only that, but she’s happy. Mel deserves this. No, Mel deserves everything—unbridled joy, always. It’s not something he’s ever been able to offer anyone—having always done more harm than good—but god does he want to try for her and his children. Blinking back tears, he buries her nose against her neck and begs the universe to let this moment stretch on. Let his girl be happy if just for a little while longer.
He holds her tightly, the water from his still-wet skin soaking into her shirt. And then Mel draws back—not more than a split second later—precariously perched on her tip toes while he takes her weight, and she kisses him. It’s a peck really, fueled by her excitement, until it isn’t.
Her mouth moves against his hesitantly, and it’s a testament to three years of residency that he can think so quickly on his feet. Frank deepens the kiss to encourage her, to let her know that this is wanted. (Just kill him if the day ever comes when he doesn’t want Mel King). At his low hum, she sighs, changing her angle and nipping at his lip. With one hand steady between her shoulder blades, his other strays lower and his fingers press into the plush skin around her left hip.
As Frank is about to lick against the seam of her lips, Mel pulls away. A pregnant moment lingers between them, her gaze heavy and searching. He tries to read her expression—the small line between her drawn brows and the jagged exhale shuddered through her nose—but Frank doesn’t trust himself enough to think he has this right. The pipe dreams of an addict and nothing more.
The pads of her fingers toy with the wet hair swirled just below his collarbone, the faint scratch of her blunt nails sending a shiver down his spine. Her palm flattens against his pec. Then she’s gone, lowering herself to her feet and leaving him wanting.
Mel scoops up Benji and snuggles him, the front of her shirt bearing the evidence of their closeness. Frank adjusts the towel still wrapped around his waist.
“You did it, baby!” Mel says, bouncing Benji in her arms. “My brave boy.”
Punchdrunk, all Frank can manage to do is stare at them, these two people who he didn’t know fit into his life this way—so completely—until a few months ago. He still hasn’t figured out how to tell Mel about what’s changed for him; it’s too much to lay at her feet right now. And would she want this anyway—devotion from a man not even a year sober and who utterly derailed her life? The lingering sensation of her lips against his suggests maybe she does. But hope is a four-letter word, and he’s done nothing to deserve her.
Then Benji reaches out for him, tiny arm lifting with a clenched fist. He doesn’t deserve him either, his saving grace. It still blindsides him how easily Benji accepted him, no nervous whines or fear in his baby blue eyes at the sight of this perfect stranger. Some days Benji, with his innocent trust and affection, makes him believe that his other children—still little themselves—might forgive him.
The ghost of Mel’s touch fades away—ready to haunt him another day—as Frank approaches them. Before Benji can throw himself out of Mel’s hold, Frank lifts him and settles him against his bare chest. He kisses Benji soundly on his temple, telling him, Good job, buddy. I love you.
And because he’s a selfish asshole who takes things that don’t belong to him, Frank shifts Benji to one arm and wraps the other around Mel, pulling her close. Her blush is faint, and she soundly ignores him, cooing softly instead and straightening Benji’s shirt over his tiny belly. But it’s okay, really. As long as Mel and Benji are happy, he’ll be just fine.