Chapter Text
Frank Langdon
You’ve been sick for days now, and that’s before admitting that something is wrong. It’s not close to hospital wrong, and it’s most defiantly isn’t call Frank wrong. You’re just sick.
With a fever, a persistent cough, some body aches that you’re used to getting when you get sick, and the exhaustion that has you sleeping all day long. You’re at home, handling it.
Or at least that had been what you told yourself at the start of the day.
You smiled to yourself at his message, and out your phone down. You’d deal with your illness by yourself. And up until midnight you were doing fine. But when you woke up freezing beneath your three layers of blankets, shaking so much that your teeth were shattering.
You reached out to your night stand where you had placed a glass of water the previous time you had gotten out of bed, but your hand missed, and the glass shattered down to the floor. You tried to sit up, and the room tilted with a violent shake.
You grabbed hard onto the mattress, with your breathing going hard. You knew internally that something was wrong. With your heart racing in your chest, no matter how deeply your tried to regain your normal breath. You just couldn’t manage to get your breaths to align.
You reached around your bed until you got a hold of your phone, and stared at Franks name on the screen. With unsteady hands you tried to call him, and stand up. It was all out of vain because the minute you tried to stand up your legs gave out from underneath you.
The pounding at your apartment door woke you up from your daze. “HEY!” Oh fuck it was Frank, you had given him a couple of spare keys. One for your car, another for your safety deposit box at the bank, and one for your apartment. You heard the lock turn, and the thudding footsteps of Frank racing up the stairs.
That’s where he found you, sitting on the edge of your bed. Looking pale and drenched in a thing sheen of sweat, along with breathing far too quickly. Franks expression shifted quickly. “Hey! Look at me, babe.” He said crouching down beside you.
The back of his hand on your forehead. His other hand had two fingers pressed into your pulse point checking your pulse. “How long have you been this short of breath?” He asked, sounding less like your boyfriend and more like Dr. Langdon.
“I don’t know.” You answer quietly. “Fever?” He asked, running down the list, you nodded, “How high?” You shrugged your shoulders, “I haven’t thought to check.” You tell him honestly. His jaw goes tight, “Can you stand?” He asks, ignoring the fact that he doesn’t know how long you’ve been like this.
You tried, but your knees buckle, and Frank catches you right away. “Okay. No.” He says seriously, he eases you back down to the bed as gently as he can. “We are going to the hospital.” He tells you.
You shake your head like a child having a tantrum. “I don’t wanna.” You whine, “Babe, you’re short of breath when you’re resting. You nearly passed out, and you’ve had this persistent fucking fever, plus you can’t even stand.” His voice finally going soft, “Please…” He begs you, “Just let me take care of you.”
You look up at him, the best you can. And for a moment, the man standing in front of you isn’t Dr. Langdon. It’s just your Frank, standing there scared and worried. You give your consent, and nod.
The ED is overflowing like always by the time you make it there. Yet the second Frank brings you through the doors. Dana looks up with pinched brows. “What happened?” She asks Frank, as she eyes you.
Frank has no hesitation in his voice when he answers her. “Four days of a fever, she’s got respiratory symptoms. Tonight it’s gotten worse. With worsening shortness of breath, poor intake, she almost black outed, and she’s also unable to move.”
Dana is already moving and opening the door leading out from triage and into the back of the ER. “Get her ass back here.” Dana demands, Frank follows her order. “Langdon!” He stops a few steps in when Dana looks at him with wide eyes. “Are you staying here as her boyfriend or a doctor?” She asks.
Franks face goes hard, jaw tight. “As her doctor.” He replies, “Good, don’t make me pull out of there because you can’t doctor up.” Dana says strictly, Frank nods in understanding. After all that everything happens at once. There’s a monitor, the IV’s and the oxygen.
“Her pressure is 90 over 58.” A nurse says somewhere from inside the room. “Heart rate 130, and her temperature is 104.” Another nurse says, “Her oxygen saturation is 88 right now.” Frank nods, “Put her on oxygen, now.”
