Chapter Text
Melissa
“Hey Mel, um, can I get you to jump in on this case with me for a minute?”
Mel looks up from her computer screen, having only just sat down less than 30 seconds ago to get ahead on her charting during her lunch break. Dr Mohan isn’t looking at her, she’s busy trying not to look at Dana.
“Sure” she answers brightly, “gimme a sec”. Shoving three quarters of a dry granola bar into her mouth, she stands and trails Mohan away from her work station. Instead of leading her towards the consultation rooms, they veer off in the direction of a quiet stairwell.
“So who’s our patient?” Mel asks, trying not to let suspicion creep into her voice, “you didn’t bring their chart, whoever they are.”
“There is no patient, I just wanted to ask you something.” Mohan bites her lip, and Mel waits. “Hypothetically, if you heard people gossiping about someone – not bullying you know? Just gossip – would you tell that person? Or d’you think ignorance is bliss?”
“I’d tell them,” Mel answers straight away “I think it’s better to know.” She knows all too well the feeling of walking into a room and feeling conversation die around you, of feeling, knowing, that in her absence she is a topic of conversation, but not having a strong enough grasp of social nuances to defend herself when she has not heard the accusations laid against her. Just thinking of it makes her anxious.
“Okay” Samira takes a breath, “okay, Mel… there’s a betting pool for you and Langdon.”
It’s so ridiculous that Mel can’t stop a laugh from bubbling up. “Wait, what? We’re coworkers.”
“I know that,” Samira assures her, “but I just think some people may have gotten the wrong idea, and since his divorce was finalized they think it’s fine to speculate.”
“My relationships aren’t a spectator sport” says Mel firmly. She can’t help but feel like the punchline to a bad joke. Was she really that obvious? So many of her coworkers had picked up on her little crush that they’d started a betting pool.
“Of course,” says Samira “look I don’t see the harm in it, but I thought you deserved to know. If you’re really uncomfortable with it I can tell them to knock it off. I mean, technically, telling you about the bet voids it, right? So I can just –” “No.” Mel cuts her off. “I.. I actually have an idea.”
Frank
“Dr Langon! Frank!” Frank stops walking and turns around. From across the parking lot, Dr King jogs towards him. Doesn’t she normally take the bus? “Hey, Mel.”
“Frank, I was hoping I could talk to you about something.”
“Of course,” he answers automatically “what’s up?”
“Um,” She starts to fidget with the tail end of her plait, “I don’t want the others to hear, do you mind if we get in your car?”
“Sure.” None of their coworkers are within earshot, but he’s starting to worry it’s something serious, so he unlocks the car without a word.
He still hasn’t quite gotten used to how clean his car is, now that he’s single. Some would consider it a perk, but he finds he misses the sticky handprints on the glass, smudged smiley faces and finger spelling.
“So.” He starts.
“So,” Mel says “You know the betting pool?”
That’s not where he thought this was going to go, he raises an eyebrow.
“Well, our lovely coworkers have been betting on whether we will get into a relationship.”
“Oh, wow. I mean, I guess nobody’s stolen an ambulance in a while, huh? Donnie must be scraping the bottom of the barrel to come up with that.” He gives a fairly convincing laugh, and Mel joins him.
“We’re actually quite popular, apparently” she informs him, handing over a list.
“What’s this? Oh, Dr Mohan gave you this.” He recognizes her scrawled handwriting from several illegible charts she’d passed off to him out of pity, back when Robby was still refusing to give him cases again.
He skims over it. It’s not that bad, all things considered. When Garcia and Santos started seeing each other, there had been a betting pool on how long they’d last. He’d thought that that was a little mean spirited. But mostly he was annoyed that he had been in rehab for almost the entirety of their (admittedly, short lived) fling and by the time he’d returned to work there seemed to be a whole host of new inside jokes of which he knew nothing.
“Do you want to go to HR together tomorrow? Or…” He trails off. Mel has a delighted smile on her face that he has seen once before when the dog-sitter bailed on him and Snickerdoodle had wound up in the PTMC break room for four hours while he finished working a double. She taught his dog to bark the beat to ‘Thot Shit’, using food from his lunchbox. He has learned to fear that smile
“Look,” she points to one item “first names in a fortnight = $5”.
“We’re already on a first name basis?” He asks “I keep telling you to call me Frank”
“And I keep not doing it,” she reminds him.
“But you did, just now?”
“Yup, exactly. We just made about $25”
“Oh” he says, as the situation dawns on him, “that’s why you yelled, earlier, for our audience. So, what? Samira is going to be.. our proxy? Or a spy?”
“Not quite,” Mel grimaces. “Samira knew about the pool for about a week before she caved and told me. She made a couple of bets, but she feels really bad about it, so she’s agreed to donate her winnings to a worthy cause.” She flashes him that smile again and claps her hands “Us, of course.”
“Naturally” he smiles back. “In that case, we’ll just have to make sure she keeps winning.”