You can hear the voices all around you, but it all just feel distant. Frank stand at the foot of your bed, watching as the monitor continues to show your numbers. He knows what they all mean. “I want her on two large bore IVs. A CBC, A CMP, A Lactate test, Blood Cultures, A VBG, a viral panel, and a chest x-ray.”
All of the words that come out of Franks mouth don’t sound foreign to him, but they do to you. The night shift attending walks in, “What do you got here.” Frank rattles off your information, your age, your illness, and all of his concerns.
“Planning on doing fluids for her, a broad spectrum antibiotics after her cultures come back.” Is what you hear Frank tell the attending before you’re reaching out for him. “Frank?” You whine, and his eyes immediately leaves his attention and find yours. “I’m here.”
“I feel weird.” You say weakly, “I know.” He whispers, “No… like really weird.” Frank moves closer to you, “Look at me, babe.” He says, and you do try. At that point the monitor starts to beep with alarms, “Her pressure is dropping.” A nurse says, “Blood pressure seventy-eight.” the nurses tells him, “She’s getting altered.” Dana says, that’s the last thing that Frank hears before he’s right beside you one hand resting comfortably on your shoulder.
“Stay with me, babe.” He mutters, “I’m trying.” You say with fluttering lashes, “I know.” He says calmly, as you squeeze his hand as tight as you can. “I’m scared.” You admit. Even with his expression flickering into something else, his voice stays calm and steady with reassurance.
“I know.” He says leaning in closer, “You’re in the PITT, babe. We are going to take care of you.” Your eyes start to flutter, “Don’t leave me please.” You beg your voice weak. Frank swallows down his fears, and his hand tightens around yours, “I’m not going anywhere babe, don’t worry about that.” He promises.
The next few hours in the hospital start to blur together. There’s the imaging, the fluids that are hooked up to you, the antibiotics that are currently being run through your IVs, the oxygen cannula that some nurse has placed in your nose. The massive amount of bloodwork that they’ve run on you, and the constant monitoring of some nurse and resident coming to check on you every few minutes.
Eventually at some point in the night your blood pressure evens out, and improves. Your reliance on the cannula drops as you start to breath on your own again at a more appropriate steady rate. Your fever had official started to break.
When you open your eyes finally, Frank is sitting beside your bedside. Still wearing his scrubs from the previous shift he had worked here, still holding your hand just asleep for right now. You stare at him for a long time before he sense that someone is looking at him.
When he opens his eyes his brows raise, “Hey.” You say your voice scratchy, “Hey yourself.” Frank says getting up from the chair at your bedside. “‘How are you feeling?” He asks, “Like someone ran me over with a fucking truck.” He laughs a little, “Well, that’s an improvement by any means.”
You manage to give Frank a tiny, weak smile. Frank on the other hand isn’t smiling, not yet at least. “You know you scared the ever living shit out of me.” He tells you, earnest in his words. “I’m sorry.” You reply weakly, “I know.” He nods, “I just didn’t think it was that bad.” You tell him honestly.
“I also know that.” He mumbles, reaching over to push away a stray hair from your face. “I thought it was something I could handle.” You add, Frank shakes his head, you aren’t sure in what. “You don’t get to do that to me anymore.” He huffs, you frown, “Do what?” Clearly still hyped up on some meds.
“Decide that just because you are sick means you’re fine, and that you can wait until you’re practically falling to the floor before calling for help.” He says sternly, his voice then goes soft, “Just call me.” He begs, you reach out for his hand and squeeze it.
“I will.”
“No matter what.” Frank tells you, “I promise you, Frank.” Frank brings your hand up to his lips, and kisses the tops of your knuckles. “Good.” He mutters into your cool skin, then a beat pauses. He’s finally smiling, “I’m ordering a pulse ox for your apartment, and a bunch of other shit right now.” He tells you.
You end up laughing weakly as the thought of Frank arched over his phone, scrolling through some website with a cart filled with at home medical items. “That’s oh so very romantic, Frank.” You tease him, “You think?” He asks,
“One hundred percent.” You tell him, Frank leans back down and kisses your knuckles again, and since Frank got your call he’s allowed himself to stop acting like Dr. Langdon, and just let himself be Frank. Your Frank, and he sure as hell wasn’t letting go of your hand now.